When you get your priorities straight you can focus on what's important and let go of what's not. Which is one way to find that inner (and outer) peace. Because, as we saw yesterday, its the peacemakers who are blessed. But you can't make peace until you have peace. You can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. And the peace comes from God. The peace IS God. Because God is love. And there is nothing more peaceful than love. I know love can make you do some crazy things--we kind of use the test of whether or not you'd jump a fence for it around here. But there's such a sense of peace when you know (and believe) that you are truly loved. And, like with peace, when you ARE loved... you CAN love. But don't get it twisted; I'm not saying you need to try to get loved. I'm saying you always have been and always will be loved. By your heavenly Father. By God. Who IS love. What else could the God who is love do but love? So this constant flower petal picking mindset we have--He loves me, He loves me not--has got to go. Love never fails. Because love endures. Our priority cannot be on "getting" love. Because love IS giving. That's where our priority must be. Giving what we've got. Giving everything we have and everything we are. Laying our lives down for our friends. Making peace. Sharing the gift we've been given. And in that way, experiencing it. My son is a hoarder. He gets that from my mother. But the best things in life are not to be hoarded. They are to be shared. Given away. When our priority is on getting... that's selfish. And that's no way to live. Because once you get the thing you think you want--the thing you think you don't have--there will always be something else to want. Something else to get. There will always be "one thing you lack," as Jesus told the rich young ruler. But when we get our priorities straight we can be grateful for what we have. And, one more time, experience what we have by sharing it. By giving it away. And the best part is, we are connected to an unlimited supply of love. Giving it away doesn't diminish what we have. It enhances it. Because shared experiences are better. Seeing a movie? Pretty cool. Seeing a movie with someone you love? Even better. The same with meals. The same with just about everything. And I'm not saying you should never have any alone time. That's important to. Especially if you're like me and you get worn out by too much human interaction. Take a break. Take care of yourself. Prioritize inner peace. Because without inner peace you can't make outer peace. It all starts within and flows out as we fill ourselves to overflowing with what God has already filled us with. Right now I can't think of anything more important to living this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Love than love (duh!) and peace. In this world we WILL have tribulations. Life happens. All day every day. But we can be of good cheer. Because we know the One who has overcome the world. And in Him WE have overcome the world. We don't need to keep struggling with every little thing. We don't need to let inconveniences wreck us. We can rise above. Don't stay stuck in a bad situation, and don't chase something you've already got. Get your priorities straight and everything else will flow!

This one's a little personal. But you all know I like to use myself as an example, so that nobody else gets offended. Ok. I absolutely believe in turning the other cheek. Not retaliating. I always say, "Don't take things personally, even if they are." I also absolutely believe that once you've turned the other cheek... you don't have to stand there and let someone beat on you. You can walk away. And the verse I like to use to back up that point of view is Matthew 10:14 in the Message Bible. "If they don't welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way." Or Mark 6:11 in the MSG, "If you're not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way." Or Luke 9:5 MSG, "If you're not welcomed, leave town. Don't make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and move on." Three of the Gospels saying the same thing. Get in where you fit in. And if you don't, that's ok. I know I'm not for everybody. And, realistically, I'm not going to make waves. Not unless I'm pushed to the point where I'm going to tip the whole boat over. Because, again, I believe in turning the other cheek. Letting people be who they are. But there comes a time when your own peace of mind HAS to be a priority. Because you can only push someone so far before they either fall over... or push back. Fight or flight, right? And shrugging your shoulders and quietly moving on is sometimes necessary. Staying in a bad situation is not--I don't believe--what God wants you to do. I'm sure we can find instances in the Old Testament where God asked His prophets to do some wild stuff. But I tend to go with Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." And, listen, sometimes to get to the expected end we DO have to go through some stuff. That's called learning and growing. But there's a difference between going through something and staying in something. Roots are good, but a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out. If you're miserable... do something about it. God doesn't want you to be miserable. What father would want that for his children? A true father wants his children to prosper. He thinks thoughts of peace and not of evil. Let me say it another way: "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Life happens. Every second of every day. And not all of it is going to go exactly how you want it to. But in Him we have peace. He IS our peace. So if you're going through hell, keep on going. Don't stay there. Make peace a priority. And watch this: "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9). When you HAVE peace, you can MAKE peace. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. So take what you can take. Do what you can do. But when its time to move... move. God doesn't want you to suffer. He doesn't want you to be--or stay--in a bad situation. Make peace (inner and outer) a priority!

Above all... love one another. That's about as simply as I can put it. And that, to me, is the Gospel. The good news. Because we know that God never requires anything that He doesn't first provide. So if His New Commandment (for the New Man) is to love one another as He has loved us... that means He needs to love us as hard and as big as He wants us to love each other. All of the emphasis is right where it belongs--not on what we are expected to do, but on what He has done for us. What He is doing in us, and as us, and through us. Look at 1 John 4:19, "We love him, because he first loved us." In the Message Bible it reads like this, "We, though, are going to love--love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first." Everything we have and everything we do comes from the gift that we were given on the cross. God gave us His only begotten Son. God gave us His Spirit--the Holy Spirit... the Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth... the truth that God is love and He loves you. Jesus gave us His life. Not so that we could try to live it, but so that we could experience it as HE lives it (one more time) in us, and through us, and as us. So our priority is NEVER getting. Love IS giving. We already have everything we need. We don't seek the Kingdom as if we are trying to get it because we don't have. We seek the Kingdom to find out what we already have. And by knowing what we have, and believing that we have it, we can experience it by giving it away. By sharing it. Our priority needs to be on what we HAVE to GIVE, not on what we think we NEED to GET. We can love... because we are loved. He first loved us. He filled us up with His love. And when we know and believe that glorious truth, we fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with. See, while our priority must be on loving each other... we love each other naturally when we know and believe how loved we are. When we focus on God's love for us. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. I guess I can maybe see a little bit of merit in "faking it 'til you make it." I think another way of saying that is "be mature." Like I always tell my kid, "Feel what you feel but don't let it control you." Whether or not you like someone doesn't necessarily matter. You can still love them. You SHOULD still love them. The people that are the hardest to love are oftentimes the people who need love the most. Because they aren't getting it anywhere. Because they're hard to love. But love doesn't keep a list of right and wrongs. Love doesn't make people jump through hoops in order to earn it. Love just... loves. No matter who. No matter how. No matter what. So stop judging people (by appearance) and trying to figure out whether they "deserve" love or not. We, though, are going to love. Love and be loved. That's why we were created. God first loved us, and because of that love we can love each other. All of each other. And I'm tellling you, when love is your priority, you'll be amazed to find it everywhere you look. What you magnify is what manifests in your life. What you feed is what will grow. Make love your number one priority and just watch and see what happens...

I'm hard to bother. Almost completely unflappable. But one thing that gets me is when people don't put first things first. (That's another habbit of happy, successful people.) We get so distracted so often and let little things wreck us. We make mountains out of molehills. We do things because we're "supposed" to instead of doing things because they are in our hearts to do them. And, listen, as hard as I am to flap, I'm either all or nothing. I know that about myself. So its easy for me to look at a situation and say, "Who cares?" My step-mom actually brought this idea home for me at Bible college in one of the classes she was teaching. She asked, "If its not going to matter in five years, is it really worth getting upset about right now?" But we really do let the little things get us. We'll let something like getting cut of in traffic ruin our whole day. That's no way to live. Living is loving. Loving that person who cut you off. You don't need to know him, or his story, or what in order to love him. You can say a quick prayer for him and move on. Let go and let God, right? So let me share my memory verse for today. Believe it or not, its one of my favorites. "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). Above all things. Number one priority. Bottom line. Or, as Logan says, top line--because you put the important stuff at the top. I've always said there are only two important things; God and people. Love God and love people. Love God BY loving people. Because its all about love. Love must be our number one priority. And I don't say that lightly. Generally speaking, I prefer the term "ought." Because I don't like to tell people what to do. Unasked for advice is unwanted advice. But when it comes to love I can't say it strongly enough. Above all... we MUST have fervent love for one another. Because charity (love in action) covers THE multitude of sins. Not "a" multitude. Not a bunch of sins. THE multitude. All of them. Above ALL. So when someone does you wrong--intentionally or not--make sure your priorities are right. Love them anyway. Like I always say, "Don't take it personally, even if it is." Because even if it is, how will being mean to someone who is being mean to you help anything? Let me say it like this, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). The correct way to "fight fire with fire" is to heap fiery coals of love onto people's heads. Not to burn them, but to melt their hearts. Our priority should not be to punish, or destroy. Our priority must be to love. To heal. To forgive. To edify. To support people and lift them up. You can't make yourself look better by making other people look worse. That just makes YOU look bad. And, one more time, it shouldn't be our priority to make ourselves look better OR to make other people look worse. It should be--it must be--our priority to love people. Don't worry about sins--which, really, is every action that comes from unbelief. From believing that we must do in order to be. Believing that we must earn our heavenly Father's love. Look, people are just trying to do the best they can. But not everybody has their priorities straight. So get yours straight, and watch that light of love shine so others can get theirs straight too. Above all. Love!

I guess it comes down to the difference between passing judgment and executing judgment. Judging by appearance, and judging righteous judgment. Walking by sight, and walking by faith. Because--I'll say it one more time loud and proud--we judge all day every day. We judge everything. And sometimes, if we really put our time and attention into it, we'll actually get the whole story (or most of the story, anyway) before we judge it. But most of the times we just shoot from the hip. We make snap judgments and go from there. And then, at the same time, we (mis)qoute the Bible and talk about how we're not supposed to judge. When, in fact, the Bible simply tells us HOW to judge. Don't condemn, so you won't be condemned. And, let's be real people, you can be condemned whether you condemn others or not. But the chances are better, if you live your life from a place of love, that you will experience love. You experience what you give away. Because that's HOW you experience the gift you've been given. You share it, and in that way you get to experience it. Again, it CAN happen that people will be mean to you no matter what. But its hard to be mean to someone when you know they love you. When you know they'd do anything for you--lay down their life for you. That kind of agape God love melts even the hardest heart. And that, by the way, is how we execute the judgment that was passed down from Father to Son. It wasn't a death sentence. It was a life sentence. An abudant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life sentence! Sentenced to come out of the darkness and into the light. Sentenced to know God as He is--loving heavenly Father--and to know ourselves as we truly are--His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. And how do you execute an everlasting life sentence? By living! And how do you live? Truly live, not just go through the motions? By loving. Because living and loving aren't just connected. They are the same thing. To live is to love and to love is to live. So instead of bringing negativity (death) into a situation by judging wrongly--and, look, I get it. You can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. When you're unhappy, you see, and judge, everything through that unhappiness. But instead of bringing negativity (death) into a situation by judging wrongly... you can bring positivity (life) into every situation by judging righteous judgment. By seeing things the way God sees them. And when God looks at us He sees Jesus. When God looks at Jesus He sees us. That's how He judged all of humanity--He wrapped us up in His Son and then judged HIM. The life that God gave to Jesus... He gave to us. Jesus didn't just give His life FOR us, He gave His life TO us. So that we could have it. So that we could experience it as He lives His own life in us, and through us, and as us. So that we could stop making these snap judgments, and instead just be still and know that He is God. Be still and know that God is love. Let love guide the way. That's what its all about, folks. Its all about love. The love inside us coming out of us. Coming out THROUGH us. So that we can love God by loving each other with the love that God loves us with! There's nothing more righteous than that. No better, or more true, judgment than that!

People think the Bible says a lot of things that it doesn't really say. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness," for example. And, furthermore, you can make the Bible say just about anything you want it to say. So many people wrote it over so many hundreds of years. And, like, thousands of years ago. Right? And that's without even getting started on all the different translations. And interpretations. I said all that to say this: People say, "The Bible says don't judge." Well... not really. It says, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (Luke 6:37). Which is not a hard and fast rule about judging. Because we judge things all day every day. It is actually a warning about HOW to judge. If all of your judgment is condemnation... if that's all you ever speak into the world... that's what your going to experience. And I'm NOT saying God will condemn you. He won't. But I heard a preacher say it like this, "If you cheat on your wife God won't punish you... but your wife probably will." There are natural consequences to our actions that don't have anything to do with God punishing us. Love is not in the punishing business. Which means God--who is love--is not in the punishing business. But you DO reap what you sow. One more time, with feeling, not from God... but from the natural consequences of your actions. If you're mean to people, people probably won't like you. That's not God's judgment, or punishment. That's just what happens. If you judge people (especially by appearance, or if you judge them harshly, or unfairly) that's probably what they'll do to you. But if you're kind, and gentle, and soft and sweet... people will probably be that way towards you. If you forgive people, when you inevitably mess up... chances are they might remember all that forgiveness you give... and forgive you. So, the point I'm trying to make is, don't stand on "don't judge." We ARE the judges of this earth. We are kings and priest empowered to rule and reign on this earth. So when you judge--all the time. Literally all day every day--just make sure you're doing it right. Don't judge according to appearance. Judge righteous judgment. Execute the judgment that has already been handed down. Let people know that God's judgment was NOT a death sentence. It was an eternal life sentence! It wasn't God killing His Son (Himself). Man did that. WE did that. It was God raising Him from the dead. And us in Him. So that we might know life. Because you judge according to what you know--or what you think you know. If all you know is bitterness and pain, that's what you'll use to judge everything. And that's no way to live. But if you know love, you will judge things according to love. You'll let people be who they are and love them anyway. You'll be able to live and let live. You won't need to condemn or control everything. You'll be able to let go and let God. You'll be able to help people instead of hurting them, because someone (God, probably working through the people in your life) will have helped you. That's what its all about, receiving and releasing the love of God that you've been given! That's the judgment we ought to make. God loves me, so I can love you!

Now that we know what the judgment of God was--not a death sentence, but an eternal life sentence--we can execute that judgment. And, according to Psalm 149:9 it is not just something we SHOULD do. "To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD." Its our honor to execute this judgment. To stop judging by appearance, and judge righteous judgment. To see people the way God sees them. Not getting caught up on surface stuff. Not "I can't tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it looks like." Because we KNOW what it really is. We know the truth of the matter. And truth is higher than fact. And watch this, because tonight I want to focus on HOW we execute the righteous judgment of God. God's judgment was LIFE, right? So we excecute that judgment... by living. And, as we know, to live is to love. To love is to live. There is no better way to show people God than to love people. Because God IS love. There is no better way to judge people than by loving them. Because God judged us according to His love. Look at Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." When we had nothing to give... God gave us everything. His Son. His Spirit. His life. Himself. He did it because He loved us. He did it to SHOW His love to us. Jesus said there is no greater love that a man can have than to lay His life down for His friends. And then He went to the cross and did that very thing. He put His money where His mouth was. But, one more time, Jesus dying wasn't God's judgment. That was Jesus sacrificing Himself to free us from the death that we were already in. Before the cross we were dead in our trespasses and sins. The second death of the cross made us dead to death. Dead to sin. So that we could rise again and walk in newness of life. So that we could experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as He lives His own life in us, and through us, and as us. God's judgment wasn't to strike down His Son. God's judgment was to raise Him back to life. And us in Him. So now we CAN live. And BY living--by letting God love us and loving Him back by loving each other--we are executing His righteous judgment. And that's our honor. That's HOW we honor Him! I mention this I feel like a lot, but it drives me crazy when religious folk let PEOPLE suffer in order to "serve God." Guys. Come on. We serve God BY serving others. "I can't help you. I have to go to church." Well... maybe BE the church. Maybe judge people to be more important than rituals. I've long said there are only two important things: God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. Because, realistically, the ONLY important thing is love. So let's stop judging whether or not to love people--based on whether or not it looks like they deserve it--and let's be honorable. Let's be holy. Let's be graceful. Merciful. Let's LIVE. Let's... love...

It occurs to me that before I expound upon the need--the honor!--of executing the judgment that has been passed down... we ought to first look at what that judgment was. Because, unfortunately, we have built a religion based on the false idea that God's judgment was a death sentence. We've built a religion based on the idea that God was angry at humanity and just positively, absolutely HAD to kill someone. And, in a (I guess) moment of weakness... He decided to kill His own Son instead of all of us. Or something. Jesus came to save us from God? That doesn't sound right. Especially when you consider the truth that Jesus IS God. God in the flesh. Love in a body. And, because of the cross--because He drew us all into Himself when He was raised up from the earth on the cross--God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. Jesus didn't come to save us from God (again, Himself). The judgment that God passed down was not a death sentence. Jesus came to save us from death. Because we were already dead in our trespasses and sins. The judgment of God was accepting the sacrifice that Jesus made... and raising Him (and us IN Him) back to life. Let me say it like this: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). See, again, we WERE dead in our trespasses and sins. And we needed the second death to be FREE of that death. Free of that sin. Sometimes I hear people say, "Jesus died so I could live." Well... not exactly. Jesus died so you could die. So DEATH could die! And then Jesus rose again so that we could live. By HIM living in us. And through us. And as us. Romans 6:4 says it like this, "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Just as He was raised up, so can we walk in newness of life. HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. The life of LOVE that comes from knowing God as your loving heavenly Father instead of (falsely) believing Him to be an angry, distant taskmaster. Look, if you believe God is out to get you... you'll probably run from Him. Hide from His presence. When what you really ought to be doing--all of the time--is running TO Him. Resting in His loving arms. Being yourself--by letting Him be HIMSELF--in you, and through you, and as you. The judgment of God wasn't to kill anybody. It was after MAN had crucified His only begotten Son... God's judgment was raising Him (and us in Him) from the dead. Jesus' death gave us the second death that we needed to be free from death. And then the righteous judgment of God was to give us life. HIS life. Eternal life. The life of love that comes--only--from receiving and releasing the gift we've been given. The life of love that is His true, righteous judgment. And, as we'll see tomorrow, and moving forward, that's HOW we judge righteous judgment. That's HOW we execute the judgment that was passed down. The judgment was life. And we execute it by living. To live is to love and to love is to live. We judge people--not by appearance--by loving them!

All I want to do for the next few days is talk about John 7:24. I think this is a criminally under-preached Bible verse. Because what we seem to tend to think of when we think about judgment is Matthew 7:1. So let's look at that first. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." And, right of the bat, let's just see that Jesus didn't say, "Don't judge." Because, let's be honest, we make judgments just about every second of every day. We judge things to be true or false. Good or bad. In our benefit, or not. What Jesus said was, according to the Amplified Bible, "DO NOT judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves." Or, in the Message Bible, "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment." He was basically telling us, "You get what you give." He wasn't saying don't judge. He was saying, "Be careful HOW you judge." Which is what He went on to say in my memory verse for this Rant series. John 7:24, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." Again, telling us HOW to judge, not telling us not TO judge. Look at 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?" We ARE judges. We DO make judgments all the time. That's not the issue. That's not in question. The key is, again, HOW you judge. The key is to not judge by appearance. Because appearances can be deceiving. I've found that even when you're smack in the middle of the story... you usually don't know the WHOLE story. There are at least two sides to every story, right? And just because you can't see it a certain way doesn't mean you're right and they're wrong. And it doesn't mean you need to "be" right by "making" them wrong. Remember? Its better to have the right word--the kind word... love--than the last word. Relationship is more important than winning an argument, I'm telling you. So don't judge by appearance. Things aren't always what they seem. One of the seven habits of succesful people is to, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." But, unfortunately, that can take a bit of effort. And people aren't always ready, willing, or able to put the effort in. Its easier to make a snap judgment and call it a day. There's a song lyric that says, "I can't tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it looks like." And that's how we do it. We just take a quick glace at the surface and go from there. When what we ought to be doing--if Jesus did, in fact, know what He was talking about--is judging righteous judgment. Which we're really going to get into tomorrow. But to whet your appetite, it has a lot to do with Psalm 149:9, "To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour heave all his saints. Praise ye the LORD." Its our honor to EXECUTE the judgment that was given. The righteous judgment. On the cross. When God judged His only begotten Son to be worthy of LIFE. And Him in us. And us in Him!

Doing the right thing isn't always easy. And it doesn't make everybody happy. Its impossible to make EVERYBODY happy. Because people want different things. So what's "right" for one person might not be "right" for the next. What I'm trying to say is: you can't worry about making everybody happy. In fact, a lot of the time, doing the right thing makes people mad. Especially when they AREN'T doing the right thing, but know that they should be. I can't tell you how many times I've had to say, almost as an excuse, "I'm just trying to do the right thing." But when we come at this from the understanding of what the right thing really is--the right thing to do, always, is love--then we can be ok with it when it isn't easy. We can be ok with it when people don't understand it, or don't accept it, or don't like it. We can do it anyway. And I wanted to use this quote that I mentioned yesterday, because I think it puts us in the right mindset: "When someone blesses you, never forget it. But when you bless someone, never remember it." Which is to say, don't hold things over people's heads. "Remember when I..." That's not cool. Making people feel bad about the good you've done will kind of undo the good that you've done. It will make people resentful. And if you're loving people the goal should be to build bridges, not walls. To build relationships, not drive people away. And I'm telling you right now, if you make someone feel bad about getting help from you... chances are they won't ask for help from you again. In fact, they'll probably cross the street to avoid you. "But I helped them out so many times..." Yeah, good. Be cool about it. And, on the flip side, when someone HAS helped you... that ought to mean something. I'm not saying you should be obligated to them. One of my favorite Bible verses (and I know it seems like they're all my favorite, but still) is Romans 13:8, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." And, I mean, loving someone is giving them everything you have and everything you are, but still. Its doing it because its in your heart to do it. Not because you feel obligated to do it. Not because, "I scratched your back, now you better scratch mine." That to me is no good. God keeps no list of right or wrongs, right? So we ought to not, either. We ought to listen to that line from one of my favorite (there it is again) movies, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it." We ought to love people just because we're loved. Because we have love to give. We ought to love because its the right thing to do. And, yes, sometimes loving someone--truly loving them, not enabling them... or trying to manipulate them... or whatever else we dress up in the guise of "love"--will sometimes not be what they want. But I assure you it'll be what they need. And what you need is more important than what you want. Doing the right thing is more important than, well, pretty much anything. Not at someone's expense, and not in order to use it to get something from them, but because you truly have love in your heart that you just want to give away. Love is giving. Don't worry about getting. Do the right thing and give what you've got!