According part 2
There are two tales being told at any given time. There's the stuff on the surface, that the world tries to convince you of by screaming it at the top of its lungs, and then there's something deeper. Something real, and true. And whichever one you believe, that's the one you will experience. If you buy into the rat race, you will spend your Three T's (Time, Talent, Treasure) trying to become king rat. And I guess that's ok for some people. Maybe. But there's a more excellent way. And His name is Jesus. His name is love. If you believe in love--if you guard your heart by keeping it OPEN to love--then you can experience the gift of God that you've already been given. You can enjoy the gift by sharing it. By giving it away. Because that's what love is; love is giving. So you FEEL love when you LOVE. When you give everything you have and everything you are. When you lay down your life for your friends. When you receive the love of God by releasing the love of God. When you fill yourself to overflowing with what you've already been filled with. According to your faith, so it shall be unto you. What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in your life. What you feed is what will grow. What you believe is what you will experience--be it either what the world says, or what God says. You can't "believe" any old thing you want and expect it to happen. Because seeing is believing. Faith comes from hearing. And hearing from the Word (again, Jesus... love) of God. Look at the actual passage of the verse I just mentioned: "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:16-17). What you hear is what you believe. Even, unfortunately, if its a lie. In fact, sometimes the lie is even easier to believe. Because its right there on the surface. Its easy to think badly of ourselves. And even easier to believe it when someone says the same things that we're already thinking. But, like I said, there's a more excellent way. Not looking AT the mirror and seeing all of our flaws, and mistakes, but looking INTO the mirror and seeing Jesus. One of my all-time favorite passages: "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). The Spirit of the Lord gives us freedom. Freedom FROM sin and death. Freedom TO live and love. Freedom to stop trying to be someone we're not and simply BE who we are! And we do that by looking IN the mirror. Seeing the glory of the Lord. Seeing Christ IN you, the hope of glory. Seeing the true you. The inner man. The hidden man of the heart. And by seeing Him... BEING Him. Letting the secret out. Christ REVEALED in you! In you, and through you, and as you. That's how we are changed FROM glory TO glory. We start at glory, deep inside the heart. And then what's inside comes out, when we know and believe that its in there. That HE'S in there. We have faith in God, and then God lives His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life in us. And we experience it as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. We believe that we are the righteousness of God in Christ, and then according to our faith... the truth manifests. What has always been true becomes true... for you!