In this Rant series I want to get rid of something that is commonly accepted. I don't know why I seem to do this a lot, but it's probably because for the most part I think about things differently than other people. I have my give my friend, Christie, the credit for this one though. I don't know if she came up with it, but she's where I heard it first. I'll say it like Jesus might have said it. "You have heard it said, we all fall in love. But I say to you, don't fall. Rise!" I here's my thought: love is so much more than that feeling we get when we "fall" for someone. Love is not something that trips us up, or brings us down. Love is what brings--what BROUGHT--us out of the grave! There are so many songs about tainted love--that's one right there!--about love gone wrong. About how horrible love is. But then we say things like, "It's better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all." We, as a species, are kind of obsessed with love. Even though we don't really seem to understand it. Even though most of our experiences with it end up "bad." There's just something about it. I believe love is the deepest desire of our hearts. At the end of the day it's what everybody wants. What everybody needs. It's why Eve was so eager to swallow the serpent's lie. She wanted to be accepted. And if she had to jump through some hoops, or eat a piece of fruit off the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then that's what she was going to do. Whatever it takes. That's what we think we'll do for love. But that's also what gets us into so much trouble. We look for love in all the wrong places. We "fall" in love--settling for something less than we deserve--and then we stay down there because we think it's the best we can do. The best we can get. Love isn't about settling though. And it's not about getting. Remember what the nature of love is? GIVING. Laying down your life for your friends. Receiving and RELEASING. Not getting something you don't have, but understanding what you do have and sharing what you do have. That's how you rise. By bringing people up to where you're at. You don't have to go down and get love. You ARE loved by the God who IS love. That's the ultimate truth of the universe. And that's what allows you--equips and empowers you--TO love. If we were seriously more focused on loving people than on getting people to love us we would be so much happier. We'd stop falling and we'd start rising. We'd stop taking and we'd start giving. We'd stop settling and we'd start... expanding? The ever expanding Kingdom inside of us would start manifesting in a very real way for us... and for those around us. We'd stop putting people down and start lifting people up. Stop condemning and start affirming. Stop fearing and start loving! Perfect love casts our fear, and we ARE perfectly loved. Which means we don't have to be afraid of love--not having it, or running out of it (giving away what we've got), or whatever. We can begin to experience it. Share it. Enjoy it. Love it!

The love nature is our human nature. It was buried deep inside, but through the circumcision made without hands it has been revealed to us and in us and through us! It is our true nature. Our true identity. Love isn't just what God does... love is who God is. And because He lives in us love isn't just what we do... it's who WE are! Look at John 20:31 (and I really believe this is a Scripture that gives us the purpose of the entire Bible), "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." That's the point. Knowing ourselves by knowing Him. Understanding who we are by understanding who He is. Living through His name, or nature. Remember Jesus said He lived BY the Father. He didn't live FOR the Father, He simply let the Father live THROUGH Him. And in the same way we live BY Jesus. He lives THROUGH us. In that way it's not even Jesus AND me, it's Jesus AS me. That's what it means for me to present my body as a living sacrifice. Self-control is giving up control. Letting Jesus do whatever He wants in and through and as me. Not me trying to be Jesus, but me letting Jesus be Himself in me! That's when the nature of love--laying down your life for your friends... not trying to get something you don't have, but giving what you do have--flows out from within. That's when (and how) the light (that we are) shines. Not when we try really hard to make it shine, but simply when we know and believe that it is (HE is) shining in us! What's in you comes out of you. Or rather, what you BELIEVE is in you comes out of you. That's why faith is so important. Knowing and believing the love is Christ is how we live through His name. Because that's what His name is! Jesus is the Word of God. And the Word is love. Jesus is God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. And when we know that it's in there... when we understand that we are filled to overflowing with the love that IS God... then it comes out naturally. Then we can stop faking it 'til we make it. We can stop "acting" like Jesus (because all that will ever be is an act), and we can BE who we really are. We can live this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life that is the gift of God from a posture of rest. Not trying to get anything, or get anywhere, but understanding that we have everything we need--all things that pertain to life and godliness--and we've already arrived where we need to be--the Promised Land of rest that flows with milk and honey (righteousness and revelation)! We HAVE the love nature. The name, and the nature of Jesus. But it's only when we understand what the nature of love IS that we can truly begin to experience what we have. And that understanding comes from the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us into all truth. The Holy Spirit whispering in a still, small voice deep inside that Daddy loves us. God's heart beating in our chests. The love inside of us coming out... naturally.

Human nature has, on this side of the cross, been revealed as the love nature of Jesus Christ. The love nature that IS Jesus Christ living in us and as us and through us. The nature of giving rather than receiving. And I understand that we must first receive FROM the Father before we can give what we've got. But it's BETTER to give than receive. The receiving isn't the be-all end-all. You can only give what you have, and you can't give what you don't have. So you must first receive then release. But it's only through releasing that we truly receive. If that makes any sense. Today I want to focus on the revelation part of the love nature. I want us to understand that--just like in the Wizard of Oz--the very thing we needed is the very thing we had all along. It was just buried down deep inside. And something needed to happen in order to reveal what was in there. The flesh (of human effort) needed to be cut away. We needed to be circumsized. Here's what always struck me about the whole idea of circumcision: even from the beginning cutting away the physical flesh was only a type a shadow. It was always about the heart. Deuteronomy 10:16 says it like this, "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked." Get the flesh (or human effort) out of your heart! And then a few chapters later we see this glorious truth, "And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live" (Deuteronomy 30:6). See the progression? Circumcise your heart! That's Old Covenant. That's the Law trying to make you jump through religious hoops in order to be somebody you're not. Then, at the appointed time of the cross, The Lord thy God will circumcise your heart! He did it because we couldn't do it. He did it both for us and as us. It's this idea that we were MADE in His image, but didn't know who we were. We tried to be somebody we're not. Tried to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. Tried to be like God through the knowledge of good and evil. But that could never work. So Jesus CONFORMED us to His image. He showed us who we really are by showing us who HE really is. He cut away all of that external stuff and showed us that God's heart was always beating in our chests and we just didn't know it. The circumcision didn't ADD anything. It took away everything that wasn't necessary. It got rid of everything on the surface and revealed that inner man. That hidden man of the heart. That circumcision (made without hands) didn't GIVE us the love nature. It simply showed us what was buried down deep inside. And because of that revelation we can stop trying to be someone else. We can stop trying to change. We can begin to BE who we really are because now we can SEE who we really are. Not "acting" like Jesus, because that will always be just an act, but just letting what's inside come out naturally. Letting the love that we are filled to overflowing with come out all on it's own!

More than anything else, what the Holy Spirit does is He allows us to receive the love of our Father. He is the Spirit of truth and He leads and guides us into all truth--all truth being that the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands. All truth being that He is our heavenly Father and we are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. And because of the Holy Spirit whispering this truth inside us with a still small voice... we can stop trying to be someone we're not and we can instead rest in the finished work of the cross and be who we are. Rather than a living soul looking for love in all the wrong places we can embrace our true identity as One who is loved, and One who can love... One who IS love. That's our identity. That's who we really are. THAT'S human nature. And that's when we feel the most alive. Not when we are trying to get something--earn something with the sweat of our brow--but when we are simply sharing what we have. The Holy Spirit has equipped and empowered us to receive the love of God. And we receive it in the most real, practical way when we release it. Because love is too big to be contained. We weren't just filled with the Holy Spirit so that we might have something extraordinary. We were filled TO OVERFLOWING with the Holy Spirit so that what's inside us could come out all on it's own. Naturally. So we could stop trying to jump through hoops and, "fake it 'til we make it," and we could just start to be ourselves. That's all any Father wants for His Son: Just be yourself. Here's the rub though--you can't be yourself unless and until you know yourself. And you can't know yourself unless and until you know Jesus. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). Remember yesterday we saw that it's a life and death issue? To live is to love and to love is to live. If you don't know who you are you will always try to be someone else. And there will always be one thing you lack. As hard as you try... when you bang your head against a wall all you get is a headache. But if you know who you are then you can be who you are. You can BE transformed (into what you've already been transformed into) by the renewing of your mind. If your life is hid with Christ in God then that's where you have to find it. We find our lives in Him. HIS life in us. His name and His nature is OUR name and OUR nature. That's what Revelation 2:17 is talking about, "Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone that is victorious I will give some of the mann that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it" (NLT). It's HIS name on the stone. HE is the chief cornerstone. And because HE was victorious, we get to enjoy the victory. He did the work and we get to enjoy the fruit of His labor. HE is God in the flesh, love in a body, and WE are the body that He lives in!

It's really a life or death issue. And I'm not talking about what happens "after we die." There's so much emphasis on "living right so that we can go to heaven someday when we die." As if we have to earn our spot in heaven. As if we aren't already in heaven right now... because heaven is in us right now! I'm talking about being ALIVE. When God breathed life into Adam's nostrils, Adam became a living soul. But he wasn't alive. Look at Romans 6:11, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Not just living... but truly being alive. First John 3:14 says it like this, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." See, LOVE is the difference between life and death. ABIDING or DWELLING in (His) life, or abiding in death. And look at the specifics: Loving the brethren. Loving each other. We love God by loving each other. We love God (by loving each other) because He first loved us. That's what it means to truly be alive; knowing and believing the love of Christ, and sharing that love with others. Receiving and releasing the gift of eternal life that is knowing the Father and the One He sent--knowing God as our Father and ourselves as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. And guys, that's not something we have to try to do. That's not something we CAN do on our own--with our works and labor. That's something that has to come naturally. Our verse in Romans doesn't tell us to try to be dead to sin and alive to God. It's tells us to reckon ourselves. To understand ourselves, if I can say it that way. Because of the cross we DO NOT have a "sin nature," or a beast nature. Jesus finished the work--did everything that needed to be done--so that we could be conformed into His image. We have BEEN transformed, and now we can BE transformed (into what we've already been transformed into) by the renewing of our mind. By reckoning ourselves. By knowing and believing the Word of God. The truth about us. By knowing our true nature. HIS nature. The love nature. I'm telling you, when you know and believe the Father loves you... when you understand that you are filled to overflowing with His love... His nature... His very being... then it comes naturally to you. Not, "fake it 'til you make it." But, "I love because I am loved." That's the nature of love. It has everything it needs so it can stop concentrating on itself and can instead turn the focus to taking care of others. I have what I need, so now I can share what I've got. That's the nature of love: Not trying to get, but giving what it has. For God so loved the world He GAVE... We truly live by giving our lives. By laying them down for our friends. Just like Jesus did on the cross. Just like Jesus does in and through and as us!

"There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13 NLT). Love comes in many shapes and sizes and forms. It is so simple--to love is to give--but so vast. Everybody receives love in different ways and everyone loves in different ways. But I think it's important to understand the nature of love--or our love nature--because it's only in understanding love that we can understand ourselves and each other. I'm completely convinced that people do what they do for one of two reasons: 1. They don't know they are loved and they want to be loved, so they try to get it--try to earn it. 2. They DO know they are loved and instead of trying to earn something that is freely given, they share what they have. That's why it's so important to understand 1 John 4:19. The New Living Translation puts it like this, "We love each other because he loved us first." We have to go to the source OF love in order to find that thing that we thought we were missing (before the cross, before Jesus gave His life for us and gave His life to us... before we were filled with the Holy Spirit). And then, once we receive the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--we can begin to experience the love that God has always had for us. Remember, the cross didn't change us into something that God could love. He always has and always will love us. The cross changed us into something that could RECEIVE God's love. Our old nature--the beast nature--understood "an eye for an eye." It understood, "if you do good you'll be rewarded and if you do evil you'll be punished." It understood the Law of Moses (even though it was powerless to keep that same Law). But it didn't understand love. It didn't understand mercy, or grace. It didn't understand LIFE, because instead of eating from the Tree of Life, it only ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To live is to love and to love is to live. But that truth almost seems to fly in the face of what Jesus said about the greatest love one can have. Until you understand Jesus' words in Mark 8:35 (NLT), "If you try to hang onto your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it." We only truly live when we give up OUR lives--the Old Man who died and was buried on the cross--and receive HIS life--the New Man, the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! We don't live by taking (despite what the world would have you believe.) We live by giving. Giving what we've got. Giving ourselves. Laying down our lives--and not necessarily in the physical sense that Jesus literally did both for us and as us on the cross, but by esteeming others higher than ourselves. Not stepping on people when they're down so we can look or feel a little bit bigger, but by getting down there with them and helping them up. That's the nature of love. Helping people. Giving them what they need. And that's what we've been equipped and empowered to do because that what Jesus did FOR us and that what's Jesus is doing right now IN us and THROUGH us and AS us!

It's not what we do FOR God. It's what He does THROUGH us. And that's the difference, to me, between the slave mentality and the Son mentality. Jesus said He lives BY the Father. And in the same way we live by Him. He lives in and through and as us. He's not our boss, He's our life. It's the difference between religion (Do what I say or else) and relationship (The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands). But here's the deal; its up to us. We can believe whatever we want to. We can DO whatever we want to. And in so doing (so believing) we choose to "serve" whoever we want to. Before the cross there was really no choice. We were sinners (unbelievers) because we didn't have anything to believe in. That's why Jesus came to the earth! He came to show us the Father. To show us what God really looks like. To show us who our "master" is and how He operates. And in four words I can sum it up like this, "Christ's love controls us" (2 Corinthians 5:14 NLT). Did you catch that? It's not the FEAR of an angry God that controls us. It's the unconditional love of our heavenly Father. And the "control" isn't, "You have to do this, this, and this. You have to jump through these religious hoops and then I'll love you." The control is... staying in control. Letting the love that fills us to overflowing guide and direct our path. That's what the Bible means when it says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105). The Word is Jesus. The Word is love! Love is the light of the world. Love IS our path! (Or our Way, if I can say it that way.) It's all about love. Love is our master. And He "controls" us--not by demanding love--by filling us with love. We love because He first loved us. The world wants to take take take. And in the world, no matter how much you get, there's always one thing you lack. Because there's nothing in the world that can satisfy a Spiritual creature. The desire of our heart (to be loved) can only be satisfied by the God who IS love. You can only find love at the source. "Serving" mammon, or the world, is really just looking for love in all the wrong places. "Serving" God--letting HIM serve you--is letting Him love you so that you can love Him (by loving others) with that same love. See, it's not about what you do FOR God. God is totally self-sufficient. He doesn't NEED anything. He said, "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 50:12). It's not about what we can do for Him. It's about what HE did for us. The cross. The Six Steps to the Throne. Dying so we could die and then living so we could live! Our "master" is not one who expects anything from us other than what He has provided FOR us. He doesn't demand love from us. He gave love to us... so that we could love. He equipped and empowered us to live by Him. To let Him live through us. Not us trying to be Jesus, but Jesus being Himself in and through and as us. Not a master and a slave, but a Father and His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased!

When it comes right down to it, it's about identity. It's about how you see yourself. Because how you see yourself is how you see God. If you see yourself as a sinner who deserves punishment for all the wicked deeds you've done, you'll see God as an angry taskmaster who judges according to good and evil. But if you see yourself as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased... then you can see Him (correctly) as your loving heavenly Father. And that's the difference between working WITH God and working FOR God. I don't believe we serve God in the sense that He is our master and He orders us around and we have to do what He says or He'll punish us. I believe this is the view the people of Israel had of God before the cross--heavily reinforced by the Law of Moses that the people wanted. It's always funny to me though, that even with this Old Covenant view of God we seem to forget about forgiveness. I've heard "mercy" described as not getting what you deserve. And we "say" God is merciful God. But then with the next breath we condemn Him (condemn ourselves) by saying ridiculous things like, "I already know I'm going to hell." We see ourselves as screw ups, and Him as someone who punishes--not forgives--mistakes. We see Him as a cruel and unflinching taskmaster. Well... according to Hebrews 13:8 in the Amplified Bible, "Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is [always] the same, yesterday, today, [yes] and forever (to the ages)." So in a sense He IS unflinching. But it's not His punishment that is the same forever. It's His Word. (Jesus is the Word, right? God in the flesh, love in a body.) It's His love that is the same forever. His mercy is the same forever. Or as 1 Chronicles 16:34 puts it, "O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever." What am I trying to say? He's not a mean, angry master. He's not mad AT you, He's mad ABOUT you. And He's not a master in the sense that He orders us around and we have to try to do what He says. He's our master in that we present our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice and He--rather than ordering us around--does whatever He wants to do in us and as us and through us. It's not, "Jesus is my boss." It's, "Jesus is my life!" I'm not working--in a Spiritual sense--because the work is finished. I'm resting in the arms of the lover of my soul. He did the work, and now I get to enjoy the fruit of His labor. The fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. It's all about identity, and it's all about love. Because our identity IS love. We are loved, and we are love! That's what it really means to "serve." It doesn't mean we try to earn something. It means we have been freely given something, and now we have something we can freely give! We can receieve and release the love of our Father. We can love Him by loving each other. We can stop trying to earn something... stop trying to be someone we're not... and we can start to enjoy the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life which is the gift of God. We can know God as He truly is and know ourselves (and each other) as we truly are!

Service by serving. That's what Jesus came to do, and that's what Jesus continues to do in and through and as us. That's how we serve Him. By letting Him serve us. By serving each other. Philippians 2:3-4 says it like this, "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." If I take care of you, and you take care of me, then neither one of us has to take care of ourselves. It's that connection that love brings. It's the truth that we are all one body. And nobody hates his own body, but nourishes it and cares for it. If we could stop building walls and start building bridges... stop looking for things to separate us from each other and start looking for things to connect us to each other... then we could really understand this ever expanding Kingdom that we live in (that we ARE)! God is our master, right? Christ's love controls us? The King of kings rules and reigns in His Kingdom. That's the definition of Kingdom--the realm where the King rules and reigns. Now watch this: Jesus, "...hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth" (Revelation 5:10). He doesn't RULE us, as an angry taskmaster who is looking for any mistake on our part so that we can punish us... He rules THROUGH us. He is the King of kings. We are the kings. WE are the realm where the King rules and reigns. We don't serve HIM, in the sense of, "Jesus is my boss." Because there's no separation. The ruling that Jesus does--and isn't it interesting that the ruling that He does is really serving?--He does in us and through us and as us. He doesn't expect us to do things FOR Him. He did everything that needed to be done for US (and as us). HE finished the work. HE rules and reigns. So in order for US to rule it reign it can ONLY be Him doing it in us. Let me say it another way. Jesus described Himself as the light of the world (John 8:12). And He also said, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matthew 5:14). Now there aren't a bunch of different lights. It's one light. The light of life. Look at John 1:4, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." It's not us trying to live His life... trying to shine His light. Trying to "serve" Him. It's HIM living HIS life in and through and as us. It's HIM shining His light in us and through us and as us. It's HIM serving us, and the manifestation of Him serving us is us serving each other. It's Him loving us, and the manifestation of that love is us loving each other. That's what His life, His light is. It's love. That's true service. That's what we're here to do: Be loved and love God by loving one another with the love that we are loved with!

Life or death. Blessing or cursing. Light or darkness. Truth or lie. God or mammon. What you believe is who you yield yourself to. Who you, in a sense, serve. And yesterday I said serving God is not about Him saying something and you doing it or else. But there IS an example of this in the Old Testament: Abraham, the father of faith. In Genesis 12:1 God tells Abraham (then Abram), "...Get thee out of thy country..." and in verse four the Bible tells us, "So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him..." God told Abraham to go and Abraham went. That, in it's most simple form, is faith. And I always tell people that's also the safest place to be. If God tells you to do something... do it. But I've found in my life it's not usually as simple as that. God doesn't "speak" to me in a audible voice. Most of the time He speaks to me through songs (and secular songs at that). So I don't wait for my "master" to give me orders. Instead, I follow where the Spirit leads. And the Spirit leads (and guides) us into all truth. The truth that Daddy loves us. The truth that we love--that we CAN love--because we are loved. That's what it means to "serve" God. Jesus said it like this, "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me" (John 6:56-57). We don't live FOR God, we live BY God. We live IN God, as He lives in us. Which, of course, means we don't live FOR love, we live BY love. We live IN love, as love lives in us. If God is my master that means love is my master. 2 Corinthians 5:14 says it like this, "For the love of Christ constraineth us..." The NLT renders that verse, "Christ's love controls us..." Over and over in the New Testament Paul refers to himself as, "a prisoner of Jesus." Why? Because he messed up and Jesus "got him?" Locked him in jail and threw away the key? Sentenced him to an eternal fiery "hell"? NO. Because he was gripped by grace. Because there was something inside him bursting at the seams to come out. Something uncontainable. Something uncontrollable. I said this last week in my WWW sermon, "Self control means giving up control." It means we stop trying to do something, or be something (or someone) and we just let Jesus do whatever He wants to do in and through and as us. Let Jesus be Himself in and through and as us. It's not me serving a master, doing whatever he says or else. It's the master doing it Himself... in me. It's me presenting my body as a living sacrifice. Being led by the Spirit. Led by love. Controlled by love. Serving love by serving love! Not trying to earn something, but receiving and releasing what I've already been given. A slave works in the hopes of earning something (and finds out that no matter how hard he tries there always one thing he lacks). A Son "works" (from the posture of rest) because He already has something, and it's so good that He can't help but share what He's got!