2Ⅰ As a minister of the new covenant, Paul is a pattern of a person who loved the church—1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Cor. 12:15; 11:28:
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3Ａ The church was precious to Paul because he realized that the desire of the Lord's heart is to gain the church—Eph. 1:5, 9; Matt. 13:44-45; 16:18; Phil. 2:13.
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4Ｂ Paul knew the value of the church as a precious treasure to God, a treasure which He obtained through His own blood—Acts 20:28.
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5Ｃ Second Corinthians shows us that Paul's heart was fully for the church and on the church:
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61 Paul was willing to spend and be spent for the church—12:14-15.
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72 Paul loved the church no matter how the church treated him—12:15b.
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83 Paul loved all the churches in all the cities, having a genuine care and anxiety for them all—11:28.
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94 Paul ministered life to the church by dying—4:10-12.
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10Ⅱ If we would be new covenant ministers with Christ's love for the church, we must experience Christ as the church-loving Christ—Eph. 5:25-27:
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11Ａ We need to give Christ the first place, the preeminence in all things, taking Him as our Head, our center, our life, and our everything—Col. 1:17b-18; 3:4; 2:16-17, 19; 3:10-11.
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12Ｂ Love is the inner substance of God; we need to be brought into God's inner substance that we may enjoy God as love and thereby love others as Christ did—Eph. 5:2.
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13Ｃ We love because God first loved us, infusing His loving essence into us— 1 John 4:19.
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14Ｄ God is love, and we have been regenerated, born of God, to become God in life and nature; therefore, as God's species we should not merely love but be love—1 John 4:7-8, 19; John 1:12-13.
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15Ｅ We need to experience the application of the cross to our human love and our natural life—Matt. 10:37-39; Luke 14:26-27; John 12:24-25.
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16Ｆ Christ laid down His soul life for us, and we ought to lay down our soul life for the brothers, loving the Body more than we love ourselves—1 John 3:16; Matt. 16:25; Rev. 12:11; Eph. 5:2.
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17Ｇ Our spirit should be a spirit of love—2 Tim. 1:7.
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18Ｈ We should continually receive the dispensing of the Divine Trinity as love that we may be constituted with the divine love for "the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love"—Rom. 5:5; 8:39, 35; 15:30; 12:4-5; Eph. 3:17-19; 4:16.
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19Ｉ The more Christ makes His home in our hearts, the more the desire of His heart will become the desire of our heart—Eph. 3:17, 19a; Psa. 37:4; 27:4.