I like to try to make things as simple as possible. Get down to the bottom line. Or, as one of my old pastors used to say, "Major on the majors and minor on the minors." Keep things in perspective. Don't sweat the small stuff. All of those sayings and cliches. And that, believe it or not, is one of the things I like about the Bible. Because even though--through twisted scripture--you can pretty much make the Bible say anything you want it to say... most of the time it's pretty straightforward. Like 1 John 1:7 (NLT) for example, "But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." I've heard this verse preached as if to say: "Unless you are living in the light--i.e. obeying all the rules--you will never be cleansed from all sin!" But that to me, is horrible theology. Look at what it actually says: God is in the light. If we are in the light--as He is--that means we are loving, or having fellowship, with each other. And when love is flowing in us and out of us... that's the blood of Christ. That blood--that love, that light, that life--cleanses us from sin because if you are loving someone it means you know and believe (at least on some level) that God loves you. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. In order to love, you must first know (and believe) that you are loved. In order to release God's love you must first receive God's love. And that's what it means to live in the light. It is the light of love! Living in the light doesn't mean you are obeying a set of arbitrary rules that changes from culture to culture and church to church. It means you are obeying the New Commandment. Which I like to quote as often as possible and will do so here again: John 13:34, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." Again--plain and simple. God wants you to love, so He first loved you. He gave you what you needed, and you can now give it away. Share it. And IN giving it away, experience it! Look at one more passage of Scripture for today. "Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. But anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness" (1 John 2:10-11 NLT). Light and dark. Love and hate. And while I much prefer to contrast love with fear (see 1 John 4:18), I think you get the picture. Walking and living in the light is walking and living in love. Period. That's where God is. That's WHO God is. God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. When God arises His enemies are scattered. When you're in a dark room and you turn the light on, you're not in a dark room anymore. Light always beats the dark. Love always beats hate (or fear). Perfect love casts out fear. And when you're loving your neighber as yourself--which, again, is what walking and living in the light is--you won't do anything you shouldn't anyway. You won't lie to someone you love... because you love them. That's a stronger motive than trying to "stay out of trouble." If you're loving people you won't be doing something you need to hide (and, again, I'm not talking about "hiding" a surprise until the proper time. I'm talking about things you are ashamed of. Things you don't want people to know about). So make it simple. Love people. Shine your light. Let the love that God has filled you with come out naturally by filling yourself to overflowing with that love! Receive it and release it. Let it in and let it out. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Be in the light, as He (love) is in the light of love!

When the light shines you can see clearly. And, just for the record, the light always defeats the dark. Look at Psalm 68:1, "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered..." And look at 1 John 1:5 (NLT, "This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all." That's an important concept to me. Think about it like this: When you're in a dark room, and you turn the light on, you aren't in a dark room anymore. When God arises, His enemies are scattered. When the light shines, the darkness flees. Here's the key though: God is light... and God is love. Light is love. The light of the world is the love of the world. And, by the way, according to John 1:4 (NLT), "The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone." Jesus' life is the light of men. Light... life... love. All the same thing. So when we're talking about the light shining, it is God's love in our lives. When God said, "Let there be light," He was introducing Jesus to a dark and void situation. When God arises... love manifests. And that, to me, is the old Abraham Lincoln principle of destroying your enemies by making them your friends. And you do that by shining the light on them. By showing them who God is... by loving them. Heaping fiery coals onto their heads, not to burn them but to melt their hearts. When you get past the place of an eye for an eye, past the place of wanting "justice" for what has happened to you, and you get to the place where you just want everything to be good for everybody... that's maturity. That's when you can really experience this life. And, since to live is to love and to love is to live, we experience this life by giving it away. Love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. So when you focus on living life, you can't be self-centered. You have to be Christ-centered. Which means being people-centered. Giving everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. Shining your light. Don't hoard it. Don't hide it under a bushel. Let it shine! Let what's inside come out. And the only real way to do that is by knowing and believing that it's in there. Knowing that you have something to give. And knowing that it is worth giving. Filling yourself to overflowing with what God has already filled you with. We love because He first loved us. We give because He gave us something to give. We are blessed to be a blessing. Living out of our abundance is all about understanding that LOVE is what makes the abundant life abundant. Receiving and releasing the love of God. Letting Him shine on us, and then shining on each other. When the light shines, the darkness flees and we can see clearly. We can BE who we are because we can see who we are. What you see is what you be. What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in your life. What you feed is what will grow. So it's important that we walk in the light. That we live in the light. That we let God's Word--which is Jesus, which is love--be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. That's how this life works, in a real, practical way. We let God love us (shine His light on us) and we love Him back by loving each other (shining His light of love onto everything and everybody we come into contact with). God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all. We are that same light, and that means there is no darkness in US at all either! So let your light shine among men. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there! Let your love shine!

Living in the light, or walking in the light, is all about living, or walking, in love. Because here's the deal: God is love. God is light. They--like life and love--are not just connected, they are the same thing. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. When God said, "Let there be light," He was saying, "Here is my love." And when He did that, He gave His only begotten Son in whom He is well pleased. He showed us what love is... by loving us. He showed us that love is giving... by giving us His Son. His Spirit. His life. His love. And because He gave... we can give. One of my favorite Bible verses is 1 John 4:11 (NLT), "Dear friends, since God loves us that much, we surely ought to love each other." Because we are loved... we can love. Because we are loved... we ARE love. And here's kind of my focus for this Rant series: If you're hiding what you're doing, you probably shouldn't be doing it. You should live in the light. Live transparently. And if you're living a life of love... you won't have to hide anything, because you won't be doing anything you have to hide! If you're being open and honest it makes things really simple. You don't have to try to remember what lie you told you person. You can just speak the truth. The ultimate truth of the universe that God is love and He loves you. The truth that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands. God gave us everything we need when He gave us His Son. Look at 2 Peter 1:3 (NLT), "By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence." The KJV uses the phrase "all things that pertain unto life and godliness." We have been given everything we need. We have no lack because our God has no lack, and because He has given Himself to us, for us, and as us! We can live in the light because HE is the light of the world... and He shines on us, and into us, and out of us! We are that same light. We can shine with His love... because He loves us. And because He loves us... we ought to love each other. God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. Letting the love that He has filled us with come out by filling ourselves to overflowing with that love. Letting our light shine by knowing and believing that He lives in us. That we live in Him. That as He is, so are we in this world. He is the light of the world. We are the light of the world. It's the same light of love. We were created to be loved and to love. To let God love us and to love Him back by loving each other. To experience this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love to the fullest by receiving and releasing the love of God. That's as simple as I can make it. God is love. He loves you. Love Him back by loving people. That's what this life is all about, and that's what this life is for. If you want to live... love! No love, no life. Know love, KNOW life! It's all about love. All about doing what we were created to do. Not skulking around in the dark, doing things that we are ultimately ashamed of, but living in the light. Putting God's love on display as we receive it and release it. I remember when I worked at a law firm there was a dude who worked there who asked me one day, "Seriously, why are you always in a good mood?" And I remember just smiling and saying, "Because I know God loves me." That love will equip and empower you to not only live... but to truly be alive! And when you have something that good, you will want to share it. Love is giving. Shine your light and give it away!

Here's the gist of what I'm going to try to say in this Rant series: If you're hiding what you're doing... you probably shouldn't be doing it. And, listen, I'm not talking about good surprises for people. Obviously. I'm talking about doing things in a way that you feel you need to hide from everybody. Or rather, NOT doing things that you need to hide from everybody. I'm talking about living, or walking, in the light. On display. We are the visible face of the invisible God, right? We are epistles written to all men, right? God's love letter to the world. What I'm trying to say is, even if you THINK you're hiding what you're doing... you're not. People are watching you. Especially when they know you're a "Christian." Because people think "Christians" are judgmental hypocrites are just waiting for you to fall on your face. But before I get too far into this I want to drop my three main verses of Scripture in order to build my foundation. 1 John 1:17 (NLT), "But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." Which might want to make us believe that in order to be cleansed from sin we have to "stop sinning." So let's look at Ephesians 5:8, "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." There was a definite shift here, clearly. When God created the heavens and the earth it was dark and void and without form. But then He spoke. And when He spoke He said, "Let there be light." He injected Jesus, the light of the world, into the situation. See, living (or walking) in the light, is about sharing that light. It is about fellowship with each other. The bond or connection or relationship that can only come from love. Which is what my final memory verse shows us, "Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble" (1 John 2:10, NLT). The light of God... is the love of God. Period. Full stop. When we walk in the light we are walking in love. When you understand that sin is not "bad behavior" but unbelief... and that what we mean by "unbelief" is believing in anything other than God's love for us... that's when we can truly walk in the light. Walk by faith and not by sight. Let God's Word (which is Jesus, which is love) be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. So let's back up. Let's say, "But if we are living in the LOVE, as God is in the LOVE, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin." Let's say, "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now ye are LOVE in the Lord: walk as children of LOVE." It's the light of love that leads us, guides us, directs us, and protects us. It is the light of love that lets us see each other (and ourselves) clearly. It is the light of love that shows us where to go and how to get there. So it doesn't matter if, like my dad always said about me, you spend some times wandering around in the wilderness. All that matters is moving forward. When you know better you can do better. When the light shines you can see clearly. And the light of God's love doesn't just shine ON us. It shines IN us, OUT of us, THROUGH us, and AS us. We are not just IN the light... we ARE the light. Jesus identified Himself as the light of the world and He identified US as the light of the world. It's the same light. The same love. It is what we were created to do, and what we were created to experience, and what we were created to share! So let your light shine among men. Don't hide it under a bushel. Know that you are loved by God, and love Him back by loving the people you come into contact with. Shine the light of love wherever you are and however you can!

When you know and believe that you are loved, you have a responsiblity to love. Because receiving is only the first part of the equation. This life is lived by receiving AND releasing the love of God. It's the idea found in Genesis 12:2 (NLT), "I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others." We are blessed... to be a blessing. We are loved... so that we can love. That's the key, and the secret, of life. God is love and He loves you. You love Him back by loving each other. The Father's love, and the Son's responsiblity. We simply be about the family business. The love business. We simply fill ourselves to overflowing with what God has already filled us with. That's our response. God made the Way of Grace. We respond with the Walk of Faith. We walk by faith and not by sight. We don't judge by appearance, but we judge righteous judgment. We execute the judgment that was handed down from Father to Son when God raised Jesus from the dead. It wasn't a death sentence, it was a life sentence! An abudant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life sentence! God is not the God of the dead, but the living! He is all about life, because He IS life! Jesus identified Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE! Because God is love! And to live is to love. To love is to live. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. So remember: You don't owe anybody anything... except love. Your responsibility is to respond to God's love. To receive it and release it. And in that way, experience Jesus' life as you let Jesus live His own life in you, and through you, and as you! Rest in His loving arms. Again, fill yourself to overflowing with what HE has already filled you with. God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people! That's what this life is all about, because that's what this life is! So when you understand that God is your heavenly Father--when you understand that God is love and He loves you--that's when you can truly live as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. That's when you can truly experience life on the fullest level. You don't have to suffer. You don't have to merely survive. You can thrive. You can enjoy the journey. Because that's what life is: It is a never-ending journey into the heart of the matter. Which, of course, is the heart. God's heart beating with love in our chests. That's how we know that we are loved. John--the disciple that Jesus loved--laid his head on Jesus' breast and heard the heartbeat of God. Now we can hear that same heartbeat, that still, small voice, inside of ourselves... and each other. The deep calling out to the deep. The light in me connecting to the light in you. That's the type of relationship we can have with each other, because of the love of our Father. We can stop drawing lines in the sand and we can start embracing each other. We can stop trying to be someone we're not (in order to get what we think we haven't got), and we can stop trying to force other people to be what we think they should be... and we can just simply let the love inside come out. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are loved to be love. Because love isn't just what we have... it is who we are. Because it is who our heavenly Father is. So take what you've been given and give it away. Pay it forward. Let it out. Whatever catchphrase you want to use. Experience the love of the Father by being a responsible Son. By giving what you've got. By living out of your abundance, and by understanding that it is love that makes the abundant life... abundant!

Everything we do is a response to the Father's love. "We love each other because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19 NLT). And I like how in other translations of this verse, like the KJV, it reads, "We love him, because he first loved us." I like that because we love Him BY loving each other. How we treat people is how we treat God, because God lives in people. Jesus said, "And the King will say, 'I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'" (Matthew 25:40 NLT). God loves us, and we love Him back by loving each other. That's our response. That's our responsiblity. 1 John 4:11, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Or John 13:34 (NLT), "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." It's all about love. And, more specifically, loving God by loving people with the love that He has loved us with. Receiving and releasing His love. That's how we be about the family business. That's how we let what's inside come out. And that's how we experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love that is the gift of God. We don't hoard it, afraid that we will lose it if we use it. We experience it by giving it away. By sharing it. By filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. By letting God love us and then loving Him back by loving people. That's as simple as I can make it. That's the secret of life. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. That's why it is so important to understand the Divine Order of things--knowing and believing, in that order. You can't believe what you don't know. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. It's the response--and responsibility--of the Son that comes from the love of the Father. We love because He first loved us. Love is giving, and you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. So in order to give love... you must first be given love. You have to receive before you can release. But receiving isn't the whole thing. Like I said, you don't receive in order to hoard. Or hide. Nobody puts their light under a basket. They put it out where it can shine and light up the whole room. Love is the light of the world. Love is what let's people see things clearly. When it was dark and void, God said "Let there be light." And with those words, everything changed. When you inject Jesus--love--into a situation... everything changes! And that's our responsibility as the Son(s) of God. Look at one more memory verse today, "So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere" (Luke 9:6). That was the ministry of Jesus' disciples. And that, if you want to make it really simple, is what we are responsible for today. Being a witness and healing people. And that, by the way, doesn't always and only mean physical healing. Sometimes you can help someone emotionally heal by just being there for them. Loving them. Giving them what they've been lacking, or missing. Seeing a need and meeting it. To me, it's always been that simple. See a need and if at all possible... meet that need! Don't complicate things. Don't worry about whether or not someone "deserves" it. Deserve's got nothing to do with it. You are loved... so you can love. You are loved... so you ARE love. Let love be your responsibility and your response. Let the love inside of you come out!

Here, in my opinion, is the ultimate truth of the universe: "The Father loves his Son and has put everything into his hands" (John 3:35, NLT). God is love and He loves you. And that, friends, is why I think the Son has a very important responsiblity. Let me say it another way, "My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27, NLT). The "everything" in question here, the "everything" that the Father has given us... is the ability to reveal the Father to people. To shine the light of the world so people can see clearly. To be a witness for our God. To shew forth His glory. As the preacher once said, "We are the spout where the glory comes out." That's our responsibility as a Son--to show people the Father. And that's why I focus on love so much; because by showing people love we ARE showing them the Father! When we understand that God is love, we can begin to witness and testify about Him without getting religious. I've said this many times: Some of the best conversations I've ever had about God have never even mentioned His name. Because we were talking about love. We were talking about life. About how living and loving aren't just connected, but are really the same thing! About how to live IS to love, and to love is to live. That's what this life--Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love--is all about. That's what this life is for. We have been equipped and empowered... to love. Filled to overflowing... with God's love. And because He has given us that love, it is our responsibility--as a Son who is all about the Father's business--to love Him back by loving the people we come into contact with. To let God love the hell out of us and then love Him back by loving the hell out of people! To receive and release His love. And in that way, experience His love. Love is giving, right? For God so loved the world He gave. Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay your life down for your friends. To GIVE your life to your friends. And to know that we only have friends... and people that don't know they are our friends yet. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "I destroy my enemies by making them my friends." That's the attitude we should all have. Not trying to hurt people, but trying to help people. Not heaping fiery coals on people's heads in order to burn them, but simply to melt their hearts. Kill 'em with kindness. That's the responsibility of the Son. And that's what we CAN do because of what GOD did. He loves us, we ought to love each other. To me, it's really that simple. Receive and release God's love. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Love one another with every breath you take and every move you make. Show people your heavenly Father by showing them love. That's what people need. They don't always need a sermon. Sometimes they need a meal. Or an ear to hear. Someone to lean on. Sometimes they need to know that they aren't alone. And, since we absolutely know that we aren't alone... we can show them that. We can see a need and meet it. We have what everybody needs--and we know that we have it. So, as my pastor says, "If you know it, throw it!" And like I always say, "If you don't know what to do, do what you know!" Let the love that is inside you come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Fill yourself to overflowing with what you've been filled with. God and people. Love God and love people. Love God BY loving people. That's what God has entrusted us with, and that's what we have a responsibility to share with each other!

This is as simple as I can put it: "Owe nothing to anyone--except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God's law" (Romans 13:8, NLT). Your responsibility in this life... is to live. With the understanding that to live is to love and to love is to live. The Father loves the Son. He has filled us up with His love. And we don't owe anything to anybody except to love them with the love that we are loved with. That's the New Commandment for the New Man. "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other" (John 13:34 NLT). Receive and release God's love. That's the Son's responsibility. That's how we experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. And that's how we experience our EPIC (Eternal Purpose In Christ) destiny. We were created to be loved, and to love with that same love. To fill ourselves up to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. To let God love us and to love Him back by loving each other. That's what this life is, and that's what this life is for. So, like I always say, if you don't know what to do... do what you know. When you know and believe that you are loved... you can truly live. Because, again, to live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. In order to experience God's love... we love each other. Because love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. So don't make it too complicated. If you don't know what to do... do what you know. Know (and believe) that you are loved, and let that love come out. Naturally. With every breath you take and every move you make. And watch this: love is maximum effort. Loving someone is literally the most you can do for someone. No greater love can a man have than to lay down his life for his friends. Glady giving everything you have and everything you are. That's love. Love is giving. Giving what you've got. Giving what God has given you. The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands. All things pertaining to life and godliness. LOVE. He has given LOVE into our hands. And since we have it, we can give it. We can experience it BY giving it. Look, if you want to "feel" something... do that thing. If you want to feel forgiven, forgiven someone. If you want to feel love... love someone! It's all about giving what you've got. Knowing you have it, believing you have it, and giving it away. That's the Son's responsibility. The Son is about His Father's business. The family business. The love business. Not just being a Kingdom consumer, but being a Kingdom exporter. I once heard a preacher say, "You are the spout where the glory comes out!" Fill yourself to overflowing (with what you've already been filled with) and experience the life of a Son who knows that His Father loves Him! Receive it and release it. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing you have it. Owe nothing to anyone... except for your obligation to love one another.

The love of a Father always equips and empowers His Son. A few Rants ago we looked a little bit at how Jesus, knowing who He was from the very beginning, and knowing who His Father is from the very beginning, was about His Father's business from a very young age. In fact, when He was "lost" in the temple, He was suprised that His parents had to look for Him. To Him, He wasn't lost at all. He was right where He was supposed to be, doing right what He was supposed to be doing. And this, I think, is where some religious folk lose the thread. The idea of "Jesus take the wheel" kind of meaning we bail out of the car. Rest as inactivity. The abdication of personal responsiblity. We want God to take care of our problems, and by that we seem to mean we don't want to do anything about our problems. Even though, for the most part, we bring a lot of our problems onto ourselves. Look at 2 Thessalonians 3:11-13 (NLT), "Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other people's business. We command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and owrk to earn their own living. As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good." Paul wrote in another place, "If you don't work, you don't eat," or something to that effect. My point is: Rest is NOT inactivity. It is Holy Spirit directed activity. And what the Holy Spirit directs us to do--the ONLY thing the Holy Spirit has or will EVER direct us to do--is love. Look at Mark 12:29-31 in the NLT, "Jesus replied, "the most important commandment is this: 'Listen O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these."" God and people. Love God and love people. Love God BY loving people. That's what this life is all about. That's the response to the Father's love. When He fills us up with His love, He equips and empowers us to love Him back by loving each other. It's not about refusing to work. It's about putting in maximum effort. It's not about crossing your arms and throwing a pity party and demanding that God do something. God DID something 2,000 years ago on the cross. He finished the work. He overcame. And now, becuase of what HE did, we can enjoy the fruit of His labor. We can receive and release His love. We can let what's inside of us--the love that is inside of us--come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. We can be responsible Sons and take care of the gift we've been given... by giving it away. We let what's inside of us come out by filling ourselves to overflowing with what God has already filled us with. Love God and love people. That's the Son's responsibility. And we love... because He first loved us. We give--which is what it means to love, because love is giving--because we have been given. Receive it and release it. Know it and believe it. Experience the gift (of God) that you have been given (which is His sacrificial, agape love) by giving it away. By loving people. And when you love people, you aren't judging people. You aren't holding anything back. Love is giving everything you have and everything you are without worry about being left with nothing. It doesn't matter if the more you love the less people seem to love you. What matters is experiencing life to the fullest. What matters is being able to truly live. To experience LOVE to the fullest. Again, by giving it away. We have been given all power and authority as the Son of God. That power... and that authority... is the Father's love. And that, friends, is the Son's responsiblity!

There's a reason why the Father loving His Son relationship is the biggest and best picture of God in the Bible. And it's a reason I didn't fully understand until I had a son and became a father. Ready? Jesus put it in slightly different terms in John 10:11 (NLT), "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep." The Father is ready, willing, and able to lay down His life for us. That's what I understood, in the twinkling of an eye, when my son was born. I would do ANYTHING for him. Including sacrificing my life for him. Without question, or thought, or contemplation. I love that little rascal more than anything. I care about him WAY MORE than I care about myself. And that's what that agape, sacrificial, God-love is all about. Look at Romans 5:6 (NLT), "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners." And, of course, this is where some people can get mixed up because they see a separation between "God" and "Jesus." But it (HE) is all the same thing. Jesus said, "The Father and I are one" (John 10:30 NLT). So Jesus dying for us is the same thing as God dying for us. Jesus IS God. So let's not get hung up. We think Jesus died for God. We think the Son died for the Father. But that's absurd if you really think about it. This idea that God HAD to kill someone in order to "satisfy His wrath" (or whatever), and He gave us a pass only because He substituted us... for Himself... like... I don't think that tracks. God had to kill someone so He killed Himself? Even though it was humanity who chose Jesus to die and humanity who nailed Jesus to the cross. But I digress. My point is that, "This is real love--not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins" (1 John 4:10 NLT). Did you catch that? Jesus didn't die to "appease God." He died to take away our sins. But again, I digress. The point is, when we had nothing to offer, God gave us everything He had and everything He is. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins He gave us life. And not just any life, HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love that is the gift of God! That's a Father's love. Laying His life down for His children. And, by the way, that's how we got our inheritance. Jesus died so we could have it, and then rose back up to insure that we experienced it and enjoyed it! Because we don't try to live Jesus' life. Nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. We experience and enjoy His life by letting HIM live His own life in us, and through us, and as us! We be still and know that HE is God. We let Jesus take the wheel, but we don't bail out of the car. We're along for the ride on this (one more time) abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! The Father's love equipping and empowering His Son to be who He is. Who He really is. Which is who WE really are. Which is who we are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in us. Letting the God--the love--that is inside of us come out by knowing and believing that it (HE) is in there. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we have already been filled with. Receiving and releasing the Father's love in order to truly live the life that He has given us. The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands. The Father's love gives us the life of the Son. That's who we are, and where we are, what we are capable of, because of who HE is and what HE did (for us and as us) and what He is doing in us, and through us, and as us! Living in the context of this Father/Son relationship is how we truly live!