To start this Rant series I really only have one verse and one thought on my heart. But it's an important verse, and a big thought. Ready? "And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2:10). That's it. That's all I want to say. You ARE complete. Complete in Him. And here's the picture I had in my head: When you complete a jigsaw puzzle, there are no pieces missing and everything is in it's rightful place. You can see the whole picture. The finished product. But, really, that's where it gets a little bit tricky. Because every time I turn around I see something along the lines of, "I'm not perfect yet, but God's not done with me yet." But if you re-read Colossians 2:10 you will NOT see the phrase, "You will be complete in Him someday when He finishes with you." He IS finished. It IS finished. And you ARE complete in Him. So let's go ahead and dig in a little bit and break this down. "Complete" is number 4137 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "To make replete, that is (literally) to cram a net, level up a hollow, or (figuratively) to furnish (or imbue, diffuse, influence), satisfy, execute (an office), finish (a period or task), verify." There's a lot there, but it's literally all Jesus. Cram a net. Fishers of men. He drew us into Himself. Crammed Himself into us, if I can say it that way. Filled us to overflowing and didn't leave room for anything else. Level up a hollow. He brought the mountains low and the valleys high and made the Way straight and narrow. To furnish. The carpenter Jesus isn't up in heaven making a mansion for you to live in. He made YOU into a dwelling place for HIM to live in, and He furnished you with every piece of furniture--every Spiritual blessing and everything that pertains to life and godliness--that you will ever need! Satisfy. He is the offering that satisfied God's requirements. Execute an office. He is our High Priest. Finish a task. That would be the cross. That would be YOU. It is finished. You were made in God's image, and then on the cross you were CONFORMED to the image of His Son. He showed you that image, by making the Word become flesh. By pouring His Spirit out on ALL flesh. By finishing the work. Bringing us out of the Old Covenant (fulfilling it and nailing it to the cross) and bringing us into the New Covenant. Bringing us out of the power of darkness and into His Kingdom (which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost and which is within us)! He made all things new. Notice He didn't make all new things. He didn't give up on you and start over. He regenerated you. A new heaven (mind) and new earth (body). A new creature freed from the bondage of sin and death. A New Man with a New Commandment (love one another as Jesus loves you). And to touch back on the last Rant series about "Surrender," I'm telling you, you ARE complete. You don't have to (and can't) make it happen. It already happened. Just accept it. Give in to it. Surrender to it. YOU are the finished work. You ARE complete in Him. Receive it and release it!

Yesterday I (think I) was talking about surrendering ourselves to love. Letting the love of Christ control us. Letting the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--lead and guide us into the truth that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hand. The truth that Daddy loves us. Letting the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. Knowing, and understanding, the difference between Adam--God's son--and Jesus--God's BELOVED Son. And the difference is NOT that God loved one and not the other. The difference is that while He loved them both, only Jesus KNEW it. Only Jesus let Himself BE LOVED. He surrendered to it instead of trying to earn it. Which, according to dictionary.com, is precisely what "surrender" means. "To yield (something) to the possession or power of another." In other words, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). There are a couple of things I want to draw out of this verse. First (and foremost) it is by the mercies of God that we are able to do this. We don't present our bodies a living sacrifice SO THAT God can do something with us. We present our bodies a living sacrifice BECAUSE He has DONE something with us. We don't MAKE ourselves holy and acceptable unto Him. HE MADE us holy and acceptable unto Him. He did it on the cross when He conformed us into the image of His Son. When He conformed us into the image that we were made in. When He showed us who we are by showing us who He is. By showing us the greatest expression of love that a man can have--which is to lay down His life for His friends... which is literally what Jesus did for us (and as us) on the cross. He showed us who we are by showing us what (and WHO) love is. Because that WHAT we are--we are loved--and that's WHO we are--we are love! And all we have to do is yield ourselves to it. Present ourselves to Him. Reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive unto God. We don't have any battles left to fight--except for the good fight of faith, which is BELIEVING we don't have any battles left to fight. We don't "sin not" so that we can awake to righteousness. We awake to righteousness AND sin not. Because if you're a believer, and if sin is unbelief, then by definition you can't sin. A believer can't unbelieve. Which is what John wrote in 1 John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." You DO NOT sin because you CANNOT sin. Because you're not fighting sin. You've laid aside the weight and the sin that so easily besets you, and you've surrendered to a higher power. THE higher power. Love. And I'm not saying there are higher and lower powers. God is all-powerful, which doesn't mean "most powerful." It means He has ALL the power. Love has ALL the power. Love IS all the power! And, again, that's what we do because that's who we are. So, in the upside down, backwards economy of the Kingdom, we don't win by fighting. We win by surrendering. By knowing and believing that Daddy won the war, and we don't have any enemies left. The last enemy is death. And guess what: Jesus conquered that one too! So just give in. To love. Let Daddy love you, and love other with that same love!

If you're fighting, you're not surrendering. If you're working, you're not resting. If you're trying to finish the work, you don't know and believe that it is finished. And, in my experience, the harder you try to "fix" things, the more you end up messing them up. When you bang your head against the wall, all you get is a headache. The harder you tighten you grip, the more things slip through your fingers. I guess what I'm trying to say is: Jesus did it all. ALL. He did it all so we could get it all. And because we have it all, we can surrender all. We don't have to keep trying to earn something that can't be earned. Eternal life is the GIFT of God, and you can't earn a gift. If you can earn it, it's wages. And the wages the Bible talks about are the wages of sin, which is death. Jesus didn't come to make "evil" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. He came to free us from the bondage of sin and death. To bring us out of the power of darkness and into His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God which is within us. The Kingdom of God which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. I truly think the biggest problem we make for ourselves is when we judge by appearance (instead of judging righteous judgment... EXECUTING the judgment that was handed down from Father to Son when God raised Jesus to life) and try to be someone we're not. Because when we judge by appearance we see the surface stuff. The outer court, or outer man (OLD MAN). We see the actions. The mistakes. The screwups. And then we think, "I need to be better. I need more knowledge about good and evil so I can do good and stop doing evil." But we don't discern BOTH good and evil. We don't discern that they are BOTH on the same tree! It's not about "good and evil." It's about life. And that more abundantly. And if it's about life, it's about love. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. And love is giving. But you can't give what you don't have. Which is why love is not that we love Him, but that He first loved us. We have to surrender to His love before we can love Him back (by loving others). We have to make the distinction that Jesus made. Adam was God's son and God loved him. But Adam (because he didn't have the Holy Spirit) didn't know that. Jesus was God's BELOVED Son because He DID have the Holy Spirit. The love receptor. He didn't try to earn Daddy's love. He simply received it and released it. Jesus didn't do what He did in order to be loved. He did it because He knew that He WAS loved! He was moved with compassion and motivated by love. He knew what He had, and knew it was too good to keep to Himself. Because He wasn't a fighter. He was a lover. He surrendered all--even His very life. He gave His life for us and He gave HIs life to us. Because He loved us. Plain, and pure, and simple. So when we speak of surrendering all, of presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, what we're really talking about is surrendering to love. Letting Daddy love us. Knowing and believing that He DOES love us. And then loving one another with the same love that we are loved with!

It seems to me that while we spend so much time trying to "overcome," we miss out on the glorious truth found in John 16:33, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." In Him we have peace. Because HE overcame the world. Which means, even though we shall have tribulation, there's nothing left for us to overcome. He brought every mountain low and every valley high and made the way straight. Now the weight and the sin that so easily besets us no longer has to be a stumbling block. It can be simply set aside. We don't have to fight. We can surrender. Let me say it like this, "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whoseover shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:29). Or let me say it like this, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). The fight is over. Only the good fight of faith remains--BELIEVING that the fight is over, and being of good cheer BECAUSE the fight is over! Jesus fought, and won, the war to end all wars on the cross. That means there are no more wars to fight. We don't have to fight evil. We don't have to resist it. But that doesn't mean we have to be overcome by it either. We already overcame it. Because JESUS already overcame it. God is love. And that ought to make us lovers, not fighters. We always think we need to defend God. As if He's helpless unless we can shove Scripture down someone's throat. Guys... God is OUR defender. He is OUR Savior. He is OUR safe refugee. How many times in the Old Covenant did God command the people not to fight at all? He would command them to march around a wall. Or break open a clay jar with a lamp inside (what a picture of US, the treasure in the earthen vessel, that is!). And then HE would fight for the people. HE would get the victory. That's what happened in fulness on the cross. Jesus got the victory. He moved us out the realm of conflict and war and into the realm of righteousness, PEACE, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Out of the world and into the Kingdom. Which brings me back to Jesus' words in John 16:33. He said, "In the WORLD ye shall have tribulation." And we accept that without even thinking about it. Of course we have tribulation, because we're in the world. But... on this side of the cross we're not IN the world, are we? We're in the Kingdom. Because the Kingdom is in us. We're in Him. And in Him we have peace. In Him we don't need to fight. We can turn the other cheek. If someone takes our coat we can give them our shirt. We don't have to defend God, and we don't have to defend ourselves. The fight is over. The battle is won. Peace reigns! And let me say this: Light and dark don't fight with each other. When the light shines, the darkness flees. It's no contest. So let your light shine. By surrendering. By presenting your body as a living sacrifice to the Lord. Living His life by letting Him live His own abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life in, and through, and as you! Light doesn't shine by trying really hard to shine. Light shines because that's it's nature. Jesus is the light of the world. YOU are the light of the world. He shines in you, when you believe that He's shining in you! The good fight of FAITH. Laying hold of the gift we've already been given. Not fighting. But surrendering to the truth!

"All to Jesus... I surrender..." Good sentiment. Good song. I don't think we REALLY get it though. I still think we treat God as a "break glass in case of emergency" kind of last hope when we get ourselves in too deep. That's the problem though. We're not surrendering ALL at all. We're doing it ourselves until we screw it up to the point where we need a savior. And listen, I'm not saying God won't help you out of a mess. Of course He will. What Father wouldn't? I'm simply talking about a more excellent way. Instead of using prayer as last chance, we ought to use it as first choice. I haven't quoted my favorite Bible verse in a while but this is a good chance: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). See, God doesn't want to be a PART of our life. He wants to BE our life because He IS life! It's not about waiting for an emergency. It's about being conscious of Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--with every breath we take and every move we make. It's about a LIFESTYLE of prayer, rather than using God like a genie in a bottle that we only rub when we want something. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, right? First and last? Beginning and end? But He's also everything in between. I think it's funny when we interpret Scripture (and I do this too, so I'm not trying to put anyone on blast) that we see things in the Bible as anything BUT Jesus. It's all Him. Every Word in every verse in every chapter in every book of the Bible. He IS the Word of God. And, really, that's the only way the Bible makes sense. There's some wild stuff in there that only makes sense if you see Jesus in it. The Old Testament is Jesus concealed, and the New Testament is Jesus revealed. It's all Him. History is HIS story. What I'm trying to get it, in my own rambling way, is that the idea of surrender has to be total and complete. Just as the idea of identification has to be total and complete. It's not Jesus AND me. It's Jesus AS me. He lives in me and I live in Him. I and my Father are One. Let me say it another way, "Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass" (Psalm 37:5). Get God involved from the jump. Those who are led by the Spirit are the Son(s) of God, right? You can't be lead if you're trying to go your own way. Trying to do it yourself. Walking it OUT is not the way. Walking IN it IS the Way, because Jesus is the Way (and the Truth, and the Life)! It's like we think of grace as either the rug we sweep sin under in order to avoid punishment (which is ridiculous) or we think of grace as the power to keep the Law (which is equally ridiculous). Grace is the divine influence on the heart, and it's reflection in the life. Grace is God's heart beating with love in our chests. Grace is found in the EYES of the Lord. And when we look in the mirror and see Him face to face we don't die (like everyone in the Old Testament thought they would). We see the glory of God and are changed into that same image from glory to glory! Not by trying to be more glorious, or more holy, or more righteous. But by marking the perfect man and seeing our perfection in Him. HIS perfection in us! Guys... rest is not, "Once I finish the work I can rest." Rest is, "JESUS finished the work, and now I can enjoy the fruit of HIS labor." It's not about you. It's about Him. It's not about what you do. It's about what He did. It's about who He is. In you. Who you are. In Him!

The Kingdom of God has an upside down, backwards economy. Especially from a "natural" point of view. The way things work don't make sense. For example, "And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all" (Mark 9:35). Or, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 16:25). The first is last, and the last is first. You have to lose your life in order to find it. These things go against what we would consider "sensible." And I think there's a very good reason for that. I don't think the Kingdom is SUPPOSED to make sense to the carnal, unregenerated mind. Because, "...the peace of God, which passeth understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7). If we could figure out, and do it ourselves, why would we need Jesus? But if it passes understanding, then we simply CAN'T do it ourselves. And that's the point. That was the point of the Law of Moses. You can't do it yourself. You need Jesus. But I think this is one of the hardest aspects of the "Christian life." Because, in my experience, for the most part, people are problem solvers. We see something "wrong" and we want to make it "right." But Jesus didn't come to "fix" things. He came to restore things. He didn't come to make "evil" people "good." He came to wake us from sleep and make dead people alive. And here's the key: HE came to do it. For us and as us. He knew we couldn't do it. So He was lifted up from the earth and He drew us all into Himself. He did it all so we could get it all. And now ALL we have to do is believe. Jesus said it plainly: "...This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (John 6:29). That's our part. Jesus made the Way of Grace. We respond with the Walk of Faith. We don't walk it OUT in our own power (because we don't HAVE any power of our own). We walk IN what He has already done. Manifesting His finished work, not by trying to finish it, but by believing it. That's the good fight of faith--laying hold of the gift of eternal life that we've been given. Not robbing ourselves of it by trying to earn it. Because--again, in my experience--the harder we try to "fix" things the worse we end up making things. The harder we tighten our grip, the more things slip through our fingers. And that's the point. Because we are not supposed to control things. God is in control. His love controls us! We are supposed to surrender. Give up control. Stop trying to live Jesus' life. Because nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. So what ARE we supposed to do? "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). We're supposed to surrender. Stop trying and start resting. Instead of trying to live Jesus' life... we can let Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. We can stop trying to be someone we're not, and just be who we are. Present our bodies to Him. Let Him do whatever He wants to do with us. Let our hands be His hands. Our feet be His feet. Our mouths be His mouth. We can simply... surrender.

I think the biggest key to "mind control" is accepting that we really don't have any control. In fact, the harder we try to control our thoughts, the more out of control they get. The more we try NOT to think about something, the more we end up thinking about it. That's why I don't believe bringing our thoughts under captivity unto the obedience of Christ has anything to do with chasing thoughts. I always use the example of going to the bathroom. If you need to go to the bathroom, but you can't, and all you do is think about going--even if you're trying to think about NOT going--the harder it is to hold it. Because what you magnify is what manifests. What you feed is what grows. That's why the fight of the New Testament is the good fight of FAITH. Laying hold of the gift of eternal life that we've already been given. Not trying to get something we don't have, but receiving (by releasing) what we already do have! I guess what I'm trying to say is that the love of Christ controls us. Either we don't know that we have it, and we look for love in all the wrong places trying to get it. Or we know and believe that we DO have it, and we can't help but share it. So "control" is really about submission. (But that's the next Rant series, and I always try to not get ahead of myself.) In Star Wars Princess Leia tells Grand Moff Tarken something to the effect of, "The more you tighten your grip, the more things slip through your fingers." And that's pretty much true all of the time. The more we try to control things, in the sense of, "I give you a command and you better follow it or else," the more rebels we make. Remember that old saying, "Gimme a line and I'll cross it. Gimme a rule and I'll break it." That's the best nature. The unregenerated, carnal mind. It is enmity against God. It's not subject to His law, nor can it be. It took a second death and a new birth to bring us out of that legalistic, rule-based, man-centered, performance-based religion. The Ten Commandments (and the six hundred some odd laws that accompanied them) were unfollowable. Because they were external, and they demanded perfection without being able to produce perfection. But the New Commandment, the perfect law of liberty, is simply "receive and release." Love one another as Jesus loves you. That puts all of the emphasis exactly where it belongs: On Jesus. If Jesus doesn't love you, then you can't be expected to love anyone else. You can't give what you don't have. How could you? You don't have it. But because Jesus loves you more than anything in the universe... loves you so much that He would literally rather die than be without you... because of HIS love WE can love! Because He already gave us His mind--His Spirit, His heart--we can LET the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. We can give up that false sense of control. We can stop struggling to try to make things the way WE think they should be, and we can begin to experience things as they really are. In earth as it is in heaven. The days of heaven on earth. The Kingdom of God within us, bursting out through us. God's LOVE in us bursting out through us. Not because we're in control, but because He is. And because He does what He does in us, and through us, and as us. Because He is the head and we are the body, and together we are One. Not Jesus AND me, but Jesus AS me. His heart beating with love in my chest!

Here's my question: why does it seem like it's so hard for us to embrace the truth that we know? "Jesus loves me THIS I KNOW, for the Bible tells me so." Well... actually I think that's part of the problem. I think we spend so much time trying to know ABOUT God that we miss out on KNOWING God. Head knowledge vs heart knowledge, right? I mean you see it everywhere you look in the church world. Songs like, "I want more of you, God." You already have ALL of Him! Or prayers asking--or usually begging--Daddy for "stuff." He did it all so we could get it all. And now we have it all! Because the "all" that He did was the cross. And the "all" that we have is Him! He gave His life FOR us, and He gave His life TO us. And let me say this: If you have to beg someone for something, even if you get it... it isn't worth it. Daddy doesn't make His Son beg, and He doesn't make Him jump through hoops. Jesus explained it like this in the parable of the prodigal son, "And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine" (Luke 15:31). This is actually one of the things I'm most proud of in my parental life. Logan doesn't beg me for stuff. In fact, he usually doesn't even ask me for stuff. If I'm eating something, and he thinks it looks good, he just eats it with me. He knows that if it's mine, it's his. Guys... THAT'S the mind of Christ. The heart of Christ. The love of God beating in our chests. And that's what mind control is all about. The love of Christ controls us. It is our motivation for everything we do. We know and believe that we are loved, and we love others with that same love. Not just because the Bible tells us so. That's a pretty good place to start, because faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God. But while the Bible CONTAINS the Word of God... Jesus IS the Word of God. The book doesn't do you any good unless you know the Author. It's more important to have an experience with Him than to be able to memorize words about Him. Saul knew the Old Testament up and down. But it wasn't until God knocked him off his donkey and blinded him with the light that Saul became Paul and was able to minister mercy and grace and love instead of condemnation and death! It wasn't until he let the mind of Christ (that was already in him) BE in him. It wasn't until he EMBRACED the truth that the truth set him free and made him free. That's what it means to take every thought captive unto obedience to Christ. It means KNOWING and BELIEVING. "Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive wtih meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls" (James 1:21). Don't chase thoughts and try to change them. This isn't--and has never been--about changing from evil to good. This is about JESUS waking us from sleep. Jesus brought us out of death and into life. He did all of the work. So, like it says in Hebrews, just lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily besets us. The unbelief. Anything that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ. Don't fight it. Don't mess with it. Just lay it aside. We don't need to defend God. He's big enough to defend Himself. AND He's big enough to defend US! We have His mind. We know the thoughts that He thinks toward us--thoughts of peace and not of evil. We don't have to keep trying to figure Him out. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies!

The love of Christ controls us. Really it does. It controls us in either one of two ways: Either we don't know and believe the love of Christ, and we do everything we do in order to try and get what we think we don't have... or we DO know and believe the love of Christ and we do everything we do because what we have is so good we can't keep it to ourselves and we have to share it. But either way, love is the motivation. In the Old Covenant the carnal, unregenerated mind saw fear as the motivation. "Behave so you don't get punished." But that wasn't the purpose of the Law. The Law of Moses was not meant as hoops to jump through. The Law of Moses was meant to teach us how to love, and to show us that on our own we are incapable of love. The Law of Moses was the schoolmaster meant to bring us to Christ. (And in this case, when I say, "us," I mean the people of Israel.) See, we seem to think the opposite of love is hate. But it isn't. The opposite of love is fear. The Old Man was afraid of punishment. That's why he hid from the presence of God. He thought God was mad at his disobedience. But God doesn't get mad. Instead, He gives forgiveness. He doesn't want us to hide from Him, or run from Him. He wants us to run TO Him. That's why He opened His arms wide on the cross. That's why perfect love casts out fear. That's why we don't have to be afraid of our heavenly Father. Because He loves us. He always has and He always will. The problem was that we didn't KNOW that He loved us. We couldn't BELIEVE it. And that's why He gave us His Spirit. His heart. His mind. So that instead of seeing ourselves separate from Him, we could bring every thought into captivity and obedience to Christ. We could stop trying to figure Him out, and let Him reveal Himself to us (and in us, and through us, and as us). We could stop trying to think LIKE Him--I appreciate the "WWJD" movement for what it was, but if I have to TRY to figure out what Jesus would do and then TRY to do that thing I'm doing altogether too much trying and not nearly enough resting--and let Him think IN us. Stop trying to follow in His foot steps and simply let Him walk in our feet. Talk with our mouths. Heal with our hands. Guys... in Him we live and move and have our being. And in us HE lives and moves and has His being! We are One even as Jesus said, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). So the "control" aspect is not a master/servant relationship. Don't we get it that Jesus said He didn't come to be served, but to serve? Don't we get it that God is not our "boss" but our Father? He doesn't control us by putting out hoops and demanding that we jump through them. Even the New Commandment (for the New Man) is to love one another AS He loves us! He "controls" us by empowering us. By giving us everything we need in order to partake of His Divine Nature. In order to "live" His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Him live it in us! God's love controls us because it fills us to overflowing. Because we have His mind, and when we let the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us... then we know His thoughts. Thoughts of peace and not of evil. Thoughts of love and not of fear. Not, "love... or else." But, "The love that I have is so good... I have to share it!" That's His thought. That's OUR thought. From His heart in our chests!

Let's talk about control, and let's talk about obedience. Because it seems to me that that's what we think religion is all about. And maybe that IS what RELIGION is all about... but I don't think that's what GOD is all about. Not the way we think of control and obedience, anyway. Dictionary.com defines "control" as, "to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command." And it seems like that's how we view God a lot of the time. He wants to control us. He wants to command something, and we better do it or else. He gives 10 Commandments and we better follow them or we're in big trouble. Isn't it funny though, that Jesus summed up the law and the prophets by saying, "...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:37-39). He brought it back to it's original purpose: love. One of the purposes of the Law of Moses was to teach us how to love God by loving each other! Romans 13:10 sums it up like this, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." The point of the Law wasn't God controlling us in the sense of "do this or else." The point of the Law was to show us HOW to love one another. And to show us that without Jesus we CAN'T love one another. That's why the NEW Commandment is to love one another AS Jesus loves YOU. Receive it and release it. The New Commandment--the New Covenant--is an empowerment. Not an empowerment to keep the letter of the law, per se, but an empowerment to love as we are loved! Which brings me to obedience. Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). Again--the New Commandment. To love one another as Jesus loves you. So what is true obedience? Letting God love you! That's the empowerment I'm talking about. The Holy Spirit--our love receptor--is what equips and empowers us to love by testying the truth that we ARE lvoed! It all flows from the source. Love flows from the God that IS love. Our key verse for this Rant series is 2 Corinthians 10:5, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." And the word "obedeience" is number 5218 in Strong's Greek Concordance, "attentive hearkening, that is, (by implication) compliance or submission." So what we're NOT doing is we're NOT chasing thoughts. "I had a bad thought! I need to bring it into captivity and change it into a good thought!" That's not obedience. Obedience is attentive hearkening to the Word of God. Hearing what God says to us and about us--and what He says is Jesus, what He says is love--and not worrying about anything else. Controlling our mind by letting the mind of Christ control us. Not in an outward, exterior, "jump through this hoop or I'm going to get mad and punish you" way. But in a, "I love you, and because I love you what else could you do but love me back by loving others" way! The LOVE of Christ controls us. And it controls us by filling us to overflowing with itself. With HIMSELF. The love of Christ controls us when we are obedient to it. When we submit to it. When we accept it. And believe it. And receive it. And release it!