The second death--the death of death--is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. A great thing. Because out of that second death comes the resurrection. Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! To live is to love and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. Look at Revelation 20:6 (NLT), "Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years." How could death hold any power over those who share in the resurrection? It's about overcoming. Knowing the truth and letting it make you free and set you free. "Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious will not be harmed by the second death" (Revelation 2:11 NLT). Overcoming. Being victorious. More than conquerors through Him that loves us and gave Himself for us. Now add this to that: "Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne" (Revelation 3:21 NLT). Not only does the second death not harm us... not only does it read to the resurrection and walking in newness of life... but it leads to sitting on the throne. With God. In a posture of rest. Being still and knowing that HE is God. Letting Jesus live His own life in us, and through us, and as us as we receive and release His love. Everything in this life works through the receiving and releasing of God's love. Letting Him love us and loving Him back by loving people. Ruling and reigning in and through love. Filling ourselves up with what God has already filled us with. Identifying with and experiencing the second death as it occurred 2,000 years ago on an old rugged cross. His death was our death. Our death is not in our future, it's in our past. And if this human body needs to change in order for us to get to the next step in the journey... that's not a bad thing either. It's a good thing. One more memory verse for today: ""But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!" (1 Corinthians 15:51 NLT). And, just real quick, it always rankles me a little bit when people say things like, "Death and taxes! The only absolutes in life!" Or, "everybody dies." Because, even physically, not everybody died. Elijah, for example. And Enoch. Sounds like having a name that starts with "E" is pretty good. But seriously, even religious folk spend a lot of time and effort talking about eternal life. But have somehow made that into the "afterlife." If life never ends, why are we talking about "after"? If something is eternal, it has no beginning or no end. Like Melchizedek, who, according to Hebrews 7:3, was, "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually." Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. The end of the old and the beginning of the new. And it all comes down to His Six Steps to the Throne--Crucified, Died, Buried, Quickened, Raised, Seated. The finished work of the cross is how and why we can experience the abudant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love that is the gift of God! You have to go through the second death to get there, but you don't have to be afraid of it, because you don't have to be hurt by it. Jesus' death was your death. It already happened, and you don't have to worry about it. Now you can sit on the throne with God and walk in newness of life by letting Jesus live in you, and through you, and as you!

The second death (the death OF death) led to the new life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God that is a life of love. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love each other. Love is the difference between life and death. No love, no life. Know love, know life! Look at 1 Peter 1:3 (NLT), "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation." Jesus being raised from the dead was our new birth. And Jesus couldn't have been raised from the dead unless He first died. Makes sense, right? In order for death to be defeated, Jesus had to die, be buried, and rise again. That broke death's hold on us. Let me say it another way, "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who love, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20 NLT). And, "We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin" (Romans 6:6 NLT). Sin and death (and the law). The things Jesus came to free us from. We were slaves. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were the walking dead. Trying to do the best we could with what we had, but convinced that we couldn't do anything because we didn't have anything. That was life before the cross. Before the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That was the problem. And, of course, Jesus was the solution. On the cross He fought the war to end all wars. Leaving us nothing left to fight but the good fight of faith--knowing and believing that the work is finished. Knowing and believing that we are who God says we are, we have what God says we have, and we can do what God created us to do! Which, the by way, is all love. We are love, we have love, we can love! It took a second death to get us out of death. That's what I'm trying to say today. We were crucified with Christ so that when He rose again, we rose again. So that, by having faith in God--by believing in Him--we can experience His life as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us! Sin and death and the law have lost their power over us. We can walk in newness of life without anything holding us back or tripping us up. We can walk by faith and not by sight, knowing that everything is under our feet. Jesus walked on water because everything was under His feet. He didn't sink because He wasn't a prisoner to His surroundings (or anything else for that matter). When you're free... you're all the way free. Either the cross changed everything or it didn't change anything. That's the mindset we need to have in order to experience life on God's level. When you're dead, you're free from the law. When you're dead, there's nothing anybody can threaten you with. I always tell people that I don't have any plans for my funeral or anything like that... because I won't be there. It won't matter to me. And, when you experience this second death--the death OF death--that makes you as free as you can get. You can have that second birth and that new life, and you can live that life to the fullest. You can be who you were created to be. You can live the life God prepared for you--by letting HIM live HIS life in you, and through you, and as you. So don't be afraid of this second death. We're going to see tomorrow that it didn't even (doesn't even) hurt!

The second death is the death... of death. And after death died, Resurrection Life could come forth. Let me say it another way: "Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin vs grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end" (Romans 5:19-21 MSG). Adam ate from the wrong tree--the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of death--and on that day he surely died. Got us into all that trouble with sin and death. We were dead men walking. And in order to get us out of that death, we needed a second death. The death OF death! So that we might experience life, and that more abundantly. So that we might walk in newness of life. So that we might experience the aggressive forgiveness (what an awesome explanation of grace that is!) of God. Whatever trouble we got ourselves into... God got us out of. He snatched us out of death by drawing us into Himself. And filled us with Himself. His light. His love. His life. So that we can experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us! He has invited us into a life that goes on and on, world without end. Which, one more time, really begs the question of why we are so caught up in the idea of an "afterlife." If life doesn't end, how can there be an "after"? I agree that things change. Things always have and always will. But eternal means eternal, doesn't it? Life without end. Because death is done away with. The last enemy defeated was death. And it was defeated 2,000 years ago when Jesus died, was buried, and rose again! So don't have to mess around with it, or worry about it, or be afraid of it. We can live without fear. We can walk, and live, by faith... in love! Perfect love casts out all fear. Because living and loving are the same thing. You can't have one without the other or do one without the other. To live is to love and to love is to live. So when we're talking about a second death--one that we will see does not hurt believers--we are talking about the doorway to eternal life. Once you reckon that death is dead... you can live forever. Once you reckon yourself dead to sin you can live unto God! Sin is unbelief. Believing anything other than the ultimate truth of the universe that says, "God is love and He loevs you." God is life and He lives in you. God is light and He shines in you. All we have to do in order to answer Jesus' invitation into His life... is receive it and release it. God made the Way of Grace. We respond with the Walk of Faith. Letting what's inside--the light, the life, the love of God--come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Understanding that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Then Jesus died. And His death was our death. The dead died, and were brought into an entirely new life. Jesus' life! Now we live in Him because He lives in us! Now we can experience His life of love by letting Him love us and loving Him back by loving each other! That's what life is. That's how life is truly lived. That's what's available to us. And that's not just what we can do... that's who we are!

This is kind of a big subject, and I debated whether or not to even attempt to tackle any part of it. But then I figured, why not? It's pretty important. And if I need to I can go further than part 5. This is MY blog after all. I make the rules. So, having said that, let's just right into it. I think we can all agree that there was a rather monumental shift that took place around 2000 years ago. It happened when Jesus died on the cross. When He gave His life both for us, and to us. But here's the thing: That right there was the second death. So anybody looking forward to that is looking in the wrong direction. Let's track this: The first death was when Adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death). On that day (or IN that day) he surely died. A Spiritual death. Physically he went on to live until he was like 930 years old or some such. But what happened with the first death is that he--and we "in" him--became the walking dead. In a sense cut off from the Spirit of God. God was still there--He swore He would never leave us nor forsake us--but we were hiding from His presence. Because we thought He was mad at us and wanted to punish us. Unfortunately, that's how a lot of us still act. Our relationship with God is still based on trying to stay out of trouble. Getting away with as much as we can. Or completely giving up because we think we're on the "highway to hell" anyway, so we might as well not even try. Which, to me, is tragic. Running FROM God instead of running TO Him. But God knew that in order to experience life--and Jesus said it Himself, He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly--we needed a second death. Look at Revelation 20:14 (NLT) just so we can be absolutely sure about what we're talking about here, "Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death." So, a few things here. First off--if the grave, or what some other translations say as "hell" was thrown INTO the lake of fire... then hell can't BE a lake of fire, right? And we know that GOD is a consuming fire. But He doesn't burn people up, He purifies them. So. You know. There is some pretty rotten "afterlife" stuff out there. What I want to focus on today, and going forward, is that death was thrown into the lake of fire. The death OF DEATH is the second death. Which makes sense if you look at the gift of God which is eternal life. If you have eternal life... there is no death. And let me just throw this in here too: If you have eternal life... how can you have an "afterlife"? I did a whole podcast episode about the afterlife so I don't want to beat it into the ground here, but it bothers me that we have our focus so messed up so much of the time. Jesus didn't come to give us an afterlife. He came to give us LIFE. HIS life. His very own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! And that word "resurrection" is so important. Because in order to experience this new life... you need the second death. Again--the death OF death. Jesus didn't come to make "bad" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. And He did that by being lifted up from the earth on the cross, drawing us all into Himself, dying, and rising again so that WE could now walk in NEWNESS of life! The death of death means we don't have to fear death anymore. Which makes sense according to 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." To live is to love and to love is to live. In order to truly experience life we must fully experience God's love. Because they are one and the same. He brought us out of death and into life. He brought us out of fear and into love!

We know all things, and we have all things. Which means, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:13). When we begin to understand who we really are--when the scales of our own pride and self righteousness fall off and we can clearly see that the light of the world (the love of God... Jesus... God in the flesh, love in a body... God in OUR flesh, love in OUR body) is shining--that is when we can do all things. Which, of course, in the context of Spiritual things, means love. All things--we have all things that pertain to life and godliness... we have an unction from the Holy One and we know all things--is love. Period. Full stop. The wonderful thing about love is that it comes in so many different shapes and sizes. It is the solution to every problem because there is a facet of love that will get you through whatever you're going through. When the Scriptures talk about, well, I'll just quote it. "The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure" (1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT). When the Scriptures talk about escaping, we are talking about enduring. And love never fails... because it endures. Everything works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end yet. That's our "blessed hope." Our hope is in Jesus. But not the hope of something happening. What needed to happen already happened 2000 years ago on an old rugged cross. And, really, from the foundation of the world. It is Christ in you the hope of glory. Specifically, the "hope" of REVEALED glory. The glory of God IN you being revealed THROUGH you. You are the spout where the glory comes out. You are the visible face of the invisible God. Christ is strengthening you to fulfull your purpose on this earth--which is to rule and reign. Which means letting God love you and loving Him back by loving the people you come into contact with. If you can love "the unloveable" that means you can do all things. Because you know all things. Because you've been given all things. If you know that God is love and He loves you... you can fill yourself to overflowing with that love and you can love anybody. Under any circumstances. If you know that you have all things... you can live out of your abundance. You can see a need and meet it. You can do more than just give nice words to people. You can put your money where your mouth is. You can make a real difference in people's lives by feeding them when they're hungry or clothing them when they're naked. You can give what you've got because you know you have it, and you know people need it. AND because you know that you have no lack because your God has no lack. You can live out of your abundance, and you can love bigger and harder and stronger than ever before because you know that there is no way you could ever run out of love. Love isn't just what you have. And it isn't just what you do. Love is who you are. Because love is who God is, and as He is, so are we in this world! That's what we know, and that that's what we can finally--through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth--begin to understand. We can stop trying to be someone we're not in order to get something we think we haven't got, and we can finally embrace who we are and BE who we are. Which is who we are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in us! It is that love inside of us coming out of us that equips and empowers us to do all things--to be loved by God and to love Him back by loving people!

It's no much HAVING it all as it is USING what you have. To really (hopefully) drive this point home I want to link two verses of Scripture. 1 Corinthians 2:16 (NLT), "For, "Who can know the LORD's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?" But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ." And, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Philippains 2:5). Did you catch that? We have the mind of Christ. He gave it to us. It's not something we need. It's something we already have. We can know the Lord's thoughts. And, just in case we ever get confused about that, there's Jeremiah 29:11 to help us out, "For I know the thouhgts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Man, I love that verse. When my son was new I asked my pastor to pick out and write a memory verse in Logan's bible for him. I gave my pastor the Bible, then when and preached a sermon. About Jeremiah 29:11. The same verse my pastor picked. It wasn't planned--by us at least--but God knows what He's doing. Anyway... if we have thoughts that don't line up with God's thoughts about us, thoughts of peace and not of evil, that's when we need to bring our thoughts under His captivity. That's when we need to USE the mind of Christ that is ALREADY in us. Again, it's not about GETTING anything. We have all things that pertain to life and godliness. We know all things. It's about being thankful and grateful for what we have... and using what we have. It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got. Living with an attitude of gratitude. Knowing and believing that my God HAS provided all our need, according to His riches in glory. I have no lack because my God has no lack. I have everything I need. I simply need to know it, believe it, and use it. If we want to test the height, and length, and breadth, and depth of God's love for us... we do so by loving people bigger, and harder, and stronger than we ever have before. You test something out by putting it into practice. We experience and enjoy the gift we've been given (the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God which is His life of love) by giving it away. Love IS giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. So instead of being so caught up on getting something you think you haven't got... give what you know you have got. Let what's inside--again, the love of God--come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. By letting God love you and loving Him back by loving the people you come into contact with. If you don't know what to do... do what you know. You know God loves you... love people! God and people, I'm telling you. Love God and love people. Love God BY loving people. Let God love the hell out of you, and love Him back by loving the hell out of people! "All things" boils down to love. It really does. What else could pertain to "life and godliness" but love? God IS love. To live is to love (and to love is to live). It's all about love. We know all things because we know the ultimate truth of the universe--that God is love and He loves you. That the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things--ALL THINGS--into His hands. Jesus spoke about having all authority in heaven and earth. And now, living in, and through, and as us, WE have that same authority. Kings and priests equipped and empowered to rule and reign on this earth. Heaven isn't just for when you die. It is a present reality. The days of heaven on earth. That's where we are. That's WHO we are. That's what we have, and what we can do. Giving what we've got--loving people--is how we rule and reign!

So we have all things (that pertain to life and godliness) and we know all things. So what, then, is the problem? I believe it is that we don't understand what we know, and we don't accept what we have. 1 Timothy 6:12 (NLT) addresses the latter. "Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses." Fighting the good fight of faith is, quite simply, USING your faith. Having faith in God. Knowing and believing the truth that God is love and He loves you. Guys, the truth HAS set us free and made us free. But it is only in knowing and believing the truth that we can experience and enjoy that freedom. If all you've ever known is slavery, and then slavery gets abolished, but nobody tells you... you're still going to act like a slave. It is freedom from the bondage of sin and death that comes with the preaching of the gospel! Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God! So knowing what we have and holding tightly to it--accepting it, receiving it and releasing it--is vitally important. But there's more to it. You also have to understand what you have. We have an unction from the Holy One and we know all things. So why, then, do we seem to stumble around in the dark so much and so often? Ephesians 3:19 tells us, "...to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God." A knowledge that passes knowledge. Not just head knowledge, but heart knowledge. Experience. And a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. You might think something, but if I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt... well... there's a difference between thinking and knowing. And it is not until we KNOW the love of God that we can hold onto it. Faith isn't about making something happen. Faith is about knowing and believing that something already happened. Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen. We don't have faith in God because we want Him to do something. We have faith in God because He has proven Himself faithful BY doing something! The Work is finished. It was finished 2,000 years ago on the cross. Everything that needed to happen... has already happened. Fighting the good fight of faith is not about making something happen. It is about holding onto the truth about what already happened! Not trying to finish the work ourselves, but enjoying the fruit of JESUS' labor! Being still and knowing that HE is God is how we begin to have this mindset shift from "natural" to Kingdom thinking. Letting our pride fall away like scales from our eyes so that we can see clearly. And when you can see clearly, you can see everything. You might not understand what everything you're seeing is, right away. But you're starting where you need to start. You're looking into the mirror with an unveiled face, seeing the glory of God (in the mirror, which means in you), and you're being changed into that image from GLORY to glory. You're starting at glory. You're starting at eyes wide open. We have all things and we know all things. We have no lack because our God has no lack. What we need is to hold tight to it. Be thankful for it. Live with an attitude of gratitude. Declare it before many witnesses. Use what we've got. We have love. Love is giving. If you want to truly understand it... give it away! Receive it... and release it! That's what love is, so that's how we are to live. You live by loving. By giving. You hold tight to the gift you've been given... by giving it away!

A lot of our problems in this life have to do with our pride. With that in mind I want to link two verses together in the hopes of helping us begin to UNDERSTAND everything we KNOW--which is all things. We have been given all things that pertain unto life and godliness. We have an unction from the Holy One and we know all things. We have what we need and we know what we need. Our pride gets in the way. Because there is a big difference between knowing it all and being a know it all. So look at Job 41:15, "His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal." When you are close-minded, and think you have it all figured out, you won't let anything in. Your are shut up as with a close seal. Kind of like hardening your heart in order to "keep and guard" it. But the only real way to keep your heart is to keep it open. Keep it open to love. Let God love you and love Him back by loving the people you come into contact wiith. Now add this to that: "Instantly something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized" (Acts 9:18 NLT). When your pride falls off you can stop trying to do things your own way all the time. There is a way that SEEMS right to a man, but the ends thereof are death. God will let you go that way (to a degree) but that doesn't mean He wants you to. God, like any loving father, wants what's best for you. That's why He gave the best to you. He gave Himself to you. His Spirit. His Son. His life. His love. Just so that you could have it. Just so that you could experience Jesus' everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life of love by letting Jesus live His own life in you, and through you, and as you. If you let the scales of pride fall off of your eyes you can see things clearly. You can let the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. You can be still and know that HE is God. You can begin to understand everything you know. Testing the height, and depth, and breadth, and width of God's love by loving people bigger and stronger than you ever thought you could. That's what this life is for. That's what this life is all about. So instead of trying to get something you think you haven't got (and robbing yourself of what you have got in the process) you need to simply stop trying. And that doesn't mean don't do anything. Rest is not inactivity. It is Holy Spirit directed activity. It is loving people (which is the maximum effort you can give) from a posture of rest. Letting the love inside flow out of you as you fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with. As you let God love you and love Him back by loving the people you come into contact with. That's the "all things." LOVE is the all things. All things that pertain to life and godliness? Love. All things that we know? God is love and He loves you. Where we get into trouble is when we think we don't need God. When we think we can handle it ourselves. Guys, God doesn't just want to be a part of your life. He wants to be your life. Because He IS life! So my best advice is to let Him. Let God not only be involved in every aspect of your life, but let God BE every aspect of your life. "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men" (Colossians 3:23). Do it heartily. To the best of your ability, and because it's in your heart to do it. Do it as to the Lord. Don't worry about pleasing people. If you please the Lord you will be doing the right thing. Because love is pleasing to the Lord. That's what we know. And because we know it, we can do it. Because we BE it we can do it!

There are two main topics I want to discuss in this Rant series. One is 1 John 2:20, "But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." And the other is2 Peter 1:3, "According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue." And I think these two memory verses kind of go hand in hand. We know all things, and we have been given all things. We have an unction, and we know through the knowledge of Him. To me, it's the idea of looking into the mirror with an open face, seeing the glory of the Lord, and being changed into that same image from glory to glory. Starting and glory, and then coming into an understanding of what that glory IS. Being created in the image and likeness of God (in the beginning) and then coming into the knowlege of what that image and likeness is by being conformed into the image of God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased (on the cross). It's about "becoming" who you are by learning who you are. Learning who you are by learning who God is. Learning how to love by learning how you are loved. Receiving and releasing the love of God. Letting Him love the hell out of you and then loving Him back by loving the people you come into contact with. The unction from the Holy One is the ultimate truth of the universe. It is the Rock, the foundation, that everything else is built on. And that ultimate truth of the universe is, quite simply, that God is love and He loves you. It is the truth found in John 3:35 (NLT), "The Father loves his Son and has put everything into his hands." We have, quite literally, been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. Because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The things (or THING, singular) that pertains to life and godliness... is love. God is love. To live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. So in order to KNOW--with a knowledge that passes knowledge--what we already know... we must receive and release His love. I always say, "When you don't know what to do, do what you know. Love people." Love is always the answer. Love is what everybody needs. Either way, Christ's love controls us. Either we don't know that we are loved and we do everything we do in order to get that love that we think we don't have, or we do know that we are loved and we do everything we do in order to share that love with the people we come into contact with. See, it's one thing to know all things. It's another thing to understand what you know. That's the rub. That's the key. And, look, you can't believe something you don't know. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. Being a disciple of Christ is being a student of love. Again: Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Letting God show us who He is, and in that way letting God show us who WE are. Look at 1 John 3:2 (NLT), "Dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is." We know who we are. We know all things... all things that pertain to life and godliness... but we need to come into an understanding of what we know. We need to see HIM as He is so we can see OURSELVES as we are. Then we can stop trying to be someone we're not (in order to try to get what we think we haven't got) and we can simply be who we are. Who we really are. Which is who we are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in us!

When you are filled with the fullness of God--the fullness of love--you can experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. Because that's what the fullness is. It is the abundance that Jesus spoke of 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." The NLT puts it like this, "The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destory. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life." Abundant. Rich and satisfying. Full. Not just life... but Jesus' life. And here's the key: Nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. WE are the thief when we try to live His life. When we try to be someone we're not in order to get something we think we haven't got. When we try to enter into the sheepfold any other way but through the door. That's when things get messed up. But I'm here to tell you there's a more excellent Way. We can be still and know that HE is God. We can let Jesus live His own life... in us, and through us, and as us. We can stop trying to be someone we're not and we can be who we are by letting Jesus be who HE is... in us. We can stop running around like chickens with their heads cut off, looking for love in all the wrong places, and we can simply be still and listen to the still, small voice deep inside of us that is saying, "I love you," with every beat of God's heart in our chests. We can let God love us, and we can love Him back by loving people. It's really that simple. If you want to live a full, satisfying life... obey the New Commandment. Love others as Jesus loves you. LET Jesus love you, and love Him back by loving people. Receive and release God's love. Breath it in and breath it out. Don't get stuck on things that ultimately really aren't that important. Be who you are. Who you really are. Which is who you are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in you. Let the love that is inside you come out, by knowing and believing that it's in there. Fill yourself to overflowing with what God has already filled you with. That's how you experience the abudant life that Jesus came for you to have. Because love is what makes the abundant life abundant. Love is what God has filled us with. And love is what we fill ourselves with when we fill each other with it. Because love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. So make sure when you're focusing on the fullness of God... you're focusing on filling up yourself... by filling up other people. That's how this all works. Being Christ-centered (rather than being self-centered) means being people-centered. Whatsoever we do unto the least of them we do unto the King. How we treat people is how we treat God. So look outward. Look past yourself. Trust in the glorious truth that God has already provided all your need, and live out of your abundance. Experience what you've got by giving what you've got. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing it's in there. I know I probably sound like a broken record with some of this stuff, but I'm going to keep saying it until someone hears it. Because I believe in this stuff. God's love is the Rock that we can stand on, and build on. God's love is the whole point of the whole thing. God's love is why we were created in the first place. We were created to live a full and satisfying life. A life of love. Because, one more time, God's love is what makes the abundant life... abundant. God's love is what makes life worth living. And God's love is what makes it possible to live!