17 August 2008, 8AM

Apostle Andre Pelser

1 Jn 2:5

1 Jn 4:12, 17

Bond of Perfection – perfection means: making fit, it's a process leading to the consummation, preparing fully, fulfillment, completion,  perfect performance, an end accomplished or performed as the effect of a process with that end in view.

It speaks of Christ's assured completion of His earthly course, fulfilling His Father's will in successive stages culminating in His death. He was made perfect for all of us, that He would be to us a perfect sacrifice perfectly consecrated.

Bond of Love – bond means: an obligation of any kind, a vow of a yoke, the bond of slaves or prisoners.

Perfectionism is something different – it demands perfection without any love in it. It is merciless and cruel, and unforgiving if there is no love to it. You might do everything perfectly, but if  there is no love, in the end, it has no results.

We need to love more. If we have faith to move mountains, but we don't have love it's useless. If you have all the knowledge and all the gifts, but you don't love, it's means absolutely nothing. You can give your body to be sacrificed, and to be burnt, but if you have no love it's a useless sacrifice.
Love is the most important thing. 1 Cor 13:13 – faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. The more excellent way is love.

You cannot show love unless you have experienced it. This is a loveless generation, because everyone is in love with themselves. Self love has no room for anyone else. You must learn to love others as you love yourself – there is a balance in it. You mustn't think too little of yourself either., but you need to make room in your heart to love others.
We need to be reminded of the characteristics of the bond of love.

Col 3:14 – where Christ is pre-eminent, people's hearts will be knit together in love. Have you ever knitted? How much resistance does the wool give to the needle? Nothing. The wool does not resist the needle. And if God wants to knit our hearts together, how much resistance do we give to Him? We all want to do our own thing. If a church would yield to God knitting us together in the bond of love, it would be a wonderful thing. But none of us know how much we resist God. Did you know that you are being knitted together without a choice of who is knitted in next to you? God is doing something. He is knitting something together so that His love can be pre-eminent amongst us.
The first quality of love is patience. Where there is no patience, there is no love.

Love is not just a soppy feeling. Love is an action that flows out of your spirit – it's a spiritual thing, and it has to be deposited in your spirit.

Rom 5:5 – God pours out His love by His Holy Spirit into our hearts after we have allowed Him to build our godly character, even in the midst of trials and tribulations that we face.
Shakespeare wrote: “ let me not to the love of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, nor bends with the remover to remove. O no, it's an ever fixed mark that looks upon tempest and is never shaken. It's a north star to every wandering bark.” (Bark is an old word for a ship.)
Love is kind. You can hear if someone love something or someone, they are willing to make a fool of themselves in front of others in order to express love. On the other hand, you can also hear when someone has no love for something or someone, being abrupt and sometimes rude.
Love does not envy.
Love does not parade itself.
Love is not puffed up.
Love does not behave rudely. Do you still open the car door for your wife?
Love does not seek it's own. Seeing what you can get out of it all the time. Love seeks what it can give.
Love is not easily provoked. It is not easily irritated.
Love thinks no evil.
It does not rejoice in iniquity, but it rejoices in the truth. It's the truth that sets you free.
Love never fails. Everything else might fail, but love will never fail. If you fail in every other area of your life, but you succeed in love, you've got points with God. You might not do everything perfectly, love God and learn to love people and learn to love yourself. You have to accept yourself as you are, because God made everyone differently for a reason. There is a reason why you are like that. You can't be like somebody else, and you cannot change yourself. If you are too scared that you might embarrass yourself, you will not be able to serve in the body of Christ. You need to be selfless to serve in the body. This is a quality that Jesus had.

Reading through the book of Colossians:
God binds us together in this bond of love, this bond of perfection, and once we've tasted this love of God we'll be willing to suffer for it for the sake of others – to fill up in our flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the church.

There is a mystery to what is being said. Our minds deceive us. We hear these things and we think that we know it, but we don't. Our minds quickly deceive us that we've heard it before, but is it working in our lives? Is it being expressed in and through us? Has the Word become flesh in us?

This mystery, for those who have entered the bond of perfection, is Christ within you the hope of glory. The riches, which only those who enter into the bond of perfection can enjoy, is Christ within you the hope of glory. The unveiling of this mystery and riches, this is what we labor for to the point of exhaustion as a result of divine energy working in us to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. This is an apostolic motivation. We work hard so that God can produce this in the life of people – it's a divine operation, starting in the oversight of the church and being imparted into the lives of those who accept their authority. This operation of God is revealed through preaching, admonition, and teaching. Mostly, Paul says that apostles suffer great conflicts on behalf of those whose hearts are being knit together in love. There is a battle raging, because human nature doesn't want to be knitted together, every body wants to do their own thing. Only God can knit people together, but someone has to pray for it, someone has to believe for it, someone has to preach it, someone has to be patient until peoples heart are knit together because we are creating a house for Christ to dwell in. It is not just a place for us to go to on a sunday. We cannot make people like each other, how much more than to knit their heart together? Only God can do this. It's a mystery, but we need to preach it so that we can have faith for it, and so that we can taste it and see that the Lord is good. The Lord adds people to a church, and they ought to allow time in order to be knit together in love. Those who enter into this bond of love, will attain to all the riches there are in Christ. These riches are different to what the world terms as riches. It is firstly spiritual riches, and then the other riches. A full assurance of faith. The riches of understanding spiritual things. Most people can't understand spiritual things because the natural man cannot receive spiritual truth. You have to have the eyes of your understanding enlightened to receive truth. The knowledge of the mystery of Christ. Treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Those whose hearts are being knit toge