Above All part 2
I always liked Matthew 23:23 (NLT), "What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law--justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things," because it was about priorities. And I think we get our priorities screwed up. A lot. Big time. We get lost in things that aren't important, and we lose the things that are important. Or, in the case of what Jesus was saying, we give too much importance to things that need SOME attention, but not ALL of our attention. And, listen, I'm not getting into whether tithing is only for the Old Covenant, or not, or what, right now. I'm leaving that alone. Because that's not what's most important. Above all... its about love. And justice, mercy, and faith (to finish tying my memory verse in) are aspects of love. I always say, "You gotta do what you gotta do." Paul said, "If you don't work, you don't eat." Rest is not being a Spiritual couch potato. Its not about doing nothing. But its not about doing something just to be doing something, either. Its about doing the RIGHT thing. I've said this a bunch of times too: When you're dealing with people its better to be kind than to "win" the argument. Its better to have the RIGHT Word (which is Jesus, which is love) than the last word. We get so caught up in stuff so often... when, in reality, the only two important things in the universe are God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. By letting Him love you, and receiving and releasing that love. But do you know what we do? We disqualify ourselves. And each other. We look for love in all the wrong places because we want it so badly. But then when it (HE) shows up... we think it (HE) is too good to be true. We think we don't deserve it. So we reject it. We look for reasons why someone CAN'T love us, instead of just believing the Word (which, again, is Jesus... love!) of God. It breaks my heart when I reach my hand out and it gets slapped away. And, I mean, Jesus addressed this too. "Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" "No, not seven times," Jesus replied, "but seventy times seven!"" (Matthew 18:21-22 NLT). Because love never fails. Because love never gives up. Love endures. And, listen to me, I'm NOT saying you should stay in a bad situation. I'm convinced that if you give something everything you've got its either enough... or it isn't. And if it is... good. And if its not... shrug your shoulders and move on. You can't save everybody. All you can do is love everybody. What they do with that love is up to them. But my point for this Rant series is: the focus needs to be on love. We need to get our priorities straight. Because without love, life isn't worth living. Without love, life is impossible to live. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. And this life that we have is the life that we have. We CAN do whatever we want with it. We OUGHT to live it to the fullest. Loving others with the love that God loves us with. Filling ourselves to overflowing with His love. Receiving it and releasing it, and in that way experiencing it!