Alive part 2
One of my favorite things that Jesus said is, "The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). And I always like to point out that the thief Jesus was talking about in this passage of Scripture is... us. Anybody who tries to enter into the sheepfold any other way but through the door. Which, of course, is Jesus. Point being, anybody who tries to live their life without Jesus--without love--is doomed to perish. That's why God sent His only Son, so that in believing in Him we might NOT perish but have everlasting life. It amazes me that religion has twisted the gospel to the point where the afterlife has seemingly become more important than life itself. Everybody wants to "go" to heaven instead of realizing and understanding that we can experience the days of heaven on earth. We don't have to suffer. We don't have to kill, or steal, or destroy... OURSELVES. Which is what we do (unfortunately) when we go around looking for love in all the wrong places. When we don't include our heavenly Father in our lives. And see, that's the thing: Jesus doesn't just want to be a PART of our lives. He wants to BE our life, because He IS life. To live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. You can't have one without the other, and you can't do one without the other. So if we're talking about life--and abundant life at that--we're talking about love. Love is what makes the abundant life abundant. Love is what makes life worth living. Love is what makes life possible to live. Jesus didn't come so that we could have a religion. He didn't come to make "bad" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. He came that we might have life. HIS life. And the way that we have His life... is by letting HIM live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. By being still and knowing that HE is God. By resting. And, as always, that doesn't mean inactivity. Rest is Holy Spirit directed activity. Letting the love that is inside you flow out by knowing and believing that it is in there. Receiving and releasing the love of God. Letting God love you and loving Him back by loving the people that you come into contact with. That's what this life is all about--knowing and being known. Loving and being loved. And it all starts with God. We love because He first loved us. He gave us what we needed so that we could, you know, have it. So that we could use it. So that we could experience it by giving it away. And guys, what we have... is this life. What we have... is today. Remember the old saying, "The past is history, the future is a mystery. All we have is right now and it's a gift. That's why it's called the present." So don't waste what you've got. Give what you've got. Experience what you've got by giving it away. By sharing it. We know that we have passed from death unto life because of the love that we have. Death is the absense of love. Which is why a lot of people, instead of living like they were dying a (as the old song says), live like they're dead. They just go through the motions. Stuck in a rut. They either look for love in all the wrong places, or they give up on looking for it at all. That's where we come in. Us. The believers. The ones who know better. Because when you know better, you can do better. When you know what you've got, you can give what you've got. And in that way you stop robbing yourself and start experiencing and enjoying the gift of life that you've been given!