This Rant series is NOT about the trees in the garden of Eden. This Rant series is about Fathers and Sons. I love that expression, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," because it's so often appropriate. Especially in the case of my son, Logan, who is more or less hanging onto the tree for dear life. Mini-me says it perfectly. Or we could read it in John 10:30, where Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." We are, in large part, defined by our parents. I'm not getting into the "nature vs nurture" debate--I'm sure both are super important--I'm simply saying that your DNA makes you who you are. I always tell people, when they spend any amount of time with my dad and see all of the striking similarities between us, "I am who I am for a reason." So I guess the question is, why is any of this important, Spiritually speaking? And the answer is: Unless you know who you are (and WHY you are who you are) you'll always try to be someone else. Let me say it like this: "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). If your life is hid with Christ in God, then there's only one place you can find it. This life-long journey of self discovery that we're on HAS TO start and end with Jesus. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. And He is everything in between. I wrote three "Jesus books," Identity Crisis, Six Steps to the Throne, and EPIC in order to answer the three most important questions you will ever ask; Who am I? Where am I? And why am I here? And the answer to all three questions... is Jesus. We are Jesus, not Adam. We are in the Promised Land of Rest that is the Kingdom of God... that is Jesus. And we are here to love one another as Jesus loves us. Jesus defined this never ending journey in John 17:3, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." The point of, well, everything really, is the unconditionally loving relationship of the Father and the Son. God's love for us--and not only the love that He has for us, but the love that He IS in us and through us and as us--is what defines us. That's what the Divine Nature of the New Man is. Not a beast nature, but a love nature. Not trying to get something, or trying to do in order to be, but living out of the abundance of what we have. Sharing what we have because it's too good to keep to ourselves. We spend so much time trying to figure out who we are. Trying to figure out where we are--and if where we are is where we're supposed to be--and trying to figure out why we're here. But really there's only one way to "figure it all out." And that one Way (and Truth, and Life) is Jesus revealing Himself to us and in us and through us. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says it like this, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We look in the mirror and we see Jesus in the mirror. We see our Father in the mirror. In US. And, since what we behold is what we become, we are changed into that same image of glory FROM glory TO glory. We understand that we are our Father's Son. His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. We understand that the apple did not fall far from the tree!

The New Commandment is to love one another as God loves you. Which means you have to first LET God love you. That's the number one difference between Adam--the son of God--and Jesus--the BELOVED Son of God. God loved (loves) them both. But Jesus let Himself BE loved of God, while Adam was too busy trying to EARN the love of God. The old man does what he does in order to get something he thinks he doesn't have. The New Man does what He does because what He has is too good to keep to Himself. It overflows naturally as we fill ourselves with the fulness of what we've already been filled with! And that's the key: The law and the prophets were summed up in the idea of loving God with all your heart and mind and soul. It was all about what you could do for Him. But the problem was that while the Law of Moses DEMANDED perfection it was unable to PRODUCE perfection. And no matter how hard we tried there was always one thing we lacked. So Jesus came, at the appointed time, and fulfilled the demands of the Law. He nailed it to the cross because it was contrary to us and against us. He finished the work and moved us out of the Old Covenant and into the New Covenant. And in the same manner that the Old was all about earning your bread by the sweat of your brow--all about DOING in order to BE--the New Covenant is all about RECEIVING the true bread from heaven that was given to us as a gift. See, on the cross Jesus didn't just give His life FOR us. He gave His life TO us. He said, "I want you to BE ABLE to love one another, so first I'm going to show you that I love you." And when we let ourselves BE LOVED, that's when we find that we have something to give. Something to offer. And what we have is exactly what we need, and exactly what everybody else needs! Love is the answer. It is the solution. Love is the way, the truth, and the life. Love is the way to live. It is the truth about living. And it IS life! To live is to love, and to love is to live. The New Commandment isn't about something we have to do along with everything else. The New Commandment IS everything else. Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--is the Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. Which means we start with love and end with love. And He's also everything in between. Every situation needs love. Every person needs love. All of creation--which is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God--needs love. The Beatles said it like this, "Love is all you need." But in order to give it--which is what love IS, after all. Love is giving--we have to HAVE it. Because you can't give what you don't have. Hence the New Commandment. Love as you are loved by God. Receive what He has given you and release it to those around you. Live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by letting Him live His own life in and through and as you! Don't try to follow an external law and be somebody you're not. Just be who you are and let what's already in there come out! Just receive it and release it. Receive it and release it. Receive it and release it. That's HOW we obey the New Commandment. That's HOW men will know that we're disciples. That's HOW it all works, and that's what it's all about! It's all about love!

It's such a common question: What am I supposed to do? What does God expect of me? How do I serve Him? We find this in Mark chapter 12, verses 28-31, "And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Isreal; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." What's it all about? Love. Love God and love others. That's the sum of the law and the prophets (we looked at that, "the golden rule," the other day). But the problem with that OLD commandment-- love your God with everything you are and everything you have-- is that before the cross we didn't know who we were and we didn't know what we had! It wasn't until Jesus finished the work and gave us the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--that we COULD love God and love others. That we COULD love God BY loving others. Which is why Jesus gave us the NEW Commandment: Love one another as Jesus loves us. Receive it first and then release it. Don't try to get something you think you don't have. And don't try to give something that you think you don't have. I think we get screwed up with love so many times because we try to give it in order to get it. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." And that's kind of what the Old Covenant was all about. Doing in order to be. Earning our bread by the sweat of our brow. But there was always one thing we lacked. And that one thing--even though it was real and present from the beginning--was love. We WERE loved, but we didn't KNOW we were loved. And because we didn't know it, we couldn't throw it. So, at the appointed time, Jesus came--just as we were--to tell us that we are loved and to show us that we are loved. He told us what the greatest expression of love is--laying down your life for your friends--and then He went to the cross and did that very thing. He SHOWED us what love is by giving His life for us and giving His life to us. He empowered us to obey the New Commandment instead of expecting us to try our best (and inevitably fail) to keep the Law of Moses. He brought us out of the old and into the new by giving us the one thing we needed. He brought us out of death and into life (not by loving us because He always has and always will love us) but by shining the light of the world so that we could SEE His love. And by seeing it, we might know it and believe it. And by believing it, experience it. And by experiencing it, share it. What's inside comes out. That's the natural order of things. But you have to know what's in there. You have to receive it in order to release it. And the best, most real way, TO receive it is BY releasing it!

You can't give what you don't have. How could you? And that's why it's so important to understand--and why it's so absolutely amazing--that the New Commadment is simply for us to receive and release the love that God has already given us. John speaks of this idea extensively in his letters. Look at 1 John 4:11, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Or 1 John 3:16, "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Basically, what He has done for us we ought to do for each other. Or, rather, we are "commanded" to do for each other. I like what John said in verse 3:16 especially, when he talks about PERCEIVING the love of God. Because it's one thing to know something, and another thing to KNOW it. Head knowledge vs heart knowledge. And guess what else, seeing is believing. So when Jesus TOLD us that the greatest expression of love a man can have is--to lay down his life for his friends--that wasn't enough. He had to actually go to the cross and lay His life down. He didn't just "tell" us what love is. He showed us. And like the Roman centurian who SAW the death of the Lamb... that's where our revelation comes from. That's how we KNOW and BELIEVE that we are loved. Because He proved His love for us, and we perceived it. We RECEIVED it. And once we receive it, that's when we can release it. Because you can ONLY give what you do have. Only once you know and believe that you are loved CAN you love. Because when you receive it, then you have something to release. But here's the kind of tricky part: Releasing it is the best way to receive it. And that, to me, is what this idea of "stepping out in faith" is all about. Not waiting until we "feel" loved... I once heard about a pastor who kept a lead fishing lure on his desk so when people told him they didn't "feel lead" he could help them out with that problem... but loving in every situation because we know and believe (at least on some level) that we ARE loved. And that, again to me, is how faith grows. Faith is like a muscle. It grows when you use it. Baby steps. Love a little bit, meet a small need, and then you begin to have confidence that you actually have something to give. I think a lot of times we don't love because we're afraid of failing. Afraid of being vulnerable, and putting ourselves out there. But when you really begin to see--to perceive--how loved you are... then you begin to fill yourself with the fulness of God. What's already inside you begins to overflow out of you naturally. And then--this is John again--love casts out all fear! You don't have to be afraid to love when you know that you ARE loved. When you're not trying to get anything, but simply sharing what you already have. What you already are. WHO you already are! Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOUR body. And He's just bursting at the seams to get out... through you and as you!

A new man needs a new commandment. But before we really get into all of that, let's look at the old commandment first: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7:12). The Golden Rule, right? And listen, I get it. This is a very safe place to be. Because if you're only doing things to others that you would like them to do to you, you're probably not going to go astray. But here's my question: Are we really trying to fulfill the law and the prophets? Is that what grace empowers us to do? I don't think so. I think Jesus was trying to show us the PURPOSE of the law and the prophets. Remember, when the Law of Moses was given the people of Isreal had just come out of over 400 years of slavery. They didn't know HOW to be people. They didn't know HOW to love one another. And so God gave them the 10 commandments--notice I said gave THEM, not gave US, becasue if you're not Jewish you never entered into the Old Covenant in the first place--and showed them (externally) what they were supposed to look like. The problem, of course, is that an external law demands perfection without being able to produce it. Or, as Jesus would later tell the rich young ruler, there's always one thing you lack. As hard as you try to act like a "good Christian" that's all it'll ever be. An act. Because behavior modification doesn't work. Works don't work. The only thing that works is the Holy Spirit--our love receptor. The only thing that works is NOT doing in order to be... but doing BECAUSE we be. It's not about telling people what to do. It's about telling people who they are. Who they are in Christ because of who HE is in them! And I've always kind of thought that the "golden rule" almost has a selfish motivation. Like a, "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," kind of deal. Because under the law that's the point. GETTING, not giving. When, as we are coming to understand, love IS giving. And that's why the New Commandment is, "Love one another as Jesus loves you." It's all about love. It's not even so much about WHAT you do, as HOW and WHY you do it. Moved with compassion and motivated by love. That's the reason we do what we do. And because we ARE loved, we are CAPABLE of doing it. Because we have been GIVEN love, we can GIVE love. It's not about the law and the prophets. It's about the perfect law of liberty. Not about doing things because "we're supposed to," so that we can avoid getting in trouble, but about doing things because what we have (love) is too good to keep it to ourselves. Not trying to get everything, because we already have everything we need, but sharing what we have! Letting God love us and receiving and releasing that love to everyone we come into contact with! It's not about fulfilling the law and the prophets. Jesus did that for us (and as us) on the cross. It's about obeying the New Commandment!

I think one of the more important things that Jesus ever said is found in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." And I think it's so important because it shows us that while we are no longer--on this side of the cross--under the Law of Moses... we are NOT lawless. As new creations... a new man... we simply have a new commandment. Not the Law of Moses but the Perfect Law of Liberty (see James 1:25). And the most amazing thing about this new commandment is that it is totally and completely dependant on God. Love one another as He loves you. Which means if He doesn't love you... you don't have to love one another. You're only expected to perform (if I can put it that way) to the level that HE performed. You only have to love as much as you ARE loved. Which, again, puts all of the emphasis on God. If He wants you to love a lot, then He first has to love you a lot. Which is pretty much exactly what 1 John 4:10-11 says, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Love as you are loved. That simple principle--that New Commandment--puts our focus exactly where it belongs: Not on what we are doing, but on what Jesus has done. Not on how much we love--because I'll tell you right now, you will never be able to feel like you've "loved enough" no matter how much you wear yourself our trying to be good enough--but on how much we ARE loved. That's why my favorite song of all time is, "How He Loves Us," by the David Crowder Band. I think that song, more than any other, has the focus where it belongs. I can't listen to that song without feeling better, because it reminds me of what's important. Not me trying to be Peter and prove my love for Jesus--and then ending up denying Him three times before the rooster crows to announce the dawing of the New Day--but me putting my head on His bosom, like John did, and hearing His heartbeat. Speaking of Peter, though, look at 1 Peter 4:10, "As every man hath recieved the gift, even so minster the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." ALL we're supposed to do is be a good steward of what we've been given. As you've received it... minister it! My pastor says it like this, "If you know it... throw it." Receive it and release it. We make it so complicated and so hard... but the gospel is really very simple: Daddy loves you. Period. Exclamation point. And because He loves you... you can love yourself... and you can love others. Let me close with one more verse, Romans 13:8, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." What am I "supposed to do"? Love one another. How am I supposed to do it? As Jesus loves me, I love others. Receive it and release it. Focus on His love for you and let Him fill you up with love so that His love overflows out of you naturally!

"Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous" (1 Peter 3:7). That's exactly how I feel today. Finally. At the end of the Rant series. After we've looked at what it means to be in our right mind--to let the mind of Christ that's already in us BE in us--and after we've looked at how we GOT the mind of Christ--when Jesus gave His life, or His heart, or His mind, or His Spirit for us and to us--and what we can DO with the mind of Christ--stop trying to figure out God's thoughts and stop trying to "act" like God--we come to the bottom line. And if anybody knows me they know I'm a bottom line kind of guy. So here's the bottom line: Love one another as we are loved. Having the mind of Christ lets us know how we are loved, and let's us love one another with that same love. And I really like what our verse says, "be ye of one mind." It's not me trying to line up with you or you trying to line up with me. Because the only real way for us to line up with each other is by both of us lining up with Jesus. Because if I'm lined up with Him and you're lined up with Him... we'll automatically be lined up with each other. At least when it comes to having compassion for one another, and loving one another, and being pitiful and courteous. The important things, in other words. That's what the mind of Christ--you RIGHT mind--is really all about. I've heard it said like this, "Major on the majors and minor on the minors." Don't let all of the little, inconsequential stuff dominate your thinking. Keep you affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Focus on what matters, and stop making mountains out of molehills. I always like to say it like this: When we know who we are we won't sweat the small stuff... and when we know who we are we'll realize it's ALL small stuff. God is so big... LOVE is so big... that when you begin to fill yourself with the fulness of God, everything else just kind of begins to fade away. You'll stop looking at God--at LOVE--as the most powerful, and you'll start to see Him as ALL powerful. Which means He has ALL the power. Which means everything else is darkness and shadows and lies and... nothing... that flees in the face of the light of the world. The light of Jesus is the life of men. And that's what we're talking about; living His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting HIM live it in and through and as us. Partaking of the Divine Nature. Not living "for" God--as if He is our boss, or some sort of separate entity--but living BY God. Living IN Him even as He lives IN us. That's what having ONE mind means. ONE heart. One God and one Spirit and one baptism. No separation. The right mind equips and empowers us to know who we are, and who God is. He is our loving heavenly Father and we are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. With the right mind we know that we are loved, and that we CAN love one another with that same love!

With your right mind (the mind of Christ) you can think the right thoughts. And I'm not saying try really hard to figure out God's thoughts and then try to think them and then try to do them. That's way too much thinking. Way too much trying. That's the way that SEEMS right to a man, but leads to death. I think we have this idea of "God's thoughts" as being mysterious and just out of reach. And I think this idea comes from Isaiah chapter 55. Verses 8-9 read like this, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." But here's the deal: That's an OLD TESTAMENT passage of Scripture. Something that was rectified by the cross. God GAVE us His Spirit--the love receptor--and now, when we LET the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us... His thoughts ARE our thoughts. There's no longer this separation of heaven and earth. Now it's the days of heaven ON earth. Now it's not us trying to figure out what His thoughts are, and trying to think them. Now it's Him thinking His own thoughts in us and through us and as us. Before the cross it was like this, "And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?" (Matthew 9:4). That's all we had. That's the best we could do. Because our hearts hadn't yet been circumcised. There was still the flesh of human effort covering the love of God buried deep inside. But now that Jesus has finished the work we have moved into a realm and a dimension where the tree of good and evil has been cursed and done away with. Now we can read Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end," and we can KNOW and BELIEVE what God's thoughts are! Right mind. Mind of Christ. Thinking thoughts of peace. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9). When you think thoughts of peace, you become a peacemaker. You become a healer. The evil that once dominated your thinking--and I'm telling you, religious people are the some of the worst when it comes to picking fights about any and everything--has been replaced with the truth that all is well. It's ok. Daddy loves you. He's got your back. You are who you're supposed to be, and you are where you're supposed to be. So stop trying to be someone else--you're not "bad" and you don't need to change to "good."--and just be who you are. You WERE dead in your trespasses and sins, and that's why death and trespasses and sins dominated your thinking. You were trying to escape from that bondage with your own strength. Trying to fight sin instead of simply laying it aside. Fighting the lie instead of merely laying hold of the truth. Doing the best you could with what you had... but the problem was you didn't know what you had so you didn't think you had ANYTHING. Lookin for love in all the wrong places because you didn't realize it dwelt in you. Remember we started this Rant series with the man posessed by the multitude of demons? Listening to all of those voices screaming at him? But all it took was an experience with Jesus for him to find rest and be clothed in his right mind. Jesus, in His still, small voice, drove out all of the distractions and told us--SHOWED us--the truth. God isn't distant and far away and angry. He is right in our midst. Right in our very being. He lives in us! And as we live in Him He lives THROUGH us. It's not necessary for us to try to be like Him, or think His thoughts, or get something we don't have. All we need to do is begin to understand His thoughts--He already told us what they are--and begin to experience what we already have. Who we already are!

Your RIGHT mind is the mind of Christ. Which is to say, between "right" and "wrong" it's always Jesus. Between the truth and the lie... between life and death... Let me say it this way, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12). A way that SEEMS right... and a Way (Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life) that IS right. Where we seem to get so mixed up is when we try to go our own way. When we try to do it (whatever IT is) ourselves. Because there's a way that seems right to a MAN... and that's the way of flesh. Human effort. Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Seeing vulnerability as a weakness. But I've preached this many times: Need help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of wisdom! Jesus said it like this, "...With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible" (Mark 10:27). And look at this: WITH God all things are possible. Not FOR God (even though that, of course, is true), but WITH God. Because God is WITH us. There's a lot of Scripture about that unity between God and man. Partaking of the Divine Nature. Being a co-heir or co-laborer with Christ. That idea of having a helper, or a Comforter (the Holy Spirit). Even being strengthened by the Holy Spirit in the inner man. Which is the RIGHT way. Letting the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us is how we do all of the things we were created to do. How do we partake of the Divine Nature? By letting the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. How do we do all the works Jesus did and greater works than those? By letting the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. It's about submission. Presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. Instead of saying, "I have to do this for God, and so I'm going to try the best I can," we need to come to the place where we can say--from a posture of rest--"I can't do anything, so just do whatever You want to do in and through and as me." Instead of trying to live Jesus' life (which is impossible for anybody except Jesus to do) we need to start letting HIM live His own life in and through and as us. Instead of trying to think God's thoughts we need to just let Him think His own thoughts and be receptive to them. I've told this story before but I think it encapsules what I'm trying to say. Once upon a time I was at work, and I had a chocolate chip cookie that I was super pumped to eat. Then my cowoker said something about how hungry they were. And before I knew it I had given them my cookie. All of a sudden they weren't hungry anymore. But here's the key: I didn't try to figure out what to do in that situation. I didn't force myself to "act" like Jesus, or anything like that. I just did what came naturally to me. I saw a need that I could meet, and I met it. It was the "right" thing to do. And I'll end with this: Even though it was a sacrifice--MAN did I want that cookie!--it wasn't hard. When you love somebody, sacrificial love--laying down your life for your friends--flows freely and easily and naturally. It's not just what you do... it's who you are!

Your right mind is the mind of Christ. Think about that for a minute. I'm so sick of this idea that we are "bad" and we need to (somehow, as if we possibly could) change to "good." I believe that what is true of us is the deep, inner, hidden man of the heart. That's what circumcision is all about. I've heard it preached--and even preached it--as a heart transplant. But really it's the cutting away of the flesh to reveal what was always there underneath the surface. The "change" the took place on the cross was not us being transformed into something different. It was us becoming new. Us being conformed to the image of Christ that we were made in, in the beginning. So in order for us to sit (in a posture of rest) and be clothed in our right mind WE don't have to do anything. It takes an experience with Jesus. And just the same way as it happened with Saul (when he became Paul), we might be trying to "please God" when He knocks us off our donkey. We might think we're doing it right by judging others, and condemning them, and trying to save them. But when Jesus truly enters the scene--when He reveals Himself to us and through us and as us--we start to USE that mind of Christ. We start to LET the mind of Christ, that's already in us, BE in us. And this is what that looks like: "Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God" (Romans 15:5-7). We seem to think the mind of Christ IS that angry, judging, condemnational mind of the Law of Moses. But really it's the patient mind that glorifies God BY receiving one another. It's that loving, accepting mind that Jesus displayed in His earth-walk. And THAT'S what I believe Jesus was talking about when He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father" (John 14:12). What are these "greater works" that flow from the ONE mind of Christ? Compassion, and mercy, and grace, and acceptance... in a word: Love. I have to admit this to y'all... I'm kind of obsessed with love. I think about it all the time because I think about God all the time. And God IS love. So when I think about being holy, or Godly, or a disciple, or anything of that nature... I think about being loving. A student of love. Learning to love by learning how loved I am. Not focusing on what I'm doing, but focusing on who I am in Christ--who Christ is in me. That's my right mind. My true mind. That's who I really am. And because that's who I really am, that's what I do... naturally. Not a beast nature, but a love nature. Not doing in order to be, but doing BECAUSE I be. Not trying to think "God's thoughts," but letting the mind of Christ that's in me BE in me. Letting what's inside flow out... naturally.