What then is a Christian’s “indebtedness” to unconditionally-love?

 

 

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We saw from the previous BLOG the argument of 1 John 4:11, “If God already SO unconditionally-loved us, we kai subsequently (a) opheilo are-indebted (b) to ongoingly unconditionally-love one another,” which is an extension of what John said earlier in 1 John 3:16 “By this we have already [with ongoing effects] experientially, relationally ginosko known unconditional-love:  Because He (Jesus) already laid-aside-life-to-die (c) His psyche soul (d) for us, kai likewise we opheilo ongoingly are-indebted (b) to wholly/definitively lay-aside-life (c) our souls (d) for the brethren.”  The NT use of this word opheilo here for “indebtedness” is not a “work to remove debt” because that’s what the “propitiation of Christ” did, which is the exact point of 1 John 4:10.  Instead, this “indebtedness” is that of 1 Thessalonians 1:3 “labor of unconditional-love” as an act of gratitude or thanksgiving.  <Notes> a) kai usually means coupled-with, but can sometimes mean “still, besides, subsequently, moreover, likewise, even, indeed, namely, specifically,” b) opheilo: owe, are indebted or obliged to rectify/pay-off a legitimate debt, even of moral responsibility, c) tithemi:  set or lay into place – even downwards as with bowing or kneeling, to lay off or aside to carry no longer – even one’s life thus to die, purposefully establish or ordain into a fixed position, sometimes used of leadership – see Coaches and Facilitators, c) psyche:  mind, emotions, will – see Identity page.

 

What a Christian really opheilo ‘ought to do’ is continually have Christ’s unconditional-love fill their lives (Downwards-Vertical-Love) so that they, too, can say with Paul: “For the unconditional-love of/belonging-to Christ ongoingly sunecho ‘controls, preoccupies, constrains, or compels’ us, having krino judged-decided-by-separation this:  That One has already apothnesko away-from-life-died for ALL, therefore ALL have already apothnesko away-from-life-died, kai specifically (a) He already apothnesko away-from-life-died for ALL in order that those routinely still-living might (b) live absolutely-in-fact no longer reflexively-for-themselves but instead for the [One], [who] huper on-behalf-of (c) of them, having already apothnesko away-from-life-died and/coupled having already been raised” (d) – this is what Jesus did “on-behalf-of them.”  No one forces us to experience this – thus the use of the subjunctive “might.”  It’s our free-will response of gratitude, not forced obligation, duty, or legal requirement (as with the Old Testament Law) to pay back indebtedness.  <Notes> a) see note ‘a’ above, b) subjunctive mood of possibility, c) huper:  beyond/above, to extend benefit, help, betterment, or advantage beyond the present situation because of one’s particular interest, d) 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.

 

Preachers who harp on the OT commandment to “Love God with all your . . .” (Upwards-Vertical-Love) or harp on the OT commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Horizontal-love) are simply “teachers of the Law” desiring for people “to submit again to a yoke of slavery” (a), to “turn back again to the asthenes weak-worthless-beggarly-poor and/coupled ptochos destitute stoicheion elementary or rudimentary ‘abc’ fundamental principles of this world (and ALL its religions, including Judaism), whose slaves you want to be once more” (b).  However, Christians are “not under Law but under unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace” (c) for God “ongoingly anaireo takes/lifts-up/away-to-abolish/abrogate the first [covenant] in order to histemi establish (d) the second [covenant]” (e), because the OT covenant was “memphomai faulted-blameworthy-rejectable-condemnable” (g) and “thus palaioo made old-obsolete” (g) (h).  <Notes> a) Galatians 5:1, b) Galatians 4:9, c) Romans 6:14-15, d) set into place, made to stand up, balanced into place – this is another term used for those “placed” into leadership – see Coaches & Facilitators, e) Hebrews 10:9, f) Hebrews 8:7, g) palaioo: not just old, dated, or ancient in time, but also worn out by use, or worse for wear, obsolete, h) Hebrews 8:13.

 

Our opheilo ongoingly “indebtedness” is to stop listening to these ‘pushers’ of OT commandments and start listening to what the NT actually teaches!  The solution is not more Law but more dechomai receiving-welcoming and lambano seizing-for-yourself of God’s Downward-Vertical-Love by more “routine aiteo ‘asking for, seeking or earnestly desiring’ for His kingdom to come and His will to be done,” and more “routine aiteo ‘asking for, seeking or earnestly desiring’ for the good grace-gift of the Holy Spirit” that is actually the enabling-power of the God’s reign for “His kingdom to come.”

 

The Unconditional-Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit IS the ‘team of horses that PULL the cart’ of us Upward-Vertically loving God and Horizontally-loving people. Too many churches try to “get the cart before the horses” as if the “horses are PUSHING the cart,” by incessantly preaching commandments or “obligation/duty” to “love God” by obeying Him to “love others.”  However, that is the OT Way or emphasis of ‘PUSHING people from their back.’  This betrays the NT Way or emphasis of ‘PULLING people from their front’ by leading or guiding them or setting an example to follow:  The Unconditional-Love of God through Christ and His Spirit pleroo filling-to-completion Christians (Downwards-Vertical-Love) so that this divine fruit/nature/essence/definition of God as Unconditional-Love overflows from us into unconditional-love for God (Upwards-Vertical-love) and unconditional-love for people (Horizontal-love).  Now the Lord is ‘PULLING the cart!’

 

The Lord showed me that anytime you feel something really ‘PUSHING you from behind’ and making you feel guilty if you don’t obey, it’s actually the demonic spirit of the taskmaster!  The taskmasters that whipped the backs of the Jews for 400 years to make bricks from mud and straw to build Egypt’s buildings, were themselves being ‘whipped’ verbally (maybe even physically) by their superiors if they didn’t obey, and so on up the hierarchy of command.  This obedience really is just a “burden or yoke of slavery” (a), which is NOT Christ’s Way of gentleness, well-fitted comfort, and lightness to carry (b), nor should it be of the Church or its leadership (c), because “Christ’s Law” to “unconditionally-love one another as I have unconditionally-loved you” (d) is to “bear/help-carry one another’s burdens” (e).  The ‘whipping’ along the chain of command starts by Satan ‘whipping’ his subordinates for their failures.  You know the saying, “the fish stinks from the head down” and the other saying that “shit rolls downhill” – well this ‘whipping’ goes all the way down from the top to the bottom.  These are the over-bearing, micro-managing, berating bosses we’ve all had!  They are being ‘PUSHED’ and ‘whipped’ from a chain of command, ultimately by a chain of demonic forces!   <Notes> a) Galatians 5:1; Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46, b) Matthew 11:30; 1 John 5:3; Revelation 2:24, c) Acts 15:28; 2 Corinthians 8:13, 11:9, 12:13-16; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8; 1 Timothy 5:16, d) John 13:34, 15:12; 1 John 3:23; 2 John 1:5, e) Galatians 6:2, f) Revelation 12:10.

 

The source of all this is “the accuser of the brethren” giving legal assignments to his army of lawyer demons that accuse us in the Court of God all day long (a).  He and his demon-lawyers use the ‘musts’ or ‘have-tos’ or ‘shoulds’ or ‘ought-tos’ of the Law to ‘PUSH’ us from behind and if we don’t obey, they accuse us before God and make us feel guilty and worthy of condemnation.  If we fail to obey, they make us angry at ourselves and want to give up entirely on God.  Many people have committed suicide as a result!  If we don’t they just keep ‘whipping’ us, even when we are down!  This is the great deceiver, masquerading as the Voice of God, even as an ‘angel of light” (b), preaching “a different gospel which is no gospel (The Great News) at all” (c).  The OT commandments, that make up 97.4% of the OT (d), are ALL terribly bad news, telling us that we all are failures, worthless, and worthy of condemnation and death (e), thus appropriately called “the Law of sin and death” (f) because the “sting of death is sin and/coupled the dunamis dynamite-like enabling-power of sin is the Law” (g). <Notes> a) Revelation 12:10, b) 2 Corinthians 11:14, c) Galatians 1:6, d) see Logos Word of God – BT5a, e) 2 Corinthians 3:7, 9; Romans 3:10-20 citing:  Psalms 14:1-3, 53:1-3, 5:9, Jeremiah 5:16, Psalms 140:3, 10:7, Proverbs 1:16, Isaiah 59:7-8, Psalms 36:1, f) Romans 8:2, g) 1 Corinthians 15:56.

 

A lot of preachers are deceived and deceiving.  They are preaching the Law that says all that matters is that the ‘cart is moving,’ because the ‘ends justify the means,’ and the fastest way to do that is to take control by ‘putting the cart before the horses’ so that ‘the horses can PUSH the cart.’  The ‘moving cart’ is the Torah or Nomos ‘instruction’ of God as expressed by the Law of commandments, rules, regulations, ordinances, decrees, and precepts issued from The Judge.  This is 97.4% of the OT as note ‘d’ above indicates!  The ‘horses’ are us, but in order for them to ‘PUSH ’ the cart of God’s intended righteousness and holiness forward into this world, you will have to ‘whip’ those horses (us) constantly, because it will be as difficult as making bricks from mud and straw, especially when they cut back the amount of straw as they did the Jews to punish them for insubordination.  PUSHING is way more inefficient than PULLING!  The taskmasters will “whip” the horses (us) even harder until we work faster, harder, and longer to ‘PUSH’ that “Law cart of intended righteousness and holiness” even over rocky terrain and uphill.  And if we slack or complain or stop out of exhaustion, they will ‘whip’ us harder!  This is the impossibly ‘bad news’ of the Law, and the accusing demon-lawyers use it all day and night against us!  Only 2.6% of the OT prophesied of the New Testament, and so this is ‘the portion’ in front of ‘the Law cart’ – see Logos Word of God – BT6.

 

What’s an even greater deception is that many preachers say this ‘whipping’ of Christians is actually “the conviction of the Holy Spirit” keeping us from sin, calling us to righteousness, and avoiding judgment so then we have no fear of it.  Blasphemy!  The only verse that talks about this (John 16:8) clearly in context is speaking about convicting an unbelieving “world” of the sin of not having trusting-relying-faith in Jesus, the Righteous and Holy One, thus rejecting “righteousness of Christ” as the only solution to sin, and thus facing “the judgment to come” for rejecting this solution!  It is blasphemy to say the Holy Spirit is a ‘taskmaster’ to ‘PUSH’ Christians.  Blasphemy!

 

But Christ’s ‘Great News’ gospel is the exact opposite because the NT is ‘in front’ of the OT.  God accomplishes His desired ‘cart motion’ of righteousness and holiness, the “good works ordained for us” (a) NOW in a completely-different-in-kind, superior NEW WAY of the like-kind New Covenant!  He already accomplished it completely through His Son and then takes that burden of obedience away from us, voiding that contract, and thus katargeo abolishing our obligation/duty to it (b).  Thus God put the OT behind us where it belongs!  NOW Paul speaks of Jesus’ victory:  “having already forgiven us ALL our trespasses (c), already having blotted-out/erased the cheirographon handwriting by the means of dogma ‘doctrines, propositions, decrees, laws, or ordinances’ that stood-over-opposite-against us.  This He airo ‘lifts/raises up upon Himself to carry, thus bears it,’ nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him” (e).  Christ legally takes the power away from the demon-lawyer accusing-taskmasters, even making a public spectacle of them!  Remember, the dunamis, dynamite enabling-power of sin is the Law” (f).  That’s why Jesus had to katargeo abolish it, so they have no legal right to use the Law against us.  Now in court, our Parakletos Advocate Jesus rebuked Satan (g) and NOW his lawyer-demon representatives, even giving Christians authority of them (h), and says, “Not guilty, paid in full by MY obedience, by My blood. They are now acquitted of all charges. Case closed. Next case.”  Those lawyers have to leave in shame, empty-handed, and go back to their demon superiors to likely be ‘whipped’ for failure! <Notes> a) Matthew 5:16; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Timothy 6:18; Titus 2:7, 14, 3:8, 14; Hebrews 10:24, b) Romans 7:6; Ephesians 2:15; 2 Corinthians 3:14, c) paraptoma:  falling away, lapse, slip, error, or deviation after being close-beside The Truth, d) airo:  lifts up, raises upward, elevates, draws upward; take upon oneself and carry what has been raised up, thus bear; to bear/carry away what has been raised, e) Colossian 2:13-15, f) 1 Corinthians 15:56, g) Zechariah 3:2, cf. Mark 8:33, h) Matthew 16:19, 18:18; Mark 3:15; Luke 9:1.

 

Now the Lord accomplishes His ‘cart motion’ of righteousness and holiness IN us a completely-different-in-kind WAY!  He pours out His saving unconditional-love Downwards-Vertically to us by Christ and INTO us by the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Then this supernaturally ‘PULLS’ us forward by “ongoingly sunecho ‘controlling, preoccupying, constraining, or compelling” us as Paul declared above.  It not only ‘PULLS on our heart-strings,’ it ‘lifts us up’ towards “things above” (a) like the rapture will.  This is the Lover calling His beloved!  This is wooing and courtship!  <Notes> a) Colossians 3:1-2.

 

What has the Lord done?  He put the ‘horse-power’ – the enabling-power of the Holy Spirit – INTO ‘the horses’ (us) and He put the ‘moving cart of righteousness and holiness’ behind us where it belongs, like the OT should be,  and NOW that “cart” doesn’t constantly have to be kept ‘clean’ or ‘purified’ through our constant “works of righteousness” because by Christ’s blood, our confession of faith in it, and the Advocate’s intercession of the “Holy and Righteous One” we are forever kept clean and purified holy!

 

Now the inwardly-empowered Christian ‘horses’ no longer having to be ‘whipped’ from behind or even ‘whipped’ from within by Satan and his demons, but NOW the Christian ‘horses’ are deeply unconditionally-loved by God, which from heaven ‘lifts or PULLS us up,’ with a dunamis dynamite-like enabling-power that can finally move ‘the cart of righteousness and holiness” forward to accomplish God’s kingdom and will here on earth as it already is in heaven.  That’s how the Lord gets His work done, by giving us His unconditional-love that works IN us, making us His workmanship (a), and through us reflexively back up to Himself (Upwards-Vertical-love) but also out to others (Horizontal-love).  That’s how the essence of the 2 greatest OT commandments to “Love God and love others” that sums up the entire OT Law, NOW actually gets done!  He does it a completely-different-in-kind NEW WAY – by the like-kind NEW Covenant (NT), not by the palaios “old, antiquated, worn-out, useless” covenant (OT).  He puts the NT ‘in front’ of the OT, but religious Christians and churches will always try to “borrow” from the OT to ‘PUSH’ Christians by ‘guilting’ them into obedience, but this is putting the OT ‘in front’ of the NT, the ‘cart before the horses’ – and this is why all this is the foundational problem of The Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit in the Church. <Notes> a) Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 12:6, 15:10; Hebrews 13:21.

 

Reflection:

 

 

As Christian musicians, do we want to continue the demon-lawyer ‘taskmaster’ use of the palaios “old, antiquated, worn-out, useless” covenant to ‘whip’ people into obedience, ‘whipping’ us like horses to ‘push the cart of holiness up the hill?’  Or are we going to embrace the completely-different-in-kind New Covenant WAY of routinely, relentlessly asking for God to fill-to-completion our mind/heart/inner-being by His Holy Spirit of Unconditional-Love and patiently waiting for God to work in us both to desire and to do His good pleasure, so that His Unconditional-Love then ‘lifts’ the horses heavenward, NOW giving us the supernaturally-enabling-power to ‘pull’ the cart of righteousness and holiness forward for His kingdom to actually come on earth as it already is in heaven?  Our “indebtedness” is no longer to obedience to “the works of righteousness” but to “live for Jesus” out of gratitude, thanksgiving, and worship for Christ’s demonstration of unconditional-love.  We are to ongoingly “unconditionally-love others JUST AS Jesus unconditionally-loved us.”

 

If there is any ‘duty or obligation’ it really is to dechomai receive-welcome and lambano seize-for-yourself the grace-gift of Christ’s unconditional-love.  It is to “routinely be filled-to-completion with the abundant-fullness of God by the means of the Holy Spirit” so that we can continue to genuinely, experientially, relationally epiginosko know the Lord and overflow His unconditional-love back up to God and to others, thus fulfilling the essence of the OT but from the inside-out.  We are no longer following rules, but Jesus!  We are no longer working FOR God but letting God work IN us!  For Christ’s experienced unconditional-love now “ongoingly sunecho ‘controls, preoccupies, constrains, or compels’ us!”  What we ‘ought’ to stop doing is listening to preachers who aren’t preaching the Great News Gospel, but just cleverly disguising (or often openly) the rules of the OT.  Stop listening to this garbage – it will send you straight to hell, for “the power of sin is the Law of commandments!”  What we ‘ought’ to stop doing is also listening to the ‘taskmaster’ demon-lawyers using the Law to condemn us.  Take authority to ‘bind’ them and kick them out of God’s court and then ‘loose’ more of the Holy Spirit in your life!

 

Prayer:

   

 

Lord, thank You so much for abolishing the Law of commandments and thus disarming those demon-lawyers from having the right to accuse us before You.  Now we can be free from being pushed from behind to do “works of righteousness” but instead focus everything on experiencing more of Your Unconditional-Love nature and allowing You to work IN and through us to accomplish Your will on earth as it is in heaven.  Thank You for bringing it from our “might and power” efforts back to relationship “by My Spirit” so that even little children and “the least among us” can have this great supernatural, enabling-power of God in their lives!

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Education, Unconditional Agape Love, Forgiveness instead of Judgment, Emotional Healing, Living like Christ, Christian sacrificial-loving of others as indebtedness to Christ’s sacrificial-love for us, Love is our indebted work for Christ, The Love of Christ woos us and controls us, Loving others is not a duty but a voluntary response to experience Christ’s love for us, Loving others is not a forced commandment as with OT commandments, Fill up with God’s love to supernaturally be able to love others, legalism get the cart before the horses, legalism tries to push the cart with the horses using rules, loving grace pulls the cart with the horses of the Spirit, Satan’s taskmaster whips the horses to drive them, The Lord pulls the horses by His love, Satan drives us with Law-based accusations, The Holy Spirit only convicts worldly sinners but gently counsels Christians, Christians now have Christ as our Defense attorney