Knowing and believing. That's the Divine Order of things. Because you can't believe what you don't know. Because faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. You hear that Word--that God is love and He loves you--and it gets past head knowledge and into heart knowledge. Gets past knowing and into KNOWING. Because that Word--again, that God is love and He loves you--resonates with us. It is literally the desire of our heart; to be loved and to love. To know and to be known. That's the deep calling out to the deep. That's when the light in us connects to the light each other. And, really, love is the only foundation that a true relationship can be built on. Love is what ties us and binds us together. Love is what matters. I've long said there are only two things that matter in this universe: God and people. Love God and love people. Love God by loving people. Its all about love. Knowing that we are unconditionally loved by our heavenly Father is what equips and empowers us to love Him back by loving each other. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. So you have to know what you have. In order to believe that you have what you have. And when you believe it--what you do flows from what you believe. What's inside (what you BELIEVE is inside) is what comes out. Whether its the lie of the world, or the report of the Lord, whatever you choose to believe is what manifests in your life. What you choose to believe is what defines your life. See, the truth is the truth. Always has been and always will be. And the truth has set us free and made us free. That was the cross. That's a done deal. But its the truth you know that you experience. Think about it. Even little things. If you always have a good day when it rains... that's a truth to you. Rainy days are good. You experience it, you know it, and you believe it. So if you wake up and its raining... you're going to have a good day. That's how powerful your beliefs are. Now take that to the level of God's unconditional love for you. And let me just quote one memory verse for today. Well, two verses actually, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). And the important part there, to me, is "For I am persuaded." This isn't just something Paul thinks sounds good. This is something he KNOWS. Something he's experienced. And a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. When you've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt you KNOW what you know. When God's love has carried you through... you can have faith that it WILL carry you through. You know it will. You believe it will. And it does. When God--when love--is holding you up, nothing can drag you down. In knowing His love, we can rise above anything!

Here's the thing about knowing when it comes to God (love)--its a two way street. Now let me quote my Scripture before I try to explain this. Galatians 4:8-9, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" After we have known God. Or rather, are known OF Him. After we have known love. Or rather, are OF love. Its a relationship. Its not book knowledge, its a living Word. Its not head knowledge, its heart knowledge. "And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). A knowledge that passes knowledge. Knowing and being known. I can't tell you what a difference it makes when you have relationships with people who actually know you. Who actually care. Who actually put in the time and effort to GET to know you. That kind of thing is rare. And its precious. Being known. Being known by love. That's really the only way you CAN love. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. But knowing is only half the battle. You can read the Bible and come away with "Jesus love me, this I know..." but, as my pastor once said, there's a difference between knowing... and KNOWING. The only way to know--really KNOW--the love of God is to be known of God. To know Him, and to know yourself as He knows you. To know Him as loving heavenly Father. And to know yourself as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. To fill yourself with all the fulness of God. To fill yourself with what HE has already filled you with. And you fill yourself by knowing it and believing it. Look at Isaiah 12:3, "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." WE are the wells, by the way. And there's this thing we teach our kids about not dipping into each others' buckets. In the sense of not taking things away from them. Not taking their happiness, or their self-esteem. But when we draw the living water out of our own wells, we can fill each other. We can know each other. We can love each other. It comes from knowing what we've got. Knowing who we are. Knowing who God is. Jesus: God in the flesh, love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. That's who we are. And when we know who we are... in knowing... we can be who we are. In being known... we can experience that love from a Father to His beloved Son. And that love of a Father will always empower the Son. That's where our ability to love comes from--it comes from being loved. Giving what we've got by knowing and believing that we've got it. Its a two way street. A relationship. Not just knowing... but being known. Opening yourself to people. Giving yourself to people. Laying your life down for people. A life of service is a life fully lived. A life of service is a life of love. Love is what makes life abundant. Knowing love and being known by love!

In knowing, we can believe. In believing, we can experience. And that's the whole point of the whole thing, isn't it? Jesus came to give us life, and that more abundantly. But where I think we get it twisted a lot of the time, is that we try to live Jesus' life. When nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. We try to walk in His foot steps. When really its Him making His own foot steps with our feet. We are not supposed to try to live His life. We let Him live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. And that's how we experience it--we be still and know that HE is God. Know that HE is the One living life... because He IS life! "And this is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son" (1 John 5:11). We live in Him because He lives in us. His life IS our life. The abundant life that Jesus came to give us is His everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love. Experiencing the love of God--the life of God--by receiving it and releasing it. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. So you have to know what you have. Believe that you have it. That's when you can give it away. Which, by the way, is what love is. Love is giving. Giving everything you have and everything you are. Living life by giving your life. If you really think about it... it IS better to give than receive. Think about a time when you've given someone something--especially something that they really needed, or something they never thought they could have--that joy on their face. Think about how giving someone else that joy fired YOU up. I'm telling you, if you want to feel love... love someone. Because the feeling is in the doing. Its not the destination as much as it is the journey. Giving (yourself) to others is what makes what you have worth having. Things are more valuable when they're shared. Which might seem counter-intuitive. We think keeping things to ourselves makes them more valuable. We think keeping them away from anybody else makes them worth more. But in reality it is the things that we share that are really valuable. Because things that can be shared are things that benefit more than just us. More than just me. Its the universality, the commonality, of life. We all go through the same things. And once we've been through something, we can help others through it. A map is nice... but a guide--someone who has been there, done that, and got the t-shirt--is priceless. So in knowing how to get through something, we can help others get through it. We can, look, my pastor says it like this, "If you know it, throw it." People need each other. If you can do something... do it. Share your gift. Because people need it. We need each other. It is not good for man to be alone. We're all in this together. We NEED each other. So when you know what you've got, when you know who you are, you can give who you've got. You can be who you are. But it comes from knowing. Knowing and believing. Being renewed in the knowledge of Christ. The knowledge of who we really are. Christ in us, the hope of glory. Revealed glory. The glory within coming out as we know and believe that it IS within!

I always say "knowing and believing" is the Divine Order of things. Because you can't believe something you don't know. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. You have to hear it before you can have faith in it. You have to see someone sit in a chair before you believe it will support your weight. Its like how the Bible speaks about first in the natural, then in the Spiritual. First we have to know something is true, then we can believe it it is true. And that's important because the truth HAS set us free and made us free. But its knowing and believing the truth that equips and empowers us to experience that freedom. Truth that you don't know doesn't do you a whole lot of good. And that, by the way, is why preaching the gospel is so important. But don't forget the old saying, "Preach the gospel at all times... and if you have to, use words." Preaching the gospel--the good news that God is love and He loves you--is all about SHOWING not telling. Showing people who God is by loving them. Letting what you know and believe is inside come out BY knowing it and believing it. Look at Colossians 3:9-10, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The Spirit of God (of love) that leads and guides us into all truth. Again, the ultimate truth of the universe that says God is love and He loves you. So the opposite of lying to one another is telling the truth. Preaching the gospel. And I love how this is written in the past tense. Because putting off the old man with his deeds is not something we need to do. Its something "we" (Jesus) did on the cross. Or when the old man died in the watery grave of baptism. Which, in reality, is just us accepting the truth OF the cross. Point being--its not something that needs to happen. Its something that already happened. "And have put on the new man." Past tense. Not something we need to do. Something we've (Jesus) already done. Jesus IS the new man. If anything, we need to be renewed once in a while. Because sometimes we forget who we are. Look at James 1:23-24, "For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." Knowing and believing go hand in hand. You have to know who you are before you can BE who you are by believing who you are. If you hear it but don't do it, you forget who you really are. But if you see who you really are--Jesus, God in the flesh, love in a body--you can BE who you really are. If you know... in knowing, you are renewed. Knowing Jesus is knowing yourself. God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Our true identity--Jesus--is what its all about. Letting God love us, and loving Him back by loving each other with that same love that He loves us with!

Our faith connects us to Jesus. And His faith gets things done. Anything we ask for in His name--with His nature--we find that He has already given us. In a word: Love. And we experience this love that we have already been given... by giving it away. So, in believing, we are really just receiving and releasing the gift we've already been given. But the key is knowing it and, well, believing it. Look at Mark 11:22, "And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God." This is what I'm talking about. Jesus took away the sin (ubelief) of the world by giving us something (someONE, Himself, love) to believe in. And all we have to do is have faith in God. Know and believe God's love FOR us, and that love (that's IN us) will come OUT of us. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (Jesus, love) of God. Have faith in God. Have faith in love. Its that simple. And notic that I didn't say its that easy. Because we get love twisted a lot of the time. Because we think love is about getting what we want. "If you loved me you would do this, this, and this for me." But love is NEVER about getting. Because love IS giving. That, unfortunately, can be part of the problem though. We give and we give and we give... and we feel like we don't get anything back... and we feel like we're empty. We feel like no matter how much we do its never enough. And we almost start to lose faith in love. How many times have you heard someone say something like, "God's given up on me." Or, "I've given up on God." Because no matter how hard we try, things don't always go our way. That's life. So if we equate love, or God, with getting our own way... we're setting ourselves up for massive disappointment. You can't make people do... anything, really. So if that's your agenda you're going to be in for a lot of frustration and unhappiness. Having faith in God is not about having your own personal genie that will do whatever you want Him to do. Having faith in God is about knowing and believing that the God who is love... loves you. Always has and always will. Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for. Its not about hoping God will love you if you do x, y, and z. Its about knowing He loves you. And loving Him back by loving people with the love that He loves you with. You don't have to move mountains. Just believe that Jesus can. That Jesus HAS. And then, as you love people, you find that you ARE moving mountains. Seeing a need and meeting it is about the biggest thing you can do. Because if someone is in need... to them... that's huge. And if you meet that need for them... that's world changing. Life changing. Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing its in there. Simply. Not always necessarily easy, but easier still when we just let God love the hell out of us. When we fill ourselves to overflowing with what He's already filled us with. When we have faith in God. When we, in believing, give what we've got without worrying about getting anything back. When we, in believing in love... love one another!

Faith without works is dead, but faith is what makes everything work. In believing, we experience what God has for us. What God has given to us. Look at Matthew 9:28-29, "And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you." And look at this: Their faith... was in Jesus. "Do you believe I can do this?" Yes, we do. And then He did it. If you ask in His name... He'll do it. Because He WANTS to do it. In fact, at this point--on this side of the cross--He's already done it. All of the promises in Christ are yea and amen. Because they've already been fulfilled. He's already given us everything. Because He's already given us Himself. Jesus took away the sin (unbelief) of the world by giving us something (someONE, Himself, love) to believe in! And in believing in Him... in believing in love... we "get," or experience, what we believe in. Here's the deal: There's the report of the world and there's the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of the Lord. And while you CAN'T just "believe" any old thing and "expect" it to happen... your choice is to believe one or the other. You can't serve two masters, but you do serve one. The cool thing is that you get to choose which one to serve. You get to choose what to believe. I always say, "You don't have to believe everything you think." Some stuff you can just let it fly right out of your brain. Just let it go. Lay aside the weight and the sin (unbelief) that so easily besets you. Let the truth (that has already set you free and made you free) set you free and make you free! But what I'm trying to say today--or what I was planning to try to say today--is that we don't have to move mountains with our faith. We simply have to believe in the One who already did. Jesus brought the mountains low and the valleys high. So all we have to do--ALL we have to do--is hook our faith up to Him. Hook our faith up to love. Choose to believe the truth, the ultimate truth of the universe that says "God is love and He loves you," and let that love fill us to overflowing so that it comes out of us naturally. In believing in love... we are equipped and empowered to love. In believing in the One who loves us, we are able to love Him back by loving each other. According to your faith be it unto you. What you believe--either the lie of the world or the truth of God--is what manifests in your life. Faith is what makes everything work. What's inside, or what you believe is inside, is what comes out. It has to. Because its too big to stay inside. If its hurt... its too big to stay inside. If its love... its to big to stay inside. Hurt people hurt people. But loved people love people. Listen, we put our faith in things all the time. When you sit in a chair you put your faith in it that its going to hold you up. So make sure that, in believing, you put your faith in the right thing. Love. The right One. Jesus.

Here it is, as simple as I can make it: "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive" (Matthew 21:22). And this doesn't mean we can ask for any old thing, say we believe it, and it'll happen. You can't say, "God, can I have a million dollars?" "Believe" it, and expect it to happen. Prayer isn't treating God like a genie. Rub the lamp and get three wishes. Look at John 14:13-14, "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it." Now don't get it twisted, this doesn't mean we say, "Can I be a millionaire, in Jesus' name?" and think its a done deal. That's not what asking in His name means. Because name is nature. Its about asking for what He would ask for. The Son is all about glorifying the Father. Making Daddy proud, if I can say it that way. And, listen, I truly believe that our heavenly Father loves us and is well pleased in us. Because that's how I feel about MY son. I love him no matter what. I'm pleased in him because he's mine. But there are times when that boy REALLY fills up my pride meter. Normally when he displays his heart. When he's kind. Loving. That stuff fires me up. Like when people tell me my kid is polite, or well behaved. I always SAY, "Thank you." But I always THINK, "You're welcome." Because that's on purpose. Train up a child in the way he SHOULD go, right? So asking in Jesus' name isn't about asking for stuff for you. Jesus' name--or nature--is love. And love is giving. God lavishes gifts upon His children, but He blesses us so that we can be a blessing. He gave us the abudant life so that we can live out of our abundance. You can't give what you don't have, right? And you can only give what you do have. So if God wants us to give it, He first has to give it to us. So that we have it. So that we CAN give it. Believing that we shall receive "whatsoever" we pray for has to be built on a correct understanding of prayer. Praying in His name. Asking in His name. GIVING in His name. That's what fires our heavenly Father up. That's what glorifies Him. And let me ask you this: If you ask something in Jesus' name--love nature--why wouldn't He do it? Why would God withhold something that He wants us to have anyway? That He has, in fact, already given to us. Its not about asking for something we don't have. Its about understanding that we already do have everything we need. One more memory verse for tonight: "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread" (Psalm 37:25). There's such a big difference between wants and needs. My God shall supply all your NEED according to His riches and glory. But if we're trying to "believe" our way into getting what we want... that's not really anything. So in believing, we need to have RIGHT believing. Believe the right thing, and watch it come to pass. Watch it manifest in our lives. The right thing, by the way, is love!

In believing the truth, we make it true... for us. Because the truth is the truth. Always has been, always will be. But if you don't know it and believe it, you won't be able to experience it. And look at 1 John 4:16, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." I think that Divine Order--knowing and believing--is so important. Because you can't believe what you don't know. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. First you hear it. You know it. Then you can believe it. And, in believing, experience it. Jesus' eternal, everlasting, abundant, Resurrection Life of Love is the gift of God. He gave it to us. And you can't earn a gift. But you have to receive it. Let's say someone puts a million dollars in your bank account. If you don't know its there you're not going to use it. Furthermore if, say, you check you're account balance and see a million extra dollars in there... you're probably going to freak out. Assume its a mistake. Which is why we need to see the finished work of the cross in all its magnificent glory. Its one thing for someone to tell you God loves you. Even, "Jesus love me this I know, for the Bible tells me so," is only part of the way there. But when you understand that Jesus said there is no greater love that a man can have than to lay his life down for his friends... and then He literally went to the cross and laid His life down for us... that's where the rubber meets the road. That's when its more than just an idea. Charity is love in action. And there is no greater action of love than giving everything you have and everything you are. That's what love is. Love is giving. You can give without loving, as they say. But you can't love without giving. It is in believing that we are loved... that we have something to give. We hear the Word, and we know the Word, and we believe the Word, and we live the Word. Walking by faith--living by faith--is how we prove our faith. And when I say "prove" I mostly mean... proving it to ourselves. Because if you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have, then if you love someone (and love is giving) that means, on some level, that you believe you are loved. So when you know the truth--and believe the truth--that's when the truth (that has already set you free and made you free) sets you free and makes you free! That's when you can experience that freedom! That's when you can be free FROM sin and free TO love. That's when you can experience the gift you've been given by receiving it and releasing it. By sharing it. By giving it away. God wants us to live out of our abundance. That's why Jesus came; so that we might have life, and that more abundantly. Love is what makes life abundant. Love is what makes life worth living. Love is what makes it possible to live. Its all about love. In believing the truth, we make the truth true... for us. In believing in love we experience love by letting God love us and loving Him back by loving each other!

Here's the deal: The truth is the truth. And there's nothing that can change that. The ultimate truth of the universe--that God is love and He loves you--always has, and always will, be true. But while the truth HAS set us free and made us free... its the truth that we know and believe that equips and empowers us to experience that freedom. That love. Let me say it another way, and this is what I'm planning to talk about for the next few days. "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost" (Romans 15:13). Now, see, that's the key. We HAVE been filled. But in believing we fill ourselves (to overflowing) with what we've already been filled with. I think people (in general), and Christians (in particular), spend way too much time and effort trying to be someone they're not. Trying to fit into someone else's idea of who or what we're supposed to be. Wasting our three t's (time, talent, treasure) trying to earn something that can't be earned. God's love is not about what we do. Love is giving. Love is God giving us everything He has and everything He is. God filling us with all joy and peace. These are the important things in life. Grace. Mercy. Forgiveness. Love. And these are things that cannot be earned. No matter how hard we try we can never make God love us more than He does right now. Or less, for that matter. God's love is eternal. Because God is love and HE is eternal. He always has and always will love us. And I hear people say things like, "I love you a lot." Or, "I love you so much." But to me... love is the most. The maximum effort that you can give. Because, as Jesus said, the greatest expression of love that a man can have is to lay his life down for his friends. Literally giving everything you are and everything you have. But you can't give what you don't have. How could you? And you can only give what you do have. What else is there to give? So its vitally important that we know what we have. That we know who we are. That we understand that God--our provider--has already given us everything we need. He provided for us. That's what a true father does. And God is nothing if He is not our heavenly Father. He wants what's best for us. What true Father wouldn't? So He gave the best TO us. He gave HIMSELF to us. In believing, we experience everything God is in us. Everything LOVE is in us. Knowing and believing is what makes the truth--that always has and always will be true--true. For us. Knowing and believing is what allows us to experience that truth. Allows us to abound in hope. And let me end with that this thought: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life" (Proverbs 13:12). Abounding in hope doesn't mean hoping real hard that something will happen. It doesn't mean hoping real hard that someday someone will love us. It means--listen. Christ in you is the hope of glory. Revealed glory. Abounding in hope is abounding in Christ. And abounding in Christ is abounding in love!

"I hear you." Its a phrase that seems kind of small, but it really isn't. "I understand." Two words that can take someone from feeling utterly alone to completely connected. Or, here's one, "You have my undivided attention." That's powerful. Especially in this day and age of extreme distraction. Putting your phone down and looking someone in the eyes... that really means something. Its about acknowledging people. Validating them. Or, as we saw the other day in Romans 15:7, "Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God." Receiving people. Not as we wish they were, but as they are. As they REALLY are. The Christ in me receiving the Christ in you. The light in me responding to the light in you. The deep calling out to the deep. And remembering that we're all just people. We all make mistakes. If never making a mistake is the definition of "perfect" then ain't none of us perfect. For the record, that's NOT how I define perfection. But what I'm saying is... we're all in this together. Going through the same things. Learning and growing. Maybe at different speeds. We might all be running the same race, but that doesn't mean we're on the same lap. So we need to give grace to each other. To let people be who they are. And let people be WHERE they are. Meeting people where they're at. Giving people what they need. Giving people what we've got. And what they need... is love. What we've got... is love. Love means love feast. It satisfies the appetite. Think about it. If you go to a feast--a straight up and down feast--there's something for everybody. No matter what you're in the mood for, you can find it. No matter what someone needs, you can meet their need. And, listen, I'm not saying you have to be able to reach everybody. I know I'm not for everybody. That's ok. I'm simply saying that when you love someone, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Sometimes people won't pick up what you're laying down. Sometimes they're not ready to hear what you have to say. That's ok. Loving people is not about you. Its about them. Love is giving. Never getting. So just do your best to have empathy. To see where they're coming from. To receive them as Christ also received us; with open arms. Jesus literally had open arms on the cross. He was lifted up from the earth and He drew all men into Himself. Planted Himself in all men. Brought us together and got rid of even the idea of separation between God and men. Because God lives IN men. LOVE lives in US. So all we have to do in order to acknowledge people... is love them. Let the love that's already inside us come out as we fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Let God love us so big and so strong that we can't contain it. And then give it away. Share it. A feast isn't just for one person. Its for all people. Especially this feast. The love feast. Breaking bread with someone is one of (if not THE) best ways to acknowledge them. To connect with them. To let them know you care. And that's what people need. That's what they respond to. They need to know someone cares. They need to know someone loves them!