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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Heaven’s culture of relationships is vastly different than most everything we see on earth because God, the Father, is less interested in compliance and much more interested in love. This is the reason that He is trying to prepare us to live absolutely free lives in an environment of unlimited options more than trying to keep us from sin.
When the law is written on our hearts and minds and when God Himself dwells in us, we no longer need to be controlled from the outside, because we have the capability and responsibility to control ourselves—to tell ourselves what to do and to make ourselves do it.
The reason many of us have an Old Testament parenting model is that we are still living in an Old Testament paradigm that builds an external structure to protect us from the powers of sin and death, instead of activating the power of God within us to do so. We still believe that sin is more powerful than we are.
Removing the training instrument of punishment is not a new concept. First John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (NIV). It means that all the fear leaves your life when love comes in. There is no fear of punishment in love!
When the law dictates compliance, you need the presence of a punisher to protect those laws. But when my heart is connected to your heart, my decisions are designed to protect our relationship no matter how far out of my presence you are. I actually live in your presence when my heart is connected to your heart, and the deposit you have made inside my life steers me in your absence.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a believer and you can quote First John 4:4: “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (NASB). You don’t believe it if you feel controlled by the world around you. Do you feel powerless in the face of a toddler’s tantrum or a mouthy 14-year-old?
