What’s Love Got To Do With It?

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What’s Love got to do with it? 

• What’s Love got to do with learning to navigate life on this side of the Cross?
• I’m going to say it has EVERYTHING to do with it.
• [Vocabularies & Dictionaries Alert!] When we talk about Love what are we talking about?

 

• Here's a description of the Love we're talking about (Agape) = Others-Centered, Self-Giving, Radically Forgiving, Co-Suffering, All Encompassing Love.

 

• This kind of Love (Agape) reflects the very essence of God’s nature, not an attribute like His Omnipresence or Faithfulness.

 

• Agape’ is at the center of God’s involvement with His Creation and always has been (Agape changed everything)

 

• God is Love, Light, Life, and is the source of all three.

 

 

• This kind of Love is the central expression of what it means to live our Life in Christ. (Others will know you are my disciples...)

 

• God’s Love being expressed in and through us, is what it means to live the Christian life.

 

• HIS LOVE IS THE FUEL THAT ANIMATES OUR LIFE IN CHRIST! 

 

• We are never in or out of Christ based on our expressions of Love, or lack of it. We will, however, find ourselves acting in harmony with His nature or not.

 

• Where does the love we see expressed in the world come from? Parent to child. Brother to sister. Man to woman. Friend to friend.

 

• If God IS Love, wouldn’t it follow that all expressions of love, imperfect and incomplete though they may be, must come from Him? If not, what is the other source of Love in the world?

 

• Living the Christian Life is only made possible by the presence of the HS within us. Not by our commitment, determination, activity, abilities, religious training, or our good intentions.

 

• We can’t live the Christian Life in our own capacity; HE must live His life in us. We cooperate with Him like the branch does with the vine. This is a mystery, but it defines what we call the Branch & Vine Paradigm.

 

• If I hope to navigate life on this side of the Cross successfully, I must have a growing understanding of two things: My True Identity (who I truly am in Christ) and My Source of Life (I’m the branch and He is the Vine).

 

• He is the Vine, and we are the branches. The Vine has Life. The branch has no life in itself and only receives life from the Vine. Fruit is produced by the Vine through the branch.

 

• I must connect with the reality of God’s complete and absolute love for me and its implications, or I will always be dependent on my latest performance, and the opinions of others as a source of significance or acceptance.