{"id":1872,"date":"2015-02-10T16:37:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T21:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=1872"},"modified":"2015-02-11T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T14:35:00","slug":"the-love-of-a-perfectionist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/02\/the-love-of-a-perfectionist.html","title":{"rendered":"The Love of a Perfectionist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong>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. 1 John 4:18 NIV<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong>Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 NIV<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">We are on a mission to perfect our love. A\u00a0first step in this process is to, &#8220;Experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then will we be made complete.&#8221; (Ephesians 3:19) I want to be a complete person, a whole person. Marriage often provides a context in\u00a0which my inefficiencies\u00a0shine for all my family to see, but together we are learning to receive the love of God and, in turn, become better at loving others.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">God is the perfect lover, and He, by His grace, is apprenticing\u00a0His followers to be just like Himself!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em><strong>Father,<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em><strong>Your perfect love is what I long to experience. All other loves are wonderful, but until I learn to receive and appreciate\u00a0your great love for me, I won&#8217;t have the capacity to fully\u00a0appreciate love in my marriage or in any other relationship. Please expand my capacity to know &#8220;How wide, how long, how high and how deep&#8221; your love is. I receive this capacity in faith today, and I thank you for it. You are making me aware throughout my day that I am loved with an everlasting love, never ending, never vacillating, never diminishing, never negotiating, always true and strong. Thank you for helping me understand and experience your love day by day.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em><strong>In Jesus&#8217; Name, Amen.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. 1 John 4:18 NIV Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 NIV We are on a mission to perfect our love. A\u00a0first&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,244,842,250],"tags":[142,921,923,924,922],"class_list":["post-1872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bible-prayer","category-blessing","category-prayer-for-marriage","category-wisdom-2","tag-fear","tag-gods-love","tag-learning-to-love","tag-let-go-of-fear","tag-perfect-love"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Love of a Perfectionist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/02\/the-love-of-a-perfectionist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Love of a Perfectionist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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. 1 John 4:18 NIV Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 NIV We are on a mission to perfect our love. A\u00a0first&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/02\/the-love-of-a-perfectionist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-10T21:37:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-11T14:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark and Jill Herringshaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Love of a Perfectionist","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/02\/the-love-of-a-perfectionist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Love of a Perfectionist","og_description":"There is no fear in love. 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