1 A husband and wife have been slowly drifting away from one another. The husband ended up having an affair with a coworker and his wife cannot forgive

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A husband and wife have been slowly drifting away from one another. The husband ended up having an affair with a coworker and his wife cannot forgive him. While she cannot divorce him for

financial reasons, she will not engage him as a wife any longer.

Last time we finished by identifying what the problem was with the thinking of the wife and what her greatest hazards were with the way

she was thinking. What did we conclude?

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The cause of her heartache was that she was looking to her husband to validate her value,

which she did because she did not make Jesus and His thoughts about her the center of her

value.

When her husband stepped out of the marriage, her value as a wife and a person was destroyed.

Her greatest hazard is that she could focus on her husband’s failure rather than her own. She needs to see that God allowed the affair so that He could do a wonderful work in BOTH of them.

Be sure to grasp the satanic seduction and how powerful it is with this hazard.

It is so reasonable to focus on the sin of others when it hurts us, but if we do, we strengthen the power of our own pain and bondage. It is only when we focus

on the Lord in the pain that we are able to see the purpose that God brings through the sin of others

and the life and freedom that results.

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Agape LOVE = God

Philos Love

SELF LOVE = god

manipulation

alcohol

abuse

InsecurityFrustration Anger

jealousy

controlconflictheresy

divisionIdolatrysensuality

EmptinessBLAME

So here she is, seething in her

hurt, pushing him away and hoping he will get it right by being pushed

away.

It is common – and certainly

understandable, but NEVER profitable!

Why?

It is because God allowed the sin of BOTH to identify the wrong and to purify both their hearts. Both of

them are functioning out of a love for self, and pure agape love, with God operating from the center, is out of the question with their current choices. So

what would God say to her?

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He might say something like:

1. You ALWAYS know there is something wrong with you if you see that your joy is gone – NO exceptions.

2. NEVER look at the failures of others if you see that your joy is gone no matter how tempting it might be, even if it is clear that someone else has in fact sinned.

3. If your joy is gone, come to Me, let Me clear your head and touch your heart and heal you.

4. Stay with Me at least until you are healed.

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

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Agape LOVE = God

Philos Love

SELF LOVE = god

manipulation

alcohol

abuse


jealousy



EmptinessBLAME

I haven’t explained “sensuality” and “idolatry” yet. Have you ever noticed how when people are

internally bankrupt, they move into external and sensory satisfaction? Do you know why that is?

Look at our chart and see if you can see why there is internal bankruptcy.

The emptiness in self is due to the absence of God, who is the ONLY internal supply of all things

necessary, good and pleasurable. When there is no internal supply because self is god, there is no other

place to go but to the external world for internal satisfaction. Often the only place where people find

at least the temporary illusion of satisfaction is in things like food, substance abuse, sexual

promiscuity or perversion, recreational escape, unbridled spending… which NEVER satisfy but do

destroy.

This always amazes me, but the reason why people continue in this external search for internal

satisfaction, is because they have not yet been burned severely enough to drive them to change. When they have lost enough, they will come to the

Lord. Sadly there are those who never lose enough to make them despair of self. We should guard our hearts from the foolishness that is so confident in

the self.

So “sensuality” is a problem when the things of the senses are given the responsibility to fill spiritual needs that only God can fill. Idolatry is anything

other than God that you give the responsibility to fill your needs.

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Agape LOVE = God

Philos Love

SELF LOVE = god

manipulation

alcohol

abuse


jealousy



EmptinessBLAME

Embracing heresy is what people do to restructure their religion to make it more palatable for the

appetites of their flesh. It is like throwing a bone to God to get Him off your case for other things that

matter deeply to you.

I’m not talking about wanton heresy, like “God wants us to use drugs in our religion, and have

temple prostitutes.” I’m talking about adjusting truth to make it palatable to our flesh; things that we don’t

mind giving up so we can pursue the things we do like.

Heresy is an attempted diversion that capitalizes on some point of law which is strictly kept so that other

elements of truth may be ignored.

A great example of this would be a father who never touches a drop of alcohol, will not utter certain “bad” words, never goes to movies, won’t own a TV or use the internet, but thinks nothing about screaming at

and threatening his kids. The greatest commandment is to love God and to love others

more than self, but that is a commandment that is dismissed, almost like purchasing an indulgence by the things he doesn’t do so he feels free to abuse his

kids.

To embrace a bunch of laws about things that you really don’t care that much about anyway, so that

you can turn away from loving your children, loving others and even loving your enemies with self-

sacrificing agape love is simply “acceptable” heresy.

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Agape LOVE = God

Philos Love

SELF LOVE = god

manipulation

alcohol

abuse


jealousy



Eros Love

immorality

lustadultery

sexual attr

activeness is

the gre

atest asset

eatin

g

diso

rder

s

self-scrutiny

plastic

surg

ery

heightened

sexual fantasy

un

reac

hab

le

exp

ecta

tio

ns

BLAMEEmptiness

Could anyone really expect to have any kind of a satisfying life under these dominating

characteristics?

What do we need to have permanently written to our hearts from what we have learned so far?

When Adam and Eve decided to eject God from the core of their lives, from their agape love, the Source of Love was ejected and an unconditional agape love

for self took over.

Think about it. If this is my pitiful condition, am I not loving myself with a truly unconditional love? Am I

not believing everything my flesh tells me? Am I not patiently enduring with unconditional love all of the

destruction my flesh causes?

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"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong

suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will

cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away." 1Cor 13:4-8

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I need to share something with you that is essential for you to consider. Maybe God is

going to grab somebody with it and give him or her a new perspective at a critical moment.

There are two different worlds that determine how we see self and how we interpret our

relationships to others that we can occupy, that have different and even opposing perspectives

that we must be able to identify.

The first has been my view from birth: The need to be loved and to discern when others do, and

do not, love ME.

Unfortunately, my flesh had commandeered that concept and rewritten it so as to mean that

when people did what I wanted, they loved me, and when they did not, they did not love me.

At very best, it only provided me with very temporary and short-lived comfort, that

inevitably baited me with higher expectations and hopes and then dashed me in painful

disappointment.

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Let me hasten to say that God created us with the need to be loved, and He chose to love us,

making it a perfect situation.

But as I said, when we don’t look to God for love, or receive it from God through a person

who loves with agape love, that need goes unfulfilled and is easily exploited by others who will use our need to extract what they want from us. They offer the promise of “love” as bait so

they can extract what they want.

To live, looking to be loved as a top priority in this world is guaranteed misery, abuse and

disaster!

God does want us to be loved, and loved perfectly, but when we seek first to be loved we

make ourselves supremely vulnerable.

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Look at the internet. How many women and girls do you know who have been seduced and

abused by predatory men on the internet?

How and why does it happen?

Women telegraph their need, looking for love and attention, and predators look for needy women. They say things to gain confidence

and trust until they have the opportunity to take and abuse.

What sets them up for this misery?It is their own choice to make being loved a priority without giving that need to God.

We know that God made us to be loved, but when people seek love as a priority from a world that doesn’t have any to give, they

destroy their own lives through their desperate choices which make them vulnerable.

So seeking love as a priority is one system we can occupy, but what is the other system that

we can live and think by?

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The other is absolutely revolutionary to common thought.

It is the NEED to love others with a self-sacrificing and totally unconditional love.

Because it is rooted in the Father, it has NO NEED, except to love without condition. It has

no need to be loved and will love unconditionally no matter what is or is not

returned.

If it ever sees “SELF”, it is only to assess what it has so that it might give to someone else – because it knows that the Father is its own

abundant supply. It is impossible to experience an unmet need.

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So let me finish this thought with two statements for you to remember regarding

these two systems you can inhabit.

If you live with a focus on loving others with an unconditional, agape love, you can NEVER be

damaged.

If you live focused on being loved and needing love from anyone but God and those through

whom His love flows, you can NEVER be whole.

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I hope you have all had the chance to exercise your skills in the identification of selfishness in

your thinking processes over the last two weeks.

I would say of myself that before we began this study, I had almost no skills in identifying

selfish thinking in my own life, and the relationship destruction was the proof.

Just remember that real healing of the heart only begins with the ability to identify the flesh

in our thoughts and values.

Even if you are able to identify self-centeredness in your thinking process, you still desperately need a driving force to expel it and

replace it with something that will fill the vacuum that made selfishness attractive to you

in the first place.

In other words, you will NEVER be able to overcome selfishness and the destruction that

follows it, by exercising discipline.

What can we use to fill the need in our hearts that seduces us to so many thoughts about

what the “SELF” wants? What do we have from God that will empower us to live properly?

There are actually two driving forces.

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The highest reason is probably not the most attractive due to our condition but must be

mentioned as at least a reason for the future.

Our highest reason is the glory and the pleasure of God. We were created for this

purpose, to know, to become intimate with God, and by our engagement with Him, experience

His glory, His life and Person so that when people see us, they see God in us.

So few of us are motivated by the desire to see God glorified and pleased, so that may not be

the most likely drawing point for us today.

What first step remains for those who are entangled by selfishness so that the glory of

God is not a priority?

It is exquisitely simple, perfectly adapted to our pathetic circumstances, and uniquely powerful.

What is it?

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"Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; Set me securely on high away from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from those who do iniquity And save me from men of bloodshed. For behold, they have set an ambush for my life; Fierce men launch an attack against me,

Not for my transgression nor for my sin, O Lord," Psalm 59:1-3What is the inspiration for David’s fervency in

this prayer?

That is not to say that there is anything wrong with David’s prayer – if God has allowed an enemy to touch your fleshly comfort, it is because He wants you to see how fragile

comfort is when it depends on SELF.

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"Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain

was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

2 Kings 6:15-17

What difference do you see between the prayer of David and that of Elisha?

How do you account for the difference? The reality of the danger and threat is clearly identical so the difference in mentality and the

identification of need is due to the perception of self and its relationship to Almighty God.

Learn this now: An infatuation with the SELF will absolutely prevent an accurate perception

of what is real, and what is temporal and insignificant. NEVER forget that!

David saw an enemy that threatened his life, which caused the fear that drove him to God

(which is why God allowed it).

Elisha saw God and therefore saw no enemy or threat to his life and prayed that his servant

would see the only reality.

Do you see how your view of God, and your subsequent view of self plays so heavily in how you interpret what is going on around you, and

how it impacts your thoughts and choices?

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David and Elisha’s servant saw a threat to their lives and safety.

Elisha saw a whole bunch of lost people, on their way to hell, that needed to have an

experience that would cause the reality of God to shake their world and open them to their

need.

Nobody sees a need for God without first seeing their own pitiful, helpless and culpable

position. THEN they want God!

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So long as you are dedicated to self-preservation, self-focus, you will be unable to see God’s reality which brings constant peace no matter what the circumstances might be –

which happens to be the ONLY reality.

Just remember that real healing of the heart only begins with the ability to identify the flesh

in our thoughts and values.

We all must depend on Jesus, living His life in our bodies, to provide the power to expel self-focus from us and give us the love for others

that will allow us to sacrifice ourselves for them. Discipline and determination will NEVER pull

off the life of Jesus in us.

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What would you guess is the most significant thing that the Bible says about love?

"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God

abides in him." 1 John 4:16

Let’s take a shot at identifying each phrase and what each of them teaches so that we can

assimilate their significance.

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What would it mean to you if you had come to “know” the love which God has for you?

As you might have anticipated, this is the word “γινώσκω” which is the knowledge that comes

through personal experience. So you could translate the Greek as “We have come to experience the love that God has for us.”

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Why do you suppose John added “believing” to “knowing” the love that God has for us?

“It is the same as though he had said, “We have known by believing;” for such knowledge is not

attained but by faith. But we hence learn how different, is an uncertain or doubtful opinion

from faith.” Calvin

You should also remember that when the verbs are clustered like that, it is for emphasis and we should pay particular attention to the point that

is being emphasized.

Can you tell me what that point is that is being emphasized?

We have an enormous need to “experience and to believe” the love that God has for us!!!

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I have to tell you that in the Greek the line “God has for us” actually reads “God has IN us.”

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“This is the same ἐν ἡμῖν that was found in verse 9. It does not mean “to us” (A. V.), “in us” (R. V.), “in our case” (R. V. margin), the German an uns, etc.;

but “in connection with us,” ἐν being used in its original meaning, the connection being the one

which the context indicates, here the fact that God’s love succeeded in connecting itself with us. For that reason, too, John says “the love which God has in

connection with us” while in the next breath he repeats from verse 8: “God is love.” Lenski

Love is invisible and arguably useless, and certainly not satisfied until it meets its object –

and YOU are the object of God’s infinite, uncontainable, unrelenting, inescapable love!

Pay very close attention to the prepositions and the associations that are stated in the

prepositions in our next verse.

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"By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him."

1John 4:9

God released His love inside of us and through us to others around us so that we can actually

LIVE THROUGH Him.

This is the word “διά” which means “by way of, by means of, as a consequence of Him”.

Do you see why literally everything that we do, think and say is to come as a result of the

function of God’s love doing what it does best in you?

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"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for (in) us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and

God abides in him." 1 John 4:16

So our first preposition here tells us that we know by experience and believe the love that

God has placed IN us by connecting Himself to us, that is, there is an association, a union

between us as individuals and God, and the God who is love now resides inside of us.

Somehow that love, the God who is love living in us, changes everything about US.

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Our second preposition talks about us abiding in love. Our third preposition tells us that the one abiding in love does in fact abide in God.

So what does this description begin to reinforce?

God IS LOVE! The one who remains in God, will find God always abiding in him, always living

out His life, thinking and choosing in our mortal bodies.

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Our last preposition tells us that if we remain in love, we will remain in God and God will remain

in us – does that sound like association?

To this point we need to see that there is a critical and intimate relationship between

loving, God’s love abiding in us, and remaining in that love so that there is free flow between

God and us, and those we love because of God in us.

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What do you suppose it means that “God is love” and why is he telling us that?

We find the same line in verse 8.

"The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 1 John 4:8

This is very important because it means that if we do not love, we aren’t “experiencing” God.

We need to look at the context to get the whole picture.

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"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live

through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the

propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides

in us, and His love is perfected in us." 1John 4:7-12

Verse 7 says that love is from God. Verse 8 says God IS love. If God is love, then the only way

that a person can truly love is through intimate interaction with God.

It means that it is a fundamental impossibility to love with agape love apart from God in us doing

the loving!

So what is it that mankind is sharing when what they share has no point of contact with God

who IS love?

It is important to realize that if man is not intimately connected to God so that God can

love in man, then man is imitating love in order to use a phony love to get what he wants from

others who believe he loves them.

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"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live

through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the

propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides

in us, and His love is perfected in us." 1John 4:7-12

When we know God we produce His fruit.

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"and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus

Christ.” 1John 1:2-3

“The basic fact is stated in 1:3, our fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. The

elaboration spirals upward from this pivoted fact of fellowship. We are shown all that joins us to God,

that we are in him, he in us (“remains in us,” 3:24).” Lenski

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We must come to this one conclusion if we want to live a satisfied life, and that is to conclude that there

is absolutely NOTHING that we can or should attempt to do safely.

Until we come to that very essential conclusion where we look only to the Lord to interpret for us what we see, and then the appropriate response, we are going to find ourselves doing foolish and

vulnerable things that take life from us rather than receiving the things that cause us to enjoy it.

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One of our greatest points of frustration with life comes from the collision of our original design and our poor life management skills.

God designed us to thrive in agape love with Him and with everyone we meet. That is what is

going to happen in heaven. But what do we experience under our own direction? The best we can muster without God animating our love is a totally self-seeking love. We try to love, but

because it is self-centered rather than God-centered, it is at very best, totally self-focused

and therefore can NEVER be satisfying for anyone including us as we languish!

And then what do we do with that?We live in misery and unsatisfied lives, which drives us to deeper self-commitment and

misery, and then we tell ourselves that life pretty much stinks but for the few things we

have or do that bring us some form of release, and we play out our lives the best that we can

under the circumstances that we create.

Do you know what all of this really means?It means that if I am cruising along in a relationship, like a marriage or a friendship, and I have become disappointed in it and question its value, it is NOT because of the other person

(which is probably what I am going to tell myself as I abandon that dissatisfying

relationship). It is really because I have begun that relationship on the desolate foundation of

self-love and then become disappointed when it does not satisfy.

Marriage is designed by God to satisfy only one way. When a husband loves his wife out of a pure agape love, and his wife loves him out of agape love, each seeing only the other and not

consuming them for selfish purposes, only then is love truly and completely realized. It might be better if one loves with agape, and it can

enrich the experience of both, but it can only reach its full potential under God’s design.

Realizing this kind of love flows to you in abundance from God causes you to be secure and takes away all fear and even concern and lets you live your life in total peace in any and

all circumstances.

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"So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” " (John 21:15, NASB95)

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

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"Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. " (Colossians 3:14, NASB95)

We have problems trusting God because we are more confident in ourselves than we are in God. Understand this: God is the only one who can open your eyes to see your profound trust in yourself, and you will NEVER be able to switch your trust in self to God without His direct action.

Documents

1 A husband and wife have been slowly drifting away from one another. The husband ended up having an affair with a coworker and his wife cannot forgive