Independence (== Sin) vs. Dependence (== Love)

The Father and The Son perfectly love each other. It is so perfect that Jesus describes their relationship as not just with each other, but in each other.

John 17:21: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one.” [ESV]

This kind of love for one another and unity is hard for us to understand because all we have ever experienced is “with each other.” That is because of The Fall and our separation from God.

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🪑 Condition vs. Position

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Truth: Identity comes from being loved by God.

• This is how identity has been eternally known in The God Community: The Son is the Son because he is loved by the Father. The Father is the Father because he is loved by the Son_.

WHAT CREATES OUR IDENTITY?

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🏷️ Identity in Christ

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🏁 Free Will vs. Free Choices

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God’s nature is love (Father–Son–Spirit)

• 1 John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

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  🫆The Nature of Divine Love

  ♾️ The Nature of Eternal Love

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• We are made in God’s God’s image_; that image is love one another_.

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Our souls are longing for God’s love according to their original design. Every cup and every craving is fulfilled only when we are loved by God and love God in return. This is how creation was designed in the first place. Otherwise, we try to satisfy our identity with something else.

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• Intimacy is “love resulting in unity.”

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👩‍❤️‍👨 Intimacy

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🏳️ Surrender

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• Why is it so hard to build intimacy in a church or a community? When we are totally seen for who we are, we are loved, this creates a community where we are:

  • __secure enough to be vulnerable;
  • safe enough to be honest;
  • free enough to enjoy thinking of others before ourselves.

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  “If I pray more or have stronger faith, I can be more intimate with God.” → This kind of thinking puts God into a box of conditional love and makes intimacy depend on performance.

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Therefore, our __identity is intimacy, based in love and unity. This only happens in relationship to God.