Here's a question, and an answer. "Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravangant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out" (Romans 11:33 MSG). We've never come on anything quite like this extravagant love of God. We haven't. We can't have. Because there is nothing like this extravagant love of God. It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out. It's too big. It's too good. It's the knowledge that passes knowledge. It's heart knowledge rather than head knowledge. It's experiential knowledge. God has loved us. We have experienced it. And because of that we can release what we've received. But we'll never fully have a total and complete grasp on it. It's too big. It's too amazing. The whole point of this everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life is a never-ending life long journey into the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is the heart. God's heart beating with love in our chests. It's the power of God working in us that equips and empowers us to experience His life of love as He lives it Himself in us, and through us, and as us. It's the best thing going. The best thing there is. It's way over our heads and we'll never figure it out because it's too good to be true. It's a love that never fails, no matter what. A love that withstands everything we could ever put it through. A love that endures. A love that is, quite frankly, extravagant. A love that God has lavished upon us (whether we deserve it or not because deserve has nothing to do with it) in order to fill us up to overflowing so that it can come out of us. Naturally. So that no matter what happens, we can let the love that's inside of us come out of us. So that we can make sure to live a life worthy of the sacrifice Jesus made when He gave it (His life) for us and to us. And I'm not saying you should do it because you feel obligated. Not at all. I'm saying you should do it because it's in your heart to do it. I'm saying you should do it because you're so full of God's love that it comes out. Filling ourselves to overflowing with that love that we have been loved with by letting God love us. That is such an important part of this "Christian walk" or whatever you want to call it. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. So you have to know (and believe) that you have something. You have to know what you have in order to give what you've got. God's love for us is the whole point of the whole thing. That's why He created us--He wanted to express Himself to us, and in us, and through us, and as us. He wanted us to know Him and by known by Him. I think a lot of our problems in this life come from misunderstandings. We feel like people don't get us, and we need to defend ourselves. But, like I said in the Rnat about the shield--sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Loving people whether they "get us" or not. Giving what we've got without worrying about whatever else. The wisdom of God is the ultimate truth of the universe: God is love and He loves you. That's where it starts, that's where it ends, and that's everything in between. It's all about love. The extravagant, limitless, endless, unconditional love of God!

The idea that we have a stingy heavenly Father is really a pretty poor, pretty sad one. Because it is the exact opposite of the truth. Look at Ephesians 1:6-7 in the Message Bible, "Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son." Which, to me, is simply another way of expressing the ultimate truth of the universe that God is love and He loves you. The ultimate truth of the universe that, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand" (John 3:35). But what I want to key in on today is that word "lavish." And according to dictionary.com it means, "using or giving in great amounts." Which, again, is the opposite of being stingy. It is extravagant. Unnecessarily large. More than anything we could ask or even think. Exceeding abundantly above. Whatever you think the biggest thing God could do for you is... that's not the biggest. He can go bigger. HAS gone bigger. Wants to go bigger. And here's the best part--it's not about God spoiling us, in the sense of us being brats. It's about God empowering us in the sense of us being good stewards of what we have. Receiving AND releasing what He has given to us. Using what we've got in order to love the people in our lives. Love is giving, right? And you can't give what you don't have. So God had to first give us what He wanted us to have. So that we could give it away. So that we could share it. So that we could experience it BY sharing it. Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. He came that we might experience His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by living it in us, and through us, and as us. He gave us everything He has and everything He is so that we could BE everything He has and everything He is by US giving everything He has and everything He is back to Him by giving it to each other! Letting what's inside of us come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. The New Commandment says, "Love one another as Jesus has loved you." Simply receive and release the love of God. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Let it in and let it out. Fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with. That's how we live. To live is to love and to love is to live. It's all about love. The love that God has lavished upon us. Look. We are only expected to love as big as He loves us. That's why He loves us so big. For God SO loved the world. We are what He loves most. Each and every one of us. I am God's favorite. And so are you. With that kind of extravagant love flowing through us, it's impossible not to get it all over everybody we come into contact with. Because it's too big to keep inside. Way too be. Extravagantly too big. God has lavished His love--Himself--on us. He's not stingy. On the cross He gave us everything He has and everything He is. That's not what we need. That's what we have. And that's not just what we have. That's who we are! We can be just as lavish with our love. We can be just as extravagant!

Receiving and releasing. That's kind of my mantra. That's the Divine Order of things. God has given us everything He has and everything He is. Because He loves us. The way of grace. Which we respond to with the walk of faith. And that's kind of what I want to talk about tonight: "Oh, the utter extravagance of this work in us who trust him--endless energy, boundless strength! All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven" (Ephesians 1:19-20). Basically, it's about being blessed... to be a blessing. It's about taking what we are given, and then giving it away. Receiving it and releasing it. Breathing it in and breathing it out. The endless energy and boundless strength that God gives us... is for us to use. Rest is not inactivty, it is Holy Spirit directed activity. God doesn't give us things so that we can be hoarders. He gives us things so that we can enjoy them by giving them away. So that we can experience them by sharing them. So that we can receive them and release them. So that we can be extravagant with His extravagance! That's the point of the whole thing. Exceeding and abundantly above what we could ask or even think. The power of God working in us. And it's too big to just work IN us. We have to let it OUT of us. Receiving AND releasing. Giving what we've been given. Letting it out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Loving extragantly by letting God love us extravagantly. I think the most important part of the New Commandment is the "as I have loved you" part. God never expects us to do something that He doesn't first equip and empower us to do. He works in us so that we can work in Him. With extravagance. Endless energy. Boundless strength. Energy issued from Christ. His love in us. And through us. And as us. We let God fill us up with Himself--His love--and then we fill each other up WITH that love. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly, right? And what makes life abundant? Love! A life of love is the only life worth living. Doing things for people out of the goodness and the love and the light that is in your heart. That's what Jesus did. That's what He showed His disciples. That's why He was able to say, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." Everything He did was from the heart. And that's what we are able to do now. As He loves us, so we ought to love one another. He HAS filled us up. He HAS (and will, and does) loved us with an extravagant love. And that means we can love each other with that same love. We can love God back with the same love that He has loved us with BY loving each other. We can enjoy the extravagance of God's love... by loving. That's how you experience God's love--by giving it away. By letting what's inside come out. By letting God love us bigger and stronger and harder than we ever thought possible... and by loving Him back by loving each other bigger and stronger and harder than we ever thought possible! Endless energy to love. Boundless strength to love. Extravagant love!

I like to focus on the little things. It's true. Because I believe the little things ARE the big things. Listening when someone needs to talk. Being there for someone. Giving a hug. Or even a fist bump. Just showing people you care in little ways. That can make all the difference. But for the next few days I want to flip the script and focus on the big things. The big THING that is the love of God. Because it's the biggest thing there is. Love is all-powerful. Which doesn't mean MOST powerful, it means all of the power. It means nothing else has any power. It's the idea of living out of our abundance. Living extravagantly. According to "extravagance" means, "excessive or unnecessary expenditure or outlay of money. Unrestrained or fantastic excess, as of actions or opinons." Now, obviously when we're talking about love it's the second one there. Fantastic excess. Unrestrained. Which (and I think I'm really going to get into this maybe tomorrow) is only possible when we understand that love casts out fear. We don't have to restrain ourselves when it comes to loving people. We don't have to be afraid to give what we've got. Look at 2 Corinthians 13:14 in the Message Bible, "The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you." To me, that sounds pretty good. Because if it's with us... we have it. If we have it... we can use it. Receiving and releasing, right? Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Well... that's what's in there. Amazing grace. Intimate friendship. Extravagant love. Let me put it another way as I try to build the foundation for this Rant series. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3:20). Exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask. Or even think. As big as we try to see God as... He's bigger. He's the biggest. He is everything. Nothing was made that wasn't made by Him. Through Him. For Him. By love. Through love. For love. An extravagant love that didn't restrain itself. An extravagant love that gave everything He had and everything He is. I always say, "Once you've something all you've got it's either enough... or it's not. And either way you've done all you can do." So when it comes to love it's about giving, not getting. You're not giving all you've got in the hopes that you'll get something back. You're giving all you've got because what you've got is worth giving. Because you want other people to have what you've got. It's that simple. I have something amazing. I want you to have it. So I'm giving it to you. That's why Jesus gave His life for us and to us; He wanted us to have it. He wanted us to experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by living it in us, and through us, and as us. He wanted us to be a part of all that He has and all that He is. So He loved us without reservation. Unrestrained and excessively. Exceeding abundantly. He gave it His all. He gave US His all. So that we might have it all, and be able to (in the same way) give it all!

I really don't know what else to say about the law. James 2:8 says it all, "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well." It's not a set of rules that you have to follow. It's not doing something so you don't get in trouble. It's the law of Spirit and life in Christ Jesus. Which means, in a Word, love. Living and loving. Because living IS loving. To live is to love and to love is to live. Think about it. In the Old Testament, Old Covenant dynamic there were 10 Commandments. And some 600 odd laws that spun out of those 10. Then you get to the New Testament. The New Covenant. You get to the side of the cross that we are on now and Jesus has boiled it all the way down to one. One New Commandment. Love one another as Jesus has loved you. Period. Exclamation point. That's it and that's all, folks. Receive and release the love of God. Let it in and let it out. Let God love you and love Him back by loving the people you are in contact with. Love with every breath you take and every move you make. Love thy neighbour as thyself. That fulfills the royal law. Again, the law of Spirit and life in Christ Jesus. The law that superceedes the law, if I can say it that way. Wich goes right along with the knowledge that passes knowledge. Heart knowledge instead of just head knowledge. I like the idea, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Because that's really what the Bible is all about. If you read that bad Oscar and come away with anything other than God's love... you've misinterpreted it. But God's love is so much more than just words on a page. God's love is an experience. God's love, quite frankly and literally, is life. It's in the big things... and the little things. It is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. And everything in between. God created the world out of love. Because of love. With love. I'm trying to say it's all about love. So the law that we get so worked up about... man... it's a royal law given from the King of kings! It's HIS law of love. The King rules and reigns in us, and through us, and as us. Everything working together for good in God's master plan. God's Divine Order. What we need to do--our part--is to let what's true BE true. God makes the Way of Grace, right? And we respond with the Walk of Faith. That's so important and so key and so vital. Faith. Believing that we are who God says we are, and we have what God says we have, and we can do what God says we can do. I wrote three books about that. The Answer Trilogy. Who we are, where we are, and why we are. The only questions that really matter. And they all have the same answer. It isn't just to pay taxes and die. It's to live! We were created to be loved and to love God by loving on another. That's the royal law. That's the New Commandment. That's the whole point of the whole thing. So stop getting bogged down with do's and don't's. Just love people. Let people love you. Build those relationships and those connections. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there!

You all know by now that I like the Law of First Mention. Which may or may not be ironic, here in this Rant series about the Law. Anyway. Genesis 11:31, "And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." Daughter in law. Which speaks to me more of relationship than any sort of rules to follow. In fact, in the King James Version, it is not until Genesis chapter 47 when Joseph makes a law over Egypt, that the word means anything BUT "in law." And you know the old joke, "What's the difference between in-laws, and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted." But what I'm seeing here is an inclusion. Family getting bigger. Addition. You marry someone, and then your family grows. There are so many different ways to think about the law. And all we ever do is get stuck on a list of rules. I want us to shake that off. To see things in a different way. The law of Spirit and life in Christ Jesus. That, to me, says it all. Spirit and life. To live and to live. Because to live IS to love. And to love is to live. You don't owe anybody anything, except love. When you love someone, you fulfill the law. What law? Any of them. All of them. It's the New Commandment, right? Love one another as Jesus has loved you. Receive and release the love of God. Fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with. If you think behavior will get people to approve of you, or accept you, or love you... that's not how it works. You can't earn love. Love is freely given. And must simply be received and released. The law of Spirit and life is just that: Living in the Spirit. Walking by faith and not by sight. Letting the Spirit of truth (that leads and guides us into all truth... the truth that God is love and He loves you) direct you. Those who are led by the Spirit are known as the Son(s) of God. Jesus said people will be able to identify His disciples by the love they share. That's obeying the law. Giving what you've got. Living out of your abundance. You are blessed to be a blessing. You were created to create. You are loved in order to love. God's love equips and empowers us to love Him back by loving each other. By including each other. Instead of building walls to keep people out, the law of love builds bridges to bring people closer together. That's what the true law is all about: Building bonds. Strengthening connections. It's about relationships. People loving each other. That's the only law that matters. And it has nothing to do with whether we think they deserve it or not. Walking by faith and not by sight is the same as not judging by appearance but judging righteous judgment. Giving what you've got instead of thinking you can earn something by following a set of rules. You have what you need. The only rule is to be who you are. Who you really are. Which is who you are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in you. Who you are in love. Which is who LOVE is in you! The first bunch of times the KJV uses the word "law" is about in-laws. Family. We can all treat each other like family!

We look at the law as something we have to follow or else, right? But let me just throw a little something something at you. "Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression." Where there is no law, it is impossible to break the law, right? That makes sense. A law that was never given to us (unless you're of the poeple of Israel) in the first place. A law that was fulfilled and done away with on the cross. A law of sin and death that was trumped by the law of the Spirit of life (LOVE) in Christ Jesus! Let me say it another way: "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and the mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54). Yesterday we talked about choosing. Life or death. Truth or lie. The Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God or the report of the world. The Spirit of life or sin and death. It's about what you choose. What you believe. What you put your faith in. That's how corruptible puts on incorruption. That's when mortality puts on immortality. When we lay hold of the gift that we've been given (by fighting the good fight of faith)! When we stop trying to follow fules, thinking that we will be able to earn our heavenly Father's love though our works and labor... and when we simply rest in His loving arms. When we let Him do what He wants to do... in us, and through us, and as us. Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. "Here I am, Lord. Use me to do you." If we can get away from good and evil, we can get into life. Two different trees, right? Don't be a monkey, swinging from one branch of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death) to the other. Don't try to simply make your good outweigh your bad. Don't try to turn over a new leaf. Just get into an entirely different tree. The Tree of Life! Eat from that tree. Because you are what you eat. And that tree produces the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Feast on love. Fill yourself with love. And watch that love that's inside come out. Naturally. Every day. In every way. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. You can make mistakes and not be punished for them. You can learn from your mistakes. Learn and grow. Know better, and do better. Here's my last memory verse for tonight: "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8). If you're worried about the law (even though you shouldn't be), let me make it easy for you. Love people. Follow the New Commandment. Love one another as Jesus loves you. It's that simple. Let the love that HE has filled you up with come out. It's all about love. Because it's all about life. And living and loving are the same thing. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. To live is to love and to love is to live. Don't get caught up in all this other stuff. Don't get it twisted around. Don't let things that don't matter... matter. Don't give power to things that are powerless. Focus on what DOES matter. The all-powerful love of God. Receive it and release it. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Let what's inside come out. Love people, and in that way fulfill the law!

Only when the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus totally consumes us can we BE free from the law of sin and death. God's law has already made us free from the other law. That doesn't need to happen. That already happened. But while the truth has made us free... it is the truth that we know and believe that equips and empowers us to experience that freedom. If we're focused on sin and death, that's what our reality will be. I like to use this as an example: You can't make yourself not need to go to the bathroom by concentrating on it. Because even by concentrating on NOT going... you're still concentrating on THE BATHROOM. And if you're concentrating on the bathroom (even in not going to the bathroom) that's what's in your mind. That's what you're feeding, and that's what will grow. So if you're always on a sin hunt... you'll be able to find it. I think, for the most part, we find what we look for. One way or another. Not even necessarily because it's there, but because we MAKE it be there. Sometimes we create problems that don't even really exist. We make mountains out of molehills. Take things personally that aren't personal. I always say, "Don't take it personally, even if it is." Because the way people treat you says more about THEM than it does about YOU. You can only do what you can do. And, according to Matthew 6:24, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." It's a choice. Either the law of the Spirit of life... or the law of sin and death. Either believing (putting our faith in) the Word of the Lord (which is Jesus, which is love) or the report of the world. The lie of the world. Sin is unbelief, and the wages of sin is death. Because we have been given life--abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life! We have been given Jesus's life of love. And all we have to do is receive it and release it. All we have to do is know it and believe it. Fight the good fight of faith and LAY HOLD of the gift we've been given. You don't fight in order to get something. You fight to HAVE what you have. The fight is walking by faith and not by sight. Trusting God in every situation. Knowing that He has your back and will not let you fall. You have to follow something. There's a song that says, "You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything." Jesus (LOVE) is the Rock on which we stand. And standing upon that Rock is what keeps us from falling. We serve God. We obey HIS law. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That's what matters. Period. Love is what matters. The Law of Love. The New Commandment. Love one another as Jesus loves you. Receive and release His love. Let God's love flow into and out of you with every breath you take and every move you make. If you have to choose... choose life. Choose experiencing what you've already been given rather than trying to get something you think you haven't got. Choose God. Choose love!

Don't get turned off by the title. I don't think this Rant series is going to be about the Law of Moses. Which, by the way, is a law that was given to the people of Israel, not to... you know... you. I'll just leave that there. What I want to talk about for the next few days is simply Romans chapter 8 verse 2. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." And the reason I want to talk about it is because it seems to me that religious folk are only (or at the very least mostly) fixated on sin and death. What happens after we die. We've taken a verse like Matthew 7:14, "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it," and we take that to mean some eternal prison called hell is bursting at the seams with sinners... and heaven is for the elect few. When neither heaven nor hell are mentioned by Jesus in that verse. He said straight is the gate and narrow is the way that lead to LIFE. Jesus wasn't concerned with what happened after we die. I think He was comfortable with absent from the body being present with the Lord. Jesus said, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Jesus was concerned with LIFE. Becuase Jesus (God in the flesh, love in a body... God in OUR flesh, love in OUR body) was concerned with love. And you can't have one without the other. You can't do one without the other. To live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. So this idea of struggling all your life to make sure you have more good than evil in order to take the cosmic elevator up instead of down... really isn't Biblical. We waste our entire lives trying to assure our afterlives. That seems nuts to me. We were given this life--this gift--in order to enjoy it. In order to LIVE while we're here on this earth. We were created to be loved by God and to love Him back by loving each other. That's our purpose. That's what this life is for. That's what it's all about. It's not about sin and death. Jesus took away the sin of the world. Done deal. He died and then came back to life, defeating death (the last enemy). Done and done. The law of the Spirit of life in Him is what has made me free from all that other nonsense. The book of Hebrews speaks of how it is appointed unto man ONCE to die. That happened on the cross. In the person of Jesus. Who was lifted up from the earth and who drew all men into Himself. When He died, we all died. Now we can live. Now we don't have to focus on all of that other stuff that used to drag us down. We can use our past to learn and grow. We don't have to be trapped by it. We can set aside the sin (unbelief) and the weight that so easily besets us. We can walk by faith and not by sight. Run and not grow weary. We can let the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth, the truth that God is love and He loves you) fill us to overflowing with the love that we have already been filled with and then we can let that love come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. That's the true law. The law of love. Owing nothing to one another but love. Living... by loving!

This is how it always works: God blesses us... to be a blessing. He loves us... so that we can love. He created us... so that we can create! That's the Divine Order of things. All good and perfect gifts come down from the Father of lights and light us up so that we can shine. We experience these gifts by giving them away. By sharing them. That's how we create the Kingdom of God (the Kingdom of Love). If I can say it that way. What's inside of us comes out. Or, rather, what we believe is inside of us comes out. Whatever you're full of overflows out of you. What you magnify is what manifests in your life. What you feed is what will grow. I'm telling you, we create our own realities in a very real way by what we focus on. If you're convinced--and have convinced yourself--that you're going to have a bad day, well, you probably will. Not necessarily because there's any cosmic conspiracy against you, but because you've already set yourself up for it. So everything that happens to you will probably be seen in that negative way. Seen through that lens of, "What a horrible day." When someone else, under the same situation and circumstances, could have the best day of their life. It's all about how you deal with what happens. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. If you can react to things in a positive way, knowing that all things work together for good... that means that even in the midst of a storm you can sleep (rest) in the boat. And then, when things get too bad for the people around you, well, you can speak a Word (love) and handle that situation for them too. I love it in Philippians 4:19 where Paul writes, "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Did you catch that? MY God shall supply all YOUR need. He wasn't worried about his own need. He knew he was covered. And because HE was covered, he could then cover OTHERS. Blessed... to be a blessing. Loved... so we can love. Created... so that we can create. Now I always feel like I need to qualify this. Because you can't "create" a million dollars just by thinking, and wishing, and hoping for it. There are two choices: The lie of the world... or the truth of our heavenly Father. The world... or the Kingdom. And you CAN choose which one you live in. You can (and do) choose between those two. You create one or the other in your own life by the choices you make and the faith you put into things. If you just accept what the world throws at you (it is what it is) then that's what you get. But if you instead inject what your heavenly Father has given you (love) into every situation than you get what HE has given you! We experience the gift we've been given by giving it away. By sharing it. By letting what's truly inside come out. By knowing and believing it's in there. We experience love by loving people. Because love is never about getting. Because love is giving. That's the key. We create what God has already created (or bring it into being, or manifest it) by giving away what He's given us. By letting what's inside come out. By letting the LOVE that's inside come out! Creation is all about love. Life is all about love. It's all about love!