A simple starter question: Is who I am and how I operate based on love coming in? Or, going out?
So, how do I see love? ….. I have a friend who made an interesting comment; “I know they didn’t love me …” I pondered that statement and later asked; “What made you think they didn’t love you ?…” The answer was that there was a lack of what was coming in. Love should have been coming in (in many forms). “Since love was not coming in (as I thought it should), I had to leave.”
As an infant and as a child, love is all about what is coming in. My relationship with you, the church, and often with God, is based on what I am receiving from you. So as a child I really have no control except to try and protect myself from what is and what isn’t coming in. When asking a child about how their love is going out there will be a blank stare or a very conditional answer. “What are you doing for mom’s birthday?”
In order to have a base of love from which to operate all of life; Love must to be going out regardless of the response or lack there of. This requires as a minimum an adult level of relational maturity and at best a parent level. I love because of who I am and because of the One who is in me.
Satan and the world operate from a fear base. Jesus operates from a Love Base. He calls us as children “Herein is love, not that we loved Him, but that He first loved us and gave His life for us!” 1John4:10 I, as His son, must also operate from my love base the same way as Jesus does where love is always going out in every situation. 1John4:11