Salvation can kind of be a tricky subject. I think for most of the "Christian world" it means "salvation from hell." Which is strange to me because Jesus never talked about saving anybody from hell. (Unless you understand hell as the place of the dead. In which case that's exactly what He did. He saved us from death by giving us HIS life.) For me, salvation was always about salvation from sin. And I guess if you think of "hell" as a fiery prison that you get thrown into if you die as a sinner, then we're kind of talking about the same thing. But for me it's so much more than that. But let's back up and build a foundation. My key verse for this Rant series (and the previous one) is Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." We spent the better part of a week looking at the truth that it was JESUS who came to seek US, not the other way around. But He didn't just seek. He also saved. And look at the last four words of the verse: "that which was lost." Not, "that which was damned." And to me, someone who is lost is simply someone who doesn't know where they are. Someone who doesn't know who they are. Someone who doesn't know why they're here. Which brings me back to salvation from our sins. Because sin is unbelief. Not believing that God loves you. Believing you have to do something--or be someone you're not--in order to earn God's love. THAT'S what Jesus came to save us from. Look at Matthew 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." Saved... from our sins. And, in a nutshell, Jesus saved us from our sins (from unbelief) by giving us something--love--to believe in. He gave us the measure of faith by proving Himself faithful. He saved us from the bondage of sin and death by drawing us into Himself and then dying. Because when He died, we died. And then He rose again. And we rose again. As a new creature. A new man. Dead to sin--because He sought us out and saved us from it--and alive unto God. Let me quote one more verse for today (and I think this is really going to be my focus for this Rant series). 1 Peter 1:9, "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." Jesus gave us faith by proving Himself faithful. But faith is the substance of things hoped for, right? The evidence of things not seen? Well, the end of our faith is salvation. We don't need to hope for what has already happened. We don't need to seek salvation. He sought us out and saved us. Took those who were dead and made them alive in Him. Freed us from the bondage we were in and empowered us to live. And not just live, but live HIS abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Him life it in us, and through us, and as us! That's what salvation is. Total and complete healing. Of mind, body, soul, and spirit. That's what we were saved from--and that's what we can now enjoy!

Seeking isn't about getting something you don't have. It's isn't about hide and seek, where God hides something and then expects you to do the work to find it. Seeking is about, "I once was lost, but now I'm found." JESUS is the one who came to seek and to save those who were lost. He found us right where we were at, and He revealed Himself to us (and in us, and through us, and as us). So when He told us to seek first the Kingdom, He wasn't telling us to try to get something we don't have. He was showing us how to experience what we DO have. Because it was the Father's good pleasure to GIVE us the Kingdom. The Kingdom that is within us. So if we're going to seek, we need to look inside. We need to fill ourselves with the fulness of God by testing the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of His love for us. Test it by USING it. By loving God--which we do by loving people--bigger and stronger than we ever thought we could. Which we are able to do... because He first loved us. We are able to seek the Kingdom because He gave us the Kingdom. We're not seeking to get. We're seeking to explore what we've got. We are able to love because He first loved us. Because HE came to seek and to save. We weren't looking for God. Or, if we were, we were looking for Him in all the wrong places. Looking for LOVE in all the wrong places. So He came, as the light of the world, in order to help us see. To see God (love) as He really is, and to see ourselves as we really are. We were God's enemies in our minds because of our wicked works. We were hiding from His presence. Running from the very thing we desired, because we didn't believe that He could love us just the way we are. We thought we had to change (from evil to good) before we'd be accepted. But when Jesus shined the light of the world, what He showed us is WE ARE the light of the world! He didn't change us from evil to good. He changed us from dead to alive. We were dead IN our trespasses and sins, and now we are dead TO sin. And alive unto God. Alive unto love. Open to love. Not seeking it (Him) anymore because it (He) found us! One of my favorite verses in Song of Solomon reads like this, "Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee" (Song of Solomon 1:4). And it's one of my favorites because it explains "our" seeking. Draw me... and WE will run after thee. He is the One drawing us, and He is the One running WITH us. Carrying us! He sought us out. One preacher said it like this, "God's a stalker." He never left us nor forsook us. He didn't put the emphasis on us to seek Him out. He gave us the Kingdom then told us how to enjoy it. By seeking it first, and not worrying about all the other stuff we get so caught up in. He drew us. He brought us into His chamber. He did it all, so we could get it all. And now we have it all! We have been saved! (But that's for tommorow's Rant series)

Seeking, in the sense of trying to find something that we don't have, is a never-ending struggle. Especially when we're looking here, there, and everywhere. Because the Kingdom is not here, or there. It is within us. So as long as we're looking without, we're looking for love in all the wrong places. As long as we're trying to take care of ourselves, focused on what we're going to eat, and drink, and clothe ourselves with, then we're NOT focused on the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Which, again, is within us. The Kingdom IS righteousness, peace, and joy and it's found in the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost is found within us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What I'm trying to say is that we don't seek outside of ourselves to gain something we're lacking. We seek inside to find what we've already been given. That's such a radical mindset though, that I don't think we can do it until we fully and truly understand that JESUS came to seek and to save that which was lost. One of the first conscious decisions the Bible records man as making is to hide from the presence of God. Adam and Eve thought God was mad at them and they thought He was going to punish them. So they hid. They started out wanting to be like God (even though they were already like God but just didn't know it... couldn't see it...) and tried to close that perceived gap by themselves. Tried to seek out and earn what they wanted by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But, since the serpent was lying to them, this was doomed to failure. That never-ending struggle where no matter how close to the carrot you get, the stick always moves a little bit further away. Jesus said it like this, "...One thing thou lackest..." (Mark 10:21). Under the Law of Moses--the Law of Sin and Death--we always come up short. There's always one thing we lack. And, under that Old Covenant, the one thing was the Holy Spirit. Fast forward to the cross. Fast forward to God pouring out His Spirit on all flesh. On God WITH us becoming God WITHIN us. On the Father GIVING us the Kingdom. Guys, that's His good pleasure. That's what makes a happy God so happy! He gets to spoil His Son(s)! He gets to see us stop struggling and start enjoying the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Jesus. The everlasting life that is the Father/Son relationship of unconditional love. And, really, that's what we've been seeking all along. That's the desire of man's heart. We want to be loved. That's the most important thing in the universe to a human being. And I believe it's only because we give up on that desire that we give ourselves wholly and completely to anything else. People who are married to their jobs, etc. They looked for love, couldn't find it, and gave up on it. Because they didn't go to the source. They didn't look within. They didn't know, or believe, or understand 1 John 4:19, "We love him, because he first loved us." Our love comes from the God who IS love. And we love Him BY loving each other. The Bible in Basic English says it like this, "We have the power of loving, because he first had love for us." We CAN love because we ARE loved. Because we are connected to the source of love. Because HE came to seek US. He found us, right where we were at, and loved us right where we were at. He didn't expect us to find anything. He brought it right to us. Now we can stop looking FOR something, and start looking AT something. We can see Jesus in the mirror and become what we behold!

I want to link together two Bible verses that I think will really help us with this idea that seeking is something WE are supposed to do. The first one is Matthew 6:33, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Now before we go any further I just want to touch on what "all these things" that "shall be added unto you" are. And quite simply, it's the natural things of life. What to eat and drink. What to wear. The bare necessities, as they say. And Jesus told us not to seek after those things. Don't worry so much about the general, day to day part of living. Because, as any Father who loves His Son would do... Daddy's got our back. He provides for us. He takes care of us. These things that we spend so much of our time, talent, and treasure trying to get really aren't that important in the grand scheme of things. (And I'm not saying we don't need them. Of course we do. I'm simply saying it's not on US to GET them.) Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Have your focus in the right place and you'll see everything else is already lined up in divine order. We don't have to put it into divine order. Jesus already did. Ok. Now my other verse, which I sometimes think is way too radical for us to even begin to understand. Luke 17:21, "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." When we run around like chickens with our heads cut off, looking for something we think we don't have, we totally miss it. When we try to enter the sheepfold any other way but through the door we rob ourselves of the gift we've been given. It's not somewhere else, and we need to seek it in order to find it. It's within. And we need to seek it in order to understand it. Not to get it, but to see what we've already got! The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, right? So seeking the Kingdom and His righteousness is really the same thing. And it's within. Because the Kingdom is within. Because we are the temple of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost lives... INSIDE us. So rather than looking here and there and everywhere, trying to find something outside of ourselves, we need to start looking within. Looking into the heart. Because God is love. So the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Love. And even my four year old son can tell you... love lives in our heart. God is love, His name is Jesus, and He lives in our heart. That's the foundation that we build on. That's the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. And everything in between. This never-ending abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life-long journey into the heart of the matter is NOT a journey of getting something. He did it all so we could get it all. And now we have it all. We have been blessed with ALL Spiritual blessings in Him. We have been given ALL things that pertain to life and godliness. Even those basics like food and drink. Given. Because it's our Father's good pleasure to GIVE US the Kingdom. He poured out His Spirit on all flesh. He doesn't just come on people in power anymore like in the Old Testament. And it isn't just Emmanuel, God WITH us, anymore. It's God WITHIN us. The Kingdom WITHIN us. So when we're seeking the Kingdom we must understand that JESUS came to seek and to save that which was lost. He found us. And that's why we can find Him (even though He was never lost. Even when we hid from His presence His promise to never leave us nor forsake us remained). He reveals Himself to us. And He reveals Himself in us, and through us, and as us! What we're seeking is what we've already got! Just like in the Wizard of Oz. When we come to the end of the yellow brick road (the higway of holiness) we find that we had what we were looking for all along. And now that we know that we have it, we can begin to enjoy it. We can share it with those around us who don't know that they have it too. We can receive it and release it. Receive it BY releasing it! We can look inside and let what's in there overflow naturally by filling ourselves with the fulness of His love!

Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Us, in other words. He came to shine the light into the darkness so that we might see things clearly--see things as they truly are. So the we might stop "seeking" Him. The lie that Eve swallowed way back in the misty garden of Eden was the one that said we have to DO in order to BE. Eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and then you'll be like God. This was a lie because we were already like God. Created in His image. We just didn't know it. We didn't know who He was, and we didn't know who we were. God had breathed the breath of life into us, but Jesus hadn't yet breathed the Holy Spirit into us. We didn't need to change--especially not from the outside-in, with an external Law trying to modify our behavior--we just needed to see with our Spiritual eyes instead of our natural ones. We thought we were missing something. We thought we were missing the love of our Creator. And we thought we needed to earn that love. We were seeking for something we thought we didn't have. When the truth of the matter is, we always had it. We just didn't know it. Because without the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--God's unconditional, unearned, unstoppable love seemed too good to be true. "How could God love a sinner like me?" So even though what we wanted--what we desperately needed--could only be found in one place, we hid from the presence of God. Because we thought He was mad at us. We were seeking something, alright. But we were looking for love in all the wrong places. Trying to fill a love-shaped (God-shaped) void inside us with any and every thing else. But only God can fill a God-shaped hole. Only love can fill a love-shaped void. And, again, there was really never a void at all. It just felt like it because we weren't able (before the cross) to receive His love. We were stuck trying to earn it. But eternal life (knowing the Father and the One whom He sent... the Father/Son love relationship) cannot be earned. Because it is a gift. And a gift must be received. That's what the good fight of faith is; not trying to get something, but laying hold of what we've already been given... by believing it. By letting God love us. Not by seeking Him, but by believing that He's already found us! That's why totally identifying with Jesus is so important--it makes HIS story OUR story by including us in it! That's what happened when Jesus was lifted up on the cross. He drew all men into Himself. And He planted Himself into all men. He got rid of that false sense of separation that we had inserted into the equation (again, when we hid from God because we thought He was mad at us). We weren't even seeking Him We were hiding. And HE found us. And saved us. Let me try to sum it up, and end this Rant, with Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He didn't wait for, or expect, US to do ANYTHING. He did it all because we COULDN'T do ANY of it. And now, it is finished. We are complete in Him. Once lost, and now found!

The more I think about things in the upside-down view of the Kingdom--you know, lose your life to save it, first will be last and last first, and all that--the more I realize how backwards we have it. Like, we think WE need to do stuff. When, in truth, Jesus did it all. ALL. He finished the work. He drew us into Himself, and planted Himself in us. He got rid of the (sense of) separation that man had put in place when Adam hid from the presence of God. The presence was still there, of course, because God had promised to never leave us nor forsake us. But OUR eyes (the natural eyes) were opened when Adam ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the tree of death. God was still there. Nothing had changed on His end. But we were hiding from Him because we THOUGHT He was mad. Colossians 1:21 says it like this, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." We THOUGHT we were His enemy. And even then HE reconciled US. Because He was never mad AT us. Because He has always been mad ABOUT us. Head over heels crazy in love with us. Willing to die rather than be without us. But we still have this idea that God is distant and WE have to do something to close that gap. It's that man-centered, performance based religion. "If I do good I'll be rewarded. If I get enough knowledge about good and evil I can do good, stop doing evil, and be like God." That's the LIE that the serpent hissed into Eve's ear though. It's not about what you do. It's about who you are. Because what you do flows from who you are. Behavior modification cannot produce a real, lasting change. Because at the end of the day you are who you believe you are. And if you believe you're a sinner... no matter how hard you try to be a saint... a sinner's gonna sin. A smoker's gonna smoke. A drinker's gonna drink. It's not until you stop trying to be someone you're not and find out who you REALLY are that all of those old (false) things fall away. A believer CANNOT sin. So once you get saved by grace (and by the way, THAT happened 2,000 years ago) you aren't a sinner anymore. You're a new creation. Let me use my key verse to try to hit home what I'm trying to say in this Rant series: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). Did you catch that? Jesus came seeking us! But we always think we need to seek Him. As if He's hiding. Or somewhere far away. As if, "Getting closer to God" is a noble quest that we undertake. Guys... He lives in us. There is no separation between us and God. As He is, so are we in this world. There's no "getting" closer to Him. What there is, is revelation knowledge of what it MEANS to be in Him and Him in us. What there is, is UNDERSTANDING of the things that we know deep down in our hearts. We know God loves us. "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." But we don't yet understand truly and fully what the love means. I can say, "God loving us means we can love each other." And to me it's that simple. But it's also incredibly vast. So big that getting to the heart of the matter IS a life-long journey. A never-ending, eternal, everlasting, abundant, Resurrection Life-long journey. But, again, it's not us seeking Him. It's Him revealing Himself to us. HE came to seek AND to save. And He found us, right where we were at. Found us, and filled us up with Himself. Opened our SPIRITUAL eyes so that we could see clearly. Not see what we're missing, but see what we've got!

Who am I? It's one of the most important questions we can ask (along with, "Where am I?" and "Why am I here?" which is why I wrote the Answer Trilogy). Because if we don't know who we are, we're always going to try to act like somebody else. There's a line in a song that says, "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything." That's what happens when we let exterior forces--including the Law of Moses--define us. We try to fit into a box that we were never meant to fit into. I guess I'm trying to say, "Why do we try so hard to fit in, when we were created to stand out?" Why do we try so hard to be someone we're not, when we were fearfully and wonderfully made? It's this idea--I'm not good enough, but if I try hard enough maybe someday I will become good enough--that makes life such a struggle. And here's what I always wonder: If I'm not good enough to start with, how can I--in my own strength and power--become better? I know you can exercise and get bigger muscles, but according to 1 Timothy 4:8, "For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." And listen, I'm not saying we shouldn't take care of our bodies. Of course we should. What I'm saying is there are no Spiritual calisthenics that can make us "better Christians." What I'm saying is, no matter how hard you try you cannot DO in order to BE. Because what you do flows from who you be. So instead of trying to earn something that can't be earned, we need to BE still and know that HE is God. We need to understand the finished work and see ourselves in it. We need to understand that the New Creature... is us! We need to understand that we are complete in Him. Not because of anything WE did, but because of everything HE did. Because He not only gave His life FOR us, but He gave His life TO us. And now we are equipped and empowered to partake of the divine nature. Because His blood runs through our veins. Our new (true) DNA is the Divine Nature of the Almighty. When Jesus remade the world in His image that included us. He circumcised our hearts, cut away the flesh of human effort, and revealed HIS heart beating with love in our chests! That's why (and how) His blood runs through our veins! And the life is in the blood. Jesus said if we don't eat His flesh and drink His blood we have no part in Him. Because the Word was made flesh. THAT'S how we partake of Him. By hearing, and knowing, and believing, the Word. The same Word that made us clean. The Word of LOVE. Love is our new (original) nature. Love is not just what we do, it's who we are. Because it's who our Daddy is. God is love. We were created in His image. He gave us His Spirit. His heart beats in our chests. His blood runs through our veins. He filled us to overflowing with His love, and that's how (and why) we can love Him by loving each other! That's our Father's business, and that's our DNA. That's who we are. We are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased!

It's what's inside that makes you who you are. Not the external stuff, but the internal stuff. Jesus said it--in an admittedly negative seeming connotation--like this, "What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy--full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too" (Matthew 23:25-26 NLT). It's not the outside, it's the inside. Everything works from inside-out. We fill ourselves to overflowing with what's within and it comes out naturally. Who we ARE defines what we do, not the other way around. And just in case we want to get all religious and try to "clean up our acts," let's remember that it's foolish to try to finish in the flesh what was started in the Spirit, and let's remember Jesus' words to His disciples in John 15:3, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." HE cleaned us up, both inside AND out with the Word--love--that He spoke to us. The best the external Law could do was to accuse us and condemn us and make us feel bad about our inevitable failures. It demanded perfection without being able to produce it. And that's why we FELT like failures. That's why we walked around with our heads bowed saying things like, "I'm only human." Or, "I'm just a sinner saved by grace." I've said this a whole bunch of times but I'll say it again here: If you were saved by grace (and you were!) you're not a sinner anymore! The old passed away and the new came forth. No longer a sinner, but a saint. A new creation in Christ where there is NO condemnation... because there is nothing to condemn! Jesus took away the sin of the world and a believer CANNOT sin! If sin is unbelief, then by definition a believer cannot sin. You can't unbelieve if you're a believer, right? And I'm not talking about moments of doubt. I'm not talking about searching for truth. Every time someone asked God for a sign, He gave it to them. He never has, and never will, have a problem proving Himself. Where else do you think we got the measure of faith? We have faith in Him because He proved (and continues to prove) Himself faithful. Even when the religious folk asked for a sign Jesus said He'd give them the sign of Jonah--three days dead and then back to life to preach the gospel. And why did Jesus preach the gospel? Not to earn HIs Daddy's approval. The Father approved the Son BEFORE Jesus started His ministry. He preached the gospel because the good news that He had was TOO good to keep to Himself. He didn't do it in order to be. He did it because He already was. We don't have to clean ourselves up, because we're already clean through the Word. All we have to do is stop trying so hard. Stop trying to clean ourselves up. Stop trying to be someone we're not. And just be who we are. Get to know our true selves by getting to know Him. Letting Him love us so we can love one another! That's human nature. That's what we were created to do. That's the blood--the DNA (Divine Nature of the Almighty)--that flows through our veins!

It's impossible to BE the real you unless you KNOW the real you. Until that happens, you will forever try (and fail) to be someone you're not. And that's pretty tragic. Heartbreaking. Because you were fearfully and wonderfully made. Made in the image of God, in fact. Which is why trying to act like your society's idea of who God is--what "holy" is--will never work. All it will ever be is an act. That's why what you DO isn't as important as who you ARE. Because, at the end of the day, who you are dictates what you do. We talk a lot about human nature, right? But normally we use it as an excuse because we just did something we're not particularly proud of. "Why in the world did you do that?" "Give me a break, I'm only human." ONLY human. As if there's something else we should aspire to be. Isn't it interesting that we're humans who think we're supposed to try to have a spiritual experience, when God is a Spirit and He became flesh in order to dwell among us? We've got it backwards. We think we need to do in order to be. But really we do BECAUSE we be. We think we're humans who are supposed to have a spiritual experience when really we're spirit having a human experience! We think we're "evil" and we're supposed to be "good." But really we were (before the cross) dead, and now we've been made alive! I'm telling you: Everything we need is inside us. The life is in the blood. By partaking of the divine nature--totally and completely identifying with Jesus--we can experience His life. The life He gave for us, and the life He gave TO us. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life that is the Father/Son relationship between God and man. God's heart beats with love. And because of the circumcision of the heart--made without hands--the flesh of human effort has been cut away and God's heart has been revealed in OUR chests! His blood runs through our veins. He poured His Spirit out on all flesh. He shed His blood for the remission of sins. Like when cancer goes into remission, right? It's there... and then it's gone. Behold, the Lamb of God who TOOK AWAY the sin of the world! He took away the sin and death that held us bondage. He freed us! He took away sin--or unbelief--by telling us, and showing us, the truth! The ultimate truth of the universe that says, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand" (John 3:35). Daddy loves you. And because He loves you He gave you everything. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son? The father told the other son, "You are always with me and everything I have is yours." That's what I tell MY son all the time. "What's mine is yours." So we don't have to beg. Or try to earn. An inheritance is handed down from Father to Son. It's not what you do. It's who you are. Who your daddy is. If you're trying to be a son you're going to end up acting like a slave. But if you KNOW you're a son then you behave like one. Naturally. You go about your Father's business. Not to try to impress Him, or earn anything from Him, but because you believe in it. Because you're so full of your Father's business (loving one another) that it overflows out of you. Not works and labor--which don't work--but rest. Not trying to be someone you're not (which is impossible) but simply being yourself. Letting Jesus be HIMSELF in, and through, and as you!

There's old and there's new. (Even though, really, "new" is just a return to the original.) The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The blood that is the life of the flesh, and the blood of the Lamb that is eternal life. Jesus said it like this, "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is she for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). The blood OF the new testament. The blood that IS the New Covenant! And catch the truth of why Jesus shed His blood for us. Why He gave His life for us and gave His life to us: For the remission of sins. He didn't come to make "evil" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. Before the cross we were in bondage to sin and death. And no matter how hard we tried, or how many external rules or laws we (tried and failed to) follow... we couldn't do anything about it. We were in need of a Savior. A New Covenant. On that didn't condemn us, but one that affirmed us, and empowered us. The biggest problem with the Law of Moses is that it demanded perfection without being able to produce perfection. It set the standard too high and we couldn't reach it. Not even Moses himself, the mediator of that Old Covenant, made it into the Promised Land on his own merit. It wasn't until Moses died--the old passed away--and Joshua (type and shadow of Jesus) came forth that the people could enter into God's rest. What am I saying? Jesus came to save us from our SINS. From unbelief. From the lie that said we had to do in order to be. Look at Hebrews 10:16-17 (and remember that Jesus' blood IS the New Covenant). "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And ther sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Jesus shed His blood for the remission of sins. So that the old could pass away. So that--through the circumcision of the heart that was made without hands--God's heart might be revealed in our chests. He put His laws into our HEART. The perfect law of liberty. The New Commandment that says, "Love one another as Jesus loves you." And He didn't just put the laws there, He also put the ability to OBEY the laws there. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). He put the want to, and the can do, into our hearts. No more are we struggling under the Law--doing what we hate, and hating what we do, and never able to do what we actually WANT to do. Because the blood that was shed for us now flows through our veins. No longer are we in bondage to sin and death. There is life in the blood, and in HIS blood there is abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life! Sin can't hold us down anymore. Because Jesus took it away. And forgave it. And forgot it. He saved us from our sins. He saved us from unbelief by giving us something--someONE, Himself, love--to believe in! And now that we are free FROM sin we are free TO live. That's what the perfect law of liberty is! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Because the Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of love. And to live is to love. To love is to live. That's what every Father wants for His Son. That's what comes from our new (original) nature. The divine nature. The nature of love. That's why we were created, and that's why Jesus died and rose again. He reconciled us to God. To the source of love. So that we might know and believe that we are loved... and love one another with that same love!