PODCAST – Love’s Debt

Love’s Debt

“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors…”
Romans 8:12

Study Guide Below

 

“Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people”
Hebrews 2:17

“The whole scope of the New Covenant, and the scope and magnitude of Christ’s coming to be an offering for our sin, is strictly because of LOVE. God has created us to be filled and dominated by His love, but when we have multiple realms of love and desires raging within us we are of a divided heart. We sense that warfare, we sense that chaos, that inner turmoil of heart because God has created us with the capacity to be subservient to HIS Love – free from our own agendas, free from our own desires to be centered on self.

And so there is a necessity for the continuation of the love of God to be moving and dwelling within us that we continue to be free from, and continue to be pruned from all other things until we become utterly subservient to Him; constrained by HIS Love. The depth of ministry that flows from a life will always be proportional to the power of the love of God that has gripped it. We are called to enter into such a relationship with Him that His heart brings us into the same obligation that He Himself felt when He walked this earth, and we really know nothing of the love of God unless, and until, we begin to feel that same necessity for one another.”
– Brian Troxel

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Study Guide for Podcast

Love’s Debt

Three distinct realms of love in the Greek

Eros —— Flesh –
Phileo —- Soul – Brotherly affection
Agape —- Spiritual – The Love of God

“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”
Romans 8:12-13

Every realm of love carries within itsef an inherent need.

“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul”
1 Peter 2:11

Agape

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”
John 3:16

“Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”
Hebrews 2:17 (behoved used above in the Greek is an imperfect active verb indicating an ongoing ministration of His heart)

Behoved (Greek Definition):
1. opheilo (G3784), “to owe,” is once rendered “behove,” Heb 2:17; it indicates a necessity, owing to the nature of the matter under consideration; in this instance, the fulfillment of the justice and love of God, voluntarily exhibited in what Christ accomplished, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. See BOUND, DEBT, DUE, DUTY, GUILTY, INDEBTED, MUST, NEED, OUGHT, OWE.
2. dei (G1163), “it is necessary,” is rendered “behoved,” in Luk 24:46; RV, (that the Christ) “should” (suffer). Dei expresses a logical necessity, opheilo, a moral obligation; cf. chre, Jas 3:10, “ought,” which expresses a need resulting from the fitness of things.
Vine’s New Testament Greek

“Metaphorically, to be bound or obligated to perform a duty, meaning I ought, must”
Greek New Testament Dictionary

The Necessity of Jesus

“And He said to them, “Why [is it] that you were seeking Me? Did you not know that it is necessary for Me to be in the things of My Father?” And they did not understand the saying that He spoke to them…”
Luke 2:49-50 (LSV) (translated MUST in KJV) Greek Word DEI see above

Agape in the Apostle Paul

“…for I did not keep back from declaring to you all the counsel of God. Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit made you overseers, to feed the Assembly of God that He acquired through His own blood, for I have known this, that there will enter in, after my departing, grievous wolves to you, not sparing the flock, and there will arise, men of your own selves, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, watch, remembering that three years, night and day, I did not cease with tears warning each one; and now, I commend you, brothers, to God, and to the word of His grace, that is able to build up, and to give you an inheritance among all those sanctified. I coveted the silver or gold or clothing of no one…”
Acts 20:27-33

Agape in the Assemblies of God

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Galatians 5:13-18

“And now, God set the members, each one of them in the body, according as He willed, and if all were one member, where [is] the body? And now, indeed, [are] many members, but one body; and an eye is not able to say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
1 Corinthians 12:18-21 (LSV)

“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ”
Ephesians 4:15

The heart filled with the Agape of God is obligated to speak the truth by love and in love.

Brian Troxel