Love Ethics

Love is an Ethical Issue

Review

Indoors, Yard, Street Indoors - This is why you love your kids so much. You are sacrificing for them and this produces Present Love Feelings.

DOES NOT make the kid feel loved. It does not teach him to be loving. Instead, it causes him to think he is the center of the world.

Yard - Learning Permanent Love Values here.

This is where you learn what works and what doesn’t. Things are set up FOR you, but you get to spread your wings. PLV = fences. Fences can be strong = good PLV’s Fences can be weak = insecurity that needs to be rebuilt. Fences can even be absent.The gates that exist in the fences enable you to walk through to the street and test your wings further.

Street – Where buzz is at = Present Love Feelings.

Feels like love = there is excitement, arousal, fun, challenge, etc.

There are areas we feel comfortable operating emotionally.

Tribal love = love the indoors (PLV) = likes predictability and security more than stimulation. Even if their tribal scene is a damaged one, it is at least familiar. “I know I’m in a mud puddle, but at least it’s my mud puddle.” Diffuse love = love the street (PLF) = the stimulating nature of the world provides them with love feelings. Security and safety are boring.

What makes love so important?

(Catalogue of love verses)
Is it because the Bible says so?

Yes, that’s part of it.

Is it because it feels good?

Yes, that’s part of it.

Is it okay to want to feel good?

Yes.

Is it because I need your love?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Love is important because you NEED TO love. Otherwise you are a victim of other people’s choices, actions, words.

Remember, love is hard work. An understanding of biblical love principles deserves and requires the greatest effort of our lives. This means effort.

Milestones in God’s Universe

From the outset, creation was NOT the only thing God was doing. Above and beyond creation, God’s intent was to install love outside the Trinity.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have perfect unity together. God has no needs outside Himself. This perfect love is something God feels is so fantastic that taking the risk of possible rebellion was worth it.

Angels – The first beings in creation to be given free will. Why?

Free Will is necessary to establish true, loving relationships .

He was creating the possibility of chaos, danger, destruction.

You don’t have to forgive, work things out, deal with people’s messy lives. Fingerprint of Satan = Relationships are messy and difficult to deal with.

Rebellion – an attempt by Lucifer to get away from God’s agape love and establish his own kingdom where he was the ruler.

There is no need to love. Systems are clean and easy to manipulate.

Satan established SYSTEMS.

This is easier to do than establishing a Body of Christ because with systems all you have to do is set it in motion. There is no need for personal involvement. That is what rebellion is all about.

Humans beings were created in the image of God. This had never been done before.

A created being containing the life of God?? This was unheard of. The angels were amazed. Only creation God indwells. A whole new level of love is now possible. God is building love.

The Fall = alienation spreads throughout our whole domain.

Mark of the fall is alienation.

OT revelation – Promises and pictures of God’s love over and over.

The Incarnation – Love now comes in the form of a human. Christ demonstrates love, mercy, and compassion to heal by his actions.

“This is what love looks like. “I sacrifice my whole life for you.” This is what life is all about - love relationshipsl

NT revelation - Expressing, explaining the victorious life Christian should live THROUGH LOVE.

If Christians don’t understand that then their life does not make sense, they default back to systems. Thus, we have the institutionalized church devoid of love relationships.

Eternity future = Where love relationships come to fruition and work perfectly.

Love outside of the Trinity must be a hell of a thing.

There is lots of suffering and pain going on to establish love outside of the Trinity.

Why does He bother? Why not take us to heaven now?

There is something He wants us to learn about the vast difference between His love and what we perceive as love.

What makes His love work and our love fail?

We endure through the grace and love of God

How can God endure this “experiment?” How can we endure?

See 1 Timothy 3:16

“Christ in a human body, vindicated by the Spirit…”

It’s been a long, hard road for God. He’s put up with a lot of crap from us.

To get God’s love established in your life will be a painful process. It will mess up your plans. There are habits you have learned that you hold dear that God wants to change.

You may be a mind game player. You may be a wimp who is always getting victimized. You may be a bully who gets their way through dominating others. It will be necessary to bring the grace paradigm to bear in your life as you progress.

Love is an ethical/moral issue -

God designed you to have Victorious Love Output as the framework for your life. It does not work under any other structure.

Sin = autonomy from our Creator and distrust of His motives. Sin always seeks its own way. These are the core human problems. “It’s all about me.”

What’s so bad about sin?

If we try to live our lives outside of God’s way, we destroy ourselves and everyone around us.

For example, we may say “Why aren’t you coming to CT?”

The issue is not that they missed a CT. Rather, it is that they have become autonomous, selfish, distrustful.

The better question is “What has happened to your relationships.” Love cannot flourish in the midst of “Systems” and sin. We often approach sin in a superficial manner.

Holiness is the core of God’s character.

What is so different (holy) about God? The difference is that He knows how to build significant love relationships.

Chaos ensues when love breaks down.

Under chaotic conditions other controls replace love relationships. Non-loving elements, like rules and systems, come in and take over. This is why systems and rules are the fingerprint of Satan - they keep us enslaved. Love doesn’t thrive under a SYSTEM of rules.

Under a system of rules depravity increases. The more depraved one is the more worthless and devoid of value one becomes.

Illustration of the drunk in gutter: This Guy is useless and has no significance. He plays no significant role in anyone’s life. This is the effect of the inability to love people.

Despite the depths of our depravity, God has a solution – authentic spirituality.

There is a process that God takes us through to heal us from our depravity. The following are the operations and effects of love.

Salvation is both a single event AND a process initiated and brought to completion by God.(See Ephesians 2:8-9; Galatians 3:3)

Redemption purchases us out of the “system” of alienation.

The “system” is a prison from which we need released.

Justification allows us to approach His throne of grace.

When you feel alienated, as a result of your sin, then you are not experiencing the justification already given you.

Identification - as new creatures in Christ, we now have ability to love. Galatians 2:20

Regeneration – we begin to feel effects of the above.

They are becoming concrete reality of life. You begin to see a new heart of love taking hold.

Mortification is Christ putting to death your flesh.

The flesh has to GO.

When it finally does, we cry like a baby.

Sanctification is learning to live lovingly.

In other words, spiritual maturity is measured by one’s ability to love sacrificially, not by the practice of spiritual disciplines.

Glorification – Love banquet; where love always works.

There is no sin to mar relationships.

Love is necessary for your health.

Love is necessary for basic human existence.

Illustration: If a newborn is removed from its mother, it will stop eating and eventually die.
Necessary for basic human value

Our value is tied up with people who love us. If we didn’t have people to love us, we would see no reason to keep living.

God’s ethics – the summation of the Law is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Fundies can’t sort through all the ethics/laws and prioritize them.

They attempt sanctification from the outside in, hoping this will change their hearts.

God’s Law is quite easy to prioritize.

 ”Love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27.

The priority is sacrificial love for others.

Developing successful love relationships is our commission.

Whatever is in the way of that needs to change.

Advanced Christianity = “faith working through love.” Galatians 5:6

What fundies do not understand is that loving God actually means loving others.

There is no such things as “just God and me.”

If God has no needs, how can we love Him?

Christ says that if you want to love me: John 21

• Go love somebody
• Go redeem somebody.
• Go save somebody.

We straddle 2 worlds

Counterfeit world = Kosmos love

This is the love that persishes. This love does not last. We are inundated with it. We breathe kosmos love. It seems normal and natural to us. It is something we have to unlearn.

Authentic love = Kingdom love

When we love authentically, we know it. Christ is the only one to have lived it. Until Christ, love never existed in this world. His kind of love is completely alien to our experience. Worldly love is easy. This godly love is hard; we need to put some work into it.

What gets us all screwed up?

I get needy and need some attention. We need to understand how our needs work in order to meet them.

At the foundation, what drives us is our need to feel significant.

We often have the mistaken idea that love is being nice. This is a false understanding of love.

This is not an abstract idea.

Love = having a substantial impact.

It is love authority which is Permanent Love Values.

Deep investment with God’s perspective provide the framework and skills to make love work. “I defy you to get in my way.”

Real substance and love authority provide the motivation.

More on this later.

Real love is substantial – it has a tangible impact AND it feels impactful because it is emotional.

Go over assignment from last week

How was love expressed in your family? What were the rules in your family? How could you love your family more successfully?

Assignment for next week

Power of Love Neozine article.

Think in terms of irrational love. Hand out catalogue of love verse.

What does it mean that love works by principles?

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