The Grand Illusion
January 6, 2012
OUTLINE:
Freedom
Virtue love is a selfless love that guarantees a life of freedom. The average person does not possess virtue love, which is why they love selfishly. Selfish love is in bondage to poor expectations.
Selfish Love
Selfish lovers are consistently disappointed with those they love because their expectations of others are unreasonable and inconsistent with God’s.
Self-Induced Bondage
You sacrifice your own freedom every time you choose your own expectations over God’s.
Finding True Love
When you walk through the door of salvation, your spiritual vector (ala Rom 1:17) is oriented towards eternal life and is therefore pointing towards that which has been shared between the Godhead eternally! – Love!
1Jo 4:8
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In other words, godly, virtue love is unattainable/unknowable to the individual that doesn’t “know” God. To know God is to know His Word.
“Do you have capacity for love?”
Capacity for Love
You will possess capacity for love IF (3rd class condition) you have positive volition towards doctrine (PVTD). “If you keep My commandments…” (John 15:10).
“you keep”
from tereo – means to guard something that belongs to you (eg: the Word of God – aka “commandments” - John 15:10); if you guard the light in your soul, the light in your soul guards you!
“abide in My love”
from meno agape – means to reside in the sphere of His love; refers to the enveloping nature of being sanctified by Him and for Him; this is your daily residence in the DPG
“may be made full”
from pleroo – means to fill up the deficiency; to fully possess; to fully influence; to fill with a certain quality
“joy”
from chara – refers to the H+ of God that has existed eternally and is shared with man through the 2SPO’s; this is the same joy expressed by love that motivated TLJC to go all the way to the Cross
In the Sphere of His Love
Virtue love is not something you simply express towards others, it is something that you LIVE!
Evil Hates Truth (John 3:20)
Evil doesn’t like being exposed because it loses its power. Evil’s power is rooted in darkness constructed of lies. Truth shines light into darkness, exposing evil by equipping the saints with divine viewpoint.
Good Timing
There are times when we actively assert our faith and times when we passively assert our faith. In both cases, our faith is unshaken, firmly rooted in Truth, and always expressed in virtue love.
Hypocritical Love
- Proclaiming something and then not thinking/doing it
- Thinking/doing something and then not proclaiming it
Virtue Love
- Proclaiming something and then thinking/doing it
- Thinking/doing something and then proclaiming it
The Unstable Lover
The hypocritical lover is ignorant about how to love another because they don’t have any doctrine and so they don’t have any convictions/epignosis of their own!
The Power of Love
Love is much more powerful than evil.
In the Sphere of His Love
Virtue love is not something you simply express towards others, it is something that you LIVE!
Reality (dictionary.com)
being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary
Your reality is your doctrine.
The Light Reveals Reality
God is Light (1John 1:5). With God all things are clear, secure, and stable. Jam 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
Video
STYX – Grand Illusion
Album Released 7/7/77
What Is Truth? (John 18:38)
John 14:6 Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
“does not have God”
Refers to not operating in the one true reality that is God’s to give through the study of the Word.
The Great Error
Consensus on a subject does NOT constitute reality!
John 15:12
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”
The Command to Love
Our Great Shepherd commands that we love one another because He is protecting His sheep! Virtue love protects the POSSESSOR of it! 1Cor. 13:8 Love never fails (you)!
High On Life
Learn to be intoxicated with this grace gift called “life”…be drunk on BD, chug it down, be enamored with it, love it, embrace it, and all the while be ever so grateful for being set free by it!
The Command to Love
Our Great Shepherd commands that we love one another because He is protecting His sheep! Virtue love protects the POSSESSOR of it! 1Cor. 13:8 Love never fails (you)!