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1/31/2011

The God Who is Love
   I have struggled to get to this post. Our God is so Great and Wonderful that I shudder to speak anything of Him that is imbalanced or untrue in any way. And yet, I am a mere man seeking by the Word of God to understand the Infinite One. Please bear with my frailty!
    Our God is First and Foremost, Love. That is His very essential nature. As Jonathan Edwards puts it, "We may learn by the Word of God that the Godhead, or the Divine Nature and Essence does subsist in Love. (1 John 4:8) "He that loves not does not know God; for God is love." As the Apostle John goes on to explain in the larger context, to not love one another testifies that the "Divine DNA" is not in us. Those who are born from above, born of the Spirit of God are new creatures and the foundational "DNA" of that new creature is Love. That God is Love is weighty evidence for His Trinitarian Nature. Love by definition must have an object. Eternal Love has Eternally subsisted in the Delight of His Triune nature. In John 17: 24, a part of the most intimate prayer ever offered up, Jesus prays to His Father, "Father, I desire that they also whom you gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory which you have given Me; for You Loved Me before the foundation of the world."   This comes after His request that His people may be one as He is One with the Father and the Father One with Him. We learn in John 1:18 that "the only begotten Son is in the Bosom of the Father." That is a love description! It could be argued from Romans 5:5 that the first work of the Holy Spirit in the new creature's life is to pour out the love of God in our hearts. Tie that to Jesus' words in John 15:26, "But when the Helper (Holy Spirit) comes, Whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me."
    The Father's greatest expression of Love was the giving of His Beloved Son. He testified to His Son's place in His Heart when at Jesus' baptism, He said, "this is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3:17 I think that we could accurately paraphrase this as, "This is My Beloved Son, Who is ALL MY PLEASURE." This is born out in the grand work of redemption as the Father receives of His Son the only pleasing and satisfactory sacrifice for our sins. From the Son's point of view, we look at John 14:31, "But that the world may know that I Love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise let us go from here." Following the context, we find that He went to the Garden, and then to the cross. The display of His Love for the Father was the primary motivation for His going to the cross! And what is the foundational fruit of the Spirit? Love!! (Galatians 5:22) And what is it that abides eternally, according to I Corinthians 13? Love!! Faith and hope will be swallowed up in reality and what will remain? Love!! Because God is Love!!
    Next time, we will see that this God of Love isn't some doting, cuddly grandfather, but is clearly manifested in His balanced (Holy) attributes which are all facets of His Love.

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1/21/2011

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Our Problem With Roles
We fallen creatures have a difficult time understanding the concept of roles in equality. We don't do well with the role issue in marriage, church relationships, society in general. That is because of our loss of Sustaining Love in Adam. Man was created in Adam to live in the Loving Embrace of the All Sufficient God. As long as man walked in the Embrace of God's Provision and Fellowship, he had no fear, no sense of need, along with an incredible intimacy with the Almighty. That walk with God in the cool of the day in Genesis 3:8 was a lot more than a conversation about the condition of the garden! Having lost that union and communion with Life Himself, death reigned from that day forward. Death has no covering, no protective properties. Death will do its thing no matter what. In our vain attempt to protect ourselves, we have aspired to "godhood", seeking to establish some protection in this death existence. We do this by crowning ourselves as kings and queens of our universe. We establish ourselves as the one in charge, and place all others beneath us. How's that working out for you? Out of that mentality come wars and rumors of wars in every relational area of our lives. Our control at the expense of others spells doom to any healthy relationship.
With God, this isn't so. He is God, that sort of explains everything! He is God in Three Persons. There is no such thing as subservience, because God is Ultimate in His Being. Therefore, Each Person of the Godhead expresses that Ultimate Character that is God. The differing Role of Each Person flows out of God's Ultimate Essence! The Lord Jesus expresses His Eternal Role in relation to the Father in John 17:20-26. Just looking at the phrases that refer to His Eternal Relationship, He says "as You, Father, are in Me, and I in you."(vs 21) "the Glory which You gave Me I have given them"(vs22), "I in them, and You in Me"(vs23), "that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world"(vs24), "And I have declared to them Your Name, and will declare it, that the Love with which You Loved Me (from all eternity)may be in them, and I in them." (vs26) Notice that The Father is in Him and He in the Father. They are One in Essence and Union. And yet there are differing Roles expressed. May I say that the only way for man to function in harmony in the role and job that he finds himself in is to be fully convinced by faith that He is loved in that same Love Bond that is the Godhead from all eternity. All insecurity, all need to domineer, all need to be god is lost in the all Sufficient Love that Jesus died to bring us into. "I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me." John 17:23

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In the Son of His Love

1/20/2011

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In The Son of His Love--a blog

The title of this blog comes from Colossians 1:13 which states "The Father has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love." NKJV" As the Lord wills, I will seek to explore the meaning and manner of that "translation" of the Father into such a glorious Kingdom. This will not be an orderly, tidy presentation. I will just be sharing thoughts from my meditations in God's word.

A God of Relationship
All that the One God "does" in Eternity and time flows out of the Will of the Father (Ephesians 1:3-11), in and through the Delighted Obedience of the Son (Psalm 40:6-8, Hebrews 10:5-10, John 6:38), and by the Power of the Glorious Spirit (Genesis 1:2, Luke 1:35, John 3:5-8. The Father is the Reservoir of Perfect Will out of which the revelatory obedience of the Son flows by the Power of the Spirit of His Glory. John 1:18 states that "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, Who IS IN the Bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." You can't get any closer than "bosom relationship". That speaks of oneness of heart, will and purpose. John 15:26 speaks of the Spirit of God as "the Spirit of Truth who proceeds (continually) from the Father." John 16:28 speaks of basically the same thing of the Son in His becoming a man like us,
"I came forth from the Father and have come into the world." This is the starting point of all consideration of the God of heaven and earth. He is the ONE GOD, Eternally Alive in three persons, always in union of one essence, but ever in distinct expression of Will, Obedient Declaration, and Glorious Power, never in isolation, always in Eternal Concert in the smallest expression as well as in the most glorious creation. To see one member of the Godhead alone in any activity is to miss two thirds of the Glory of God, or more acurately, to miss the High and Holy God nearly altogether!

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First Post!

1/19/2011

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Start blogging by creating a new post. You can edit or delete me by clicking under the comments. You can also customize your sidebar by dragging in elements from the top bar.

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In the Son of His Love

In The Son of His Love--a blog

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