2 Thess 1:3, How To Love Instinctively.

Class Outline:

Wednesday June 7, 2023

Theme: God creates believers as His new creation (His seed) who agape love instinctively and God must grow the seed to a mature experience of agape love.

1. We cannot will love into existence. It has to be created in us and grown by God.
2. The image of the seed is a good one for understanding, 1JO 3:4-10.
   1. In 1Jo, John clarifies the significance of righteousness - it loves the brethren.
   2. God’s righteousness is revealed in Christ, MAT 5:46-48.
   3. All who are born of God must accept God’s standard of righteousness - the greatest of which  is love.
   4. The divine seed that all believers are loves instinctively.
      1. Why don’t I then?
3. The instinct to love is grown to mature reality through knowledge of Christ and obedience to His commandments, 1JO 2:3-6; Php 1:9-11.
   1. Php 1:9-11 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; 11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
      1. “abound” - to excel, similarly used in 1TH 4:9-10.
      2. Love excels in knowledge and discernment.
         1. Knowledge of Christ.
         2. Discernment = capacity to understand morality.
      3. The result is that we can approve the things that are excellent (superior to other things).
         1. Satan disguises inferior things as superior. Immoral as moral. Evil as good.
   2. Why does love need knowledge, obedience, and discernment?
      1. We can too easily love the wrong things and call that Christian love. It is vital that we know and discern - and to do that we must obey.
4. How does the seed of agape love grow? Knowledge of Christ, obedience to His commandments, and pursuit of it, 1TI 6:11-12.
   1. Application: We can’t just sit around waiting for love to grow to maturity, we have to pursue it because there is so much opposition to it. We must fight the good fight.
   2. Application: We cannot stand against Satan alone. We must put on the full armor of God: Salvation, truth, righteousness, evangelization, the Word, Faith.