A Final Word part 2
I've mentioned this a few times on the podcast and the Rant here: I've always subscribed to "That's the bottom line, because Stone Cold said so!" You put the most important thing at the bottom. The big finish. The grand finale. But my nine year old son, Logan, disagrees. He thinks the most important things should be at the beginning. Get it out there first and foremost. Which, I guess, makes it lucky that Jesus--love. God in the flesh, love in a body. God in YOUR flesh, love in YOUR body--is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning AND the end. He's not just the "final" word on the subject, He is the entire subject from start to finish. Look at Psalm 40:7, "Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me." Or 1 Corinthians 2:2 (NLT), "For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jeus Christ, the one who was crucified." It's all about Jesus. Which means it's all about love. God is love. Having faith in God is having faith in love. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God--which, one more time... is Jesus. Love! When Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians he came up with "A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil" (Ephesians 6:10-11, NLT). He came up with: Be strong... by letting God be strong. We know that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. We know that when we can't... He will. So how do we be strong? By STANDING strong. Standing on the Rock that is Christ. The Rock that is love. And when we are planted on that Rock we cannot be shaken. Because LOVE cannot be shaken. Love never fails. Because love endures. When we have faith in love WE can endure. We can be strong in HIS might. We can shine with HIS light! The light of the world--which is how Jesus described Himself... and how He described us. It's the same light. The light of love. It's what God has shined on us, and into us. It's what shines out of us when we know and believe that we are loved! To me it's very simple: God and people. Love God and love people. Love God BY loving people. Let the light--the love--that is inside come out by knowing and believing that it is in there. Let the love of God come out by filling yourself to overflowing with what HE has already filled you with. I'm sure Paul probably put some good stuff at the beginning of his letter. Gotta grab people's attention, right? But when he specifically says, "A final word," that's kind of like saying, "Pay attention, people. Listen up. This part is really important. I said all that to say this." And the "this" that he ended with was, "be strong. In the Lord." You can't do it by yourself. And that's ok. You're not supposed to. Jesus doesn't want you to do it yourself. He wants to reveal Himself--His love--in you, and through you, and as you! He wants the love that He is to come out of you. He wants to love the hell out of you so that you can love Him back by loving the hell out of the people you come into contact with. Receive and release His love. That's the New Commandment. His final word on commandments, if I can say it that way. He fulfilled the old, and nailed the Law of Moses and the Ten Commandments to the cross. Then He moved us into something new. A reality and a realm where only love remains. Where it's all about love. Where we CAN love because we ARE loved. And that, by the way, is how we be strong in His mighty power. His power is love. We are strongest when we are loving people. When our hearts are open and we can be real with each other. When we give what we've got by knowing that we've got it!