According part 4
You have the power to choose. You can accept what the world is screaming in your face, and in a sense serve the god known as mammon... or you can believe what your heavenly Father says about you in the still, small voice, and "serve" Him by letting Him live His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love in you, and through you, and as you. You can kill yourself working for a living... or you can rest in the loving arms of the One who has finished the work. And what it all comes down to, is love. Because that's the work that Jesus finished. When John writes about perfect love He is writing about what happened on the cross. Jesus said that there is no greater expression of love that a man can have than to lay his life down for his friends. That's what the cross was. It wasn't Jesus saving us from God. God was never mad at us. He was mad ABOUT us. Crazy, head over heels in love with us. The cross was about Jesus taking away the sin of the world so that we would no longer struggle with sin. And He took away the sin (unbelief) of the world by giving us something (someONE, Himself, LOVE) to believe in. By giving us the truth He empowered us to ignore the lie. He equipped and empowered us to make the right chioce. To choose life. To choose love. To believe the gospel--that God is love, and that He loves you. That's why Jesus came to earth: To show us the Father. And He showed us the Father by wrapping Himself in human flesh. By showing us love. And He showed us love... by loving us. By feeding us, and healing us. God is one person loving another person. We love God by loving each other, because He first loved us. We show God to one another by showing love to one another. Not by threating people with an eternal fiery hell... but by loving the hell out of people! If you believe you're "going to hell" you act accordingly. Because everything you do flows from what you believe. If you believe you are not worthy of love you act accordingly. You look for love in all the wrong places. You settle for whatever comes along, because you think its the best you can hope for. Even though you are secretly hoping for more. The good news is there IS more. A more excellent way. Exceeding abundantly more than you could ask or even think! So don't settle. Never ever settle. What the world has to offer isn't good enough. I guess the phrase, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade" is ok. Because making the best of what you've got is wise. But I like this one better: "If life gives you lemons... throw them at people!" And I like THIS one even better than that: "If life gives you lemons... stop taking what the world has to offer and start living out of the unlimited resources of the Kingdom!" There is so much that's available to us. We have been blessed with all Spiritual blessings. We have been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. We have been given the gift of God. Now we simply need to receive it and release it. Through the Holy Spirit--who is our love receptor. Now we CAN receive it and release it. We can experience the gift we've been given by knowing and believing we have it. If you have it, you can stop trying to get it. And if you have it, you can give it away. You can share it. You can love others as Jesus loved you--by laying your life down for them. By giving them everything you are and everything you have!