Its amazing to me the way "religious folk" will spend (waste) their three T's (time, talent, treasure) trying to make sure they get a good afterlife. Trading the present for a hopeful future. And, I know, its folly to live like there's no tomorrow. Because then tomorrow comes and you've suffering because you squandered what you had. I get that. We need a balance between past, present, and future. Learn from the past, live in the present, and build for the future. But that's different than living for what happens after death. Jesus didn't come to give us an afterlife. He came to give us a LIFE. HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love that is the gift of God. The GIFT of God. We don't have to earn this life. It was given to us. We just have to live it. And, since living and loving are the same thing, we just have to love it. How many times do we hear people talk about hating their life? Because they thought it would go a certain way and it didn't. I'm guilty of the latter part of that statement. I did everything I was "supposed" to do. College, marriage, a kid, blah blah blah. And it didn't work out the way I thought it would. No, not at all. But that doesn't mean give up. Doesn't mean give in to bitterness and disappointment. You've probably heard the old saying, "If you want to hear God laugh... tell Him your plans." And I don't necessarily think God is callous enough to laugh in our faces, but the point is, if I can quote Mike Tyson, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." I think the best way in life to get disappointed is to have expectations. Because what we think is going to happen usually isn't what's going to happen. Unless we're extreme realists. That's why worrying is so destructive. Have you ever wrecked yourself worrying about something that didn't even happen? Yeah... People let us down, because we expect them to be someone they aren't. That's the opposite of love. The opposite of living. Live and let live, if I can say it that way. Let people be who they are. Love them anyway. And, as always, I'm not saying you should let any and every thing fly. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. But loving people IS standing for something. Standing FOR love. Standing FOR people. Not against them. If you live a life of worrying, and complaining, and letting circumstances defeat you... that's even worse than wasting your life in order to "earn" an afterlife. Because at that point you're just wasting your life. Period. Your not living if you're letting anything except love lead you. Follow your heart. Let what's inside (LOVE) come out, by knowing and believing that its in there. Receiving and releasing it. Receiving it BY releasing it. Releasing it BY receiving it. Filling yourself up to overflowing with the love that God has already filled you with. That's how you live in the present. By letting God love you, and loving others with that same love. That's what life is. That's what Jesus showed us when He laid His life down for us; He gave us everything He is and everything He had. He showed us how to love. He showed us how to live. Jesus came that we might have LIFE. Not an afterlife. He came that we might know love--know God--and in knowing, experience it by giving it away. By loving others. That's what its all about. That's what life is.

A life of love. Which is a life of service. Because love is giving. Laying your life down for your friends. Giving everything you have and everything you are. A life of love. A life worth living. And the key to the whole thing is BEING loved. Because you can't give what you don't have. We CAN lay our lives down for our friends BECAUSE Jesus laid His life down for us. Laid it down so He could pick it back up. Gave it to us so we could experience it as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. I think the biggest stumbling block "Christians" run into is trying to live Jesus' life. Because no one can live Jesus' life except Jesus. We try to follow in His foot steps, and we find out pretty quickly that they're too big. What we need to do is just be still and know that He is God. Let Jesus make His own foot steps with our feet. I did a Guerrilla Gospel video not too long ago about being a "follower of God." And about how "following" Him is really letting Him carry us. Being a follower of love. Letting love guide the way. If you want to live your best life--and, really, who doesn't?--you have to let love in. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what do have. If you want to feel love... the best way to do so is to love others. Love is what makes Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life abundant, everlasting, and eternal! Its like we're willing to trade the life we have for some idea of what might happen in the "afterlife." But Jesus said it pretty clearly in John 10:10, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." He came to give us LIFE. Right here and now. Because He IS life. And He gave us Himself. He didn't just give His life FOR us on the cross... He gave His life TO us. Because He wanted us to have it. But if Jesus IS the Life (and He is), then you can't live it without Him. If LOVE is the life... you can't live without it (HIM). I know there are a lot of different pictures of God in the Bible. Light, Spirit, Consuming Fire, and Love pop to mind. But that last one is the all encompassing one. Love. Love is light. Love is Spirit. Love is the Consuming Fire. Love is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! God is love. Jesus is God in the flesh, love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOUR body. What I think I'm trying to say is that we need to stop separating things. Stop drawing lines in the sand. And realize that when Jesus remade the world in His image through the cross--the Messianic rebirth of the world--that consuming fire consumed everything except itself. Everything except Himself. Everything except love! That's what's left. That's what we have. That's who we are. That's HOW Jesus made sure that we have--right now--life, and that more abundantly. He gave us His Spirit--The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth--so that we might stop trying to earn the love of God and instead simply know it and believe it. Receive it and release it. Receive it BY releasing it. Release it BY receiving it. The Holy Spirit is our love receptor. He is the Spirit that equips and empowers us to live, by letting us call out, "Abba, Father." By showing us who we are--God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--by showing us who God is--our loving heavenly Father. That's how we live--a Son is empowered by the love of His Father. Empowered to live. Empowered to love!

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Way to God. The Truth about God. The Life of God. The Way to Love. The Truth about Love. The Life of Love. That makes sense, right? Because God is love? If we're talking about God, we're talking about love. And vice versa. Yesterday we looked at the picture of light shining in order to to show us the way, reveal the truth to us, and BE the life IN us. John 1:4 says, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." The light was IN Him because the light IS Him. "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). Jesus is the life. God is light. These are all just pictures of the same thing. Love. God's love. Agape love. Sacrificial love. Laying down your life for your friends. Giving everything you have and everything you are. Because love IS giving. So that means LIFE is giving. That means LIGHT is giving. That's why, when Jesus identified US as the light of the world, He spoke about a city on a hill that cannot be hid. That's why He taught about putting the light not under a bushel, but in a lampstand. Light is used to illuminate things. Not to be hoarded or hidden. Life is meant to be lived. Not wasted in the pursuit of things we think we don't have, but do in fact have. When Jesus spoke of the thief He spoke of someone trying to get into the sheepfold any other way but through the door. That's US, when we try to do things ourselves. When we try to do them our own way. There's a way that SEEMS right to man... but the end of it is death. And then there's a more excellent way. Jesus. Love. The straight and narrow path that leads to life. Jesus is that Way. He is that Truth. He is that Life. He leads us... to Himself. Draws us to Himself. Which, by the way, is a really good thing. Because, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:44). If God hadn't put that desire in our hearts--the desire OF our hearts, to be loved, and to love--then we wouldn't even care. We wouldn't concern ourselves with anything except personal gain. Because while it might SEEM like trying to get love for yourself is selfish... the truth of the matter is that everybody--EVERYBODY--longs to be loved. The key is to give what you've got instead of trying to get something you think you haven't got. And that's what the light does: It shows us what we've got. Shows us who we are. Equips and empowers us to truly live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Love by letting Jesus live it in us, and through us, and as us. When we know that the door to the sheepfold is open to us, we won't need to try to get in any other way. We won't rob OURSELVES of what we've already been given. We won't waste our lives trying to be someone we're not in order to get something we think we haven't got. Because we'll be able to enjoy what we have got by giving it away. By sharing it. Love is giving. Giving what you have. Giving who you are. Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing that its in there. That's love. That's life. That's who Jesus was in His earth walk, and that's who Jesus is in us. In me. In you! Its His life... we just get to experience it!

To me, if we're going to talk about the Life that Jesus is... the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Love... one of the best ways to illustrate it is with John 1:4, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." Light and life. Two pictures of the same thing. And even though religion will try to tell you that Jesus came to earth to save mankind from an angry God... what He really did was He came to earth and shined the light of the world so we could see things clearly. So we could see that God is not mad AT us, but mad ABOUT us. Head over heels in love with us. Jesus came to show us what God really looks like. By turning on the light. By revealing God's love to us. Because that's who God is; God is love. God looks like people loving people. That's how the invisible God expresses Himself. So if we want to live this life we've been given... it doesn't happen without loving people. It can't. How many times have I said life and love are not just connected, but the same thing. You can't have one without the other, and you can't do one without the other. The Life of God is the Love of God. And, like I said--like HE said--His life is the light of men. His love is what lights us up. And when that light shines... when that love shines... that's when we can see things clearly. Remember the difference between the Truth and the life? Love is the truth of the matter. Love is the Way. Love is the Life. Love is what makes the abundant life abundant. Loving people--laying our lives down, giving everything we are and everything we have--is how we experience Jesus' life. Because loving people is how we let Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. But just in the same way as how we'll believe the lie if its all we have... if the light isn't shining we'll stumble around like the blind leading the blind. Trying to be someone we're not in order to get something we think we haven't got. Because if the light isn't shining we can't see what we've got. We can't see who we are. And here's the key: Jesus is the light of the world, He said so in John 9:5)... which means WE are the light of the world. As He is, so are we in this world. And He said, in Matthew 5:14, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." Light is love is life. We are the light of the word. The love of God. The LIFE of God. Again, we are how He expresses Himself. His love filling us up to overflowing and coming out of us. Look at Acts 17:28, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." And I believe the reverse of that is true, too. In US He lives, and moves, and has His being. He lives in us. We live in Him. That's how we experience His life. That's how we truly live. And the light shining on us, and in us, and through us, and out of us, is one of my favorite pictures of that life. When light shines we can see clearly. That's as simple as I can make it. We can see God clearly--as a loving heavenly Father--and we can see ourselves clearly--as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Living a life of love because we are loved. Receiving and releasing His love. Receiving it BY releasing it. Releasing it by receiving it. That's what life is all about. That's what life IS. And when you see it... you be it. When you know and believe that you are loved, you can live a life of love!

If all you have is a lie... that's what you'll believe. You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. That's why the Truth (which is Jesus, which is love) is so important. Knowing and believing that we are loved is what equips and empowers us TO love. Knowing and believing the truth is what allows us to ignore the lie. The lie that says we have to do in order to be. When the truth is, we don't do in order to be... we do because we be! What's inside comes out. Or, I should say, what you believe is inside comes out. Belief is so important. Faith is so important. What we do flows from what we believe, whether its the Truth or a lie. Did you catch that? THE Truth, singular. Or A lie. Because while love comes in many shapes and sizes, love is the Truth. Period. One Truth. The ultimate Truth of the universe: God is love and He loves you. "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand" (John 3:35). Once we get that settled, it doesn't matter what lie the world throws at us. "You're not good enough." "You have to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow." "Jump through these hoops and then you can have what you want." "You don't deserve it." Lies. All lies. Defeated by the Truth that (one more time) God is love and He loves you. I'm convinced that when we stop trying to get something we've already got--robbing ourselves of enjoying the gift of God that we've already been given--we will begin to share what we've got. We will stop chasing it when we start receiving it and releasing it. Receiving it BY releasing it. Releasing it by receiving it. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Letting the love (the river of life) flow out of our innermost being. Out of our hearts. Out of GOD'S heart beating with love in our chests. When David asked God to create in him a clean heart and a new spirit... God did so on the cross. When He gave us His only begotten Son. When He gave us Himself. HIS Spirit--the love receptor, the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth. HIS heart. How could the blood of Jesus flow through our veins if the heart of God wasn't pumping it? That's the truth of the matter: We are who we need to be and we have what we need to have. The lie is that we are lacking something. The lie is that we need to do something. Jesus finished the work. He did it all so we could get it all. And now we have it all. Now we can give it all. Because the greatest expression of love that a man can have is to lay his life down for His friends. To give everything he is and everything he has. But in order to do that you need to know who you are. You need to know what you have. The Truth HAS set you free and made you free. But you have to KNOW that truth in order to believe it. In order to BE what you are... which, again, is free. Free from the lie. Free from the bondage of sin and death. Free to live. Free to love. Living BY loving. Loving IS living. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. You can't have one without the other. Can't do one without the other. So share the love. Spread the truth. Break chains that hold people in bondage. Be a witness FOR God by being a witness TO God. Let Him love you, and love others with that same love. Give them what they need. Show them a more excellent way. A life of service is the only life worth living... and that's the truth.

Your thought life is powerful. Nobody talks to you as much as you do. And what you do flows from what you believe. What you think is true. So its very important to exercise self control. You don't have entertain every thought that comes into your head. You don't have to believe everything you think. And you shouldn't. Because not everything you think is true. That's why there are verses like Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." And here's the bottom line--or the top line--whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report... are things of love. Virture and praise... is love. Its all about love. What we should be thinking on... is love. And I, personally, have to admit that I find myself doing this more often than not. I'm kind of obsessed with love. You may have noticed its just about all I'll Rant about. Jesus Rant. Love Rant. You get it. But the idea is that what you magnify in your life is what manifests in you life. What you focus on--or dwell on, or dwell IN--is what you experience. What you feed is what will grow. You can believe the lie if you so choose. Especially if you've never heard the truth. You can settle for less than what's available to you... especially if you don't know what's available to you. You can think something is accuracte, even though its not true at all. Truth is higher than fact, but we very often get stuck in the fact of the matter. I can't tell you how many arguments I've had--and for the most part I won't argue with you, but it does happen--that were nothing more than misunderstandings. Someone didn't know the whole story--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Or someone jumped to conclusions Someone thought they had the facts, and that led them down the wrong path. They went the wrong way, if I can bring it back to the previous Rant series. And they needed that voice of Truth to direct them into a U-turn. But that's when you have to make a choice. You can keep barrelling ahead even though another choice has presented itself--dig yourself deeper and make things worse--or you can swallow your pride and admit you were wrong. You can let go of whatever it is you were holding onto, and you can think again. Think on love. I really like the quote I heard the other day about how the first thing you think in a given situation is what you've been conditioned to think, and the next thing you think about it is what you really think. Because I believe there is a lot of surface... stuff... that gets piled up on us. Wounds, and hurts, and bitterness. Society. Our culture. "The way things are." But deep down, in our heart of hearts, we all know the truth. We long for it. We will settle for what the world has to offer, but we always want that real, true, pure, just, honest thing. We always want love. And you can't give what you don't have. Which is why we try so hard to get what we think we don't have. But the truth is: We have it. Its the gift of God and He gave it to us 2000 years ago when He gave us His Son. His Spirit. His life. We always had His love, but because of the cross we can know and believe that we have it. We can experience it by giving it away. By focusing on it. By thinking about it. By witnessing it and being a witness to is. By loving people!

Here's the thing about the truth... it (HE) set you free and made you free. Like 2000 years ago on the cross. When the light of the world shined and revealed God's love for us. Revealed that God IS love TO us. But, even though we ARE free, so many of us still act like we're under bondage. We still act like slaves. Because we don't know the truth. Because we don't know we're free. And because we don't know what it means to BE free. I once heard that one of the reasons God gave the people of Israel the 10 Commandments is so that they could learn how to be people, instead of slaves. Because they had been slaves for over 400 years. They didn't know any different. And guess what: People WILL abuse freedom. They'll take it to extremes. That doesn't mean we shouldn't free people (by telling them the truth that they ARE free). Its not our job to control people. Its our job to be witnesses of God's love. And the only way we can give an eye witness account of God's love... is by being witnesses TO that love. Letting God love us. Believing the truth that God is love and He loves you. Now watch this: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). I can't tell you how important it is that we tell people "I love you." But here's the key with that: Don't do it if you don't mean it. Don't say "I love you" in order to try to get something from someone. That's not love. That's manipulation. Love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. If you're not willing to give someone everything you are and everything you have... then you don't love them. Sorry if that sounds harsh. But this idea of "I love you because I want you" frustrates me. That's not love. Love is laying your life down for your friends. Its not about getting what you want (or need). Its about giving them what THEY want (or need). Seeing a need and meeting it. That's as simple as I can make it. And that's what freedom is. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Freedom. Freedom FROM sin (or the bondage of unbelief) and freedom TO love. To live! To experience Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love as He lives His own life in you, and through you, and as you. But if faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God... if we are to have faith in God, or have faith in love... then we need to hear those three little words. "I love you" IS the Word of God. Jesus. Love. And hearing those words, in the right way, truly will set you free. I know we've all heard the quote, "If you love someone, set them free." But my question is, "Why are you trying to keep someone from BEING free in the first place?" I'm at the point in my life where I'm trying to force anybody to do anything. If you want to be in my life... the door's open. If you don't... I'm not gonna beg. Because if you have to beg for something, even if you get it, its not worth it. And the truth is... you're better than that. You're worth more than that. There is so much in store for you--so much available to you right now--that really you need to focus on just loving people and let everything else be added unto you. Be free. And let everybody else be free too. What's that other quote? "Let freedom reign"? Or maybe its "Let freedom ring." Either way, if you know the truth, it frees you. And when you're free, you can free others. Giving what you've got. Letting what's inside come out. Loving with the love you are loved with!

The ultimate truth of the universe goes like this, "God is love and He loves you." That's where we stand. That's the Rock that we build on. That's our foundation. And until we not only KNOW that truth, but BELIEVE that truth--get it past head knowledge and into heart knowledge--we will forever try to get something that we think we don't have. Because we, as a species, don't just want love. We need love. We were created to love. And you can't give what you don't have. So feeling like we are not loved--believing the lie (which is sin, by the way... unbelief)--keeps us from loving. Keeps us from living. Keeps us buying into the whole man-centered, performance-based religion of doing in order to be. Guys, we don't do in order to be. We do BECAUSE we be. We don't love in order to get love. Can I say it again? You can't give what you don't have. And love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. So we need to start to understand what we have. Jesus said, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). Unfortunately, I think we've twisted that to mean, "Try to get the Kingdom first, and then you'll get everything else." We turned it into an if-then statement. If you get the Kingdom, then you'll have it all. When, in truth, we already have it all. And we didn't have to get it at all. It was a gift. Freely given. We have already been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. We have already been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly Christ. We are, right now, kings and priests equipped and empowered to rule and reign on this earth. The days of heaven on earth. The Kingdom of Heaven... the Kingdom of God... The Kingdom of love... right here and right now. So instead of seeking to get something we think we haven't got, what we really ought to do is seek in order to understand what we already have. Explore the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, if I can say it that way. Test the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of His love. And the way we do that is by loving bigger than we ever thought we could. Seeing how much we can love people. That's how we see how big God's love is. And I've said many times that if you take that step of putting love into action--charity--then you are proving that you know and believe His love for you. Because if you didn't believe God loved you... at least on some level... you couldn't love anybody else. One more time: You can't give what you don't have. Only by filling yourself to overflowing with what you've been filled with can you let what's inside come out. Only be receiving and releasing the love of God can you be a witness to the truth. God is love and He loves you. Love one another with the love that He loves you with. That's the whole point of the whole thing. That's what its all about. That's what Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is all about. And that's how we experience His life--as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. So, as Romans 3:4 says, "...let God be true, but every man a liar..." When you know the truth you can ignore the lie. You can embrace the truth. You can live the truth. You can BE the truth. Jesus is the Word--which is the truth, which is Jesus, which is love--of God. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOU body. The truth is, you are loved... so you can love! You are loved... so you ARE love!

Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. That's where I'm at these days. He is the Way to love. The Truth about love. The Life of love. So... as we saw in the last Rant series, the Way TO love is the Way OF love. That straight and narrow path that leads to life. Because living is loving and loving is living. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. And in the same way (see what I did there?) truth and love aren't just connected. They are the same thing. If its not love, its not the truth. Look at Ephesians 4:13-15, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." Did you catch the difference there between being childlike and childish? Its good to be childlike. To let your heavenly Father take care of you. But if you're being childish you'll believe any old thing that sounds good and you won't know if you're coming or going. Anyway, here's where I wanted to start this Rant series: Speaking the truth in love. And that doesn't mean this kind of horrible idea of "tough love" that we seem to have adopted where we say mean things and then shrug and say, "Truth hurts." That's not speaking the truth in love. At all. Because even if you do have to tell someone something that they don't want to hear... there's a way in which you can do it (or at least try to do it) without causing them harm. The truth doesn't hurt. It sets you free and makes you free. But we'll get to that in the next few days. My thought for today is "Speaking." Because there's a difference between KNOWING the truth, and SPEAKING the truth. And they're both important, don't get me wrong. But one is more powerful than the other. Because you have to know the truth before you can speak it, but if you know it and don't speak it... it doesn't do as much good. I'm trying to say we are blessed to be a blessing. We ought to use what we have for the benefit of others. As my pastor would always say, "If you know it... throw it!" Things are more (most) real when they are shared. And sharing the truth is what we, as witnesses, are supposed to do. Is there anything more powerful than someone with a PhD? Someone who Personally Has Done It? I'm convinced that a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. Because people can think whatever they want, but when you KNOW something... well... you know it. And when you know the truth, you can ignore the lie. (We'll get into that concept too. I'm just trying to build a foundation today.) And here's where I want to end: Truth is higher than fact. So it doesn't matter what things look like. We walk (and live) by faith, not by sight. The fact of matter might be that it looks pretty bleak. But the truth of the matter is that God is love and He loves you. The truth of the matter is, all things work together for good. The truth of the matter is that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands. The Truth about love is that God is love... that WE ARE love!

The Way TO life is the Way OF life! Living and loving. Loving and living. Letting your heart guide the way so you even if you go of course, you can turn back and follow that straight and narrow path. And here's what I want to say to end this Rant series: Just because love is straight and narrow does not mean it is inflexible. There are so many different facets of love. So many different ways that people love, and receive love. And that CAN make things tricky, because unless I learn your love language, we might not be on the same page. But really that is so freeing. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Freedom. Freedom to love. Freedom to live. We're not stuck in a religious box, just because we're on the straight and narrow path. We can still be who we are. God doesn't want robots. He made you specifically you. On purpose. For purpose. By purpose. You are who you're supposed to be. You are who you need to be. And I'm not saying you don't have anything to learn. Of course you do. This never-ending eternal life-long journey into the heart of the matter is just that--because the heart of the matter is the heart. Learning how to love as we learn how we are loved. Learning how to love as we learn how the people in our lives need to BE loved. Giving what we've got, but giving it in a way that actually helps people. Understanding a situation before we jump into it head first. Because sometimes less is more. Sometimes we help more by doing less. Stepping in when we're needed, but not overstepping our bounds. I always tell Logan, "If you try your best, and still need my help... I got you." But I want him to learn how to do things. I want him to be able to take care of himself. Now, that's a natural father to a natural son. And the way our heavenly Father loves us is even better than that. Because He doesn't want us to do ANYTHING in our own strength. HIS strength is made perfect in our weakness. I heard a preacher say it like this, "When you work God will rest... but when you rest God will work." Spiritual rest. Not trying to earn your Spiritual bread by the sweat of your brow, but simply receiving what Jesus has prepared for us with the six-course meal that is the Six Steps to the Throne. So what I'm trying to say is: You don't have to try to walk the way... in a certain way. You don't have to try to follow in Jesus' foot steps. You can let Jesus make His own foot steps in your feet. Instead of trying to live His life under your own power... you can EXPERIENCE His life as He lives it in you, and through you, and as you. You can be flexible... within the confines of love. Because, according to Romans 13:8 we owe no man anything but love. So love is the one and only way to live. Living and loving aren't just connected. They are the same thing. But life looks different to everybody. The right way for you might not be right for someone else. Be inflexible when it comes to loving or not loving. Always love. But be flexible in HOW you love. Everybody needs love. But that means different things to different people. Love can be a shoulder to cry on. A sympathetic ear. Love can be watching a ball game, or a TV show, with someone who is lonely. There are so many ways to love. And love is the way to live. So don't get bogged down. And don't get off track. Let the love inside flow out of you and experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love!