3/17/76
A. Definition.
1. Love comes in four categories for the royal family:
a. Category one is toward God.
b. Category two is toward right man or right woman.
c. Category three is toward friends.
d. Category four is “loving the brethren” or impersonal love.
2. Category one love is the believer’s capacity to love God and to respond to God’s love based on Bible doctrine in his soul.
3. Category one love is maximum when the believer reaches maturity or occupation with Christ.
4. The command to have category one love is found in Deut 6:5, 11:13, 10:12. Apart from the daily function of GAP, it is impossible to love God, Heb 12:2.
B. The Means of Category One Love.
1. Since God is invisible and the object of category one love, we must see and love Him through doctrine in the soul. We can only see God and love Him through His Word.
2. The reversionist doesn’t love God because he is under Satan’s policy of evil.
3. The immature believer doesn’t love God because he too lacks Bible doctrine in the soul.
4. You cannot love God unless you know God, and you cannot know God unless you have metabolized enough pertinent doctrine, 1 Pet 1:8, Eph 3:18-19, Heb 6:10, 2 Tim 1:13-14, Col 3:1-2. Category one love is the most difficult love of all, because it takes consistency in the inhale and exhale of doctrine.
C. Category one love sets up the standard for grace, Ps 119:132, Ps 31:23. You have to have capacity to be grace oriented.
D. Category one love is the basis for supergrace blessing, 1 Cor 2:9, Ps 37:4-5.
E. Category one love is the basis for personal and national blessing, Deut 30:15-20.
F. Category one love motivates combat courage and military victory, Josh 23:10-11.
G. Category one love provides strength for adversity and pressure, Heb 11:27, 12:3.
H. There is a special curse on believers who fail to have category one love in 1 Cor 16:22. They are said to be “cursed until the Lord comes.”
I. Witnessing must be motivated by category one love. 2 Cor 5:14, “The love of Christ controls us.”
J. The Description of Category One Love, 1 Jn 4:15-19. The mature believer isn’t afraid of anything. God the Father expects you to love God the Son as much as He does. That is the divine standard, but it is only possible through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit inside the divine dynasphere.
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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