1 John 4:12 English Standard Version (ESV) No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Yesterday’s post ended with these words. “The abiding love is an abounding love.”

There is a difference between abide and abound and that difference should be explained.

Abide means it is present within us. Abounding means abundant, so much so that we cannot contain it within ourselves. Here in the first epistle from John we can see that His love is perfected in us. Think about that for a second. Perfect love in an imperfect person cannot be constrained from being what God intends love to be, shared.

It is not a matter of if we can love, His love in not within our control, He is Lord. We all struggle with loving perfectly because we think His perfect love is within our control. What we fail to recognize is that His abiding love, abounding in us, is too much for us to constrain. We worry and fret about not loving perfectly and allow the lies of the enemy to tell us we have failed.

Since His love is under His control, Satan cannot touch it, constrain it, nor prevent it from spilling out of us like rivers of living waters. Do we see ourselves as a waterfall or a sprinkler? Maybe we feel like a dripping faucet. Would it help if we understand we are not in control of the water pressure?

How we see ourselves is not how God sees us. His love is abounding, filling us all in all. What we feel is not the same things as what we believe. We are to have faith in God and not in ourselves. He is faithful and we need to believe that He will perform His will in us, no matter how we feel.

What I hear in the spirit at this moment is every reader saying “But!”

Ephesians 4:11-16 English Standard Version

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

The gift spoken of yesterday in Kingdom living is shown here but is not what we might see on the surface in the list of the service ministries. It is found in the words in verse 15, grow up into Him. The first gift to the lost is a new home built up by the love that abounds within the body of believers.

The service ministries are to build up the whole body so that the whole body shares the love that permeates in a place of safety, support, encouragement, and love. Love spreads from the top on down and throughout. Christ is the head but His love must reach every member within the body to supply that part which shines within us all.

When seeking a new place of worship, the service gifts should have the effect of providing a safe place for strangers. It should feel like coming home. The abiding love is an abounding love.