Anyway part 5
We started this Rant series with 2 Corinthians 12:15 in the New Living Translation. I want to end it with the same verse in the King James Version. "And I will gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." I like the NLT version where it talks about giving all I have and all I am. Because that's what love is. Love is giving. Laying your life down for your friends (and realizing that you destroy your enemies by heaping coals of fire on their heads, melting their hearts, and MAKING them friends). Giving it maximum effort. Giving it all you've got. And that's why the "receiving" part of receiving and releasing is so important. You can't give what you don't have. And if you don't know what you have you'll take whatever you can get. You'll take what the world gives you and give it right back. You'll deal with people according to how they deal with you. You'll scratch their backs, but only if they'll scratch yours. And if they love you less for what you're trying to do... well forget them then. But that's not love. Because love is not about getting. It doesn't matter how someone responds. You aren't loving them in order to get a response. You're loving them because your heavenly Father loves you. Period. You're not taking what the world gives you and responding in kind. You're receiving what God has given you and releasing it to everyone you come into contact with. You're sharing what you've got. ANd that's the part I like about the KJV version of our key verse. "...though the more abundantly I love you..." We love abundantly... out of our abundance. And listen, I know Jesus taught a lesson about giving alms and He gave the business to the religious folk who we only giving out of their abundance, while praising the woman who gave all she had. I know that story. But what I'm saying--again--is you can't give what you don't have. And love is what makes the abundant life that Jesus came to give us abundant. Love is the difference between life and death. If you dwell in love you experience Jesus' everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life as He lives it in you, and through you, and as you. If you don't dwell in love you dwell in death. And if you're picking and choosing who you love then you're not dwelling in it. Remember how Peter could heal people just by having his shadow pass over them? What was inside was too big, and too great, and too powerful to be contained. He didn't force it out. He didn't fake it til he made it. He just went about his business and filled himself to overflowing with God's love and it manifested all over the place. Naturally. That's what it's like with us when we stop being self-centered and start being Christ-centered. Which means being people-centered. We love God by loving each other. And we love each other BECAUSE God loves us. That's the kind of endless cycle we need. Love feeding on love. What's in us coming out of us because we couldn't keep it in if we tried. Living an abundant life by loving abundantly because we are abundantly loved! Giving all we have and all we are... spending and being spent... laying our lives down for each other. That's a life worth living. That's what makes it POSSIBLE to live. Because to live is to love, and to love is to live. So don't worry about the particulars. Don't bother with who, what, where, when, why, or how. Just love them anyway!