20.1 Set It Free
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Let’s put in front of us the eighth most important verse in the Bible. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. — By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (John 15:12-13 & 1 John 3:16).
Then, we have proposed combining the truths in these lines together with the pattern of home called “Private Edges – Common Core.” As we start, I have less idea how these fit together than any of the others, yet I know precisely where we are going.
The Cause of All. In order to know how to get there, let’s first set before us, in brief, where we are headed in these two sessions.
The CAUSE of all things in creation is that God is Love. Yet Love, by its very essence, contains its own agony. – Love suffers long. You see, what is Love except there be a Beloved? And what is Love except that which CANNOT disrespect anyone?
And even more than that, what kind of a tearing is it that GOD – loves? For what good is all of His love to God when His Beloved cannot know Him. Love, by its very essence and meaning, must rip God wide open. And so Love brings forth His Beloved, KNOWING that just as He cannot force Himself upon her, so also she cannot actually know Him.
A Familiar Saying. Let’s bring in a saying; in fact, as I look up its origins, I see that we need to bring all this into our thinking. The first known reference is from “The Tyranny of Love” by Harry Kronman, in Esquire magazine, 1951. “I mean, if you love something very much, you’ve got to go easy with it—give it some room to move around. If you try to hold it tight like that, it’ll always try to get away.” Then, educator Jess Lair included a version he had received from an unnamed student in 1969. “If you want something very, very badly, let it go free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with.”
Then, the third version is from the graphic artist Peter Max in 1972 who ascribed his line to “Unknown.” “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” This was the version I first heard in 1977. (From https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/08/love-set-free)
Although the actual origin of this line is not fully known, we now understand that these words best express the anguish of God’s heart as He brought forth His creation in the first place. Love brought forth His Beloved KNOWING that she could not know His love, knowing that He would lose her.
God Entering Creation. Let’s fast forward, now, to the present moment. There is one way only by which God can be known as Love by His creation. And that one way is for God Himself to enter into His creation as part of His creation. And when we say “creation” we are including absolutely everything in all the spiritual realms of the heavens right along with every physical thing in all the galaxies. There is only one creation, spirit and matter merged utterly together as one, heaven and earth.
This, then, is the context for these words: By this we have known love [God made visible], because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes [story for story, life for life]; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters – (JSV).
God Made Visible. God is power, yes, but a different sort of power than most think. God is life power. There is no clearer picture of life power than a plant springing up from beneath the dirt or a baby being born. But God is not power in His essence; in His essence, God is love. Thus we know that God seen and known IS Christians loving one another with a pure heart fervently.
Love one another <>God seen and known. Same thing.
God seen and known <> Love one another. Same thing.
Seems simple enough, nonetheless it has never actually happened. God is not seen and known – Christians have not loved one another with God Himself. Knowing our goal, let’s look, now, at Patterns of Home.
From Patterns of Home. Most homes are made for groups of people. To support the social life of their residents, they must contain a balance and a variety of private and common spaces. But just because a home has these spaces doesn’t necessarily mean they will work. For example, a private homework space won’t help foster good study habits if it is too remote and children never use it. A dramatic dining room, beautifully lit and furnished, but isolated from the casual flow of traffic through a house, will never become a space that draws people together and provides a focus for informal social life.
In terms of privacy and community, the rooms in conventional homes are often either/or: They are either retreats or places to gather. But while family life requires such places, it also needs places that are half private, places where a few people can talk and still be socially connected with someone who is sitting nearby reading the paper. Children often want to be “alone” in the presence of the family, and this is a need that persists in various forms throughout adulthood. Homes that support these kinds of needs with a variety of private and half-private places more and less related to the common core help their inhabitants establish a personal common/private comfort level within the family. Finding the right mix of common and private spaces, and putting them together in a way that allows both to flourish, is one of the central issues of home design.
Working with the Pattern. To support the complexities of family life, houses need a balance of social and private spaces. The social places themselves should be knit together to form a strong common heart with private places at its edge.
- Organize the main social spaces of the house—kitchen, dining, and living/family rooms—as a single flowing common space, with one place as its clear heart.
- Make the heart a generous, attractive space, just off the main circulation crossroads of the house—protected from the traffic, yet located so that everyone coming and going passes by it.
- Give the commons a semi-private edge, with places to sit and read or even just lean—places that allow people to take up a position away from the core but still be a part of it.
- In contrast to the common area at the heart, create a sequence of private spaces, some immediately adjacent to the heart, some relatively remote.
- The private spaces, even at their most remote, should be conceived as edges that give definition to the commons by the fact of separating themselves from it.
- Create an intimacy gradient, with a variety of corresponding ceiling heights, from the largest and highest-ceilinged commons to the most intimate and lowest-ceilinged edge.
- In a larger home with distinctly separate areas such as an upstairs or a large separate wing, recreate the pattern of private edges – common core, though on a lesser scale than that designed into the primary part of the house.
That the World May Know. And now I see clearly how to divide this topic. In this session, I will continue to talk about family love and community as family. Then, in the next session, “The Ekenosis,” I want to discover how family love is God seen and known in power. That they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me (John 17:23b).
Before discovering seven points in the eighth most important verse, let’s look briefly at this word, “heart,” which has appeared again in this pattern. Here, the “heart” is a constructed part of the house; earlier we looked at the heart of the site, something quite different.
Two Types of Heart. The heart of the house is love; the heart of the site is friendship. The two are quite different things; let me explain.
I love my wife; my wife is my best friend. Our marriage is built on love, however, not friendship. Great burdens have been placed upon our love over the years, but it has only grown stronger and deeper. On the other hand, many marriages are built upon friendship, imagining that friendship is actually love. When great burdens are placed upon friendship, it must always break apart.
Friendship is the best part of the site, something we never destroy by placing burdens upon it. Love is the heart of the house, able to carry all the burdens of life.
Seven Action Points. Let’s reduce the pattern down, now, to seven action points.
1. Organize the social spaces into the heart of the home. 2. Make that heart attractive, accessible, and protected. 3. Create semi-private spaces around the central core. 4. Design the private spaces around, but separate from the heart. 5. Design the private spaces to be the “thick” border of the heart. 6. Create an intimacy gradient, from family to personal. 7. Duplicate the “common core – private edges” pattern throughout a larger house.
All the way through we are talking about the living, laughing, loving flow of family, the essence of Christian community. Now we are ready for the ruling “verse” of love.
Love One Another. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends (NKJV). — By this we have known love [God made visible], because He set forth his soul, His story of self, for us, for our sakes [story for story, life for life]; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters – (JSV).
1. Jesus is imparting to us Jesus’ own commandment, placed upon Him by Father, that He fulfill this love in us.
2. Jesus’ own commandment then transfers directly to us as He fulfills Himself in us, but in the form of reciprocal love. This reciprocal love for one another, then, is exactly the same thing as Jesus’ love for each one of us.
3. The greatest of all love, that is, God-Love, is expressed outwardly in one occurrence, that of a Man laying down His life for His friends.
4. Love is made visible by Jesus’ setting forth His soul for us. The key word is – By this we KNOW – God made visible.
5. Everything Jesus is – we are also. Everything Jesus does – we do also.
6. God-made-visible requires a special kind of commitment.
7. God-made-visible is fully and finally expressed, then, in a free-flowing and reciprocal, that is, family life, laying down our lives, setting forth our souls for one another on a daily basis.
In the Jesus Secret Version of 1 John, we see that an invisible God made visible as well as God living inside of us and we inside of God are much more prominent than we have known.
Family Life. We are talking about family life, the rich and rewarding flow of many sharing all the joys and sorrows of life together in precious fellowship.
Each one of us is the Ark of the Covenant as individual members, and each one of us practices the Mercy Seat towards one another. But it is clear to me that the Old Testament term for “A Man laying down His life for His friends” is the Mercy Seat. And there I will meet with you.
I am picturing the hub-bub, the quietly flowing effervescence of conversation and laughter found in the sharing together of life, particularly around the dinner table – God among us.
God Among Us. Thus we see that this quality and practice as God has taught us, being the Mercy Seat for one another, is truly for Father’s sake. For it is this quality of drawing one another into our hearts filled with all the love of God, and there, setting one another free – setting one another free – setting one another free, to arise into all the life God created us to be, it is this quality that is the heart of Christian Community, the heart of God.
It is this quality that then permeates every part of daily life together with the blood and life of Jesus flowing among us. This is the Ekenosis, for we have thus become part of another Being, making Himself visible inside His creation, now part of that creation in all joy and wonder.
Share Heart with God. We need our seven points from the eighth most important verse reduced down to simple actions. These things seem to be more simply expressed than previous sets of action points; nonetheless, we are looking at the very heart of God beating as our life together.
1. Receive love as Jesus’ own commandment from Father. 2. Love one another with exactly the same love that is Jesus. 3. Value life-laid down as God made visible. 4. Know that we are seeing God through life-laid down. 5. Be what Jesus is, do what Jesus is doing, entirely by faith. 6. Embrace all commitment to the heart of Father. 7. Be soul set-forth, life laid-down, for one another as Father’s heart made known.
All of these points can be reduced into one simple action.
1. Share Heart with God together as family.
Beyond Price or Measure. For over forty years I have labored in great agony of soul and together with others regarding the issues expressed in this layout, seeking the answers without finding them. God is giving us, with these patterns of home, a gift beyond price or measurement.
Other patterns have less involvement with the physical design of the community as a village. But “private edges – common core” requires much thought given to the physical design.
Thus the next lesson will be about the built community, a community designed for the love of family. And in the third lesson, we want to place that most precious part of Christian community to me – family life.