Acceptance part 4
Unconditional love and acceptance--not because of what we do, but because of who we are. That's what everybody wants. We don't want condemnation and judgment. We don't want to jump through hoops in order to be loved and accepted. And we don't want to have to change. Because if we have to change, that means we aren't good enough right now. And, really, that's the Gospel. The Good News. It occured to me (in a living way) the other day that Jesus did NOT tell His disciples to preach the Bible. He told them to preach the Gospel. And the Gospel is this, "Jesus gave His life for you on the cross, and He gave His life to you when He poured out His Spirit on all flesh." The Good News is that Daddy loves you and He always has and He always will. The Good News is that now, through the Holy Spirit, we can receive and release that love. We don't have to try to earn what is freely given. We can stop looking at ourselves, and each other, as "bad" people who need to change into "good" people. Jesus did NOT come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. We WERE dead in our trespasses and sins (unbelief). Jesus saved us from our sins by giving us something (someONE, Himself, love) to believe in. Now watch this: Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." When we know what the desires of our heart is... to be loved and accepted... we can see that delighting ourselves in the Lord is the fulness of those desires! He loves and accepts us. He doesn't want to change us, He wants us to see the change that took place 2,000 years ago on the cross. He wants us to see HIM as He truly is--not an angry taskmaster, but a loving heavenly Father--and He wants us to see OURSELVES as we truly are--His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. The desires of our heart are found in Him. So when we delight ourselves in Him, when we let Him love us (again, through the Holy Spirit, our love receptor), that's when we find what we have been looking for. We are dead, and our lives are hid with Christ in God. So if we want to find ourselves, we have to look to Him. As He is, so are we in this world. He is our true identity. We are accepted IN THE BELOVED. "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine..." (Song of Solomon 6:3). We are His and He is ours. In Him we live and move and have our being. In us He lives and moves and has His being. God is love. In LOVE we live and move and have our being. In us LOVE lives and moves and has His being! We are loved, and because of that we are LOVE. Because of that we CAN love. We are forgiven... we can forgive. We are accepted... we can accept. A huge part of my minstry goes like this, "Don't tell people what to do, because people are going to do what they want to do. Tell people who they are, because what they do flows from their identity!" Jesus broke the yoke that religion had saddled us with, and He offered us His yoke, which is easy and light. Easy and light because HE is the one carrying it (carrying us!). He finished the work. He did it all so we could get it all. He accepts us... so we can accept each other!