Don't roll your eyes, but this is one of my favorite Bible verses, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). And I like it because it not only tells us what (or who) we are, but it tells us how to BE what (or who) we are. Questions and answers. "Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here?" Very important questions. And why I wrote the Answer Trilogy (Identity Crisis, Six Steps to the Throne, and Epic). Because those questions NEED answers. We NEED to know who we are, where we are, and why we're here. Otherwise we'll continue to just, as my dad puts it, wander around in the wilderness. We'll continue to just go around and around the mountain without ever reaching the promised land. Look at Hebrews 3:19, "So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." The promised land is available to us. It is rest. It is, in fact and in truth, where we are right now. But faith is not blind. Seeing is believing. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. We ARE the Son(s) of God. Right now. We were created in the image and likeness of our Father in the beginning and conformed to the image of His Son on the cross. Done deal. The problem is not that we need to be someone we're not. The problem is that even though we are who we need to be... we don't know who we really are. But there's a solution to that too. When He appears. And let's get real with this. People--religious folk, if I can say it that way--are always waiting for Jesus to come back, right? Or for them to go meet Him. Some such. But here's the straight truth: Jesus has appeared, is appearing, and will appear. It's not one man walking the shores anymore. It's His Spirit in us. It's Jesus appearing TO us by appearing IN us, and THROUGH us, and AS us. It's Jesus showing up and showing out. It's LOVE appearing to us. I can say this kind of tongue in cheek because I have a beard and I wear sandals, but that's not what we need to be waiting for. We don't need to be waiting at all. For anything. He has given us everything we need because He has given us... Himself. His Spirit. His love. Jesus made a way where there was no way. He brought us back to relationship with the Father. Put us where we needed to be--sitting at the right hand of the Father. He gave His life for us, and He gave His life TO us. And He did it when He was lifted up from the earth. In full view. So that we could see it. Because, again, seeing it believing. What you see is what you be. What you feed is what will grow. What you allow is what will continue. What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in your life. So don't take my word for it. Take HIS Word (again, Jesus... love) for it. Let God prove Himself to you. He can, and will. All throughout the Old Testament man asked God for a sign. And He gave one every single time. It doesn't bother Him to prove Himself. Because that's where our faith comes from. That's what equips and empowers us to believe in Him!

I'm going to kind of squint my eyes a little bit to make this work. Come on the journey with me. I could only find one Bible verse with the words "blind" and "faith" and it is in the Message Bible. Hebrews 11:27, "By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king's blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going." There was a blind rage, but there was an act of faith. A decision of faith. Choosing to keep one's eyes on the One no eye can see. Continuing on. Walking by faith. Which means walking. Forward. Onward. Upward and God-ward. Letting your heart lead the way. I always come back to the verse, well, I'll just quote it. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105). The Word (which is Jesus, which is love) shows us where to go. The Holy Spirit leads us and guides us. He directs us and protects us. We have faith in God because He has proven Himself faithful. We trust Him because He has proven Himself trustworthy. Faith is sitting on a chair, because you believe it will support you. If you see a rickety chair... you might not sit down. It isn't about hoping against hope that the chair will hold you. It's about having confidence. And we don't have a rickety God. We have a God in whom we can trust no matter what else is going on. It doesn't matter if a king has a blind rage. It matters that we have a loving King of kings. It doesn't matter how big the storm is. It matters how big our God is. That's why God shows Himself at every opportunity. Every time we invite Him in He shows up. Because He's already there! How do we keep our eye on the One no eye can see? By letting Him who is always there BE there. By letting love rule and reign in our lives. By having faith in God. By believing in love. Love is the solution to the problem. And, listen, we have to be careful with that, in a sense. Because love comes in all shapes and sizes. Your idea of what a situation needs might not be the only solution. Your idea of what love is might not be what someone else needs. Love takes wisdom. Understanding. Relationship. Building bonds and connections with people so that you can know HOW to love THEM the way THEY need to be loved. Not everybody expresses love in the same ways and not everybody receives love in the same ways. That's why I say love is NOT blind. It sees clearly. You have to have an understanding of someone in order to love them. Take me for example: I'm a chocolate guy. If you offer me chocolate... I'm going to take it. And I'll probably see that as an expression of love. But there are some people out there who don't like chocolate. Or who like it, but don't want to eat it. Or whatever. So they might not see a gift of chocolate the same way. We need to be sensitive about that. We need to learn about each other. What works for someone, and what doesn't. We need to SEE each other. Love is not blind. And neither is faith. When we see God for who He really is, it's hard NOT to have faith in Him. When He proves how trustworthy He is it's hard NOT to trust Him. Because He has--He IS--everything we need. And He has given Himself to us. We don't just need Him... we have Him!

Faith is not blind. Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for and the EVIDENCE of things not seen. Faith is not hoping God will do something. Faith is knowing He will because He has said He would... and because He has done it before. We have faith in God because He has proven Himself faithful. Basically is what I'm trying to say. So let's really think about this. They say love is blind. Because when you first "fall in love" with someone you can't see any of their faults. There may be red flags all over the place, but you don't see them. Or you don't think they're really that important. The idea that you can change somebody. Which, by the way, you can't. But it's that idea we have. "They're perfect." Because we can't, or won't, see certain things. Here's the deal though: That's not love. That's probably lust more than anything else. You "don't see," or ignore, those things you should see because you want what you want. You WANT them to be what you want them to be. And that's why so many relationships go sour so quickly. People are who they are, not who you wish they were. Putting expectations on people--putting expectations on anything, really--is the best way to get disappointed. Nothing ever lives up to our unrealistic expectations. We set ourselves up for a fall. But here's the thing about love: Love doesn't demand its (HIS) own way. Love sees things clearly. Love isn't blind. It is longsuffering. Love lets people be who they are, and loves them anyway. And that's not to say you have to be ok with everything and everybody. There are some things in this world that are unacceptable to me. By which I mean I do not accept them. You can turn the other cheek and not retaliate but still have healthy boundaries. You don't have to let people walk all over you. Or use you and abuse you. You can love people from a distance, if I can say it that way. Not everybody is for you, and you're not for everybody. And that's ok. But the point I'm trying to get to here in my usual roundabout way is that just as there is no such thing as blind faith... love is not blind either. We need to change our idea about blindness. Jesus came to blind those who thought they could see--who thought they knew it all--and to open the eyes of those who were blind. To show us how things really are. "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." But we need to SEE Him. To hear Him. To handle Him with our hands. Remember so called "doubting" Thomas? Who put his hands into the wounds in Jesus's hands? Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. Love isn't blind. Love sees clearly. God isn't blind to any aspect of us. He sees us as we are... and He sees us as we TRULY are. He sees us in our strength, in our weakness, and everywhere in between. And He loves us every step of the way. In fact, He loves us even more IN our weakness. Because that's when we need it more. He always gives us what we need. He always gives us what we need... exactly when we need it. Never early or late, but right on time. Our God is a NOW God. He's right on time. He's not blind to who we are or what we need. He sees us clearly, and has already provided all our need. It's available to us. We have it. Now WE need to make sure WE'RE not blind to it!

This is one of those ironic titles to get you to think about the term. Because I don't believe there is any such thing as "blind" faith. I believe faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is knowing that your heavenly Father has your back because He's been there for you every single time. Look at 1 John 1:1, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life." That, to me, is pretty much it. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. We have heard it, seen it, handled it. Experienced it. That's how we know it's real. I don't know how, or why, but it seems like we've turned faith into hope. "I have faith that God will do something." When we really mean we hope God will do something. And, listen, faith that God will come through for us is a good thing. But it's not hoping He will come through for us. It's knowing that He will. Because He always has. The SUBSTANCE of things hoped for. "I hope I win a million dollars" is very different from, "My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory." One is a pipe dream. The other is a certainty. But to bring it back around to my point for this Rant series: Faith is not blind. I once heard a preacher say, "Faith is not a blind leap in the dark, it's a blind leap in the light!" Which I thought was a pretty good turn of phrase. But in reality it's simply walking in the light because you can see where you're going. Walking by faith isn't closing your eyes and hoping everything will work out. It isn't burying your head in the sand and living on a wing and a prayer. It's letting the Word of God (again, Jesus... love) be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path. Letting your heart guide you. Letting love lead the way. Because Mark 11:22 says, "And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God." Having faith in God is having faith in love. Because God IS love. That's not just what He does, that's who He is. There's such a big difference between sticking your head in the sand and having faith in love. One tries to deny what's going on. Ignore it and hope things will magically work themselves out. The other injects what is needed into every situation. Every cloud has a silver lining, right? That's love. That's all things working for good. They may not all look good, or feel good, but they are working for good. A big part of having faith is knowing and believing that everything will work out. Again, not ignoring what's happening... but learning and growing by going through what's happening. Letting what's inside you (the love of God) come out. Especially when you--or whoever you're in contact with--needs it most. They say love is blind (and I think I'm going to hit this idea hard tomorrow) but really love sees clearly. Love doesn't ignore what it going on. Love simply gives what is needed so that what is going on can be what is best for everybody. Faith... hope... and love, right? But not blind faith. Not pipe dream hope. Not selfish love. God gave us everything we need. We have it. We can use it. We can walk by faith and not by sight, by walking in love!

What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in your life. What you feed is what will grow. What you allow is what will continue. So, to me, what you ought to do is magnify God (LOVE) in your life. Feed the love in your life (remembering, of course, that love feeds on love). Allow love in your life. Let God love the hell out of you, and then love Him back by loving the hell out of the people you come into contact with. Receive it and release it. Praise God--not so that He will do something, but because He has already done everything! Praise isn't, "Do this for me." Praise is, "Thank you for what you've done for me!" An attitude of gratitude. Not looking at what you don't have, but focusing on what you do have. Not trying to be someone you're not, but embracing who you are! That's how we enjoy this gift we've been given; we give it away. We share it. That's how it manifests in our life; WE manifest it. We let what's inside come out. And we do that by knowing and believing that it's in there. We let what has already been manifested BE manifested. We respond to the Way of Grace with the Walk of faith. And the thing about walking by faith (and not by sight) is that you have to walk. Charity is love in action. It's not just someone needing help and you saying, "Hey, good luck. God bless." It's you actually, you know, helping them. Seeing a need and meeting it. And watch this: when you see a need and meet it... God's love is (through you) being manifested in someone else's life! You can be an answer to prayer. You can be a miracle. And, look, I'm not saying that to pump you all up and make you prideful. And I'm not saying it to freak you out and scare you. I'm simply saying, everybody needs love. Love is to a human what gas is to a car. Without it, we can't do anything. Or go anywhere. Rest is not inactivity. It is Holy Spirit directed activity. And the Holy Spirit only ever has (or ever will) direct us to love. What else could or would the God who IS love expect or want from us? Which, of course, is why He first loved us. He gave us what He wanted us to have so that we could experience it by giving it away. We are, as I heard one preacher put it, the spout where the glory comes out. The God who is love has filled us up with Himself. His Spirit. His heart. His life. His love. And now, because of that, we can live. By loving. By magnifying the love that He has given us. The love that He is. The love that we are. It's not about getting something you haven't got (by being someone you're not). It's about experiencing and enjoying the gift you've been given by giving it away. Paying it forward. Living out of your abundance. You can't make something out of nothing. But you can give what has been given to you. You can let what's inside come out. You can fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with. You can receive and release God's love. Give it back to Him by giving it to the people that you come into contact with. See a need and meet it. Love people. Give them what you've got. That's how you enjoy what you've got--by sharing it. By giving it away!

God manifested His love for us by giving us His only begotten Son. Jesus manifested His love for us by dying for us--and as us--on the cross. By giving His life for us and to us. Love is giving. That's how it was manifested to US, and that's how we manifest it to EACH OTHER. Jesus said there is no greater love that a man can have than to lay down his life for his friends. He said the New Commandment (for the New Man) is to love one another as He has loved us. He loves us (again) by laying His life down for us. By giving everything He had and everything He was so that we can HAVE everything He has and so that we can BE everything He is! He has manifested Himself--His love--to us, and in us, and through us, and as us! He gave us His life. But nobody can live Jesus's life except Jesus. So He didn't just give it to us and then wash His hands of it. He didn't just give it to us and then say, "Good luck with that." No. He gave it to us... and He lives it in us! It's His life. We simply experience and enjoy it by LETTING Him live it in us, and through us, and as us. You've heard stuff like, "Jesus take the wheel." Or, "Here am I, Lord, use me." Well, in order to LET Him take the wheel, in order to LET Him use us... we simply have to let what's inside of us come out. We simply have to let the love that's inside come out. By loving people. Whatsoever we do unto the least of them we do unto the King, right? How we treat people is how we treat God. Which is why is blows me away and bums me out that people will be cruel to people "in God's name." "God told me not to help you because He (I) doesn't agree with what you're doing." No sir. God told you to love your enemies. To pray for those that despitefully use you. And, listen, I always talk about not putting yourself, or keeping yourself, in a bad position. I don't think God wants you to get used and abused. But there's a difference between staying away from people that are no good for you... and refusing to help people in need. But there's also a difference between helping people and enabling people. We have to find that balance. That sweet spot. We have to be willing to help, but not to the point of hurting (ourselves or others). Sometimes when you think you're helping... you're really not. Espeically if you have to force your help onto someone. I've found that, as proud as people usually are... as much as they think asking for help is weakness and not wisdom... when you really need help you'll seek it out. When you hit rock bottom there's nowhere to go but up. And that's what God wants for us. He wants us to ascend. Upward and onward. Upward and God-ward! His love manifests in our lives when WE manifest it. When we use the gift we've been given. When we receive and release His love. You have to have both parts. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have... but at the same time love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. If you want to experience love... love somebody. Give them what you've got. Give them what you need. That's a life worth living. Not living for yourself, but living for the people you love! Manifesting love in YOUR life by manifesting love in the lives of others!

Love manifests in your life when you give away the love that you have. When what's inside (what's REALLY inside... which is the love of God) comes out. That's the whole deal with receiving and releasing. God fills us up with His love and then we fill ourselves up to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. We let what's inside come out, naturally, by knowing and believing that it's in there. Knowing and believing that we have what we need to have and we are who we need to be. Because when you know you have what you need... you can stop chasing it. When you know that you are who you need to be... you can stop trying to be someone you're not. What you feed is what will grow. And what you starve is what will fade away. You don't always need to fight against the darkness. You can simply shine the light and watch the darkness flee. I always use the example of when you need to go to the bathroom. I think we've all been there. Well, the more you think about the act of going to the bathroom--even in the sense of "I don't need to go, I don't need to go, I don't need to go" you're still focusing on the wrong thing. Because you're still focusing on the bathroom. It is dominating your thoughts. You're giving it power, even when you're trying to render it powerless. What's that old saying? Don't tell your God how big the storm is, tell the storm how big your God is. Make sure you're focusing on the right thing. Make sure you have set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. SET your affection. Make a conscious choice to focus on what's really important. And I've long said the only (or at the very least the most) important things in this world are God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. And I usually qualify this by saying that, yes, taking care of our planet is important. It's the only one we've got. Animals are important. But if you can only do one thing... love somebody. That, to me, is as simple as I can make it. If you don't know what to do... do what you know. Love. Let God love the hell out of you and love Him back by loving the hell out of the people in your road. God's love is manifested in you when you manifest it in yourself. If I can say it that way. When you let what's really inside come out. Because whatever you believe is inside WILL come out. It has to. Whatever it is, it is too big and too powerful to stay in there. It has to come out. Better to know that it is God's love and let it out than hold on to bitterness and hurt and try to bottle it up until it explodes. That's no good. We need to be able to release those negative things in a positive way. We need to be able to magnify the good--the GOD... the LOVE--in our lives so that it will manifest in our lives. Love feeds on love and grows and grows into a Holy Ghost wildfire. We just need to be the spark. We just need to take that first step. Walk by faith and not by sight. But you can't walk by faith without... walking. You have to let the idea of love be the action of charity. Let what's inside come out. Prove (and this is where I think I'm going to pick it up tomorrow) God's love for you by loving Him back by loving people!

The word "manifested" is used 10 times in the King James Version of the Bible. Half of those are in the book of 1 John. We looked at one of those yesterday (1 John 4:9). Today I want to look at 1 John 1:2, "(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)." What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in your life. When you magnify the life of God in your life, the life of God will manifest in you life. When you magnify the love of God in your life, the love of God will manifest in your life! Here's what the word means, according to Strong's Greek Concordance: It is number 5319, "to render apparent (literally or figuratively) : - appear, manifestly declare, (make) manifest (forth), shew (self)." To render apparent or appear. What you look for is what you will find, if I can say it that way. You focus on God's love and you'll find it everywhere you look. If you set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth... you'll be caught up in those more excellent things. I think we sabotage ourselves so many times. We expect the worst to happen. And sometimes, in expecting the worst, we manifest the worst. We come into a situation ready, willing, and able to fight. To defend ourselves from attacks that aren't there. I always say, "Don't start nothing, won't be nothing." We don't have to be warriors. The only fight the New Testament of the Bible talks about--on this side of the cross, after Jesus fought and won the war to end all wars--is the good fight of faith. Laying hold of the eternal life that we've already been given. Manifesting that life in our lives by magnifying it. By knowing and believing that we already have it. We don't need to get it. We can't earn it. It has already been freely given and all we need to do is receive it with rejoicing. All we have to do is make God--LOVE--the focal point of our lives. Live from the inside out. Live from the heart. Do what we do heartily--to the best of our abilities and because it's in our heart to do it. We don't have to get tripped up and bogged down by every little thing. We don't have to make mountains out of molehills. I know there's a song that says God gives us mountains so we can learn how to climb. But there's a verse in the Bible that says, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain" (Isaiah 40:4). God has already done all of the heavy lifting. He has already taken care of what needed taking care of. We aren't overcomers because we have the ability to overcome. We are overcomers because JESUS already overcame! His life has been manifested. It IS manifested in us, and through us, and as us. We have seen it. Bear witness to it. And experience and enjoy it. By letting Him live His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life in us, and through us, and as us. We manifest His life--His love--in our lives... by magnifying it. By focusing on it. By receiving it and releasing it. By giving what we've got because we know it's too good to keep to ourselves!

I'm sure you've heard me say this, "What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in you life." That's what I want to Rant about for the next few days. Because I absolutely believe it. And here's the key: It has to BE in your life in order for you to magnify it. Magnifying something is looking closer at it, right? Like with a magnifying glass. So you can see the small details. So you can see what it's really all about. That's what we ought to be doing with God's love. We shouldn't be chasing it, as if to get something we don't have. Because we DO have it. If you're chasing something you've already got, what you're really doing is robbing yourself from experiencing it and enjoying it. Receiving is the first part of receiving and releasing for a reason. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. So you have to know what you do have before you can do anything with it. You have to magnify it in your life before it will manifest in your life. You have to know and believe you have it before you can do anything with it. Let me get my memory verse for today: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." There's really a lot there. Specifically, God manifested His love towards us by giving. Let's start (and end) there. Alpha and Omega. Love IS giving. You can give without loving but you cannot love without giving. That's why releasing is the other part of receiving and releasing. You have to know what you've got, but you also have to do something with it. You have to use it. Share it. Give it away. And, in reality, that's HOW we magnify it in our life (so that it can be manifested in our life). If you want to feel love... love somebody. That's how it works. Jesus said, "...It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). When you give what you've got, that's how you experience what you've got. So let's track this. It's all about receiving and releasing. That's the Divine Order of things. You can't do one without the other, but you have to do them in order. First you magnify the love of God in your life by focusing on His love for you. By letting Him love the hell out of you. By letting Him wrap you up in His arms that were open wide on the cross. Receive His love. Dwell in His love. Live in His love. Listen to that still, small voice deep inside (in your heart), that says, "I love you, I love you, I love you with every beat of God's heart in your chest) and let it fill you up to overflowing. That's when, and how, receiving turns into releasing. You fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with and then it comes out. Naturally. You don't have to fake it 'til you make it. You don't have to try to determine of someone is worthy of your love or not. You can simply love God back with the same love that He has loved you with by loving the people that cross your path. You can magnify the love in your life by using it. By spreading it around. By giving it away. By sharing it. And that's how it will manifest in your life. When you create love (by giving what you've got, by knowing and believing that you've got it) that's the manifestation of love!

God has (and will, and is, and does) lavished His extravagant love on us. He filled us up with it when He filled us up with Himself. When He filled us up with His Spirit. When He gave us a heart transplant--and underwater surgery in the waters of baptism, if I can say it that way--and put His heart of love in our chests. My point is: It's not something that needs to happen. It's something that has already happened. And because it has already happened--this is the key... receiving AND releasing--because God has already loved us... we can love Him back... by loving each other. We can take what we've been given and we can give it away. We can experience it BY giving it away. By sharing it. We can be extravagant in our love one to another because of how extravagant God is in His love for each and every one of us. Look at 1 John 4:10-11, "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." 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." Don't get it twisted though. What we ought to do doesn't mean what we are obligated to do. I don't think you should do things out of a sense of obligation. I think if you feel obliged to do something--"well, they scratched my back, guess I better scratch theirs"--it's almost a grudging thing. And if you're doing something you really don't want to do, you're probably going to do it half-heartedly. At best. When you should do everything you do heartily--because it's in your heart to do it and to the best of your ability. That's what love is: Giving everything you have and everything you are without worrying about things like whether or not they deserve it. Just giving what you've got because you have it and they need it. Because it's too good to keep to yourself. The New Commandment for the New Man is to love one another as Jesus has loved you. To receive and release His love. So, if God wants you to love big... He must first love you big. And that's exactly what He did on the cross. He gave it all. He gave His life FOR you, and He gave His life TO you. So that you could have it. So that you could experience it as Jesus lives His own life in you, and through you, and as you. But don't do it because you think you're "supposed to." Don't do it because you think you'll get something out of it if you do. You ARE supposed to, and you WILL get something out of it. But that's not our motivation. Our motivation is, "I have what you need. That means I can give you what you need." Perfect love casts out fear, right? So we don't have to be afraid to give what we've got. We can live out of our abundance. God has lavished His extravagant love on us. We can lavish it on each other. We can give what we've got by knowing and believing that we've got it. We can stop chasing it and start enjoying it--by giving it away. By sharing it. By loving people!