The 2nd is like unto it...

Luke 10:

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him (Jesus) to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He (Jesus) said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

27 And he (the lawyer) answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength

and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

You have likely heard this passage often. Maybe even memorized it. However, this is not exactly how it was originally presented in the OT.

Deut 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Notice what is missing? I added the context of verses 6 - 9 so it's more obvious. What is not mentioned in this OT passage? There is no mention of loving your neighbor in the immediate context, the chapter, or even the entire book.

In all three gospel accounts, loving our neighbor is *added as if they are quoted together. In Luke, the lawyer talking with Christ adds it, and Christ agrees. Did this lawyer get it wrong? No, Christ agreed that this commandment is the second greatest. In fact, in the other two accounts, Christ lists them together himself. 

But all these accounts also say the second is like, though not equal to, the first. If you look around more in the OT, there is definite mention of loving our neighbor, but not neatly together and in the immediate context with the greatest commandment as we see it in the gospel accounts. In fact, it is mentioned in Leviticus,  an entirely different book.

My point? The second is *only the second. It is like the first, but not equal to it. It comes after, for a reason, i.e., the second will not and can not happen as God intends unless the first happens... first.

Why do I raise this? Often we hear an equal emphasis on the second, or it is brought up without ever mentioning the 1st as if it isn't tied to and dependent on it (Christ clearly ties these together in the order he does for good reason. Loving God 1st is vital. It must come 1st!). As a result, we can lose sight of the first, of the necessity of it being first. And when we do, we can turn this into a performance-based activity, as if we must love our neighbor to be loved and accepted by God... as we - in our rebellious state - are inclined to do with every other commandment of God.

Why do we do this? Because we are prone to do it. In our fallen and rebellious state, we tend to turn every commandment into a way we can be our own god, savior, deliverer, and provider i.e. we seek to be independent of God, operating in our own power. So it is when we come to God's commandments also. We treat them as some kind of hoop we must jump through to make ourselves acceptable to God and our fellow man. We are prone to use any and all of God's commandments to earn God's acceptance (and each other) - and sadly think we can - instead of obedience being the fruit and expression of God's acceptance of us in Christ. We are naturally inclined to read scripture through a performance-based lens, even as his redeemed children and more so if we are not his. This is our natural orientation since the rebellion in Eden, which we should always be on our guard against. It is also an affront to Christ and the very gospel of grace that God has provided for us in Him.

So if loving our neighbor is second, not 1st, how is it like the first? 

It is an expression of love. Both are about love, but love in its proper order. As scripture clearly states, we love God because he first loved us. The second is tied to the 1st by flowing out of it. We are not the source of love, God is. This is received love that is vertical and comes from above. That is why the first command is the first - and must always be the 1st - and the second is the second and only like the first. The 2nd is the horizontal love that flows out of us to our fellow man due to our connection vertically with God himself, the only source of love, life, and all things. To him alone be all the glory for he alone deserves it - is worth it.

Related discussions:

Love is power

Empowered by what?

It all depends on God and you.

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*If the 2nd commandment is not in the original context, why would Christ add it? I think the point Christ is making is loving our neighbor is evidence that we truly love God as the greatest commandment tells us to. It is the natural outflow of loving him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And because God is a relationship as Father, Son, and Spirit, so are we. 

**Even though it is the 2nd, Christ ties it to the 1st for a good reason. It is the natural outflow of and progression from the 1st. As Christ said, in these two commandments all the others are summed up. In fact in the letter of 1st John it is evidence we are engaged in the 1st and the fruit of it i.e. If the 2nd is not happening it is because the 1st is not either. The 2nd cannot occur as God intends unless it flows out of the 1st.

How can all the commandments be summed up in these two?  Everything God calls (commands) us to be and do involves our love of God and our love for man and, in this order.

How do we best impact the world for God's glory?

How do you or I best impact the world for God's glory?

By shining God forth by our deeds and words in a way most suitable to our abilities, gifts, talents, resources, time, and experience. No matter who you are or what you do - be that a truck driver, a sales person, a surgeon, a mother, homemaker, and spouse, a cashier, a nurse or an author etc. - do all to the glory of God. 

The good news is we are not rewarded based on our gifts but our ¹faithfulness. In this sense, we are all equal and on a level playing field. Bringing God honor has nothing to do with our gifts or "station" in life but our heart i.e. why we act. The more we use whatever gifts God has given us, for His glory, the greater our reward. The widow's mite would be a perfect example. 

In so doing, we must also recognize we will encounter resistance - thorns, and thistles - in our efforts, no matter what we do. Even if you are doing what you love and are called to do there are still mistakes, failures, offenses, hurt, accidents, loss, damage etc. 

A difficult path does not mean it's the wrong path. We are not supposed to quit because we encounter difficulties, it simply means we are broken and live in a broken world. 

Christ said, "in this world, you will have trouble (tribulation)..." It is inevitable. There is no "if" or "when" we will encounter challenges, only what kind and how we will handle them. 

Persisting in using whatever God has given you in the face of great opposition actually brings Him greater honor and glory. It shows you value him and desire to honor Him more than the comfort you set aside to pursue him - i.e. your desire to show him forth out of love for him is greater than any discomfort or pain you may encounter doing so. This is the essence of taking up our cross and denying ourselves. 

So whatever you set your hand to do, do it with persistence, faith, and for his honor. And when you're done he will tell you "well done good and faithful servant..." enter into your rest and reward - rest implies there was struggle in  accomplishing your task. Not just any task but a good and right one.

There is no complete avoidance of pain in this life. That comes later. For now, we have the opportunity to "fill up" the sufferings of Christ and let them prepare us to take part in heavenly glory, when we are face to face with God himself and basking in His never ending glory. 

For a further discussion on what it means to be broken click here

For a discussion on the nature of our reward click here. 

For a further discussion on being in God's will click here

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¹The truck driver who seeks to honor God in all he says and does will be honored by God and told "well done good and faithful servant" - while the author who sells many bestsellers that lead people away from God will not.

Righteousness vs shame

Righteousness is a dirty word for many today. In the minds of more than a few, it suggests someone who is self-righteous or hypocritical. This is justifiably unappealing to anyone. 

However, the Bible offers a very different definition. 

Righteousness means to be and feel presentable, acceptable i.e. right. To pass inspection and be approved and found acceptable and in right relationship with another, even pleasing in the eyes of someone I wish or seek to please. 

We want to be approved by someone we value and even more so by someone whose opinion we value most; someone who is ¹highly valuable themselves that we highly regard or value. The more important they are to us and others the more significant their approval.

We all desire to be well-pleasing - approved, accepted, praised, and impressive in the eyes of another. 

Shame is feeling just the opposite - it is feeling rejected,  unacceptable, unapproved, and insignificant.

Prior to the rebellion in Eden, there was no shame, i.e. No sense of being unacceptable or unpresentable; of not feeling or being right. We were totally comfortable being uncovered with nothing hidden - not just physically, but in every way. (Hiding indicates guilt and shame. Before the rebellion in the garden, there was neither). We felt no need to hide or cover anything, particularly failure since there had been none.

And the man and his wife were both naked and ⁵were not ashamed.  Genesis 2:25 ESV

Why does shame matter? 

Ever since the rebellion of our original parents in Eden we have been under the burden of a deeply buried sense of shame from failure. This sense of shame (failure) has a very powerful hold and control over us. So much so that Adam and Eve felt compelled to hide - to cover themselves in an attempt to hide their failure to heed God's directions and its resulting shame. 

Since the original rebellion of Adam, we are now filled with shame because of alienation from (and absence of) our Creator - the true and rightful source of our significance and value. 

We severed our connection with God (and our sense of His acceptance and approval) by turning away from Him and refusing to heed his warning to not eat from the forbidden tree. 

As a result, we had to be removed from the garden - i.e. paradise, home - so we could no longer eat of the tree of life while ²in this state of rebellion. This would have allowed us to live indefinitely without having to deal with and face the consequences of our rebellion. This is contrary to who we truly are - i.e. creatures designed to be in harmony with their Creator and willingly participating and experiencing life with and in God. Their choice severed their relationship with our Creator.

Ever since our rebellion we have also longed to be restored and return to Eden; to be welcomed again; to be complete again; to have peace and contentment again; to be filled with love and joy without interruption again - as we were originally and are still designed to be now. 

We long to be "home" i.e. in a place where we feel we belong and are safe. A place where we are welcomed, held, and cherished.

But we want this on our terms, not the terms we were designed to live under. We have rebelled and continue to rebel against God and our design. We now refuse to trust Him and seek Him to fill this longing for "home."  We seek "home" anywhere and in anything other than God.

Our rebellion may not be conscious on our part but every time we look to anything other than God for our sense of value, it is an act of rebellion, i.e. distrust of God. We put our trust in anything but God - who alone can give us our true sense of value (glory) - and look anywhere except to Him for life - i.e. for meaning, significance, purpose, value, identity, fulfillment, glory etc. This is now our default response on how we handle life (until God gets hold of our hearts). It is a response of rebellious distrust of God.

We may not feel or be fully aware of the depth of our shame, but we are often keenly aware of a need for approval or praise - or when we are disapproved of or rejected i.e. shamed. At the heart of our need for approval and praise is a sense of shame and a desire to avoid it at all costs. 

We always carry with us a sense of rejection (and a fear that our shame can't be fixed if our failures are ever exposed), a sense of restlessness, of being out of the environment we were meant to be in, of being "away from home." 

Our need to constantly be affirmed (and prove) we are significant, important, and loved - i.e. worthy of these - is because we don't feel we are but should be. ³We are in a constant state of shame, no matter how deeply buried it may be or how unconscious we are of it. 

We may feel good about ourselves in our best moments, but as soon as we mess up - or are simply accused of messing up, the shame - ever lurking under the surface - rushes to the top and rears its ugly head. 

Our failures are devastating because we depend on our successes to feel significant, accepted, and loved - i.e. to feel good about ourselves - instead of looking to God for these things.

Once we get a hold of the fact that we are significant, accepted, and fully loved in Christ, these failures and the fear of them being seen have far less sway over us. The more we believe (abide) in God's love, the less our shame or fears control us and the more we operate from love for God and others. Shame is all about me. Love is about others. 

In Christ, we are free from the need to be approved by others - or even ourselves. As we more fully grasp that we are ⁴approved by the most significant person of all - the very Creator and Sustainer of life and all things - we are increasingly freed from trying to win the approval of others. If He is for us, then who (including ourselves) can be against us?

God constantly seeks to reveal to us how much we depend on something other than him for life (feeling accepted,  loved, and approved). This occurs most often in our pain and struggles. He seeks to strip away our ⁶idols and draw us closer to Him (which usually feels more like death at the time, not a means to life). He is always calling us closer because he knows in Him alone is true and eternal life i.e. to draw us closer is not only for his greater glory but our highest good - our best interest. 

The maturing process is increasingly turning away from those things we derive our worth (and identity) from and more to Him. God is constantly seeking to help us see that finding life - i.e. a sense of value, meaning, and significance - is only in Him and not the other things we look to and have grown to count and depend on. 

As we mature we come to see – by God's love and Spirit - how much we look to ⁶everything but Him for “life.” 

The only question is will you return to him? Christ has done all that is necessary for you to be perfectly accepted and fully embraced by His Father. It is up to us now to receive (believe) this (His) offer. To not, is to continue on our current path, rejecting His offer and Him i.e. to continue on our path of shame and destruction. 

For a discussion on the meaning of life, click here. 

For a discussion on pleasing God, click here

For a discussion on good and bad self-confidence, click here. 

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¹And who is greater, more significant, more valuable and worthy of our respect, honor, and worship then the Creator and Sustainer of love, life, and all things? No one and nothing! For from him through him and to him or all things!

²To continue living in a state of rebellion unchecked by death, only results in increasing destruction by us. 

³I am speaking of humanity in general when in a state of separation from God. We can be and are freed of these things the more we understand, receive and partake of the love of God.

⁴And not only are we approved by the Creator of all things - the most significant person in the universe - but this same person provided for us all that was necessary for that approval. This in great part is why He is so significant.

⁵God's description of us just before we rebelled.

⁶ An idol is anything we value more than God. 

⁷To get an idea of our shame consider having your private thought's or actions played out and posted to a YouTube channel the entire world is subscribed to. Thoughts or acts of anger, lust, fear, disloyalty, lying and hatred and so on we might engage in over the course of a several days. 

Would we be proud of everything revealed or embarrassed to show our face in public? Would people want to embrace us or avoid us after watching? To avoid shame we may go as far as saying any rejection we experience is the fault of others, not our own.

How are love and life connected

Is there a connection between life and love? If so, what is it? To help us gain a better understanding, let's define our terms.

Love - 

is recognizing someone elses value, worth, significance, and treating them accordingly. This isn't about what we get out of someone or something or only about how we feel about them but how we treat them and show them we feel. As DC Talk - the former Christian band - says, love is a verb. 

You could characterize this in several ways; cherishing someone, treating them with honor, dignity, importance; as worthwhile; willingly giving up something you value - be that time or other resources - to show someone you value them more than what you gave up. 

Love at the highest level is always sacrificial - giving up something - but doesn't necessarily feel sacrificial because we love (value) the one we are giving it up for i.e. who we are showing love to. As John said, 

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." 

And what are the greatest commands?  To love God with all we are and have and our neighbor as ourselves. 

Though true love is sacrificial it is ultimately something we are glad to do, just as Christ was glad to love us sacrificially even though it was painful. The greater the pain the greater indication of our valuing that which we made a sacrifice for.

How a loving parent cares for their child would be a classic example. Parents pour thousands of hours and dollars into raising their children yet we wouldn't have it any other way. Though it requires a ton of effort and is hard at times, it is a sacrifice we gladly make because we love our kids. 

In this same way, our heavenly Father loves us. He gave up something of infinite value - His Son - so He could have us and share His life with us.

Life - 

is knowing and experiencing our worth, value, significance, etc. When we do, we "come alive" because we feel most valued and significant... in a word, we feel ¹loved. 

Giving life to someone is to acknowledge their worth, value, and significance through our words or deeds. To do this for others brings life to them.

How we do this can be expressed in many ways. Giving them something valuable - such as our time, attention, resources, efforts - to serve them. Telling them how important they are to us, how much we value and appreciate them and backing it with actions.

So you could say love and life are the flip sides of the same coin of value. Love is giving value and life is receiving it. Valuing is what they have in common; either giving it or receiving it.

But where do these notions of life and love come from? 

God is the source of life because he is the most significant and valuable of all beings or things. And therefore He is most worthy of our love and praise i.e. of being recognized and treated as most valuable, most worth being admired, praised, cherished, worshipped, honored, exalted (glorified). 

When God calls us to honor or glorify him, he is saying value me, love me above all other things or persons.

Why? Because he is more valuable than all other things or persons since everything else that is, comes from, is sustained by, and points back to Him. He alone is the Alpha and Omega. 

"How great are God's riches! How deep are his wisdom and knowledge! Who can explain his decisions? Who can understand his ways? As the scripture says: “Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who is able to give him advice? Who has ever given him anything, so that he had to pay it back?” For all things were created by him, and all things exist through him and for him. To God be the glory for ever! Amen." - Romans 11:33‭-‬36 GNB

Because this is who God is - the source (Alpha), the means, and the end (Omega) of all things - to value him as such is to experience our greatest sense of value, for we are like him i.e. in His image and made to share in and experience his glory, majesty, beauty, worth, significance, etc.

We enjoy him because He made us like himself so we could. Like Him, we can give and receive honor and value in and through him; so we can feel, experience, and bathe in His significance, worth, glory, etc. In so doing we experience our own significance, worth, and glory.

For us to feel His worth, we too must experience our own significance in doing so. Our sense of significance comes from partaking of and participating in His. 

In this way, we are like God. God's sense of significance comes in Him valuing Himself within the community of Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit of infinite love. 

We were made like him so we too could participate in this community of love in the same way He does.

For related topics see the following:

Is God on an ego trip?

Love is power 

Why are relationships important?

What is the fountain and foundation of relationship? 

Why do we long for relationship? 

What is the love, life, Spirit and essence of God

 God is non-stop love with or without us. 

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¹The only reason we can feel loved-valued is that we are like God who is a community of love among and within the Father, Son, and Spirit. He is thereby the most lovely and valuable of all beings. This triune God created us like Himself so that we could partake of and delight in Him.

Good trees bear good fruit

Matthew 12.33-37 says, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit (i.e. its fruit is evidence of what kind of tree it is). You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are ¹evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The ²good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil - (i.e. whatever is in the heart, whether good or evil, flows out. This is not describing something we must do, it's simply telling us what happens based on the condition of our heart).

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (ESV) i.e. our words will be evidence of a just or evil heart. 

The ERV also gives a helpful translation...

33 “If you want good fruit, you must make the tree good. If your tree is not good, it will have bad fruit. A tree is known by the kind of fruit it produces. 34 You snakes! You are so evil. How can you say anything good? What people say with their mouths comes from what fills their hearts. 35 Those who are good have good things saved in their hearts. That’s why they say good things. But those who are evil have hearts full of evil, and that’s why they say things that are evil. 36 I tell you that everyone will have to answer for all the careless things they have said. This will happen on the day of judgment. 37 Your words will be used to judge you. What you have said will show whether you are right or whether you are guilty.” ERV

Early in my Christian life, I found this passage confusing, as I did many of the things Christ said. The reason is what Christ says sounds like salvation is the result of our efforts "...by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”  

If a man is condemned by his words, are not his words the cause of his condemnation? If you do bad things you get a bad result i.e. condemnation - and if you do good things you get a good result i.e. justification. The result is based on what you do or don't do; on good or bad words. So it sounds like salvation is based on saying good words i.e. Salvation is by works - good deeds. 

But is this what Christ is saying? Not at all! At a closer look, He is actually saying just the opposite. He is saying evil words are evidence that we are already under condemnation i.e. We are not a child of God. In short, our hearts are evil and we are under the just judgment of God. This is also the point of the following passage. 

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God...” John 3:17-18. 

This passage doesn't cite any particular bad deed. The issue is what we have not done yet versus what we have done. It says we live under condemnation because of our alienation from God. 

But what did we do to cause this?  There wasn't anything we did in terms of a particular action, such as murder, stealing, or lying. It's what we do not "do." We refuse to receive the solution God offers to address our alienation i.e. our unbelief. We do not believe we need God the way God says we do. And we do not believe in the solution God provided to address that unbelief.

Our words and deeds are simply the result/evidence /fruit of the state of our heart i.e. we have and are turned away from God and in rebellion to him. As a result, we are under condemnation. This is our true condition. If we are evil we produce evil words/fruit. If we are good, we produce good words/fruit. Our words and deeds are evidence of the state of our heart, so in this sense, they justify or condemn us i.e. they reveal or expose the true condition of our heart - by their fruit you will know them. The state of our heart is why we are justified or condemned.

Once I got a better handle on this passage, I found it very exciting. Why? Because it indicates living the Christian life is not something we must or can do in our own power. Only by God's power, spirit, love, etc. are we able to live for God. If we wish to bear much fruit we don't double down in our efforts to do good, we double down on our faith in God's offer of love. The more his love gets ahold of our hearts the more good fruit we bear. It is his love (our belief in His love for us) that produces fruit, not our efforts. 

For a fuller discussion on this, the following posts should help. 

Empowered by what...

It all depends on God and you

Love is power

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¹So what exactly is the evil Christ is referring to? It is the evil of being in rebellion toward God, resulting in our disconnection from Him. The biggest evidence is our refusal of his offer of restoration. Note the passage says "you being evil" and does not say you doing evil. He talks about doing later - i.e. "bringing forth" good or evil things - as the fruit of being evil. Distrust of God is evidence of a rebellious/evil heart. 

If we are made to be in union with God and disconnected from that union, we are broken and are missing what we were designed to have - God in all His endless love. As a result, we break/hurt others. 

This is the essence and heart of evil; to do things that harm others because we are not in union with our Creator as we were designed to be. We have chosen to be our own god versus having faith in the only true God. We live contrary to God's design of complete dependence/Union with Him. We are like a fish designed to live in pure life-giving water, but living in water full of mud. We blindly thrash about harming others and, ultimately, ourselves and eventually die. 

When we are not in union with the perfectly loving God we cannot do the things God designed us to do. Out of the void of a broken and empty heart only comes broken actions and words - evil - not good loving actions and words. As a result, we are under a state of condemnation if we are not in Christ.

Christ is clearly saying it is impossible for good fruit to come from an evil heart. A thorn bush cannot bear apples or oranges no matter how hard it trys because it is a thorn Bush. 

If a heart is good it will bear good fruit. In other words, good fruit is evidence of a good heart, a heart that has been made righteous and set free from the requirement of perfect obedience in order to be approved and accepted by God. Good words do not cause one to be righteous but are evidence someone already is righteous by Christ's efforts.

Elsewhere, Christ stated, "...Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. - John 15:5 ESV

It is not possible to produce good fruit unless we - the branches - are connected to or in union with the vine - abiding in God.

²What does Christ mean by "good person"? He is simply describing someone whose heart has been changed through union with God and is now abiding in Him and His love. 

When we abide in him we produce good fruit i.e. do good deeds. It is the organic and inevitable outcome of that union because God is the source of life, love, and all things. To be "plugged in" to Him and His love makes us loving in the way God is and originally designed/created us to be i.e. The Father is the Vine keeper, Christ is the Vine through which life flows, and we are the branches through which life - God's very own life - is manifest in and through us as fruit i.e. loving acts - good deeds.

Thank you!

For those following my blog, thank you for your support! 

Thanks to you, we just past 37,000 reads of our posts and continue to see those reads steadily grow, averaging 1000 reads a month from around the world. At our present rate, we are on track to have over 50,000 reads by this time next year (i.e. *Dec 2021). Feel free to invite friends to join you and subscribe to this blog as we learn to honor God more together. 

!!!

Yours for advancing God's glory one step at a time. 

Jim Deal

p.s. If you are not already and wish to subscribe, click here - it's free! We post one new article a week on average. 

*UPDATE: We just passed 55k views since I posted this originally just 3 weeks ago. The vast majority of the reads are coming from Russia. I usually get visits from all around the world (the internet is an interesting place). At first, I thought it was some kind of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack but the hits are pretty evenly distributed over a few hours on my two recent posts a week apart. Time will tell, but it appears legit. If so, glad to see my site reaching as many as possible, around the world. At this rate, I will far exceed the originally projected 50k reads in 11 months. Again, thank you!! By the way, there is a site visit counter on the bottom left of my main page. 

UPDATE - 4/17/21: We just pasted 60000!! Thank you!

UPDATE - 10/8/21: We just pasted 76000!! Thank you!

Empowered by what

Are we empowered to live for God by faith, love, His Spirit, or God's promises? Yes - all the above. Though all of these might seem unique and separate, they are very much connected. 

By faith: No matter how much we are loved by God - and as his children, we are perfectly and infinitely loved - if we do not believe in this infinite love God ¹has for us - demonstrated in sending His Son - that love will never "land," take hold of, transform and empower us. Our faith is vital. God calls us to believe. The expression The just shall live by faith is repeated several times in both the Old and New Testament for good reason.

Love: We are designed to be in union with God, who is the God of love as Father and Son gazing upon the beauty and majesty of the other in, by, and through the Spirit. Because we are like God, designed (and able) to take part in this love fest within our triune God, we must receive infinite love - in the same way the Father and Son receive it in and from each other - to operate as He designed us to. Without abiding in Him - who is love - we can do nothing (Jn 15:5); we can not love as God loves and truly honor God and put Him on display according to His greatness. 

When we receive his love, we come to life and become loving. ¹His love empowers us to love others. We love him because he first loved us and empowers us to love others because of and by this very same love.

His Spirit: How does God's Spirit empower us? It is the Spirit - passion - love of God that flows out of God's love for Himself as Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. The Spirit - who is the essence of God and is God - reveals God's love to us which moves us to love Him in return and then others.

God's promises: God says - i.e. promises - He loves us. He demonstrated this most clearly and loudly by sending his Son. His Son demonstrated this by giving up his life so we might be restored to his Father's love. God says when we are in Christ, absolutely nothing can now separate us from this love. In all things - including the hard or even evil things we might go through - God still works for our good. That "good" is not necessarily experiencing good circumstances, but becoming more like Christ. 

Becoming like Christ is the best and highest good we can attain. The more we do, the more we partake of God's infinite love set upon us in the same way Christ does. This is what He promises and what we are called to believe. If we do not believe these things (promises), we will never tap into the love that is there and is always being poured out on us in unending abundance. 

Why is this important? To be like Christ is to be in perfect alignment with the Father and experience the perfect bliss of that union between the Father,  Son, and the Spirit who pours out His love in and on us, and out through us to others. These are the promises God makes to us.

What is the common connection between all of these? 

Love! And not just any love, but the infinite and perfect love of God between Father, Son, in, by, and through the Spirit poured out on us, in us, and through us because of Christ. 

For a fuller discussion on the promises of God click here

For a fuller discussion of living by faith click here.

For a fuller discussion on being empowered by God's love click here.

For a fuller discussion on how God uses even our poor choices to achieve our highest good click here.

For a more extensive discussion of the power within Click here

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¹Which he not only tells us repeatedly but showed us by sending His Son who willingly sacrificed Himself to restore us back to his Father's love.

²If you look closely at the greatest commandment - particularly in Deuteronomy - where the quotes in all the gospels are taken from - it starts with "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." To Love God and our neighbor as we are designed and called to, it starts with God; recognizing he is perfect union (one), harmony, love - i.e. one God but also one being and one purpose among three persons. He is the source - Lord - of all things.

For more on the union of God in being and purpose, click here.