A Verb part 5
Love is... giving. Plain and simple. It is the act of giving yourself--everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. Esteeming others higher than yourself. Not trying to get anything, but knowing that you have everything, and giving what you've got. Like I said... simple. But simple doesn't mean easy. Because there's almost a built in fear that when we give what we've got, and get nothing in return, then we won't have anything anymore. Isn't it funny that the grass always seems greener on the other side, but at the same time we're unwilling to give up what we've got in order to get something new? We hold on to "the way things are" just because its "the way things are." We settle for so much less than what's available to us. Because we don't think we deserve anything better. We've been without ourselves at our lowest point. At our very worst. And when we have this man-centered, performance-based, do good and get rewarded but do evil and get punished, religious mindset... when we weigh our good against our evil... we always come out on the short side. Because no matter how much good we do, its almost like we think the bad is more important. When in reality, when we're swinging from branch to branch on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, all we're doing is feasting on death. Because the tree of knowledge of good and evil IS the tree of death. God told Adam that on the day he ate of that tree he would surely die. Not because He was threatening to punish His creation. But because death is the natural consequence of eating from that tree of death. What God wanted was for His creation to eat from the OTHER tree. The Tree of Life. And the fruit of THAT tree is the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Love MEANS "love feast." It is the six course meal that is the cross--Jesus was Crucified, Died, Buried, Quickened, Raised, Seated. That's the meal that Jesus prepared for us in the presence of our enemies. And if love is a verb--and it is--the action we take is eating that meal. Understanding that His death was our death, and His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is our life! Understanding that we don't have to earn anything because God so loved us that He GAVE us His Son. So that we might know ourselves as His Son. So that we might experience the gift of God--Jesus' life of love--as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. And when we understand that its Jesus living His own life... that casts out any fear we might have of losing what we've got by giving it away. You EXPERIENCE the gift you've been given BY giving it away. By sharing it. You don't lose it. You can't. You can live fearlessly by loving fearlessly. By seeing a need and meeting it. Going back to our love feast picture, if you see someone who is hungry... feed them. Simple. If you have two coats and someone doesn't have one... live out of your abundance. Give them what you've got. And in that way... enjoy what you've got. Things are better when you share them. Because then they bring joy to others, and to yourself. Like a Holy Ghost wildfire that feeds on itself and grows and grows and grows into an unstoppable all consuming fire. Or, to say it another way, a snowball that picks up steam and grows and grows and grows as it flows downhill. But you have to make that first move. You have to step out in faith. Faith in God. Faith in love. Love someone, even in a tiny way, and watch what happens. Its awesome!