Page 59 - eBook Living Water 2

1 John 4:8 states, “God is love.” It doesn’t say He has love. It
says love is a Person and that Person is God. Webster’s describes
love as “unselfish concern that freely accepts another in loyalty and
seeks his good.” The Greek word for “love” in 1 John 4:8 is “agape”
which is defined as a “love feast of charity.” Charity is an act of
giving. The original family in heaven of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit were constantly pouring themselves out in unselfish concern, a
charitable love feast of love; one for another.

In the overflow of that love feast in heaven, the triune God
predetermined to have an extended family in order to lavishly pour
out their love onto others. Psalm 139:16 “Thine eyes have seen my
unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days
that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” In
the Garden of Eden (Paradise) in Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us
make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” God
originally created man to be in His image, as part of His family.
What is the image of God? 2 Corinthians 4:4, “..in whose case the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they
might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God.” Jesus is the image of God.

God’s angel Lucifer (Satan) had already fallen from heaven to
earth because he wanted to be a separate god, an independent being,
thinking he could exalt himself in self-love. He was the Holy God’s
opposite – evil self-love. God warned Adam and Eve in the garden
not to eat of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, as they
would “surely die”. They were free to eat of every other tree.
However, they disobeyed. Through their willingness to accept
independent self-knowledge of good and evil, they became separated
from God, and under the control of Satan’s sin spirit. Man was sent
out of the Garden where he had communed and been in relationship
with God, into the world where, not only did he obtain eventual
physical mortality, but also obtained a spirit of death through his
separation from God, because he thought he could be a free individual
and be like God.