"Old" is a term that we seem to have misunderstood. At the very least we look at it like Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother: "New is always better!" But that's just not the case. Change for change's sake isn't good. And don't get me wrong, sometimes change is necessary. But when we're talking about the commandment--THE commandment--God didn't make a mistake that needed to be corrected. Look at 1 John 2:8, "Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." Did you catch that? Its "new" because the darkness has passed, the light shines, and we can finally see it. And I say "finally" because I believe we've always known the truth on some level. Our heart has always cried out for the only thing the heart is concerned with: Love. Remember the Psalm of David? "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). And that, dear friends, is why David is described as being a man after God's own heart. Not because he had it, necessarily, or understood what it means to have it, but because he wanted it. He pursued it. He was after it. He knew there was something better available. A more excellent way. So it was new, to him, but it was literally as old as creation. God, who is love, created the world through His love. Because of His love. By His love. He wanted to express Himself--express His love--so He needed something to express Himself TO. That's us. That's why we were created. God always has and always will love us. That's nothing new. But we didn't know His love. Couldn't comprehend, or understand His love. We believed the lie that the serpent hissed in our ears that said we had to do in order to be. That we had to earn God's love through our actions. Again, for the cheap seats: LIE. The truth is that God is love and He loves you. Always has and always will. What needed to happen was for the light to shine so that we could see things as they truly are. So Jesus went to the cross--lifted up from the earth for all to see--and shined that light of love. He told His disciples that there is no greater love that a man can have than to lay his life down for his friends. Then He did just that. He gave His life for us, and He gave His life to us. So that we could have it. So that we could experience it as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. He shined His light, and showed us that we ARE that same light. The light of God. The light of life. The light of love. It wasn't anything new, in the sense that it wasn't there before and then all of a sudden was. It was always there. It simply needed to be revealed. Brought out of the cover of darkness and into the light for all to see. The thing which is true in Him AND in you--in us. He is the light. We are the light. He is the love. We are the love. We are not just loved, we cannot just love... we ARE love. That's not just what we do, that's who we are. That's our "new" (true) nature. And when we understand that fundamental truth, everything we do begins to come from that place of love. It begins to come... from the heart. Do it because its in your heart to do it. That's the best (perhaps the only?) motivation we should have!

I want to quote our key verse for this Rant series again, but I want to do it in the Message Bible. 1 John 2:7 (MSG), "My dear friends, I'm not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you've known it from day one. It's always been implicit in the Message you've heard." We always think we need something more. Something new. Something we don't have. But this isn't anything new. This is the oldest commandment in the book. The first Word God ever spoke: "Let there be light." God IS light. And God is love. So light is love. The light that shines is the light of the world. The light of love. We don't need something new. We need to understand what has always been, and will always be. It's been implicit in the Message the whole time, but somehow we seem to have missed it. At least in large part. Like, I think most people--even religious folk--agree that love is the deal. But I also think there is a profound misunderstanding of the true nature of love. Because it seems to me that people use "love" to manipulate and control. To get what they want. "I love you... so you have to give me what I want." That's not love. At all. Love is NEVER about getting. Because love IS giving. For God so loved the world He GAVE His only begotten Son. Gave Him to us. Because He wanted us to have Him. To know Him. To be Him. To experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. God wanted the best for us, so He gave the best to us. He gave HIMSELF to us. His Spirit. The Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth--the truth that God is love and He loves you. Its nothing new. In fact, its the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. And everything in between. Its not something we need. Its something we've always had. We just didn't know what we had. We were looking for something "new" because we didn't think we had anything at all. Let me say it like this, "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love" (Revelation 2:4). And just in case we have any doubts at all about what our first love is, check out 1 John 4:9, "We love him, because he first loved us." OUR first love is HIS love for us! When we leave that... safety net, if I can say it that way... that's when we get in trouble. That's when things get twisted around. That's what Jesus has "against" us. Because He knows what He's given to us... and He wants us to just rest in it. Experience it. Enjoy it. And how we do that... is we give it away. We share it. Love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. I'm not writing anything new. Just bringing to remembrance what has been implicit all along. What we've known all along... deep down inside. The desire of our heart is to be loved. And we think someone loving us is something new. But its not. Its how things are supposed to be. And its how things have always been. And its how things will always be. God is love... and He loves you! That's the oldest commandment in the book, and we've known it (on some level) since day one!

Its the idea of our "new" (true) nature. Its new... to the point that we didn't understand it, but now we do. Now we can. Its not "new" as in God needed to try and try again. Its new... to you. In the sense that we've always had it, but now we know what we have. Like that idea of money in the bank. If someone puts a million dollars in your bank account, but you don't know that its in there, you can't use it. You can't enjoy it. But then, if someone tells you, "Hey, about 2,000 years ago I made a deposit and you're a millionaire..." Its new... to you. Its been there forever. But now you can use it. So this New Commandment (for the New Man) is really the Word we've heard from the very beginning. The Word of God that He spoke into the darkness that said, "Let there be light." He inserted something into our darkness. He inserted HIMSELF. He inserted love. Love is what lights up the darkness. The New Commandment--to love one another as God loves us--isn't necessarily God telling us, "Here's a new idea." Its God telling us HOW to do the ONLY idea. Think about how amazing life would be if love was the only option. First choice, not last chance. And I'm not saying you shouldn't call on the Lord when you need to be saved. Of course you should. That's when we need Him the most. But I'm saying if we start there... maybe we won't get to the place where we need to be saved. If you go down swinging, you might not go down at all. If you let Jesus hold you up, nothing can drag you down. But the thing to remember--the thing I'm trying to say in this Rant series--is that "new" only means new to you. Its not something new. Its not plan B. Its the Divine Order of things. And we don't PUT things in Divine Order. That's not our job. Things have been put in Divine Order. Well, actually, things have always BEEN in Divine Order. The "new" part is when God REVEALS them to BE in Divine Order. He shows us how things have always been. How things will always be. He shows us love. Love is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. And everything in between. Love isn't what's coming. Love is what has always been. Right from the jump. In the beginning, God. In the beginning... love. Let me quote a memory verse to try to drive this home. "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isaiah 46:10). Declaring the end from the beginning. The "new" from the "old." But its all the same message. Its the same Word. The only Word. Its love. Our new (true) nature is love. The love nature. And the nature of love is giving. Loving others as God (who IS love) loves us. Receiving and releasing His love. Letting what's inside come out, by knowing and believing that its in there. That HE's in there. That LOVE is in there! We need to get past this mindset of "I need to change from evil to good. I need to change from old to new." And we need to understand that we were created in the image of God. That we are--and have always been--exactly who we need to be!

This idea is kind of tricky. Because we look at everything through the lens of our own experiences. Our own selves. So we have this idea in our heads that we started off at the bottom. "I'm just a sinner. That's who I am. That's my nature. And, try as I might, I can't rise above my nature. I'm only human." But then we build entire religions on TRYING to rise above that low, low level that we put ourselves at. Trying to be "better." Trying to be "more like God." That's kind of what we see even all the way back in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. They saw that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was good to look at it. And they easily, and immediately, swallowed the lie that the serpent hissed into their ears that says "You have to do in order to be." You're not like God right now... but if you do this certain thing, if you eat this certain fruit... you'll become like Him. But that, like I said, is, was, and always will be a lie. The truth is, we were created in God's own image. We didn't need to do anything to be like Him. We always have been like Him. We just didn't know it. Didn't believe it. We thought we needed a shift from old to new. From crap to glory. But 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." When we look into the mirror we see what we really are--what we've always been--and we are "changed" into that image. From GLORY to glory. We start at glory. We don't start at crap. God would not make crap. Look at 1 John 2:7-8, "Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." Did you catch that? Its a new commandment only in the sense that we can finally see it. Because the darkness has passed and the light of the world--the light of love--shineth. Its not something new that God cooked up when nothing else would work. Its what He always had in mind because nothing else WILL work. Nothing but love. Jesus gave us the New Commandment--to love one another as He loves us--not in the sense of, "We've tried everything else, here's something new." But in the sense of, "Here's HOW to obey the Old Commandment. Here's HOW to love one another." And the how is vitally important. Because you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. So in order to give love, we must first know and believe that we have love. That we are loved. That we are love! We love, because He first loved us. We simply receive and release the love He has given to us. Experience that love by giving it away. By sharing it. Its nothing "new." Its the alpha and omega. The beginning and the end. The problem was that we couldn't see in the mirror--couldn't see who we really are by seeing who God really is--until the darkness had passed. Until the light shone forth. Until God arose and His enemies were scattered!

I started this Rant series with 1 Timothy 4:8 in the King James version of the Bible. I want to finish it with 1 Timothy 4:8 in the Message Bible, "Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever." Everlasting life. Fit forever. I can still remember when I heard a preacher say, "Self control is a fruit of the Spirit, by the way." Brought a smile to my face, but a little bit of stunned silence from the rest of the crowd. Its kind of the idea that just because you CAN do anything... that doesn't mean you SHOULD. All things are lawful, but all things don't edify. Or, like my grandpa is fond of saying, "You can do anything you want, as long as you're willing to pay the consequences." Because every action has consequences, be they good, bad, or ugly. Everything you do matters. Words are important. Actions are important. Discipline isn't a bad thing. "For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth" (Proverbs 3:12). "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). To name a few memory verses. So being physically healthy is important. Of course it is. But even more so is being Spiritually healthy. A disciplined life IN GOD. Right believing. What you do flows from what you believe. So if your believing is right, everything else will be too. If you settle the faith issue--that God is love and He loves you--everything else will fall into place. Because knowing and believing that God is love and He loves you is what equips and empowers you to love Him back. By loving people. It allows you to live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrecion Life of love by letting Jesus live His own life in you, and through you, and as you. It allows what is inside to come out. We fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with, and it comes out. Naturally. The more you exercise, the stronger you get. The more you exercise your faith, the stronger your faith gets. The more you exercise your love... the stronger your love gets! So don't worry if you start small. Don't despise small beginnings. Take that first step. You can't walk by faith without... walking. You can't love people just in thought. Charity is love in action. Put your money where your mouth is. Jesus didn't just SAY the greatest love a man can have is to lay his life down for his friends... He literally went to the cross and laid His life down for us! He exercised His faith. His mercy. His grace. His forgiveness. His love. And I'm telling you, the more we do it... the more we can do it. The more we do it... the easier it gets to do it. There is no fear in love. We don't have to worry about running out of what we've got by giving it away, because we are connected to the unlimited source of love. Literally the God who IS love. He lives inside us. And He is bursting at the seams to come out of us! All we have to do is let Him. Exercise our faith and (know and) believe that He's in there. Discipline. It makes and keeps us fit. Both today... and forever!

Exercise helps you grow. Exercising your faith helps you grow in faith. And in grace. And in mercy. And in love. Ephesians 4:15, "But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." Growing up in all things. By speaking the truth in love. How do we exercise our faith? Testifying of God's love. Receiving and releasing the gift we've been given. Its almost like on the job training. The more you love people, the more you learn HOW to love people. And, yes, some times there will be missteps. You will try things that don't work out. But that's ok. Its that process of learning and growing. Making mistakes and learning from them. I'm a big believer in the idea that you have to do things wrong before you can do them right. Nobody is an expert at everything. And very rarely is anybody an expert in the beginning. We have to learn. We have to grow. Grow up into HIM in ALL things. I did a Guerrilla Gospel video today about doing things heartily, from the heart. About doing things because they are in your heart to do it. Doing things as an expression of love. Charity is love in action, right? Exercise is walking by faith... by walking. Letting the rubber meet the road. Putting your money (or your effort) where your mouth is. Not just telling people you love them, but showing them. God is love. God is light. Love is light. Shining that light that we have--that we ARE--so that people can see. So that people can see love. So that people can see God. I love the part in the Bible where Jesus tells Phillip, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." Because what did people see when they looked at Jesus? A human--like you and me--that loved people. That's who the Father is. God is love. I think I already said that, but it bears repeating. And love is an action. Love needs to be expressed in order for it to actually exist. That's why God created us; He needed to express Himself. To us, and in us, and through us, and as us. It takes two to tango, so to speak. Someone to love and someone to be loved. And I really think that's the part humans struggle with the most: We don't think we deserve to be loved. We look at all the things we've done wrong, all our mistakes, bad decisions, and we think, "nobody could possibly love me." We pick flower petals and we hope and pray that we'll end up on "He loves me" instead of "He loves me not." But that's not how it really is. Not at all. We just need faith. And we need to exercise our faith. We need to let the Spirit of truth lead and guide us into all truth. The truth that God is love and He loves you. Faith like a mustard seed, right? Small in the beginning, but it grows into the biggest tree of all. The Tree of Life. Which bears the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Start small. Yes. Fine. But start. Don't expect to have it all figured out. Don't even necessarily try TO figure it out. Let God reveal it to you. As He reveals HIMSELF to you. As He reveals YOURSELF to you. Who you really are. Which is who you are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in you!

From what I understand about exercising--and I used to work out, around middle school when I wrestled and played football so many moons ago--the more you do it, the stronger you get. Paul writes kind of extensively about the journey from babes (in Christ) to full blown maturity. And it is a journey. A never ending everlasting life long journey. That's what life is really all about: It is a journey into the heart of the matter. Which is the heart. God's heart beating with love in our chests. Look at 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen." Grow in grace. We have been given grace. That's a done deal. But, well, let me quote another passage: "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passesth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:16-19). Did you catch that key word? Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Exercising your faith is what makes it strong. And it can start small. It should start small. Don't despise small beginnings. Baby steps are still steps forward. And as we saw yesterday, moving forward is vitally important. So don't judge yourself too harshly. Don't get down on yourself when you mess up. You can't learn from your mistakes if you never make any. And you learn more from failure than from success. You don't have to be the strongest guy in the room--grace or faith-wise--as long as your using the grace and the faith that you've got. As long as you're growing. Stretching. Beginning to comprehend the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of God's love for us. And I'm kind of convinced that we will never be able to fully understand those dimensions of God's love. Because His love is too big. Too good. Too deep. Too wide. It never stops. Never ends. And the more we find out there is, the more we find out there is. If that makes any sense. The more answers we get, the more questions we find. That's not a bad thing though. That's a good thing. Because if we think we have it all figured out we can grow complacent. We can stop looking, searching, wondering... and finding. We can not only stop growing, but we can lose the growth we've gained. Its important to stretch. To grow. To exercise. It keeps us healthy. So don't let anything stop you. If you stumble, let Jesus--let LOVE--pick you up. Hold you up. Keep you up. One more memory verse to end this Rant: "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 1:24). He CAN keep us from falling. But we have to trust Him to do it. We have to LET Him do it. Growing comes from exercising. Growing in grace (and faith) comes from the knowledge of God. The knowlege of love. The love inside us coming out of us as we fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with!

Let me get my memory verse for today out: "For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). A pretty popular verse. Probably right up there with John 3:16, right? But here's what I want to say about it, "You can't walk by faith without... you know... walking." Putting one foot in front of the other. Moving forward. That, as Rocky Balboa once said, is how winning is done. Its not about how hard you can hit. Its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. Because life will throw a lot at you. Try to manipulate and control you. Try to knock you down. That's just life, man. So you can either give up... or you can man up. You can either... let me quote another verse. "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Ephesians 4:14). We can either be deceived, believe the lie, get blown every which way and get all twisted up... or we can stand on the Rock. We can be still and know that HE is God. Know that LOVE is God. And being still doesn't necessarily mean not doing anything. You can be still while you're walking by faith. In fact, I don't think you can walk by faith UNLESS you're being still. Its a still, small voice deep inside that leads and guides us into all truth. The truth that God is love and He loves you. And you can't hear that voice if you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off. You can't receive the gift you've been given if you're trying to earn something you think you don't have. You end up robbing yourself of what you DO have. And let's look at that. We don't walk by sight. We don't live all of the time by what things look like. Jesus said we shouldn't judge by appearance, by judge righteous judgment. Let the truth be higher than fact. Because the fact of the matter is, it might not look great. But the truth of the matter is, all things work together for good. I believe things work out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet... its not the end yet. Love never fails. Because love endures. All the way to the end. In fact (in truth!) love IS the beginning and the end! And everything in between. So no matter what it looks like... exercise your faith. The worse it looks, the more faith you might have flex. Where sin abounded (before the cross), grace did much more abound. When the light shines, the darkness flees. Its not even a struggle. No contest. When God arises, His enemies are scattered. Period. So that gives us confidence to walk the walk. The way of grace was given to us by God. And we respond with the walk of faith. The walk of love. Because that's what faith is all about--have faith in God means have faith in love. Because God IS love. We walk by love, not by what it looks like. Love will carry us through any and every situation. Maybe not in exactly the way we think it should. Things don't always go the way we think they should. But they DO go the way God KNOWS they should. He knows the end from the beginning. Again--LOVE is the beginning and the end. Its all love. So doesn't sit in the corner and pout. Walk tall. One foot in front of the other. You can't walk by faith without walking. Exercise your faith. Put your money where your mouth is. 

Listen, if you know me you know I've skipped going to the gym... for the past fifteen years. So that's almost certainly not what I'm talking about here. Look at 1 Timothy 4:8, "For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." And my pastor would always say, "It may profiteth little, but it does profit a little!" As far as being physically healthy. There are lots of benefits tied to that. I'm not denying that, or ignoring that. I'm simply saying, its important to exercise our faith. That's profitable unto ALL things. Because, well, let me quote another memory verse: "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men" (Colossians 3:23). Now here's the thing to understand--what we do unto the least of our brethren we do unto the King. Loving God is loving people. Period. I'm appalled at the idea of throwing people over in order to serve God. That's nonsense. That's nothing. Serving God IS serving people. But the point I'm trying to make is doing everything--all things--in love. With love. Through love. Because of love. Do it because its in your heart to do it. That's one of my mottos. Do it heartily. From the heart. From a place of love. A place of giving. Living out of your abundance. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. Love is what makes what makes life abundant. We live out of our love. Not trying to get, but giving what we've got. That's how we exercise our faith. That's when, and how, the rubber meets the road. Charity is love in action. Not just an idea, not just a concept, but actual genuine acts of love and kindness. I like James 2:15-16, "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" And there's that word "profit" again. Big muscles profit a little bit. Remember that gym commercial, "I pick things up and put them down"? Funny stuff. But seeing a need and meeting it... that's the kind of profit we really need to work for. Now don't get it twisted, I'm not talking about labor and works (which don't work) and earning a profit from God. I'm talking about putting in the work of connecting to people. Building relationships. Again, seeing a need and meeting it. Living out of abundance. If you have two coats, and someone needs one, give them a coat. But don't overextend yourself. Don't freeze to death because you gave away your only coat. Giving everything you've got and everything you are is my personal defintion of love. Having said that, I don't believe you should ever put yourself, or keep yourself, in a bad situation. And I believe that once you've given something all you've got... its either enough, or its not. So, like physical exercise (and I'm not strictly speaking from experience here, but stick with me), you shouldn't try to overdo it. Exercise your faith, but stay in your lane. Don't try to be someone you're not, or do something you haven't been called to do. Exercise your faith, and you'll grow stronger!

There is only one memory verse in the Old Testament of the King James version of the Bible that has both the words "Spirit" and "Truth" in it. Psalm 31:5, "Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth." And I've been waiting to use this verse until the end here. Because, if nothing else, it makes a strong connection between the Spirit and the truth. God of truth... into your hand I commit my spirit. You can trust someone who tells the truth--who, in this case, IS the truth. Its like I tell my kid all the time, "If you never lie to me, I'll always believe you." You might not always LIKE the truth, but at least you can trust it. And I've found that knowing is always better than not knowing. You can drive yourself crazy wondering. Making up scenarios in your head. Usually worst case scenarios. We drive ourselves crazy worrying about things that rarely even come to pass. Let me say what I think I'm trying to say another way: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you" (1 Peter 5:7). We can trust Him, because He has (and continues to) prove Himself trustworthy. We can have faith in Him because He has (and continues to) prove Himself faithful. We can cast our cares upon Him, because He cares for us. We can commit our spirit into His hand, because He is the God of truth. We know what He's about because He straight up told us. And, in some ways perhaps more importantly, He SHOWED us. Jesus spoke of the greatest expression of love that a man can have--laying His life down for His friends. And then He went to the cross and literally did just that. He put His money where His mouth was, if I can say it that way. He proved His love for us, by giving His love--His life--to us. Jesus is the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world. Sin is unbelief. He took it away by giving us something (someONE, Himself, love) to believe in. If you're a believer, by definition you can't unbelieve. You can't sin when you're born of God and His seed remains in you. Because that belief is so strong. Not "hope" in the sense that we "believe" in the hopes that something will happen. But faith in the sense that we know what happened (2000 years ago on an old rugged cross), and we know what it means for us today. We know God loves us because He proved it. When we were yet sinners (before the cross), He died for us. Because He loved us. He wanted us to have His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love... so He gave it to us. He doesn't make us earn it. Its a gift. He gave us everything we will ever need when He gave us Himself. His Spirit. The Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth. The truth that God is love and He loves you. That's the rock, the foundation, that everything else is built on. That's the fundamental truth--the ultimate truth--of the universe. Everything else flows from there. The love that God put inside us coming out of us is how we experience the life we've been given. And it all comes from trusting Him. Knowing (and believing) the truth, and letting that truth we know set us free and make us free!