Esotropiart

Note: the large, red superscript letters and numbers (^{1 A B} etc.) are for cross-referencing within this post. Since the verses I was looking up were interrelated, I made some of these markers so you can go back and forth, comparing all the highlighted pieces with the same letter or number.

I pray that your love will overflow more and more¹, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation - the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ - for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

Philippians 1:9-11

¹love will overflow more and more - a prayer I need. I cannot love. Aside from Christ [hopefully] living and working in and through me, my own actions have no thread of love. From my own devices alone, even what appears to be love is not! There is no doubt in my mind that what John wrote is true:

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love^A - not that we loved God, but that he loved us^A and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression^A in us.

And God has given us his Spirit as proof^B that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.^C

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid^D on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

Such love has no fear, because perfect love^D expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not not fully experienced his perfect love^D

I John 4:7-18

^AI cannot claim love, real love EXCEPT by way of Christ living in me. Nothing is possible outside Him. I tend to believe that, even as a "new creature", my goodness is not in the fibers of me, except if Christ and I are truly and wholly one in a particular aspect. The remaining bits of self don't and cannot exhibit goodness. If God chose to take His hand out from underneath me or His presence from my life, nothing good would remain. My goodness is not self-sufficient, nor is it energized by a new nature of a good and holy me. There is absolutely no new creature. Nothing but wretched sin would remain if He pulled out. The new creature is known and defined in only one thing alone: I emerge as a new creature only in so much that I and He that lives within me are ONE! And this is not a sway to one that makes God sinful. My sin doesn't sway and make Him one with me. But rather His good overcomes my sin and makes me one with Him. The sway to one must go absolutely one direction, to Him. He becomes more, and I become less. Is this perhaps what is called "sanctification"? I am justified once for all, my sins covered by His "sway" to become my sin on the cross made me holy - AT ONCE, though I yet sin, and a war rages. So by grace, even though I'm young, still full of youthful passions, lacking wisdom, I'm still a new creature. Even if my life seems to me to still exhibit rebellion, I am justified through Jesus' blood. Those "un-sanctified kinks" still in me cannot separate me from Him, or else His sacrifice wasn't perfect. If only a sinless man could approach God, then Jesus death wasn't enough to cover, or He chose whose sins and how many He would bear. I don't believe the purpose of sanctification, therefore relates to the ultimate salvation or destination of human souls. If one small sin isn't covered by Jesus' sacrifice, then none of us has much hope, except by random chance that the limited number of sins He bore includes each and every one of ours. If Christ's sacrifice isn't complete and once for all, then His blood is on all of our hands. So it remains a great mystery that, though we are justified and made right with God through the work of the Son, sanctification remains a key element.

^BPerhaps, while the easier to understand justification is the Son's role, the more mysterious job of sanctification is the role of the Spirit of God living in us. Phrased differently, perhaps Jesus' sacrifice freed us from slavery to sin... and as a continuation of this work, the Spirit works towards the mysterious paradox of slavery to God and to righteousness that is also referred to as "freedom" and "new life"!

Watch the Progression

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.

I Corinthians 13:12

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Hebrews 1:3

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them might be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 17:20-23

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called, those he called, he also justified, those he justified, he also glorified.

Romans 8:29-30

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Support of my theory that the Spirit whom Jesus sends is indeed the One who works sanctification. Are "truth", "Word" and "Spirit" one and the same? The following suggests this possibility...

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

John 17:17-19

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come

John 16:13

^CAll of this brings me full circle back to one word that I never really saw before in I John: hope!!! Faith and hope often go hand in hand. We have faith that God is who He says He is and that His promises and love stand. At the same time, when hardship comes, it is hope that keeps us going, for we hope it is all true and that we will at last see Him unveiled, face to face.

Amid all the instructions to love and that without love there is no knowledge of God, I see hope I didn't see before. I guess my mind read over it without catching this key truth. I often feel hopeless, that my lack of what I assume "fruit" is, that this is indicative that I'm not truly His. I sometimes ^D fear that He will not claim me as His own at the judgment, that I will for some reason hear "I never knew you". These feelings of insecurity I feel are largely resultant part from growing up in a denomination that believed that salvation is momentary and conditional, that God will reject the very sons and daughters He died to save... ON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON-OFF... HEAVEN-HELL-HEAVEN-HELL... SON-ENEMY-SON-ENEMY... based on who knows what arbitrary "Oh man, you crossed the line" sins that are somehow "worse" than others. So every chance I got growing up, I cried in guilt and fear, "Lord, please come into my heart... AGAIN. Have you left me? I'm sorry, please, I want to make sure I'm not just living a lie." I have since come to accept the far more sensible/Biblical/consistent/logical view that, once God decides to pour out the blood of His Son to cover the sins of a sinner asking for forgiveness, it's not an on/off thing. This sinner is a new creation, adopted into God's family, and nothing can snatch them away or separate them from His love, and they will never be left or forsaken.

And even though I "know" this now, the scars of fear and doubt from a different theological view remain. So when I read this apparently overlooked verse, it struck a note with me. My hope is that some day I will be able to claim, as John did, with boldness and confidence,

"I KNOW HOW MUCH GOD LOVES ME, AND I HAVE PUT MY TRUST IN HIS LOVE"

I John 4:16

If it was up to me, my hand would [and has many times] let go. But it's not about me, it's about Him... and His grip is stronger than mine.

The miracle was the distance bridged in an instant.

Matthew 14:22-32