This Sunday evening at 6 pm we will meet in room 227 for Bible study, singing, prayer and personal testimonies about the goodness of Jesus Christ. I hope you will make plans to join us. Our study will be a continuation of a topic we began a few weeks ago on love.
A refresher from our previous study includes:
> Love is the core of holiness.
> To understand love one must study the nature and character of God (see I Pet. 1:15-16; I Jn. 4:8)
> God's essence is love and God acts lovingly out of His essence.
> People are holy as God is holy when they act out of God's love. To be holy is to love: to love God, others, God's creation and self.
> What is love? To love is to act intentionally in response to God and others, to promote well being.
- Love is an action, a verb-intentional and deliberate to produce something good.
- Love involves a response from God's influence (I Jn. 4:19; Rom. 5:5)
- Love targets "well-being." Well-being means to address the whole person/thing. Specifically to help people flourish: spiritually, socially, emotionally, economically,mentally and even ecologically.
> Love and holiness is relational - people are interconnected with others and environment. Love and holiness must address all demensions/aspects of the person.
> To love with God's love one must be filled with God's love. As the heart fills with the love of God it pushes out the things that are unloving/un-Christlike. Result: we are filled with the essence of God which we then live out in our daily life (see II Pet. 1:4).
This week's discussion includes:
1. What are the forms of God's love (or "How is His love expressed")?
2. God's love is agape (Greek) meaning "full, complete or perfect love".
3. God's love (agape) acts to promote well-being when responding to actions that cause ill-being - it repays evil with good.(Oord, Relational Holiness, pg. 79)
> God's love responds to man's sin by acting in a way that promotes abundant life (Romans 5:8).
> We must respond to those who sin against us by acting in ways that promote abundant life (Romans 12:14).
4. God's love (agape) is expressed to His creation through "eros". An expression of sensuality that conveys the value, beauty and desirability of a person or object.
Eros promotes well-being by affirming and enjoying what is valuable.
5. God's love (agape) is "philia" - a cooperative friendship. God's love promotes well-being by acting out His value for relationship.
6. God's love is manifest in these distinct ways. He perfectly demonstrates them "agape-unconditionally, Omni-benevolently) to His creation. When we love in the proper context we are holy as God is holy.
7. When we choose the best (act in agape-love through eros, philia) to which God calls in any particular moment we are acting in holiness. Walking in holiness is our moment by moment response to God's love.
8. Holiness is the result of a distinct and subsequent work of grace that occurs at the time when a Christ follower fully surrenders self to Christ. At this time the believer's heart is filled with God's complete and perfect love which then pushes out of man's heart the things that have been in rebellion to God's love.
9. Living the life of holiness then is abiding in the love of God - demonstrating the full manifestation of agape love to God, others, creation and self.
I hope to see you Sunday night. Please come prepared to discuss this important topic. Thanks for stopping by!
------
Adrian
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