All About Love part 1
I'm pretty sure this is the title of my next book, but I want to kind of explore this idea for the next couple of days. It's all about love. When you get down to the heart of the matter... the heart of the matter is the heart. As we think in our hearts, so are we. Love is our true identity. The inner man, the hidden man of the heart. And Proverbs 4:23 tells us to, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Which makes perfect sense to me because to live is to love and to love is to live. Life and love aren't just connected, they are the same thing. Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Which means LOVE is the Way, LOVE is the Truth, and LOVE is the life. When God made the Way of Grace (which we respond to with the Walk of Faith) He used love to do it. Jesus said no man comes to the Father but by Him. You can't come to the Father unless you are DRAWN of the Father. And He draws you with His love. The GOODNESS of God leads men to repentance. Love made a way because love IS the way. Jesus brought every mountain low and every valley high. He made the crooked way straight. And what that means to me is that we can stop looking for love in all the wrong places and go straight to the source. To me, a straight and narrow way leading to life isn't a bad thing at all. It isn't a scary thing. It's a good thing. I can let His Word (which is Jesus, which is love) be a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I can follow my heart and KNOW that I'll get where I need to go. Because love never fails. Now, having said that, we need to understand what love has set out to accomplish. Isaiah 55:11 gives us some insight into this, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." The first time the Bible speaks about something being "void" is in the beginning. God created the heaven and the earth. The mind and the body. YOU. And it was dark, and void, and without form. So He sent His Word forth. He spoke. And He said, 'Let there be light." He filled that void with Himself. With love. He gave us what we felt like we were missing. Under the Old Covenant we tried to earn love by the knowledge of good and evil. "If I know enough about good and evil I can do good and stop doing evil." But that wasn't God's plan. That was man's plan. God's plan was for us to have LIFE and have it more abundantly. God's Word accomplished this. It prospered in the thing it was sent out to do. And what it accomplished was pleasing the Lord. What pleases the Lord? "...it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). So when we understand that love never fails, we understand that love's success was giving us the Kingdom! We understand that love already succeeded. Love isn't selfish. It doesn't want to take. In fact, love IS giving. So if it's taking, it's not love at all. Love gave us the Kingdom. Love gave us life. And not just life, but Jesus' life. Abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life! Jesus gave HIs life for us and He gave His life TO us. He gave His LOVE to us. He laid His life down, so that He could take it back up. He showed us what it means to love--to give your life for your friends. And He did it so that we could love one another with that same love! It's all about love!