All We Need part 2
There's only one thing that can satisfy the desire of your heart. And His name is Jesus. Because the desire of your heart is to be loved. And God IS love. When we understand this simple truth, we can cut out a lot of the STUFF that always tries to get in the way. Or, as Hebrews 12:1 puts it, "...let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." Don't struggle with it, don't fight with it, don't try to overcome it... just lay it aside. Because Jesus already fought with it, and overcame it. And check this out: If Jesus already overcame... then there's nothing left for us to overcome. We are not overcomers because of what WE do. We are overcomers becuase of what HE did. Revelation 12:11 tells us, "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." It's HIS blood and HIS testimony! See, our testimony IS His testimony when we stop loving OUR lives and we realize that it's HIS life IN us! When we understand that His death was OUR death, and HIS life is OUR life! That's when we can stop trying to overcome. Stop trying to earn something that is freely given and can only be received. That's when things get easy. That's when what's inside of us can flow out naturally. When we stop trying to "get" it and simply know and believe that we already have it. This is the hardest thing (for me at least) to really get a hold of. It's like the Wizard of Oz. When we get to the end of the journey, we find out that we've had what we were looking for the entire time! We wasted so much time looking for love in all the wrong places when we could have simply gone straight to the source. We can lay aside the sin (or unbelief) that so easily besets us and we can boldly approach the throne of grace to find grace to help in times of trouble. We can draw from the well of salvation with joy, because we know we are connected to the source. Love is all we need, and love is what we have. Love is who we are! I'm telling you, when you know that you have everything you need, you can stop working and start resting. You can stop trying to earn something and you can just begin to experience and enjoy the gift that you've been given. Love is all we need. Love is to a human being like gas is to a car. It's what fills us up and keeps us going. But cars don't run because they NEED gas. They run ON gas. And that's how it is with us. If we're trying to get love--because we think we don't have it--then we'll always be chasing it. But when we know and believe the love that flows with every beat of God's heart in our chests... that's when we can share what we've got. That's when we can truly live. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. You can't love until you KNOW that you are loved. You can't live until you receive the life that Jesus gave for us and to us on the cross!