Walking in the light means you can see where you're going. Letting the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. That way you can get to where you're supposed to be--to where God wants you to be. That's an important thing to understand: No matter what you think... God knows. He knows the end from the beginning. He has an expected end for you. And if you trust Him... He'll get you there. If you follow where He leads you'll get to where He knows you should be. Look at 1 john 1:7, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Living in the light means living in love. Having relationships with people. Because that's what love is--it ts the bond and the glue that brings us and keeps us together. Shining your light so that others can see it. Giving your love so that others can experience and enjoy it. Letting what's inside--the love that is inside--come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. That's what life is all about. And that's how we truly live. To live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. It's all about love. Which means it's all about fellowship. Relationship. Seeing a need in someone and meeting that need. Giving what you've got because you know what you've got, and you know that people need what you've got. That's what this whole abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is all about--receiving and releasing the love of God. Letting God love you and loving Him back by loving people. Receiving it and releasing it. Breathing it in and breathing it out. Walking in the light of God's love. Letting it shine on you, and in you, and through you, and out of you, and as you. Experiencing love by giving it away. Because love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. Building those relationships not based on what you can get... but on what you can give. I remember a time when I was trying to teach my son that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. And he looked at me, stupified, and said, "Why in the world would you want to catch flies????" But the principle is sound. It is the GOODNESS of God that leads men to repentance, not the scariness of God. It is love that brings people together. Love is the solid Rock on which we stand. Love is the foundation on which we build. Living in the light is loving people. Letting God love us and loving Him back by loving people. That's the key to life. The secret of life. That's what life is all about because that's what life is. "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16). He filled us with His light. That's why, and how, we can shine. He laid His life down for us. That's why, and how, we can lay our lives down for each other. It's simply receiving and releasing. Letting God do what He's of a mind to do... in us, and through us, and as us. Jesus said there is no greater love than laying your life down for your friends. And gues what else: That's how you MAKE friends. Not by taking, but by giving. If you lay your life down for someone, it's really hard for them to not like you. If you love someone, it's really hard for them to not fellowship with you. So live in the light. As God is in the light. Love as you are loved. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Be who you were created to be. Be love. And live your life in the light!

Living in the light of God's love. That's why we were created. That's what it means to experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by letting Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. It's all about letting what's inside come out... by knowing and believing that it's in there. By filling ourselves to overflowing with what we have been filled with. Look at Psalm 119:105, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." The Word of God is Jesus. The Word of God is love. That's all He's ever said. That's what He said when He said, "Let there be light." His life is the light of men. His love is the life of men. So when we're letting love light our path... when we're letting love lead us, guide us, direct us, and protect us... that's when we can be assured that we're walking by faith and not by sight. The just shall LIVE by faith! Faith in God. Faith in love. And the reason we can have faith in God is because He has, and is, and will, prove Himself faithful. Faith isn't a blind leap. Into the dark or the light. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). A couple of things here: First off, NOW faith is. If it isn't now, it isn't faith. Faith and hope are two different things. Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for. Faith is when you GET what you hoped for. But that can be tricky when you're hoping for the wrong thing. What you believe is what manifests in your life... as far as the choice you make to either believe the lie of the world or the report of the Lord. You can't just make things up and say you "believe" in them. That's wishful thinking. Which is different than faith AND hope. Our blessed hope is really a blessed assurance. Believing God. Letting God be true and all men be liars. And when you know the truth... the truth you know sets you free and makes you free. When you know the truth... you can ignore the lie. You don't have to fight it, or mess with it in any way. You can simply ignore it. Don't give it the time of day. You can be in the light as HE is in the light. You can stay on that straight and narrow path that leads to life, because His Word (again, Jesus... love) is leading you and guiding you. And when you turn to the left or the right there's a voice behind you (the Finished Work of the cross) redirecting you. Chastening and correcting you. And that's not a bad thing, that's a great thing. Someone who loves you unconditionally helping you stay right where you need to be. Keeping you in the light by keeping you in the truth that the light is in you. That the light IS you. Because the light is love. And love is not just what you do... love is who you are. Love is life. To live is to love and to love is to live. You can't do one without the other and you can't have one without the other. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. Light... life... love. The building block(s) of an abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. When we understand those three things--that God is those three things, and has made us those three things--we can stop trying to be someone we're not in order to get something we think we haven't got... and we can begin to enjoy the gift we've been given. The gift of God. Which is His life. Which we experience and enjoy by letting Him live in us, and through us, and as us. We can live in the light of love. We can live a life of love. Not doing things that need to be hidden, but doing things that people can see, and share in, and enjoy with us! This life is to be shared. This life is to be given away. The greatest love you can have is to lay your life down for your friends. To give what you've got. To let your light shine as you let your love shine!

Three in one, right? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Different aspects of the one true God. In the same way: Life, Light, Love. When we begin to understand those Three L's, we begin to really understand the nature of God. And in understanding HIS nature, we can understand OUR nature. Because they are one and the same. Look at 2 Peter 1:3-4 in the NLT, "By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires." Sharing His divine nature. Experiencing and enjoying Jesus's life by letting Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. Partaking of His Divine Nature by letting Him live inside us and come out through us. The best way I can say it is: Living in the light of love. That's what this super long Rant series, really, has been all about. Ephesians 5:8 (NLT), "For once youwere full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!" I love that so much. People of light. Living in the light. His life is the light of men. "Living" His life by letting Him live it in us, and through us, and as us. Letting God love us and loving Him back by loving each other. It's all about love. When the Bible speaks of three other great things--faith, hope, and love--it makes sure to let us know that the greatest of the great is love. Love is the prism that everything else is filtered through. All of the fruit of the Spirit--love. Different aspects and different applications of love. All the different pictures of God--Spirit, consuming fire, light, life--are all love. Love is a consuming fire. Love is life. Love is light. Love is that Spirit. It's all love. The ultimate truth of the universe is "God is love and He loves you." That's why--and how--we can partake of His Divine Nature; He gave it to us. Wrapped us up in Himself. Drew us into Himself and planted Himself in us when He was lifted up from the earth on the cross. Gave us everything He is and everything He has when He laid His life down for us. Jesus said the greatest love a man can have is to lay His life down for his friends... and then He went to the cross and did just that. He gave us everything. He gave His life FOR us, but He also gave His life TO us. He gave us His heart, His Spirit, His name, His nature... His life. His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! When it was dark and void God said, "Let there be light." He gave His only begotten Son. He injected love into the situation. And that's what brought us out of darkness. It is the GOODNESS of God, not the scariness of God, that leads men to repentance. You don't repent because you're afraid. You repent because you see the light. Repentance means thinking again about something in light of something else. Getting new information and making better decisions. When you know better, you can do better. That's why God reveals Himself to us (and in us, and through us, and as us). When we see Him as He is, we BE Him as He is. What you see is what you be. If you see love... you will be love. If you know and believe that you are full of God's love... that love will come out of you. It's too big and too good not to. So let the light shine. Live your best life. Let God love you and love Him back by loving people!

When I think about love, one of the most important things--to me--is that it is unconditional. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Because it's not about what we do. It's about who we are... and who God is. God IS love. Love isn't just what He does, it's who He is. In order for God to not love, He would have to somehow not be God. And even if He could do that... He wouldn't. But somehow it seems as if we've turned "love" into "like." Being nice to someone because you like them. Or, worse yet, I'll scratch your back in the hopes that you scratch mine. We use "love" to manipulate and control people. Which is awful. Love is never about getting. Because love IS giving! For God so loved the world He GAVE His only begotten Son. Giving everything you have and everything you are. That's love. Now look at Luke 6:32, "For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them." It's not a prid quo pro. It's not "I'll do for you because you've done for me." It's, "But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto thge unthankful and to the evil" (Luke 6:35). If all you're doing is scratching someone's back because they scratched yours--or because you hope they will scratch yours--that's not love. Love comes without qualification or condition. Love is simply letting what's inside you come out by knowing and believing it's in there. Love is simply seeing a need and meeting it--no matter who, what, where, when, why, or how. And the reason this Love is linked (and by linked, I mean is the same thing) as Light and Life... is because the Light shines, showing us how to live the Life of Love! You can't give what you don't have. Right? How could you? And you can only give what you do have. So knowing what you have (and believing that you have it) is vitally important. Letting God love you, and receiving that love, is vitally important. Receiving... so that you can release. And, in the releasing, experience the gift you've been given! Love is giving. If you want to feel love... love somebody! Look at 1 John 4:19, "We love him, because he first loved us." And we love Him BY loving each other! Love God and love people. Love God BY loving people. Do it as unto the Lord. Don't worry about whether or not you think someone "deserves" love. Deserve's got nothing to do with it. We love because He first loved us. We love because He has shined His light of love--His life, which is the light of men--on us, and into us, and out of us, and through us! We love because He first loved us. We love because He has given us the love that we can love with. He gave us something, and now we can give it away. Experience it BY giving it away! Love is giving. So instead of being selfish, and trying to use "love" to manipulate or control, or get something from someone... just give what you've got. Be selfless. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Fill yourself to overflowing with what you have been filled with. Let God love you, and love Him back by loving people. And don't worry about the rest of it. Don't worry about getting anything. God has already given you everything. Everything He is and everything He has. Everything you need. And that's what life is really all about--having everything you need and nothing that you don't. Being thankful and grateful for what you have... and using what you have. Giving what you have. Loving people with the love that God has loved you with! Living a life in the light!

I preach and teach and Rant about this idea a lot, but that's not going to stop me from doing it again today: God is love. As seen in 1 John 4:16, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." That word "love" is number 26 in Strong's Greek Concordance and means, "love, that is, affection or benevolence; specifically (plural) a love feast: - (feast of) charity, dear, love." God is a love feast. Which makes the idea of "you are what you eat" pretty amazing. Look at Matthew 26:26, "As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body." Partaking of the love feast. Dwelling in God by injesting Him. Getting Him inside you. So that you can know what's inside you. So that what's inside you can come out of you. Filling yourself to overflowing with what God has already filled you with. Experiencing what you've got by giving it away. By sharing it. Because love is giving. A feast is for more than just you. "And the Spirit the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17). I've long said that I believe God is too much of a gentleman to force His will upon us. But at the same time, He does ring the dinner bell. The Spirit and the Bride doesn't say, "Come... or else." The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come and get it!" It's available to us. Jesus has prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies. A six-course meal that is the Six Steps to the Throne (Jesus being Crucified, Died, Buried, Quickened, Raised, and Seated. See my book "Six Steps to the Throne" for more details). But here's the point: A feast is a shared meal. Jesus was eating with His disciples. Love is inclusive. We have more than enough to share. WE can ring the dinner bell. WE can compel people to come in out of the highways and byways. We can make what WE have available. Receive it... and release it. Live out of our abundance. Because we are blessed... to be a blessing. Because we have what we need. God invited us to the table, now we can invite others. That's the Divine Order of things. That's how we experience and enjoy the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God--His life of love. We simply let Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. We simply let what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. This life, with God as the central theme, can get easy. It doesn't have to be a struggle. We can be still and know that He is God. We can begin to understand the Light, the Life, and the Love of God. Which, by the way, is Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Way to the Father, the Truth about the Father, and the Life of the Father! And He lives in us. Whatever we need... He has given us. Our heavenly Father--the provider. Whatever He wants us to have, or use, or experience, He has given to us. JESUS prepared the table. And the Spirit and the Bride say, "Come and get it!" It's a love feast. That's what love is. That's who God is. Take, eat. Taste and see that the Lord is good. And then, when you see how good it is... share it. Give it away. Invite others in the same way that you've been invited. Give what you've got, by knowing what you've got. Fill yourself to overflowing with what God has already filled you with and let the love that's inside come out!

When Jesus said, "...I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25), He was imparting a vital truth. Because at the time people were looking forward to "the last day." And, sadly, over 2,000 years later people are still looking forward to that "last day." But if you notice, He didn't say "I WILL be the resurrection, I WILL be the life." He said "I am." Which, I'm sure we're aware of, is a very important, very powerful phrase. When God says, "I am" it means something. But my point for today is that we need to stop looking forward to something that will "hopefully" happen. Look at Acts 17:28, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poests have said, For we are also his offspring." This is a "now faith" verse. This is a present tense verse. This is a day to day, rubber meets the road, practical living verse. In Him we live. And move. And have our being. Life is the totality of what we have. Jesus is the life. The life of God. The life of love. Because Jesus is God in the flesh, love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. And to live is to love. To love is to live. You can't do one without the other and you can't have one without the other. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. In Him we LOVE, and move in love, and have our being in love. And, of course, it is the light that shines in order to show us this love. I've long said being a disciple of Jesus is being a student of love. Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Making (or really LETTING) love be the central theme of our lives. We have our being... in love. It's all about love. The living water of love flows from our innermost being. It's what makes us... us. And it's what allows us to connect with each other. Love is the bond that holds us together. Love is foundation that everything else is built on. Love is the Rock on which we stand. And when we stand on the Rock of love we cannot be shaken. Love is what holds us up when everything else tries to drag us down or trip us up. Love is what calms the storm. Love is what brings us through. Guys... it's all about love. So instead of getting religious on people, we ought to just love people. I always say, "Live your best life." And now I'm here to say, "You live your best life by loving people!" Letting God love you and loving Him back by loving people is HOW you live your best life. That's how you experience Jesus's everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection life of love! He IS the resurrection. He HAS brought us out of death and into life. Look at 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." Love is literally the difference between death and life. No love... no life. Know love... know life! In love we live and move and have our being. In love we experience what we were created for. Life isn't about "whoever dies with the most toys wins." Life is about serving others. Helping others. Loving others. And the most simple way to do that is to see a need and, if at all possible, meet it. Live out of your abundance. If you have two coats, and someone doesn't have one... give them one of your coats! You don't have to freeze to death. You don't need a saw to give someone a hand. But if you can help someone... help them! Do what's in your heart. Do it BECAUSE it's in your heart. The Three L's are Light, Life, and Love. That's who God is. And because He lives in us--because we live in Him--what who WE are. In Him we live, and move, and have our being!

There's a truth here that I think is important to grasp. And I guess you could call it the inheritance factor. What is passed down from Father to Son. And before we even get into it I want to say that an inheritance cannot be earned. It has nothing to do with what you do, and everything to do with who you are. So we need to get out of, and stay out of, the idea of "earning our Spiritual bread by the sweat of our brow." Labor and works don't work. It's all about receiving and releasing what we have already been given. Fighting the good fight of faith and laying hold of eternal life. God gave it to us, we experience and enjoy it by believing that we have it. Ok. So look at John 5:26-27 (I go indepth on these verses in episode 8 of my Jesus Rant podcast, so check that out when it's released!), "For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." The life of the Father--the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection life of love--handed down from Father to Son. Every good and perfect gift coming down from the Father of light. And, by the way, He is the Father of light because WE are the light and He is our Father! Jesus described both Himself and us as the light of the world. It's the same light. Now look at John 1:4, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." Life. Light. Love. All the same thing. All the same God. All the same GIFT of God. He has given us that life. That light. That love. And with those Three L's... the authority to give as it has been given to us. That's what executing judgment is all about--it's about being a witness. Sharing your experience. What you have seen and heard. Telling people what God has done for you, with the expectation that He can, and will, do it for them. God is no respector of persons. He loves us all the same. We are--collectively and individually--the apple of His eye. I'm His favorite, and so are you. He wants the best for us. That's why He gave the best to us. Gave us His only begotten Son. So that we might not perish but experience and enjoy HIS life as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. His life is the light of men. His life is what allows us to see things clearly. The life of the Father passed down to the Son. And when that light is shining, what we see clearly... is love. In the beginning it was dark out. Then God said, "Let there be light." He injected Jesus--love--into the situation. And that changed everything. For the better. We were blind, but now we can see. We were dead, but now we can walk in newness of life. We were looking for love in all the wrong places, but now we can go to the source. We can come boldly to the throne of grace to find grace in times of need. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Because he knew where to look for it. Because he knew where it was. We don't have to run FROM our heavenly Father in fear that He will punish us. We can run TO Him with the assurance that He will lead us, and guide us, and direct us, and protect us! God is not moved by what we do. He moved because of who we are. Nothing can separate us from His love. It doesn't matter what we do. He loves us anyway. Because of who we are... and because of who He is. A Father loving His Son. A Father giving His Son everything He has and everything He is. So that we can have something... to give. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are filled so that we can fill ourselves to overflowing. It's all about receiving and releasing that love of God. Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there!

Life, Light, Love. If I had to describe God with only three words... those would probably be my choices. Today I want to focus in on the aspect of "life." And what I want to say first and foremost is that this is not describing what we might (or might not) have someday in the sweet by and by. This is our present reality. Look at John 11:24-25, "Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Did you catch that? Martha was putting everything out into the future. Just like so much of the church world still does today. Everything is a blessed hope (in the sense of hoping that it will happen someday). I believe the cross is a blessed assurance, because it happened 2,000 years ago! Jesus said, "It is finished." He did everything He needed to do in order to give us everything we needed to have. Notice that He didn't say, "I WILL BE the resurrection and the life." He said, "I AM the resurrection and the life." Present tense. Not what was going to happen, but what was happening at that very moment. I always equate this to the days of heaven on earth. Because, see, heaven isn't just where you go when you die. Heaven is where you went when Jesus died! Heaven is where you are right now, because heaven is in you right now! This life isn't about struggling until you get to the afterlife. It's about living life to the fullest while you have a life to live! The past is history, the future is a mystery, all we have is right now. And it's a gift. That's why they call it the present! So instead of wasting the time we have, in the hopes of something better after we die, we need to use it to experience and enjoy the gift we've been given! We need to understand that when Jesus died... we died! So in a very real sense this IS the "afterlife." This IS heaven. Heaven on earth. We're not wiating until "the last day." The last day was the cross. And, really, when you consider that Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the end came before the beginning! Jesus is both Alpha and Omega! He is the beginning and the end. It's all Him. It's all love. It's all light. It's all life! Look at John 1:3, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." I don't know how else to say it. It's all Jesus. And when we see Him in everything--as everything--we can even get to the point of seeing that it doesn't necessarily go FROM beginning to end... but in reality the beginning and the end are the same thing. How could eternal, everlasting, never-ending life have a beginning or an end? Right? That's how Melchizedek is described in Hebrews 7:3, "Without father, without mother, withou descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually." No beginning or end. Simply there. Abiding forever. Always has been, always will be. And the picture of this that I really like is the picture of the river of life. Living water. It flows no matter what. And we experience it when we jump in and stop trying to swim against the tide. When we flow. When we let the water carry us to where GOD wants us to be. To where LOVE wants us to be. Life isn't as hard as we make it a lot of the time. Life is meant to be experienced as we be still and know that HE is God. Not trying to follow in His foot steps but letting Him make His own foot steps with our feet. Living life--right here and right now--by letting Jesus (who IS life) live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. Experiencing His life by letting Him live it. In HIM we live, and move, and have our being! That's where I think I want to go with this tomorrow.

I talk about the Three T's a lot--Time, Talent, Treasure. Because, to me, those are the things you can really control. Those are the things you have. So those are the things you can use. And you can either use them wisely--spend them, or invest them--or you can waste them. It's a bummer when I see people wasting them. But for this Rant series (and I'm contemplating doing a super long one instead of the regular 5 parter, we'll see), I want to introduce the Three L's. And these Three L's are really just three different ways of saying who God is. The Three L's are: Life, Light, Love. When we really start to understand who God is, that's when we can come out of the religous works and labor "relationship" with Him and begin to really see Him as He is. That's a big part of the light aspect. And that's one of my favorites. I love preaching and Ranting about the light. Jesus identifying Himself as the light of the world... and identifying US as the light of the world (John 8:12 and Matthew 5:14 respectively). It's the same light. The same light that HE is, is the same light that WE are. It shines on us, and in us, and through us! And if you look at John 1:4 you see, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." There's not only a connection between life and light. There is a very plain, simple, and bold statement that they are the same thing. So we're beginning to see the picture here. Look at 1 John 1:7 (NLT), "But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowhip with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." LIVING in the LIGHT means fellowship (or LOVE) with one another! And a byproduct of that love... is being cleansed from all sin. I'm going to do a podcast episode on this in the near future, but I want to touch on it here. When 1 John 3:9 says, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God," what we need to understand is that sin is unbelief. And a believer--by defintion--cannto sin. How could he? What we need to understand is that when you're full of light, there is no room for darkness. When God arises, His enemies are scattered. It's not a deal where you have to be "Mr. Perfect" and never make any mistakes. If you never make any mistakes, how can you learn from your mistakes? Even on your worst day, when you've done everything wrong, you are the righteousness of God in Christ. Because nothing can separate you from His love. Nothing can change your identity--who you are in Christ, which is who Christ is in you. In Revelation 21:3 in the Message Bible we read, "I heard a voice from the Throne: "Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and wome! They're his people, he's their God."" God moved in. To you. You are the house of the Lord. You are where He lives. And He's never moving out. So our blessed assurance is not "heaven" as an opposite of hell, someday, when (if) we die, if we're good boys and girls and make the cut. Our blessed assurance is that when Jesus died (and we died in Him) we went to heaven. That's where we are right now. The days of heaven on earth. Ruling and reigning as kings and priests on this earth. Understanding His Three L's so we can correctly spend our Three T's. Living in the light of love. That's as simple as I can make it. This abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God is all about living in the light of His love! Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with and enjoying the gift we've been given by giving it away. By sharing it! Knowing who we are by knowing who HE is and BEING who we are letting HIM be who HE is in us, and through us, and as us!

This eternal life (the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God that is His life of love) is never-ending journey. And that's why it is the journey that is important. Not the destination. Especially when you consider that the destination... is where we start. When we look into the mirror with an unveiled, open face we see the glory of God and are changed into that same image from glory... to glory. We start at glory. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. We start at Jesus. We start at God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. The journey is not changing into something we're not. It's a journey of discovery. Discovering who we are by discovering who Jesus is. And the best part is, it doesn't come from our effort. We discover who He is... as He reveals Himself to us. To us, and in us, and through us, and as us. It's the journey from death to life. Living by loving. Experiencing life by experiencing love. And since love is giving, we experience love not by getting, but by giving. Giving what we've got by knowing and believing that we already have it. Letting what's inside come out by filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. So stop looking at "progress" in the sense to "improvement." Self-improvement is rest. Being still and knowing that God is love. Knowing that God love you. The difference between death and life is love. We "get" from there... to here (from the place of being the walking dead to the place of living and loving) by accepting God's love. By letting Him love the hell out of us and then loving Him back by loving the people we come into contact with. That's the secret of life. That's why we were created. God didn't make us less than and then demand that we somehow make ourselves more. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are who we are supposed to be. God made you... you. And He made you the way you are on purpose. Being the best you you can be is not about becoming something you're not. It's about discovering (and accepting) who you really are. Which is who you are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in you. The key to all of it is looking INTO the mirror, as opposed to looking AT the mirror. If you're just looking at surface stuff you're not seeing what's really real. The deep calls out to the deep. It's what's inside that matter. The LOVE inside is what matters. Letting that love come out by knowing and believing it's in there. That's how we live. That's how we experience and enjoy the gift we've been given. Not by trying to get it, but by knowing and believing that we already have it. It's not a journy from "bad" to "good." Good and evil were on the same tree--the tree of death. And Jesus cursed that fig tree because it couldn't bear any fruit. We don't need to turn over a new leaf. We need to get onto a completely new tree! The Tree of Life. Feasting on the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Because you are what you eat. You mature by filling yourself with God. Filling yourself with love. And not chasing it etiher. Not looking for love in all the wrong places, but simply receiving the love God has already given you. Not by being someone you're not, but simply by being who you are. By letting Jesus be who HE is (one more time) in you, and through you, and as you! Letting the love, the light, the life, the God inside you... come out. That's how we get from there... to here. From death... to life. From glory... to glory!