{"id":2351,"date":"2012-06-07T18:50:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T18:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2012-06-07T18:50:24","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T18:50:24","slug":"love-is-consequent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/07\/love-is-consequent\/","title":{"rendered":"Love is consequent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Love is consequent upon God&#8217;s unfathomable love and infinite mercy towards us.\u00a0 For Paul this was foundational:<br \/>\n<em>I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me<\/em>. (Galatians 2:20)<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Paul profiled this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13; it is a love that &#8220;seeks not its own&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;all from Timothy George<\/p>\n<p>It cannot be overemphasized that for the Christian, love has already been given him.\u00a0 In the new birth he has already been &#8220;created after God,&#8221; &#8220;he has been raised to newness of life.&#8221;\u00a0 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.\u00a0 &#8211;John Sanderson<\/p>\n<p>and finally, JI Packer: <em>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&#8217;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 &#8220;works in you to will and to act&#8221; according to God&#8217;s purpose; what he does is prompt you to &#8220;work out your salvation&#8221; (i.e., express it in action) by fulfilling these new desires (Phil. 2:12-13). <strong>Christians become increasingly Christlike as the moral profile of Jesus (the &#8220;fruit of the Spirit&#8221;) is progressively formed in them (2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 4:19; 5:22-25).<\/strong> Paul&#8217;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&#8217;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).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/07\/love-is-consequent\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"25\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love is consequent upon God&#8217;s unfathomable love and infinite mercy towards us.\u00a0 For Paul this was foundational:<br \/> I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)<\/p>\n<p>The result of the transforming, sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives is just this: that [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-pastor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1FrAa-BV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2352,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions\/2352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}