This goes right along with what I've been preaching lately. Which is why I'm Ranting it too. Guys, I don't preach and write because I have it all figured out. I preach and write IN ORDER to figure it all out. (Which is not to say that I'll ever figure it ALL out. But it's a quest for truth. A journey into the heart of the matter, which is the heart.) So. Here's where my heart is right now. It's all about love right? The New Commandment is to love one another as Jesus loves us. To receive and release His love. But that begs the question, "How does He loves us?" And the answer is, "He loves us so much that He was willing to lay His life down for us." Which means we ought to lay our lives down for each other. Love as we are loved, right? But look at Romans 5:7 (NLT), "Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good." It's hard to love with that kind of love. You can't love someone you don't accept. And you can't accept someone you don't understand. That's why understanding is so important. So we can stop seeing each other as "an upright person," or "a good person," or "a bad person." The key is understanding that we're all just... people. The book of Proverbs puts a premium on wisdom and understanding. Proverbs 2:2 says, "So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding." Wisdom comes from what you hear--the Word of God (which is Jesus, which is love). And understanding comes from the heart. The Jesus in you connecting to the Jesus in me. That's how we understand each other. We let love connect us. We don't judge by appearance--people do a lot of things that don't make sense--but we judge righteous judgment. We look past external actions and look inside. Past the surface stuff and into the deep stuff. Deep calls out to deep. Actions don't always tell the story. Daniel Tiger says, "It's YOU I like, not the things you do." And if you can understand WHY someone is doing something, then even if they mess up, it's easy to "love them anyway." If you can see past the action and see the person then you can LOVE the person. If you can understand them, you can accept them. And I'm going to really get into acceptance later on--maybe in the next Rant series--but for now I want to say true acceptance is not tolerating someone. It's embracing them and celebrating them. Not, "I don't like you, but I guess I love you since I'm supposed to love everybody, but keep your distance because I really don't like you." Love is affection. Love is unconditional. Remember that the greatest expression of love is laying your life down for your friends. And whether or not someone is a "good person" has nothing to do with whether or not they are your friend. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "I destroy my enemies by making them my friends." Kill them with kindness, by laying your life down for them. Let me end today's Rant with Proverbs 4:7, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding."

If we could just get past all of the stuff we get stuck on and focus on what's really important, I think we would see the manifestation of the Kingdom. You know, the Kingdom that's within us. The Kingdom that we're already in. The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of love. The realm where God (the King of kings and Lord of lords) rules and reigns. The Kingdom where LOVE rules and reigns. Because it's all about love. Look at Romans 13:6, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." Isn't it funny how often we turn Spiritual things into natural things? Material things? Money? When we talk about blessings we always go straight to the "stuff" we have. When in fact, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Romans 4:8). And why is that man blessed? Becasuse if he's not a sinner he's a believer. He knows and believes that he is loved. And when you ARE loved, then you CAN love. When you have love to give you can "pay what you owe." I'm telling you, we get so twisted around and mixed up, especially when it comes to how we interact with each other. We do things for one another in the hopes of GETTING something in return. "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine." Or we do things for each other because we feel guilty. "I'll try to make up for something bad I did by doing something good." But even then it's kind of a selfish motivation. We want to feel better ourselves. The only reason--THE ONLY REASON--that we should do ANYTHING is because we love people. Owe no man ANYTHING, but to LOVE one another. Jesus did everything He did because He was moved with compassion and motivated by love. He didn't come to condemn the world. He came that through Him the world might be saved. He came that through LOVE the world might be saved. Jesus was a lover, not a fighter. He turned the other cheek. He didn't attack sin, He simply shined the light and watched the darkness flee. He showed us who we really are by showing us who the Father really is. And what did He show us? A human being with love in His heart. That's who Jesus was--God in the flesh, love in a body. And that's who Jesus IS--God in YOUR flesh, love in YOUR body. The Holy Spirit--our love receptor--has equipped and empowered us to partake of the divine nature, to enjoy the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Jesus by allowing Him to live His own life of love in, and through, and as us! Love is the difference between life and death. Love IS life. A life of love is an abundant life. A superior life. A happy life. We spend so much time and energy--WASTE so much time and energy--looking for love in all the wrong places, that we rob ourselves from the gift that was freely given. Jesus gave His life for us and He gave His life TO us. He showed us what it's all about. And because we have His Spirit, His mind, we can enjoy His life. As HE lives it Himself in, and through, and as us. As His love fills us to overflowing and gets all over everyone around us!

I really can't think of anything else worth Ranting or preaching or talking about. What else matters? "The afterlife"? How about ETERNAL life. And if life is eternal then there really IS no "after" life. Because there's no end. There's just something different. Which is basically what 1 Corinthians 15:51 says, "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." And listen, I'm not saying I don't believe in heaven. I do. I simply believe that instead of spending our "whole" lives trying to "get there" when (IF) we die... we can experience the days of heaven ON earth right now! We are in the Kingdom right now because the Kingdom is in us right now! And what is the Kingdom (righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost) other than where the King rules and reigns? And where does the King rule and reign? In us! THROUGH us! WE are kings and priests equipped and empowered to reign on the earth. Equipped and empowered... with love. Equipped and empowered BY love! See, it's not the King telling me what to do and me trying to do it so as to avoid His wrath. It's the King ruling and reigning IN and THROUGH and AS me. It's me being so filled with love that it overflows out of me. It's me experiencing His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as He lives it (all by Himself) in me. We say, "Jesus lives in me," but it's almost like we think that means we are a cage that He sits in, and He only does things when we let Him out of His cage. Guys... to live is to love and to love is to live. Love and life aren't just connected, they are the SAME THING. If He lives in us then He loves in us. And living isn't something you do some of the time. Living is all there is. ETERNAL life. What's the alternative? There is no alternative! John said, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death" (1 John 3:14). We WERE dead in our trespasses and sins BEFORE the cross. Now we have passed FROM death UNTO life because we love. And we love because we ARE loved. We love because He first loved us! In Adam all died. In Christ all are made alive. The difference between believers and unbelievers is not that believers are alive and unbelievers aren't. The difference is where you abide. Where you dwell. Where you live. If you know (and BELIEVE) that you are loved... you love. Naturally. When you recieve it, you release it. Because it's too big to contain. Too good to keep to yourself. If you don't know (and believe) then you work yourself to death trying to get something you think you don't have (even though you DO already have it, you just don't know it). The difference between life and death, literally, in a Word, is love. You can't live without love. And you don't love then you can't live. Guys, that's who God IS. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. HE IS LOVE! And, because He lives in us, that's who WE are! We are dead to sin and alive unto God. Dead to unbelief and alive unto love!

Love is what it's all about. It's what we crave. What we want. What we NEED. Love is the desire of our heart. And it's only by delighting ourselves in the Lord--who IS love--that we "get" it. Or, more accurately, RECEIVE it. Because we already have it. We ARE loved. What else could the God who is love do than love us? He would have to deny His own nature to do something else. But here's what I have for today: I started this Rant series talking about acceptance, and understanding, and love. Which, really are all the same thing. You can't love someone you don't accept. And you can't accept someone you don't understand. Which, to me, is the difference between acceptance and tolerance. We can tolerate just about anything, if we have a reason to. We humans are a resilent bunch. We can get used to the worst kind of stuff. And we call that acceptance, but to me it's really not. It's more giving up than accepting. To me, accepting something (or someone) is the same as celebrating it. Enjoying it. Loving it. But like I said, you can't accept something you don't understand. You can't accept SOMEONE you don't understand. And that's why when we judge someone it reveals nothing about THEM but everything about US. When we judge someone, or worse yet condemn them, we aren't trying to understand them. We're trying to change them. And I think that's the biggest misconception there is about love. Love doesn't want to change you. Love doesn't need to. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the phrase, "God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way." And every time I hear it I have to grind my teeth together to keep from screaming, "THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!!!" Because EITHER God loves you the way you are, OR He needs to change you. Guys, whatever change was needed happened 2,000 years ago on the cross. And that change that took place was not God turning you into something He could love. He already loved you. The change that took place was the Holy Spirit--the love receptor--taking up abode inside you so that you could RECEIVE His love. So that you could understand it, and accept it. So that you could know and believe that you are loved, and then love others with that same love. God doesn't need to change you. He needs to show you the change that took place on the cross. We don't need a move of God. God already moved. We need a revelation of Jesus. We need to know what the move of God was, and what it means. And what it was, was Jesus giving His life both for us and to us. And what it means is that we can enjoy the gift of God--eternal life--that we've already been given. We can love, because we ARE loved. We can accept one another, because we can finally understand one another. We can stop looking AT each other--surface stuff, actions--and we can look INTO each other and see the hidden man of the heart. The Jesus in me can connect to the Jesus in you. And that bond of love can bring us together. We can celebrate each other. ACCEPT each other. Understand each other. And love each other...!

It's all about love. What else could it possibly be about? Sin? Hell? Good and evil? Come on... it's about life! And that more abundant! And to live is to love. To love is to live. We get so caught up in anything and everything else that we miss out on the gift we've been given. We miss out on the very thing we crave. Psalm 37:4 tells us, "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." And somehow we have taken this to mean, "If I delight myself in the Lord, He'll give me what I want." And in a sense this is true. But we first have to understand what we want. What we REALLY want. And I'm convinced that what we--every single human being ever--want is to be loved. Plain and simple. We want to be accepted, and understood, and loved. And those three things--like faith, hope, and love--are really the same thing. Because you can't be loved unless you're accepted, and you can't be accepted unless you're understood. That's why we spend so much time trying to get to know ourselves and each other. But the trick is that we're so afraid of rejection that we very rarely show our true selves to each other. We hide things. We create this image of who we think other people want us to be. We try to enter into the sheepfold through another way besides the Door. And when we do that we become thieves and robbers. We rob OURSELVES from the gift that is freely given by trying to earn it. We miss out on being OURSELVES by trying to be someone we're not. And we think that by putting on a "holy face" we are delighting in the Lord. We think that a human trying to have a Spiritual experience is what "Christianity" is all about. But we don't seem to understand that the Word became FLESH and dwelt among US! Jesus came to show us the Father and He did it by showing us a man who loved people. The Spirit is always trying to have a HUMAN experience. That's why He took up abode, or dwelling, in us. That's why He took it a step further and stopped dwelling AMONG us and started dwelling IN us! That's why He gave us HIS Spirit--the love receptor! Let me say it this way: In order to "get" (a better word is "receive") what we want--which is to be loved--we have to go to the source. Stop looking for love in all the wrong places and go to the throne of grace to find grace to help in times of trouble! Ok. The desire of our heart is to be loved. And we can only "get" our desire by delighting ourselves in the Lord. Because He IS love! BY delighting ourselves in Him do we RECEIVE the desire of our heart! The gift that was freely given. The gift of ETERNAL LIFE. And eternal life is knowing the Father and the One whom He sent. Knowing God in the context of that unshakable, unbreakable, unconditional Father/Son relationship! It's about being loved and loving others with that love. Receiving and releasing. Helping people. Not FALLING in love, but RISING in love and helping people up when they're down. We experience love in the most true sense when we love others. When we delight in... others. When the Jesus in me connects with the Jesus in you. That's true love. And it casts out fear! It makes us perfect even as He is perfect in us!

I'm pretty sure this is the title of my next book, but I want to kind of explore this idea for the next couple of days. It's all about love. When you get down to the heart of the matter... the heart of the matter is the heart. As we think in our hearts, so are we. Love is our true identity. The inner man, the hidden man of the heart. And Proverbs 4:23 tells us to, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Which makes perfect sense to me because to live is to love and to love is to live. Life and love aren't just connected, they are the same thing. Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Which means LOVE is the Way, LOVE is the Truth, and LOVE is the life. When God made the Way of Grace (which we respond to with the Walk of Faith) He used love to do it. Jesus said no man comes to the Father but by Him. You can't come to the Father unless you are DRAWN of the Father. And He draws you with His love. The GOODNESS of God leads men to repentance. Love made a way because love IS the way. Jesus brought every mountain low and every valley high. He made the crooked way straight. And what that means to me is that we can stop looking for love in all the wrong places and go straight to the source. To me, a straight and narrow way leading to life isn't a bad thing at all. It isn't a scary thing. It's a good thing. I can let His Word (which is Jesus, which is love) be a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I can follow my heart and KNOW that I'll get where I need to go. Because love never fails. Now, having said that, we need to understand what love has set out to accomplish. Isaiah 55:11 gives us some insight into this, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." The first time the Bible speaks about something being "void" is in the beginning. God created the heaven and the earth. The mind and the body. YOU. And it was dark, and void, and without form. So He sent His Word forth. He spoke. And He said, 'Let there be light." He filled that void with Himself. With love. He gave us what we felt like we were missing. Under the Old Covenant we tried to earn love by the knowledge of good and evil. "If I know enough about good and evil I can do good and stop doing evil." But that wasn't God's plan. That was man's plan. God's plan was for us to have LIFE and have it more abundantly. God's Word accomplished this. It prospered in the thing it was sent out to do. And what it accomplished was pleasing the Lord. What pleases the Lord? "...it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). So when we understand that love never fails, we understand that love's success was giving us the Kingdom! We understand that love already succeeded. Love isn't selfish. It doesn't want to take. In fact, love IS giving. So if it's taking, it's not love at all. Love gave us the Kingdom. Love gave us life. And not just life, but Jesus' life. Abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life! Jesus gave HIs life for us and He gave His life TO us. He gave His LOVE to us. He laid His life down, so that He could take it back up. He showed us what it means to love--to give your life for your friends. And He did it so that we could love one another with that same love! It's all about love!

Here's my thought for today, and really for this entire Rant series: God shows our completeness (HIS completeness) to us by showing us His love. To me, that's what it MEANS to be complete. To be lacking nothing. It means knowing and believing we are loved. That's why we feel incomplete, isn't it? Because we feel a love-shaped (God-shaped) hole inside us? Because in the beginning we were dark and void and without form. Which is not to say that God didn't love us in the beginning. Of course He did. He IS love. What else could He do? But when it's dark you can't see clearly. Which is why God spoke the Word. He said, "Let there be light." He gave His only begotten Son. He revealed Himself to us, and in us, and through us. He didn't take "evil" people and make them "good" so that He could love them. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. He created us--ALL of us--so that He could express Himself to us, and in us, and through us. He created us... to love us. He didn't come to make "evil" people "good" so that He could love us. He came to make dead people alive so that we could KNOW that He loves us. He gave us His Spirit--the love receptor--not to empower us to jump through hoops and earn love, but as the Spirit of Truth that would lead and guide us into all truth! Grace isn't the divine power to keep the Law. Grace is the divine influence on the heart, and it's reflection in the life. Grace is that still, small voice coming from the inside whispering the ultimate truth of the universe. Because grace is found in the eyes of the Lord. And the ultimate truth of the universe is that you're the apple of Daddy's eye and He loves you unconditionally! The ultimate truth of the universe is that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hand. The ultimate truth of the universe is that you ARE complete in Him. You HAVE BEEN quickened together WITH Christ. He gave His life for you and He gave His life TO you. You can't be any more perfect than having the perfect One (Jesus) living in you, and through you, and as you. And perfect love casts out fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of "no one will ever love me." Adam and Eve's problem is they were made in the image of God but didn't know what that image was. It took the cross for us to be CONFORMED into the image of God's SON. He revealed Himself to us. Revealed His LOVE to us. And that love, in a sense, transformed us. That love freed us from the bondage of sin and death. That love--again, in a sense--completed us. What's that line from that movie? "You complete me." That's what God's love did. Or rather, His Spirit REVEALING that love to us. Why are we complete in Him? Because He loves us. What does it mean to be complete? It means we are loved, and we can love one another with that same love!

I read somewhere that the two most important days of your life are the day you're born, and the day you find out why. I think we spend a lot of time trying to figure out why we're here. What this life is for. And as simply as I can put it: This life is for living. It's like we're always trying to have a "Spiritual experience." But Jesus--who IS the Holy Spirit--became flesh so that He could have a HUMAN experience. He came to give us life, and that more abundantly. Not something completely different, just something... better. That's what "abundantly" means: Superior in quality. Excessive. And that's what it means to be complete in Him. Look at Ephesians 2:5, "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)." Notice, before the cross we WERE dead in our trespasses and sins. We WERE (in a sense) incomplete. Because we didn't have Holy Spirit and we couldn't believe, or receive, God's love. He loved us--He IS love, what else could He do--but we were so busy trying to earn it that we couldn't receive it. We didn't have the Holy Spirit, the love receptor. We felt like there was a love-shaped (God-shaped) hole inside of us. So we tried to fill that hole. We looked for love in all the wrong places. We did what we could with what we had, but the problem was that we didn't have anything. We were stumbling around in the darkness because we didn't know we were the light of the world. That's what Jesus came to show us. He shined HIS light, and that revealed to us that HIS light is OUR light. God is the Father of lights, and we are His Son(s). We were dead... and He quickened us. But He didn't just push the reset button and give us another chance at "life" and say, "Good luck. I hope you get it right this time." He quickened us TOGETHER WITH CHRIST. He didn't just give us "life." He gave us Jesus' life. Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. On the cross Jesus gave His life FOR us, and He gave His life TO us. He MADE us complete by SHOWING us what it MEANS to be complete. See, we were MADE in the image of God, but it wasn't until the cross that we were CONFORMED into the image of His Son. It wasn't until the light shined that we could SEE what that image was. Jesus came to SHOW us the Father. To show us ourselves. Not to complete us--because it was only in our minds that we were incomplete--but to reveal our completeness! I know this sounds "anti-religious" (and to me that's a good thing) but I have to say: There's nothing wrong with you and there never has been! The problem is that the world hisses in your ear and screams in your face and condemns you. Lies to you. And unless you're planted on the Rock, the lie is easy to believe. The still, small voice inside is hard to hear. Especially when you're "trying to change." Trying to make things "better." Trying to do good and not do evil. That's not what God wants for us. That's not what any Father wants for His Son. What God wants for us is rest. Relationship. That's why He did the work--FINISHED the work--and brought us out of the bondage of sin and death and into His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Love. He's not waiting for us to complete the work, or change. He's simply revealing to us the change that took place on the cross. The transformation from Old to New. Revealing it through His love!

We have to stop living from a false sense of lack. One of the best things I remember learning from my parent church is this: I have no lack, because my God has no lack. Jesus said it like this in the parable of the Prodigal Son, "“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours"" (Luke 15:31). John wrote it like this in his gospel, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand" (John 3:35). I know that sometimes it feels like there is a love-shaped (God-shaped) hole inside of us. Like we're always searching for something that we can never find. Something that's just out of reach. And we're even willing to work for it. Willing to earn it. The problem with that mindset, though, is that anyone who tries to enter the sheepfold any other way but through the door (Jesus is the door) is a thief and a robber. Robbing YOURSELF from experiencing the gift you've been given by trying to earn something that can't be earned. Trying to be someone your not instead of embracing who you are. Trying to get something you've already got. You ARE complete in Him. Because He is complete in you! I always bring up this example, but it's what really helped me to understand a Father's love: Logan doesn't beg me to share with him. He knows if it's mine, it's his. To the point where if I make myself a sandwich and then turn my back... he's eating what he considers to be HIS sandwich. And guess what: That doesn't bother me one bit. It makes me happy. Because what's mine IS his. And, to be honest, I'd rather my son be happy and satisfied then be happy and satisfied myself. Him being happy and satisfied MAKES me happy and satisfied. And that--like I was trying to say yesterday--is the key. When Jesus was hungry, and sent his disciples to get Him food, then in the meantime ended up ministering to the woman who had had five husbands and was living with the sixth man... when the disciples returned Jesus wasn't hungry anymore. He was refreshed. Not from taking anything from anybody, but from GIVING what He had! That's why I always preach about receiving and RELEASING. Giving what we've got. That's what love is. Love is giving. When I share with Logan, I know he feels loved and I feel love. I'm convinced that that's the best (only) way to truly feel the love of the Father--by loving others. And I'm convined that that's what faith is: When we love, it's the proof that we know and believe that we ARE loved! It's not a blind leap into the dark, or the light. It's Jesus telling us to step out of the boat, and us standing on His Word and not sinking! It's us knowing and believing that we ARE complete in Him. That we DO have everything we need because we have HIM. Loving each other... with the love that we are loved with! If you can't give what you don't have... but you "step out in faith" and love somebody... then on some level you know that that God-shaped, love-shaped hole has been filled with the only thing that can fill it! Which, of course, is God. Love.

Here's the key. And when I say, "the key" I mean the key to EVERYTHING. I mean, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19 AMP). Ready? Here it is: We are complete IN HIM. Yesterday we saw that the word, "compete" means "Jesus" in every way, shape, and form. You can't be complete without Him, because He is what it means to BE complete. Remember our analogy of a jigsaw puzzle? He is the picture on the box! He is the image we were made in. But before the cross we didn't know what the puzzle was supposed to look like. So no matter how hard we tried to be "a good person" we kept missing the mark. Because even under the Law we were unable to live up to that impossible "perfect" standard. The Law demanded perfection without being able to produce perfection. It wasn't until Jesus--until LOVE--took up abode, or dwelling, in us that we were able to partake of His divine nature. It wasn't until He became sin for us and died that sin could die. And then, because we were no longer in bondage to sin and death, we could walk in newness of life. We could be who we are instead of trying to be someone we're not. We could see what WE really look like because the light of the world was shining (on us, and in us, and through us) and we could see what GOD really looks like. We could finally look in the mirror with an unveiled face. With the stone of the Law rolled away. With our graveclothes taken off, and wrapped in a white robe of holiness. We could stop trying to earn something because we could finally receive the gift of God (eternal life, knowing the Father and the One whom He sent)! We could stop trying to DO good and not DO evil and we could simply REST and BE who we are. Listen, if you think you're lacking something you're going to try to get it. However you can. Beg, borrow, steal, or earn it. But you can't earn a gift. Because a gift is freely given and must be receieved. That's where the Holy Spirit--our love receptor, the Spirit of Truth--comes in. The cross didn't change us into something God could love. He already loved us. The cross changed us into something that could RECEIVE His love! Receive it and release it. The cross brought heaven to earth. And it brought it in through the window. Remember in Malachi 3:10 God reveals that WE are the windows of heaven that He pours His blessings through. Blessed to be a blessing. Receive it and RELEASE IT. But, again, here's the key: You can't give what you don't have. You aren't complete on your own. You're complete IN HIM because He is complete IN YOU! He did it all so you could get it all. And now you have it all, so you can share it all! Love is giving, not taking. The New Commandment is loving one another as Jesus loves you. Loving--giving--with the love that you have been given! I think we have this idea of perfection, or maturity, or completeness as, "Never messing up. Never making a mistake." But if you never make a mistake how can you learn from your mistakes? Sometimes you have to do something wrong before you can do it right. That's called learning and growing. Not learning and growing to BECOME complete. But learning and growing what it means to BE complete!