All We Need part 1
The Beatles said it best, "All we need is love, love, love is all we need." I'm convinced that when we say things like, "Jesus is the answer," this is what we really mean. LOVE is the answer. For way too long we've been stuck feeding from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thinking that by doing good and not doing evil we're accomplishing something. When really both good AND evil are on the same tree so what we've been doing is swinging from branch to branch and not getting anywhere. That's why "religion" is so frustrating--because behavior modification doesn't work. If I don't do something because it's "evil" but it's what I really want to do... then all I'm really doing is prolonging the agony of struggling not to do it. BUT if I understand that sin is not what I do, but what I believe, then I have something that can bring about actual, real, lasting change. And when I say "bring about," I really mean "bring forth." Because the change that needed to happen took place 2,000 years ago on the cross when we were conformed into the image of God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. When we were translated out of the power of darkness and into the Kingdom of God's dear Son. When we died with Him (He died for us and as us) and then rose with Him. When God poured out His Spirit on all flesh. And that's the key. Because before the cross we couldn't believe that God could love us, because we judged everything by appearance. We judged OURSELVES by our actions. Colossians 1:21-22 says it like this, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." We thought God was mad at us. So we hid from His presence. Without the Holy Spirit His love was too good to be true. We didn't believe we deserved it. We couldn't receive it. Even though it was the one thing we were desperately yearning for. Which is why we tried to earn it. Knowledge of good and evil. If I know enough about good and evil I can do good (and be rewarded) and stop doing evil (and avoid punishment). But that was never what God wanted for us. He told Adam, "But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). The tree of knowledge of good and evil was the tree of death. And eating from it could only produce death. Behavior modification robs us of life. It keeps us in bondage. Dead in our trespasses and sins. What God wanted for us was the OTHER tree in the garden of Eden. The Tree of Life. And the fruit (of the Spirit) that the Tree of Life produces? LOVE! God wanted for us to feast on His love! In 1 John 4:8 when John tells us that "God is love," the word love there means love feast! Our appetite (which is NOT to sin, but to be loved) can only be satisfied if we eat the right meal. Bread and wine. Lamb. Love. If you're hungry, if you're thirsty, if you're in need of something... you have to go to the source. Love is all we need, and God is love. He IS the source. HE is all we need!