1 John 4: The Measuring Cup is to Love like Jesus. Do I?

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. - 1 John 4

"This is how love is made complete among us ... In this world we are like Jesus." When I pour out salt for a recipe, I check that the salt reaches the lip of the measuring spoon. Too much and I am saltier than I should be. Too little and I am tasteless. I know that I often don't measure up to the completeness that is Jesus. Some people must have an incredible imagination to think that their Jesus matches the attitudes that they express. I don't have that kind of creative imagination. But, as the song says, "Through some clever thinking and a strong imagination I could twist the truth into any configuration, find myself doing things that I never dreamed I could do" (CP, Almost Threw it All Away)

John doesn't let us off the hook: "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar." I can come up with all sorts of linguistic gymnastics to say that what I am doing is not "hate", stating that my attitude is just a misdemeanor, not a "true" criminal offense. But I wonder, who am I lying to. Instead of admitting the truth of my sinful desire to hold on to my bad attitude. Instead of falling once more upon the mercy of God and grieving on it. Instead of working diligently against my own tendency to justify and never change. 

One day I will grow up. As Paul says

"I pray that you ... may have power to ... grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" - Eph. 3:18b-19

Ephesians 4:11-13: Measuring Up

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. - Ephesians 4:11-13

When I lived in the Philippines, going to the market was a daily task for the apartment that I shared with the church's pastor. Each vendor would have their fruits and vegetables and cuts of meat arranged in the open air or under a sheet metal roof for you to push and prod and sniff so that you could test their freshness. You would specify a weight or quantity and the price was negotiated. Then your goods would be measured: weighed, counted or fit into a 10# tin can. I remember rice, specifically, which we could measure in gantas. We were only two in my apartment, so we never bought caban (50 kilos). If the vendor was your friend (your suki), they might let the rice mound a little bit in the measuring can. Times like these helped me to appreciate it when the Bible remarked that "Differing weights and differing measures— the Lord detests them both." (Proverbs 20:10)

More recently a different sort of measure struck me. when Paul commented that the "body of Christ" (the church) is supposed to be built up by the Spirit-gifted individuals until we attain the whole measure of the fullness (or stature) of Christ. For a moment, I want you to envision yourself as a teaspoon-the kind of spoon you use to put sugar into tea. The teaspoon is a very modest sort of measuring device.

Now-if you are a teaspoon-what sort of measuring device do you suppose Christ would be? I don't know either, but for the sake of discussion I am thinking of the large plastic buckets that can hold a 20 pound bag of rice or flour in my house. If that doesn't do it for you, imagine two Home Depot buckets stacked on top of each other.

Teaspoon. Big ol' bucket.

Back to Paul. He is saying that Christ gave these people in the church who pour into us and build us up until we have the fullness of the measure of Christ. My teaspoon just isn't big enough to hold the bucketful of the presence and character of Christ. So either I'm going to spill over. Not a bad thing. Or God is going to have to grow me up to handle the amount of Christ's goodness that he wants me to handle. It isn't just on his wish list for me, we are reaching (attaining) this goal. Paul says "...that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 1:6)

Teaspoons and buckets weren't common as measure devices in Bible days. But jars were. Jars could be measures-like ephahs and omers. Sometimes I suspect that we worry about the weak areas in our lives giving out because of external pressures: job, finances, desires, relationships, etc. But maybe we should rejoice that the full measure of Christ is actually on the inside, trying to burst forth and the weak places are those places which give way to His grace sooner: "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2 Cor. 4:7)

Or, as Eugene Peterson said, "This God-life cannot be domesticated or used; it can only be entered into on its own terms. ... Holiness did not make God smaller so they could use God in convenient and manageable projects. It made those men larger so God could give out life through them, extravagantly, spontaneously."[1]

[1] Peterson, Eugene H.. As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God (p. 80). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.