I want to take a little bit of a different point of view tonight. Instead of talking about hiding behind love--which I still think is the safest place we can be--I want to take a little time to talk about HOW we hide behind love. HOW do we let love go in front of us? How do we stay in our refuge, our hiding place, our safe place, with us every where we go? I think the answer is found in Leviticus 25:19, "And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety." I think the key here is eating. And not just scraps... but eating our fill. When God is described as love in the Bible the word "love" means "love feast." An all you can eat buffet where everyone is invited. That's why the Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." They don't say, "Come or else." They say, "Come and get it!" Jesus has prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies. He has given us a safe place to sit down and eat--to sustain ourselves--right in the midst of everything and anything else that might be going on. A six-course meal. The Six Steps to the Throne (Crucified, Died, Buried, Quickened, Raised, and Seated) that He took both for us and as us at the cross. To end up seated at the right hand of the Father. At the banquet table. With a full spread in front of us. For us to eat... and for us to share. I can't think of a time when I've felt more safe than when I've had a full belly and I was surrounded by loved ones. That's the relationship aspect of life. Which, I might add, is the most important part. You can't love without having someone to love. That's why God created us--so that He could love us. So that the God who IS love could express Himself--His love--to us. I guess you could say this Rant is about the "receive" part of "receiving and releasing." Which is so important. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. You have to know what's available to you. And in knowing, experience it. By sharing it. By giving it away. Eating your fill, and inviting others to partake. Letting what's inside come out by filling yourself to overflowing with it. The land yields its fruit. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. He produces the fruit (of the Spirit, which is love), and we bear it. We present it to others. People see fruit on a tree branch and they know it's good stuff. People see what we've got (LOVE) and they find the desire of their hearts. We make it available by partaking of it. By showing people that more excellent way. Not by trying to shove religion down people's throats--they will choke on it, and throw it up--but by presenting it to them in a nonthreatening way. In a safe way. But you can't give safe until you know and believe that you are safe. Again--you can't give what you don't have. Peacemakers make peace because they are AT peace. Hurting people hurt people. But loved people love people. Safe people give safety. Receive it... and release it. Know what you've got--where you're at--and then invite other people to be there with you. Eat the fruit--share the fruit--and you will dwell in love no matter where you are or who you're with!

There are so many good verses in the Bible about hiding. About God hiding us. Protecting us. Keeping us safe. Here's the one I chose for tonight: "Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings" (Psalm 17:8). And I chose this one because it links up with Luke 13:34, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" Here's the rub... we are the apple of God's eye. His prized possession. His favorite. And all He wants to do is gather us under his wings... hide us under the shadow of His wings... and keep us safe from all harm. But we don't always want to let Him. We think we know best. We think we can do it. The mindset that we see so often, "God's gonna sit this one out." Well... not really. Because even in the beginning when the heaven and earth (the mind and the body... you) were dark and void and without form, the Spirit of God hovered over the deep. He always has been and always will be with us. But I've long said I believe God is too much of a gentleman to force His will upon us. He makes things available to us. Certainly. And, you know, sometimes--like with Jonah and the whale--my pastor says, "Some are called... and some are corralled." But even then, its always with our best interests in mind. That conviction you feel is so strong sometimes. Coming from within, not from without. Not external pressure, but what's inside bubbling up and coming out. Naturally. Not thinking we have to fight every battle, do it all ourselves, but letting our heavenly Father take care of things for us. So many times in my life when I get upset about something I take a step back. And I trust the Lord to do what He wants to do. And it works out of me. And people are kind of amazed. And I just shrug. If I'm doing right--walking by faith, living in love--I have supreme and utter confidence that things will work out. Especially when I let God (love) be involved. Our life is hid with God in Christ, right? Hid in love. That's the hiding place. The safe place. That's what it means to be under His wings. We are safe there. Covered. Protected. LOVE is our cover. Our protection. Our refuge. But it comes down to that phrase we started with "apple of the eye." Listen, if you know and believe that God loves you with a sacrifical, agape, unconditional love, you'll be able to trust that He wants to protect you. To help and not hurt. Letting His Word (which is Jesus, which is love) light your path goes hand in hand with FOLLOWING that path. Our response is so important. Not God wanting to protect us, but us being unwilling. God made the Way of Grace. We respond with the Walk of Faith. He has made Himself a refuge for us. But if we run FROM Him instead of running TO Him... we kind of waste what's available to us. We wreck ourselves when we could (and should) be checking ourselves. We wear ourselves out fighting battles that God has already won instead of just letting love rule the day. Hiding behind love--letting love go before you--is the safest place you can be!

Our life is hid with God in Christ. That is our hiding place. HE is our hiding place. Look at Psalm 32:7, "Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah." So let's track this. God is our hiding place. LOVE is our hiding place. LOVE shall preserve us from trouble. LOVE shall compass us about with songs of deliverance. Love IS our deliverance. Its all about love. Love is our refuge. Love is where we find our true selves. Whenever we feel like we need to rest, or recharge, its not about finding something without. Its not about getting something we haven't got. Its about looking within. Looking in the mirror and seeing who we really are by seeing Jesus. Becuase that is who we really are. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in our flesh. Love in our body. When we need to hide--or, again, rest and recharge--its about what we have. Who we are. Even Jesus would go away by Himself to pray. Frequently. Now, listen, even when Jesus did that He always prioritized people. When He was resting, but someone needed Him, He gave Himself to them. He, in fact, recharged BY ministering to people. Giving what He had is HOW He experienced what He had. Receiving and releasing. Receiving BY releasing. He went to His safe place, but His safe place was helping people. If love is our refuge, that means letting the love that's inside come out is our safe place. Rest doesn't mean inactivity. It means Holy Spirit directed activity. Resting in love means loving people. It doesn't mean throwing people over in their time of need in order to "take care" yourself. Now, let me say this: It is 100% ok to say no to people. You can't do everything. You just can't. And you shouldn't be expected to. You shouldn't let people guilt trip you into doing things that you'd rather not do. If you see a need AND YOU CAN MEET IT, you should. That's called living out of your abundance. If you have TWO coats, and someone needs one, give them a coat. But don't put yourself in a position where you're going to freeze to death. Don't put yourself in a bad position. I believe there is something to be said for ministering out of your hurt. Taking what you've been through and letting God turn your mess into a message is so powerful. When you've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt... you can help someone else through it. A map is nice, but a guide is priceless. I guess what I'm trying to say, in my roundabout way, is that you don't have to physically hide in order to be in your hiding place. You can, in a sense, hide behind love. Let love go before you and know that you are safe behind it. You find your life when you look inside. When you look in love. That's where we can recharge ourselves. In 1 Samuel 30:6 the Bible speaks of David encouraging himself in the Lord his God. Encouraging himself in love. When we need a refuge, when there is trouble, that's when we need to let God's love fill us up. He has already filled us with His love. Our part is filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Letting it in by letting it out. Finding our life by living our life of love!

This Rant series kind of picks up a little bit where the previous one left off. Talking about our life being hid in God with Christ. Deuteronomy chapter 35 speaks at length about cities of refuge. Places where a person could go to be safe after comitting a crime. Because our tendency, when we mess up, seems to be... run! Get away! Even way back in the garden of Eden we see that, "...they heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden" (Genesis 3:8). And here's the deal: They thought, "I disobeyed God, He's going to punish me." When, in fact and in truth, God isn't in the punishing game. God told Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not because He wanted to kill Adam, but because He knew the natural consequences of eating of that tree of death could only BE death! He was trying, as always, to protect us. "Kicking" Adam and Eve out of the garden wasn't a punishment either. Look at Genesis 3:22-23, "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from when he was taken." God didn't want man to live forever in that "fallen" state of being the walking dead. "In the day you eat of that tree you shall surely die." That was a Spiritual death. So God sent mankind forth. In order to be able to reedem him at the cross. Through the cross. This is the truth we need to learn. Psalm 46:1, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." We need to learn that we can--and should--run TO Him instead of running FROM Him. He is our refuge. Our safe place. He stands with open arms (like on the cross) welcoming us home. The story of the Prodigal Son, right? And just so we're sure we're talking about what we think we are, "refuge" in Psalm 46:1 is number 4268 in Strong's Hebrew Concordance and it means, "a shelter (literally or figuratively): - hope, (place of refuge), shelter, trust." I like that. I like that a lot. Think about it--if God is our refuge, our safe place, our shelter, and God is love... that means LOVE is our safe place. Our refuge. Our shelter. Love is where we find ourselves, because our life is hid in God (in LOVE) with Christ. Love is where we're safe. Love is a very present help in trouble. People say Jesus is the solution, right? The answer to every problem? Well... who is Jesus? God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. So LOVE is the solution. Love is what every situation needs. If you walk in love--LIVE in love--all will be well. You can stand on that Rock, that foundation, and not be shaken. You can... I don't want to say "hide" because when love is present the light of the world shines. But you can certainly have confidence that everything will be ok. No matter what it looks like on the outside. Because there is love on the inside. And when that love comes out... that's what makes all the difference. The difference--literally--between life and death is love. No love, no life. KNOW love... KNOW life! God, love, is our safe place. Our home. Our refuge!

We are dead... BUT... our life is hid in God with Christ. So while we are dead to everything that came before (the cross, or our knowledge and acceptance of the finished work of the cross) we can live. But the key is finding what has been hidden. Look at Proverbs 25:2, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter." He hid our life. We need to find it. And the key, of course, is WHERE He hid it. He hid it in Himself. He hid it in love. So in order to find something that is hidden in love... that's where we have to look. Now, don't get it twisted, I'm NOT talking about looking FOR love. I think we spend (waste) our three T's--time, talent, treasure--looking for love in all the wrong places. Trying to earn something that can't be earned. Trying to get something we've already got. Seeking the Kingdom isn't about seeking in order to find something that we're missing. Seeking the Kingdom is about exploring where we are. Exploring what's available to us. Pluming the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of God's love for us. And since love is giving, we explore that love... by loving each other. Bigger and harder than we ever thought we could. Giving what we've got by knowing and believing that we've got it. So rather than looking for love in all the wrong places, we need to go to the source. The God who IS love. And He lives in us. We live in Him. We're always trying to turn over a new leaf, or be someone we're not. When in truth, we simply need to understand and accept who we really are. Looking for our lives means looking in love. Looking AT love. Looking in the mirror and seeing our true selves. Seeing Jesus. Because that's who we really are; Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. I'm telling you, if you're always struggling to be someone you're not, you're never going to feel comfortable with who you are. If you're always trying to fit into a box you'll never be able to spread your wings and fly. If I can mix my metaphors. So looking for your life is all about looking inside. Looking in your heart. Doing whatever you do simply and only because its in your heart to do it. Not because you feel obligated, or because you think you're "supposed to." Not because you feel guilty. Do whatever you do heartily unto the Lord. Do it because its in your heart to do it. When you're looking for your life... you find it in your heart. In those things that make you... you. Don't hate on those things, or deny those things. I'm a writer. I feel most like ME when I'm putting words on a page. So rather than denying that... I just do it unto the Lord. I do it to glorify Him. I find my life in my heart. Because its hidden in God. And God is love. I think the song lyric says, "You are what you love, not who loves you." What's inside coming out. Not trying to get something, but giving what you've got. Giving who you are. That's what love is--giving everything you have and everything you are. So when you're looking for it, you have to find it inside... and let it out. That's what life is all about--receiving and releasing the gift of God. Which is His love. His life. You're dead. But in Him... you can live!

If you're dead, you don't have to keep dragging around the corpse. You can let it all go. You can be free. You can move out of death and into life. And I know I quote these two verses a lot, but I'm going to do it again. Because one of the things my dad taught me is that repetition is a powerful learning tool. Faith comes from hearing, right? And hearing from the Word (that is Jesus, that is love) of God. So the more we hear these things, the more we can believe them. Ok. 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." And John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." And I think the word we need to press in on today is "passed." We have passed from death unto life. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Before the cross. Where sin abounded--before the cross--grace did much more abound--at the cross, through the cross. We ARE dead, BUT we have passed unto life. Our life is hid with God in Christ. I think tomorrow, to end this Rant series, I'm really going to hit home what it means to be hid in God. Hid in love. But for today I want to make it as clear as possible that we have don't have to deal with all of those things that we've dealt with our whole lives. Old wounds. Mistakes. Bad decisions. I can still remember--I'll probably never forget--when we were at a Church Conference in West by God Virginia and the preacher said, "I want you to raise your hand if you've ever sinned in your life." And, of course, everybody did. Except one person. And when I asked them why they didn't, they said, "That person is dead. I'm a new creature." And in my brain--in my heart--that truth exploded. We have to let go of all that shame, and guilt, and misery that has held us back and held us down for so long. Look: If Jesus is holding you up (and He is), nothing can drag you down. That old man died. In a watery grave of baptism. The putting off, the laying down, of everything we quite frankly don't need anymore. It doesn't matter what happened when. What matters is what you're doing right now. What matters is NOT abiding in death. Understanding that we HAVE (past tense) passed from death unto life. That's not something we need to do. That's something that Jesus did for us. And as us. That's something that happened 2,000 years ago. Life came. Death passed away. The second death. The death OF death. And now we can live. Because we know that we are loved. No love? No life. KNOW love... know life! Living and loving aren't just connected, they are the same thing. To live is to love. To love is to live. You can't have one without the other. And we have it all. Because God gave us His only begotten Son. We don't have to suffer condemnation. We can lay it down and leave it. Walk in newness of life. Walk... in love!

You are dead, and your life is hid with God in Christ. New Life. A life of love. Being loved and loving with that same love. Receiving it and releasing it. That's a big thrust of my ministry; trying to help us understand the Divine Order of things. But tonight I want to focus on Revelation 2:11, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." And, really, before I even get into THAT, I want to say THIS: "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death" (Revelation 20:14). Ok. So, if hell was cast INTO the lake of fire, it makes sense that hell can't BE the lake of fire. Right? But I just want to drop that here and leave it. Because I want to talk about how we can experience the second death--the death OF death--without being hurt by it. And, in a word, its about overcoming. Right? He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. So let me say this and put it as clearly as I can. JESUS is the overcomer. We are not empowered to overcome. Jesus already overcame. We don't need to overcome. And if you believe--as I do--that Revelation (the Revelation of Jesus Christ, mind you) is simply an in-depth look at the cross, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, then you can see that HE is the one who was not hurt by the second death. HE is the one who overcame death by dying and being raised again. Let me say it like this: "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). One more time. Who overcame? Jesus. What did He give us? Peace. In the midst of our tribulations. We don't have to overcome. He already did that. We don't have to die. We already did that. Twice. And here's where I think the second death "hurts" us... I think we find it hard to give up that old life. To let go of that stuff that we've spent so much time and effort accumulating. Even though we know that stuff isn't good for us. We think its all we have. We think its better than nothing. We get--unfortunately--comfortable with it. And it can be painful to step out of our comfort zone. But nothing great ever came from staying in one's comfort zone. You have to go out on a limb, because that's where the fruit is. You can't walk by faith without walking. But there's a difference between letting go of all that stuff that's been holding you down (so you can set your affection on things above and not on the earth), and fighting in order to try to overcome. Too much fighting. No good. Too much trying. No good. Spiritually speaking, all we're supposed to do is rest. Our life is hid in God. So we don't really have to worry about anybody getting to us. We will have tribulation, but we have been given peace. We can get through what we have to go through. We can go through stuff without letting stuff go through us. Because we're dead. Because we've been freed from all of that nonsense. Freed FROM sin. Freed TO love!

A dead man can't be punished for a crime. Once you die... that's it. Game over. Nothing that had a hold on you can continue to have a hold on you. You're free. And, as we saw in our key verse for this Rant series (Colossians 3:3), "For ye are dead, and you life is hid which Christ in God." You're dead, but that's not the end of your story. Because in order for the New Man to come forth, the old man had to make way. We needed, desperately needed, that second death so that we could experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. His life of love. Because, if your life is hid in God... and God is love... that means your life is hid in love! That's where we find our life. We find it in love. In being loved by God and loving Him back by loving each other with that same love. Receving and releasing His love. That's how we experience it. We give it away. We share it with the people in our lives. But here's the thing: You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. So if you're stuck on all that old man stuff--f you're letting all of your mistakes, and the lies of the world, drag you down--then you're not walking in newness of life. And it seems like, at best, we take this idea of a new life to mean "another try at the old life." We think we can fluff and buff the old man. Force him into shape through behavior modification. That's not God's plan. That's our plan. God's plan is for us to understand the complete transformation that occurred on the cross. See, in the beginning we were created in the image and likeness of God. But it wasn't until the cross that we were conformed to the image of God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Its the idea of NOT eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We think if we eat the good and not the bad we'll be ok. But that's just swinging from different branches on the same tree. What we need is an entirely different tree. The Tree of Life. Because that Tree only has one fruit--the Fruit of the Spirit, which is love. You are what you eat, right? Feasting on love is how we know and believe that love is in us. And knowing and believing that love is in us is what lets that love come out of us. We're not an old man trying to be a "better Christian." That old man died in the watery grave of baptism. We're dead. Double dead, in fact. Adam, and all of humanity that was represented in him, was the walking dead after eating the poisoned fruit from the wrong tree. Then Jesus came, wrapped us all up in Him, and died on the cross. That was the second death. The death of death. That was when everything old passed away. And something NEW came forth. That New... is you. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). In order to get to the New we had to get rid of the old. And by "we" I mean Jesus. HE got rid of the old. We're dead, but our life is hid in him. We're dead, but yet we live. In Him. As He lives in us. In us, and through us, and as us. So leave all that stuff--guilt, pain, bitterness, etc.--behind. It can't hold you back anymore. That guy who did all that is dead. And we can now walk in newness of life!

This is kind of a tricky subject, but sometimes I like to tackle tricky subjects. Rant about them for a few days. Really dig in and try to give (and get) some insights. So let's go. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:1-3). And, from the title, you can probably guess where my focus is in these verses. I want to get to the "risen with Christ" part. I really do. Because that's awesome stuff. That's the Gospel. The good news. But before we get to the new life part we have to really understand the "for ye are dead" part. Look at John 3:3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The new birth, right? Out of death and into life? Because, as God told Adam way back in Eden's misty garden. "The day you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die." That might be a paraphrase, but you get the idea. Adam, who was standing in for humanity--meaning whatever happened to him happened to us--ate of that tree. And on that day he died. Spiritually. On that day all of humanity died. Spiritually. That's why God always seemed so distant in the Old Testament--Adam and Eve hid from his presence. They separated themselves from Him. Running FROM God instead of running TO Him. Let me hammer this home: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Again, we'll get to that quickened part. Because its awesome. But let's get into this "dead in our trespasses and sins" part first. We needed a new birth because we were dead. But in order to get that new birth (because we were dead), we needed a second death. The death OF death. We were born, we died (Spiritually), we died, and we were born again. With me? I like all that stuff. Because BEING dead means we don't have to drag around all of that stuff that we accumulated WHEN we were dead. All of that stuff that seemed like such a good idea at the time... but really brought us nothing but pain and heartache... we can just let it go. As my brother once said, "That wasn't me. You've got the wrong guy." Because the guy who did all that stuff... is dead. Gone. We don't have to carry that corpse around anymore. We CAN set our affection on things above because even if things try to trip us up or drag us down, Jesus is holding us up. Our life is hid in Him. Just as He lives in us. We don't have to fight with the snakes at our ankles if we can look at the bronze serpent on the pole. Look and live. Leave behind all of that stuff that you don't need anymore. Bury it in the watery grave of baptism and have done with it. You're dead. Whatever happened in the past is just that--its in the past. Over and done with. So leave it in the past and rise to newness of life. Walk worthy of who you ARE, not who you've been. Start today and be who GOD says you are. Not who the world--and your past mistakes--say you are. You're dead. Now you can live!

I want to quote my memory verse up top so that we can really dig into it. Luke 6:38, "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." And, listen, I know this is a New Testament verse, but it almost sounds like an Old Testament "if then" statement. If you give, then you will be given. Which we know is NOT how it works in the New Covenant. We don't give in order to get. We give because He has given to us. Its not about getting. And while there are obvious benefits to being blessed... the biggest one is that we CAN bless others. We are blessed... to be a blessing. Look at this verse in the Message Bible, "Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back--given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." The same measure that you mete out, you will experience. Because, again, as always, its not about getting. Its about experiencing what you've got by giving it away. Giving your life away is how you experience Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love. Letting HIM live His own life the only way to live. And that means loving people. A life of love isn't about trying to get love. Its about giving the love that you've got. Receiving and releasing the love of God. Letting what's inside come out. By knowing and believing that its in there. The point HAS to be on what you're giving. If you're focused on getting, or if you're focused on what you don't have... you'll never be able to enjoy what you DO have. You will rob yourself of what you do have. The measure of a man is not what he has. Its what he does with what he has. How he treats people. God and people. Relationship. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. That's what this life is really all about. So God, in His infinite wisdom, gave us everything we needed in order to have those relationships. To connect to one another. He gave us THE measure of faith so that we could know and believe that He has given us THE measure of Himself. The FULNESS of Himself. All of Himself. All of His love. All of His mercy, and grace, and forgiveness. God filled us up with Himself. And when we fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with, that's when what's inside comes out. When we let God love the hell out of us, that's when we can love the hell out of each other. So give your life away. Lay your life down for your friends. And you'll see that giving isn't ABOUT getting... but the more you give, the more you have. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. Experiencing life is about loving people. Period. And love is giving. LIFE is giving. Giving everything you have and everything you are. A life of service is a life worth living. That's the measure of it.