Charity part 2
Charity is love in action. Love--the agape, selfless, sacrificial God love--is a love feast. Love in action is feeding people. Giving them what they need. What they hunger and thirst for. And let me get this on the record: What you WANT and what you NEED are two very different things. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find... you get what you need. And to me, that's a big part of the difference and distinction between helping people and enabling them. Always giving someone what they want can be massively harmful. But seeing a NEED and meeting it is one of, if not the, purest expressions of love. So when we're talking about charity (and I think I'm going to spend tomorrow on the idea of people who are too proud to accept charity, and give it an almost negative connotation, but we'll get there), when we're talking about charity we're simply talking about acts of kindness. Acts of love. Inviting people to that love feast that Jesus prepared for us. Not shoving it down people's throats (and causing them to choke on it, spit it up, vomit it out of their mouths) but making it look attractive. Showing people that there IS a more excellent way and His name is Jesus. His name is love. And watch this, because this is one of my favorite parts: When you SHARE a meal with someone--a feast, an all you can eat buffet--you get to experience the food too. Let me say it like this: If you want to feel love... love someone. If you want to feel forgiveness... forgive someone. It is in the giving that we receive. That's why I talk about receiving and releasing. Receiving BY releasing. And releasing by receiving. It's all so wrapped up together that it is basically all the same thing. God loves me and because He loves me I can love you. And I love Him BY loving you because He loves me. It gets really sticky, if I can say it that way, but in a good way. Because we are all in this together. Stuck with each other, if I can say it that way. So making the best of it is beneficial for everybody. The tide lifts all ships. When I love you I might be filling you up with the love you need to love someone else. It's a Holy Ghost wildfire that feeds on itself with consuming itself (like Moses's burning bush), and grows and grows. It consumes everything else until there is nothing left but love itself (Himself). Look at Matthew 19:28 in the Amplified Bible, "Jesus said to them, Truly I saw to you, in the new age [the Messianic rebirth of the world], when the Son of Man shall sit down on the throne of glory, you who have [become My disciples, sided wtih My party and] followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel." The Messianic rebirth of the world. The new age. What happened when the cross brought us out of the old and into the New. Jesus remade the world in HIS image. In the image of love. And He conformed us to that self-same image. Our new (true) nature is the love nature. The love inside of us coming out of us as we know and believe and LET God love us. That's a big part of tomorrow's Rant. Letting the God who IS love... love us. Accepting His charity so that we have something to give to each other. Love in action. God's love flowing into us, and through us, and out of us... into each other!