Accepting Embrace part 5
If I don't accept you, I can't embrace you. If I don't understand you, I can't accept you. And if I can't understand, or accept, or embrace you... I can't love you. Which is a problem because, according to 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." Love is the difference between life and death. And here's what we think: We think that if we don't love someone we're hurting THEM--and to a degree we are--but really, when we don't love others we're hurting OURSELVES. We were created to be loved, and to love with that same love. That's our purpose. That's our EPIC destiny. Our Eternal Purpose In Christ. That's why we're here. So if we aren't doing what we were created to do... we feel useless. Pointless. We feel like we're missing something. When the truth is, we aren't missing anything at all. We're missing out no sharing what we have. And that's why it feels like we don't have it. Things are real when you share them. Love is GIVING. If all you're ever trying to do is take, take, take... then you've completely missed the point of everything. Love cannot be earned. It is freely given and can only be received. So if we're waiting for someone to "fit into our box" before we're willing to accept them and love them... take my advice and don't hold your breath. There is nothing in this world more frustrating than trying to get someone else to be someone that they're not. It's impossible. Even if they WANT to be someone else... even if they're TRYING to be someone else (and those are two really big "ifs") they will still never be able to be someone else. I think that's why so many people are unhappy: They think they have to be someone else in order to be understood, and accepted, and loved. But they can't be someone else. So they feel misunderstood, and rejected, and hated. Isn't it time to show people a more excellent way? To show them the Father the same way Jesus showed people the Father? Not by condemning them, or judging them, or trying to make them change... but simply by extending grace, and mercy, and forgiveness and love! We're all in this together. We're all just trying to satisfy that apetite of love. And when we know where the source is--WHO the source is--we find that by delighting ourselves in Him we HAVE the desire of our heart. And we find that we have an abudance of it. We find that we have passed from death into life. A life of love--which is what "life" really is. We find that we can understand why people are doing what they're doing. They want love just like we did. And we find that we can accept them without trying to change them. We can celebrate them and embrace them. We don't have to agree 100% of the time. We don't have to enable. But we can help. We can lay our lives down. Because someone (Jesus) laid His life down for us. We can receive and release. We can understand. And because we understand we can accept. And when we accept... we love. We love one another as Jesus loves us. And in that way we partake of the Divine Nature. We live His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting HIM live it in us, and through us, and as us!