"Reaching Out For Jesus" -2

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also." (1 John 4:18-21) I am so convicted in my heart right now, it is to hard to express it in words; therefore I will just put out the message that I have heard, and let that be my expression. First off, who is my brother? And, how do I not love him? Maybe the best way to begin, is by asking what love is, and then moving out from there. Prior to stating that "there is no fear in love", John says, "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgement: because as He is, so are we in this world". AS HE IS what??? LOVE!!! God is Love, which then goes on to say, that we are the love of God in this world. Okay, let's try this by looking at Jesus: who was and is the expression of God's love to us; and if we are to follow Him, then we are to also express the love of God to this world. How do we express God's love to this world? Feeding the poor? Caring for the sick? Giving shelter to the homeless? These are all worthy acts of compassion; but the greatest compassion that we can have for our brothers and sisters that are in this world, is to show them God's love, by pointing them to the cross. "Before a man will care what you know, he will want to know that you care!" This is the example that our Lord demonstrated in the three and a half years of His ministry; by loving through compassion, for that which can be seen, so that those who had ears to hear, would listen to the message about that which really mattered. So I will ask again, Who is my brother? And, How do I not love him? My brother is anyone that I meet on this earth; anyone is my brother or my sister, because we do not know whom will be saved or not saved, and we definitely cannot judge who is worthy or not to hear the gospel message, or to be someone that we share Jesus to. This is the point of John saying, "that we may have boldness in the day of judgement"; which is not what "no fear" is all about; but the boldness that we have is due to our love that was expressed to our brothers and sisters, and that our love we expressed was His love. The fear comes into play by the act of sharing in His testimony to this world, which means that because we know how much He loves us, that our love for Him trumps all fear of anything outside of Him. So then; I do not love my brother, if I do not reach out to him in his time of need; and that really matters most, when his need is Jesus...