Rom 13:8
In our continuing study of the doctrine of love, we are presently discussing virtue love that is based in humility as compared with pseudo love that is based in arrogance.
Last time we concluded with the idea that we cannot love God apart from capacity for love, which is extrapolated from the four spiritual mechanics of the spiritual life after salvation. If we do not fulfill this, then we have no capacity for love or witness before the angels .
All capacity for true love, virtue love, rapport with God is based on thinking. The spiritual life is thinking. No one has staying power in love or capacity for true love without the virtue and values that are related to thinking metabolized doctrine. Rapport is compatibility with God on the basis of thinking resulting in capacity for love. The unique spiritual life of the church age provides the basis for this.
This is the same spiritual life that TLJC deployed during his first advent in unglorified humanity that is described in:
Phil 2:5, "Keep on thinking this in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Our Lord tested and proved the prototype spiritual life that has now been given to the church.
1Cor 2:16; "For who has known the thinking of the Lord that we should instruct Him. But we have the thinking of Christ." A comparison of Phil 2:5 and 1 Cor 2:16 gives us the basis for capacity for true love that is the thinking of Christ.
Our thinking determines what system we are functioning in. Rom 8:5-7; "For those (believers under OSN control of the soul) who are in conformity with the flesh (OSN) keep thinking about the things of the flesh, but those who are in conformity with the Spirit keep thinking about the things of the Spirit.
v6 For the way of thinking of the flesh is death (carnal death), but the way of thinking of the Spirit (the filling of the Spirit) is (the spiritual) life and harmony,
v7 because the way of thinking of the flesh is hostile toward God because it does not subordinate itself to the law of God nor is it able to."
The "things of the Spirit" is a reference to the four spiritual mechanics of the spiritual life of the Church Age; the two power options, the three spiritual skills, the ten problem solving devices, and the three stages of the adult spiritual life. Out from these mechanics comes the virtue and values of the spiritual life, and from those virtue and values comes capacity for true love
The advanced stages of the spiritual life are where believers fulfill the divine mandates for love. No believer has true love or capacity for virtue love apart from the virtue and the values provided by this unique spiritual life.
True love does not come easily because it is based on the integrity of virtue and values that are established from God's viewpoint of life.
There is no true love when one is functioning under the arrogance skills and living in the arrogance complex of sins and emotional complex of sins.
Peace is rapport with God based on metabolized doctrine in the stream of consciousness.
The key to love is to have the capacity for love. The key to capacity for love is your spiritual life. As goes your spiritual life, so goes your capacity for true love.
The power of God that indwells us provides us with the greatest opportunity for integrity and virtue that has ever existed in the history of the human race.
The greatest lovers in the world are believers who fulfill the unique spiritual life of all history but If believers fail to fulfill this spiritual life, they become the worst lovers because of the pressure they are under as church age believers.
True love is always a potential in life that may or may not be fulfilled. The potential depends on faith alone in Christ alone followed by one's volition toward Bible doctrine.
The virtue that is the secret to love must begin with personal love for God the Father, which is the foundation for impersonal love for all mankind. Personal love for God and impersonal love for man is an envelope of integrity, virtue and values that establish the principle of true love.
True love must be related to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. True love is based on the relationship between the three members of the Trinity.
Their love is based on their virtue, their integrity, their holiness, their righteousness and justice. God has personal love for the other members of the Trinity and impersonal love toward creatures.
Each member of the Trinity also loves his own righteousness that is divine self-esteem. All three of these categories of virtue love have been given to the believer in Jesus Christ under the unique spiritual life for the Church Age.
Any time you are unhappy in your love life it is because what you think is love is not true love. It has no virtue; it has no values; it is not from the thinking of the soul it is from the emotion.
There is no true love without the last five problem solving devices that comprise the advanced stage of the spiritual life.
Capacity for personal love functions inside the integrity envelope from the tandem problem solving devices of personal love for God and impersonal love for mankind.
Since true love must originate in the soul of the believer, and since true love is the key to the advanced spiritual life, it is necessary to understand the significance of two Bible verses.
The origin of true love is found in, 1John 4:19; "We love, because He first loved us."
Before we reach the adult spiritual life we have a foundation for love, but not the capacity for love that comes with the advanced problem solving devices. Because of the subjunctive mood of the verb "agapo", this verse should be translated,
"We have the potential for love, because He first loved us." We have the potential for true love and the secret to happiness depending on how far we go in our spiritual life.
God loved us impersonally as unbelievers the moment He imputed a human soul to us. God cannot love us personally until we believe in Christ and receive his righteousness when we are born again.
With the spiritual life, we can come to a personal love for God. Personal love for God is a true love monopoly of the believer, and you have it because it is in your portfolio of invisible assets, but you may not know you have it or be able to use it because until we straighten out love with God, we have no love.
The spiritual life, that is how we think, then becomes renewed through the agency of the Spirit by means of our thinking." Eph 4:23; Rom 12:2;
The first agent in the passive voice represents the filling of the Holy Spirit that is the grace provision of the divine power for the fulfillment of the unique spiritual life of the Church Age, Acts 1:8.