Love is consequent upon God’s unfathomable love and infinite mercy towards us.  For Paul this was foundational:
I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

The result of the transforming, sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives is just this: that we are enabled to love one another with the same kind of love that God loves us.

Paul profiled this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13; it is a love that “seeks not its own”.

–all from Timothy George

It cannot be overemphasized that for the Christian, love has already been given him.  In the new birth he has already been “created after God,” “he has been raised to newness of life.”  Hence sanctification is not imposing a new conduct on an individual, it is providing a climate, or an environment in which the newly planted seed will germinate and appear.  –John Sanderson

and finally, JI Packer: Regeneration is birth; sanctification is growth. In regeneration, God implants desires that were not there before: desire for God, for holiness, and for the hallowing and glorifying of God’s name in this world; desire to pray, worship, love, serve, honor, and please God; desire to show love and bring benefit to others. In sanctification, the Holy Spirit “works in you to will and to act” according to God’s purpose; what he does is prompt you to “work out your salvation” (i.e., express it in action) by fulfilling these new desires (Phil. 2:12-13). Christians become increasingly Christlike as the moral profile of Jesus (the “fruit of the Spirit”) is progressively formed in them (2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 4:19; 5:22-25). Paul’s use of glory in 2 Corinthians 3:18 shows that for him sanctification of character is glorification begun. Then the physical transformation that gives us a body like Christ’s, one that will match our totally transformed character and be a perfect means of expressing it, will be glorification completed (Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Cor. 15:49-53).

O is for the only one—–ah, sing it Mr. Nat King Cole

As we launch into looking at the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), we’ll notice the primacy of love as that which the Holy Spirit produces in our lives.

“It would have sufficed to list only love, for this expands into all the fruit of the Spirit.”  –Martin Luther

Timothy George says, “Before love is the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the Christian believer, it is the underlying disposition and motivating force in election, creation, incarnation, and atonement.”

  As CS Lewis put it so well:
“God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing – or should we say “seeing”? there are no tenses in God – the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a “host” who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and “take advantage of” Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves.”

A driving force behind the decision to move to a new schedule was a process of thinking through the question:

“What is the purpose of our weekly gathering?”

The leadership of Christ Community emerged from reflecting on the Scriptures to say that worshiping God in community is central to what we do each week—AND central to what every Christian needs each week.  To gather with God’s people to offer Him praises and hear His word.

Let me encourage you to pray about two practical goals:
1.) I will orient my life around a weekly service of worship with God’s people.
2.) I will take the necessary steps to be in the sanctuary prior to the start of the service, whether at 9am or 10:30am.

I firmly believe that these radical and simple commitments could bear all sorts of fruit in us, individually and corporately.

Psalm 84 gives a wonderful picture of the great benefits of a life centered on gathering to worship God corporately.  We need to bring him our praises and our pain, our hopes and our hurts.  For in His presence we are ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.  We move from strength to strength.

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
O LORD of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
(Psalm 84 ESV)

God was happy without man before man was made; He would have continued happy had He simply destroyed man after man had sinned; but as it is He has set His love upon particular sinners, and this means that, by His own free voluntary choice, He will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again till He has brought every one of them home. He has in effect resolved that henceforth for all eternity His happiness shall be conditional upon ours. Thus God saves, not only for His glory, but also for His gladness. –J.I. Packer

This Sunday evening May 20, plan to gather at the Lindsay home from 6-8 for a pool party and good bye bash in honor of Nate and Erin Taylor.

Get together for

Hot dogs & hamburgers, and all the fixins

volleyball

swimming

And most of all, good times with the Taylors and a chance to thank them  before their move for their love and dedication over the past five years.

Bring your towels and lawn chairs to  1922 NW 133rd Terr., Gainesville, FL 32606