God Can Make You Increase In Love - Zac Poonen
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Summary
The central message is that true holiness is synonymous with love, as taught by John. To be established in holiness before the Lord's return, believers must actively increase and abound in love for God and one another. This means that a failure to love—whether failing to love one's spouse, enemies, or others—is what prevents spiritual readiness, and the goal should be to 'out-love' others rather than merely outlive them.
Outline
The message in plain words, in the order it unfolds. Select a time to jump the video to that moment.
God is light and tolerates no sinThe foundational message of fellowship with God is understanding that God is light and cannot tolerate the smallest sin, requiring sensitivity of conscience.1 John 1:4–5
Holiness is defined as loveWhile God is light and holy, John also tells us God is love, meaning true holiness is actually love that increases and abounds.
Out loving rather than outlivingThe goal of the Christian life is not to live a long life like people in the world try to do, but to follow Jesus by out loving others.
Is the new commandment really new?While the Old Testament commanded loving your neighbor, Jesus gave a new commandment to love one another specifically as He loved us.John 13:34
Loving one another by dying to selfJesus loved us by laying down His life on a cross, which means our love for family and fellow believers requires dying to ourselves rather than getting easily offended.
God's love includes reproof and disciplineA true mark of Jesus' love and an elder's love is not just being nice, but offering necessary reproof and discipline for our ultimate good.Revelation 3:19
Aiming for a hundred percent without blameBy judging ourselves daily and accepting God's correction, we can stand before the Lord unblameable and receive a hundred percent at the judgment seat of Christ.
Asking the Lord to cause you to increase in loveWhen we find it impossible to love difficult people like rebellious children or unloving spouses, we must ask God to supernaturally cause us to increase in love.
God at work inside you to will and to doThe fundamental difference of the New Covenant is that God works inside us through the Holy Spirit not only to desire His will, but to actually carry it out.Philippians 2:13
Moving from David's desire to Jesus' obedienceIn the Old Testament, David only had the desire to do God's will, but Jesus came in the New Covenant to actually do it, moving us past empty imitation into true supernatural obedience.Psalm 40:8
