Continuing in our study of the doctrine of reciprocal love. We have seen that reciprocal love expresses the mutual love relationship between God and the Church Age believer under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit whereby the believer responds to the perfect love of God with Bible Doctrine under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit.
When we left off from our study we were discussing the tandem advance of Bible Doctrine and Reciprocal Love that produces capacity for the believer to be compatible with the integrity of God. Promotion from God requires that the believer be compatible with the love and the integrity of God. That means fellowship with God.
Compatibility with the love of God comes through God' policy of grace. If God does not promote us, we are not promoted.
James 4:6, 10; "He gives greater grace. Therefore, it says, 'God makes war against the arrogant believer, but He gives grace to the humble believer.'" "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will promote you."
All true promotions are grace promotions and come through the function of the love of God through his policy of grace.
All true promotions come from persistence in perception of doctrine. Promotion in the spiritual life is not based on spiritual gifts it is based on the believer's relationship with God.
All true promotions come from the reciprocal love for God motivation. This means that a believer who receives true promoted is grace oriented. God never promotes any believer under any principle of arrogance.
Promotion evaluation is accomplished by the righteousness and justice of God. In order for grace to work, there must be righteousness. As long as you have arrogance in your soul, you will never be promoted.
If you are not promoted by God, you will inevitably go for self-promotion, that is based on the sins of arrogance.
Jesus Christ controls history through the invisible hero who has been promoted. The believer's motivation from grace orientation and doctrinal orientation function together in the tandem advance to the tactical objective of a personal sense of destiny.
Personal love for God and impersonal love for all mankind are the two columns that advance to occupation with Christ and the fullness of blessing from God as the strategic objectives of the spiritual life. During the advance, impersonal love for all mankind is applied to the testing that comes in the area of human relationships
God gives grace to the humble believer, and grace makes promotion possible. The grace that God gives is grace promotion. Sharing the happiness of God is a grace promotion. Being occupied with Christ and receiving the fullness of blessing from God is grace promotion.
Believers humble themselves in the presence of the Lord by using the recovery procedure of rebound (1John 1:9).
The principle of virtue and integrity love as a part of the spiritual life exists in all generations of history, but is intensified and amplified in the Church Age because of the believer's position in Christ and their unique spiritual life that is empowered by God the Holy Spirit.
Since love is a part of the integrity of God, it must also be a part of the spiritual life of the believer. God's love was directed toward us billions of years ago, and we now have the chance to respond through that spiritual life.
In eternity past, God set the pattern for reciprocity. It is revealed to us in time through the infallible word of God.
Through divine love in eternity past, the righteousness and justice of God are expressed in grace. This is called the doctrine of antecedent grace. Antecedent grace is the basis for reciprocal love.
God's love in eternity past is related to His omniscience and his provision of antecedent love for the human race in it's fallen state.
In eternity past the love of God provided divine solutions for mankind that are compatible with His righteousness and justice. Since man was in a fallen state, this required the solutions to be based in grace. God provided solutions for everything we would ever face in life.
The absolute righteousness of God is the principle of divine integrity. Divine justice is the function of divine integrity. Divine love is the demonstration of divine integrity as revealed in Rom 5:8;
God's perfect righteousness is the standard of divine integrity. God's perfect justice is the execution of divine integrity. Therefore, when we are punished, we are punished by a combination of righteousness and justice. God's perfect love is the motivational factor given to us from His divine integrity plus all the grace solutions of divine integrity.
While the righteousness of God approves or disapproves, the justice of God provides blessing or judgment and discipline, and the love of God provides divine solutions, all of which are conveyed through the grace of God.
The function of God's righteousness and justice may change from blessing to discipline or from discipline to blessing, but God's love never changes whether one is under blessing or discipline.
God's function toward us is always love, but weather we receive discipline of blessing depends on our volition that determines our orientation to Him. If we are positive we receive blessing. If we are negative we receive discipline.
God's love provided eternal salvation for the human race based on faith alone in Christ alone. Once one is saved, no matter what we do, we cannot lose our salvation, because God's love that is backed up by his righteousness and justice is far stronger than any failure we will ever have.
God's love provided the recovery procedure of 1John 1:9; for believers under OSN control of the soul to recover the unique spiritual life of the Church Age.
When believers reject rebound, they have rejected the love of God and therefore there is no motivation for advance in the spiritual life through perception and metabolization of doctrine, and there cannot be any spiritual advance.
In reciprocal love, God's love becomes the motivation for the believer's advance to the high ground of occupation with Christ and fullness of blessing from God.
God is never described as being motivated because God is love. God is not motivated toward mankind. God's love provides motivation for us, but God does not have to be motivated. This means that God motivates us, but we do not motivate God.
Motivation is a human function, not a divine function. Therefore, motivation must be an anthropopathism if it is used with reference to God.
God functions toward his creatures with perfect eternal integrity with emphasis on his love. God's integrity motivates, and this includes righteousness and justice as well as love. God does not have to be motivated, because He knew all that would ever happen billions of years before it ever occurred.
God operates on the basis of His integrity, not on motivation or emotion, which are strictly creature functions. Motivation has a beginning and an end. God does not have a beginning or an end.
Blessing or punishment from God originates from His perfect eternal integrity, that is the result of our attitude toward what He has provided.
Divine love is the key to understanding God's integrity. Omniscience always functioned under the integrity of God, so that divine love is the believer's point of reference. Divine integrity has always existed. Emotion and motivation as creature functions have not always existed.
Good and pure motivation begins with knowledge of Bible doctrine that is deployed in the soul as wisdom.
Human motivation has a beginning in reciprocity, when the word of the Lord is part of the soul. Therefore, human motivation has a love motivation but it is not isolated love, it is love that is based on doctrine.
The believer's cognizance of God's eternal integrity motivates the believer, but the believer does not motivate God. Motivation is the thinking and action that comes from Bible doctrine in the stream of consciousness.
God motivates us through divine revelation of Himself through His infallible word under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit, John 14:26, Phil 2:13; Eph 2:10;
God's love motivates the believer because He first loved us, but the believer's love does not motivate God who has always and eternally loved.
Motivation is a human activity, that God evaluates, 1Cor 4:5; "Therefore, do not go on judging anything before the time, but wait until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things that are in darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each person will receive praise from God."
Our motivation is a very important facet of our spiritual life, because motivation along with doctrine is the basis for the execution of the spiritual life. Doctrine and motivation from reciprocal love advance together to spiritual maturity.
James 2:4; "Have you not made distinction among yourselves and become judges with evil motives."
James 4:3; "You ask and receive not because you ask from wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."
Remember a right thing must be done in a right way for the right reason at the right time for it to be right.
God's love is not described as motivation, but as a demonstration of what has always existed, Rom 5:8, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us."
God is not said to be motivated by love. Motivation requires a beginning, and God's love always existed without a beginning. God simply demonstrates what He has always been. It is believers, who become motivated, when they learn about the love of God.
No one ever learns anything without being humble. If we assume we know, we never learn. Humility is not humiliation. It is a mental attitude, that recognizes that God has provided everything we will ever need, and we do not need to compete with others.
1Pet 5:5-7; "Likewise, you (congregation), become subordinate to your pastor; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward each other, and you must, because God makes war against the arrogant believer, but He gives grace to the humble believer. Therefore, by casting all your cares on Him (because He cares for you), allow yourselves to be humbled under God's mighty hand, that He may promote you at the proper time."
Clothing yourself with humility toward each other is a relaxed mental attitude. It means that you are not intimidated by anyone because you recognize that you are what you are by the grace of God and that God's calling and gifts for you are irrevocable.
People are one of the greatest hindrances to learning doctrine so the believer must have humility.
Promotion from God comes through the perception of doctrine. The perception of doctrine comes through the status of humility. God only promotes those who have true humility. God's promotion system is revealed in James 4:6,10;
All promotion of the believer comes through the function of the integrity of God with emphasis on divine love. What the righteousness of God approves, the justice of God promotes from the source of the love of God through grace.
We become humble by casting all our anxieties on God. All emotional sins such as, fear, guilt, bitterness, vindictiveness, and jealousy are to be cast on the Lord.
God gives grace to us by providing pastors to teach the word of God. Eph 4:11-13; but we have to be humble, and teachable, and want to learn. All promotion comes through the capacity created by doctrine and reciprocity.
Psa 89:14, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Unfailing love and doctrine go before You."
Some points regarding motivation:
Motivation is not a divine attribute, but a human attribute of the believer designed to provide perseverance in the perception, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine.
The advance to the high ground is accomplished in two columns (positive volition to Bible doctrine and personal love for God) with a protected mutual flank.
The love of God is divine integrity, while the attributes of God are parts or components of that integrity. The love of God is greater. God's entire essence is love.
God has always functioned on His integrity, that is also his love from eternity past, called antecedent grace, in time, called temporal grace, and in the future, called eschatological grace.
Therefore, grace is the policy of the integrity of God, and the integrity of God is the love of God. Since this love of God is the whole or entirety of divine integrity, the love of God does not increase or decrease, but always remains the same, whether God is punishing us or blessing us.
Since divine integrity is the love of God, emotion and motivation are not attributes or policies of God.
Motivation and emotions are human characteristics that are sometimes ascribed to God by false teachers who do not understand the essence and nature of God.
We are on a grace basis with the God, and when we violate this grace, we are disciplined and no one escapes his discipline.
The fact that God first loved us is demonstrated in the doctrine of unlimited atonement.
1John 2:2; "And He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also the sins of the entire world." Jesus Christ bore the sins of the entire world in His body on the Cross.
2 Pet 3:9; "And the Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for anyone to perish, but for all to come to a change of thinking about salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ alone)"
Titus 2:11; "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all mankind." Every member of the human race has equal opportunity to have eternal life. Salvation was provided for everyone.
1Tim 2:6; "(the man Christ Jesus) Who gave Himself as a ransom, a substitute for all, the testimony to be given at the proper time."
1Tim 4:10; "For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our confidence on the living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, with emphasis on (most of all, especially, primarily) believers.
Rom 5:6; "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died as a substitute for the ungodly."
Rom 5:8; "But God has and still is demonstrating His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us.
When we view "1John 4:19; from the standpoint of the perfect essence of God we see that God's love is eternal; therefore, God's love has always existed unsustained by Himself or any other source.
There never was a time that God's love did not coexist with omniscience. Omniscience knew us from eternity past, and God loved us, knowing all about us.
God's love possesses perfect integrity, that includes incorruptible justice and immutable righteousness.
This means that the perfect love of God has no beginning because His eternal virtue-love has always existed. God's love did not need or have to have motivation or emotion. God's love can neither be corrupted by the creature's failure or motivated by creature's success.
God is absolute truth and veracity. Bible doctrine always existed in the mind of God, which means, that divine love in eternity past was rooted in every form of knowledge that resides in His perfect, eternal, and absolute being.
God is infinite. Therefore, all persons of the Trinity are without boundary or limitation, uniting in themselves those perfections that belong to their co-equal, co-infinite, and co-eternal essence.
Since divine integrity is maintained by the sovereignty of God plus the incorruptible, infinite, unchanging virtue, God's love can never be compromised, diminished, or limited by either emotion or a sudden burst of motivation.
God's perfect essence related to His integrity motivates believers, when they have learned and understood the doctrine of divine essence plus the function of divine integrity, which emanates divine love as a point of reference for every believer. It is divine love as the point of reference that motivates every believer.
Therefore, God's love, which has always existed as the overt manifestation of divine integrity, motivates the believer as part of the spiritual life.
The believer responds with reciprocity or reciprocal love for God motivation, that reaches its peak in occupation with Christ.
Because God is infinite, He cannot be complicated by ignorance, or absurdities, or silliness, or emotion, or assignment of motivation to His deity. God has perfect integrity, that is infinitely greater than motivation
God's eternal integrity love motivates the believer, but the believer's love does not motivate God.
God's integrity love is eternal. Therefore, it has no beginning. Because God is eternal, He gives of His divine love whether there is an occasion or not, whether there is an object for his love or not because God is Love.