Having vs participating in God's love

Having and participating in God's love are two separate things (though not unrelated). 

The tension between these is throughout scripture.

Having God's love is based solely on (secured by) the faithfulness/work of another i.e. on Christ's faithful obedience and sacrifice. 

*Nothing we do can add to or take away from this. 

This is complete/finished.

Participating in God's love is based on our faithfulness/work. 

**Only what we do determines this. 

This is ongoing and never finished.

Having his love is like owning a bank account with unlimited funds, available to you at any and all times.

Participating in his love is making a withdrawal and using it to honor/love someone (whether that be God, someone else or ourselves).

We can have the former and never experience the latter but we can never have (participate in) the latter without the former.

And

We will never truly and fully know (experience) the former until we ***fully participate in the latter.

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*how can it since it's not based on our efforts to begin with.

**this is not to say we do this in our own power but only in the power of the Spirit. For several posts addressing the Spirit see the following:

Spirit driven

The empowering of Spirit

Operating in Spirit...mystical or practical?

Defining terms-flesh-spirit 

For a post discussing our "work" click here.

***we will not fully participate in this in this life but only begin to. The degree to which we do now, determines the degree to which we experience him in eternity.