We tried that for about a hundred years now, did it work?
Again., your reasoning is wrong in this matter of God's love too. What do you mean we tried that for 100 years? God's love didn't work? God's love works and it works by His first loving us. 1 John 4:19 "We love God because He first loved us."
Don't you know that unless you are loved by God first you cannot love Him back? Don't you know that His love leads the way? Not your love for God but His love for you. Did you read that..... Not our love for God but HIS love for us.
I know for instance that coming to CC sometimes can be really annoying and discouraging when guys and gals like you come against me annoyed I post too much about the love and grace of God in Christ. I need to remember over and over that before the love of God was shown to me by Jesus., I was always telling everyone about how they needed to first love God or else God wouldn't love them or help them. I was living under the law of sin and death back then even as a Christian even when He freed me to walk in the Spirit.
I didn't know how to love Him and was trying to know how and was telling others they needed to join in the fight and learn "discipline" to love God. But I couldn't do it because that is not how God works and He tells us so in His Word in 1 John 4:19 But if we don't follow His instructions., we will live a powerless life trying to love God first before receiving His love for us.
How insane is that?! Just as insane as your many posts about the law. You can't keep the law and get God's approval and love and grace.... only Jesus can and did. Step into the love of God IN Christ and it will free you to talk about the love of God for you and others and it will free you to walk in the obedience of faith.
Jesus has freed us from the law of sin and death and His Holy Spirit will teach us how to walk in newness of life. And it has a whole lot to do with finding out about the love of God in Christ.
[SUP]10 [/SUP]In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins.
[SUP]
11 [/SUP]Beloved, if God loved us so [very much], we also ought to love one another.
[SUP]
12 [/SUP]No man has at any time [yet] seen God. But if we love one another, God abides (lives and remains) in us and His love (that love which is essentially His) is brought to completion (to its full maturity, runs its full course, is perfected) in us!
[SUP]
13 [/SUP]By this we come to know (perceive, recognize, and understand) that we abide (live and remain) in Him and He in us: because He has given (imparted) to us of His [Holy] Spirit.
[SUP]
14 [/SUP]And [besides] we ourselves have seen (have deliberately and steadfastly contemplated) and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son [as the] Savior of the world.
[SUP]
15 [/SUP]Anyone who confesses (acknowledges, owns) that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides (lives, makes His home) in him and he [abides, lives, makes his home] in God.
[SUP]
16 [/SUP]And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells
and continues in love dwells
and continues in God, and God dwells
and continues in him.
[SUP]
17 [/SUP]In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion
and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world.
[SUP]
18 [/SUP]There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love [SUP][
b][/SUP]turns fear out of doors
and expels every trace of terror! For fear [SUP][
c][/SUP]brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love’s complete perfection].
[SUP]
19 [/SUP]We love
Him, because He first loved us.