The Bond of Perfection…

 4 I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father. 5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. 6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.—2 John 4-6

Love is basis for unity.  Colossians calls it the bond of perfection. When we walk in truth, we walk in love and when we walk in love we do no harm.  Love walks according to the commandments of God.  Love fulfills the law. 

Then I said, “Behold, I have come;

in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

8 I delight to do your will, O my God;

Beloved…None of us can say we have done this perfectly, save One. Jesus.  He is our example. He never faltered from doing the will of His Father in Heaven. He loved (obeyed)sacrificially…even to the point of death…the death of the cross.  Each one of us is given countless opportunities daily to die to self and live to God. I squander so, so many.  Today I want to live for Him.  I want to surrender to the Spirit of God and let Him do the work of adding to my faith as 1 Peter describes. Love is the capstone of faith. 

5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.—2 Peter 1:5-9

❤️Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.❤️—Colossians 3:12-17

Love defined…

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails.—1 Corinthians 13:4-8