Clothed part 4
We have been clothed in the Lamb skin of God. The life of God. The very love of God. And because of that we will never be exposed. We will always be covered. We have what everybody needs. So we don't need to worry about getting anything. We can simply give what we've got. Share it. Spread it around. And in so doing we can experience and enjoy what we've got instead of chasing it. We can receive it and release it instead of trying to earn it. You can't earn a gift. You can only earn wages. And the wages the Bible speaks of are the wages of sin. Which is death. So we don't even need to go there. We ought to just concern ourselves with living the life of God by letting HIM live it in us, and through us, and as us. Resting in Him. Flowing in Him. Hiding and abiding in Him. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they hid from the presence of God. They were naked and ashamed. They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. But as we see in Matthew chapter 21, Jesus cursed the fig tree because even though it looked good... it couldn't bear any fruit. So even though we might look ok when we're trying to hide our... well... humanness, really... it doesn't actually do us any good. We don't need any kind of covering that we could make for ourselves. We need the Lamb skin that God covered us with. And I put that in the past tense intentionally. Because it's already a done deal. We have what we need to have and we are who we need to be. The trap we fall into is trying to be someone we're not in order to get something (love) that we think we haven't got. Looking for love in all the wrong places. Chasing the carrot but only ever getting the stick. That's not what God wants for us. That's not what any father would want for his son. So we need to let go of that worldly preconceived notion of the "natural order of things." And, listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't work hard. I'm saying you shouldn't work hard in the hopes of earning love. Love can't be earned. Respect must be earned, but love cannot be. Love is freely given and must be received. The harder you try to get it, the more you rob yourself from experiencing it. Because you already have it. Have always had it. Will always have it. The trick is, in order to experience what you have, you have to give it away. Because we're talking about love. And love is giving. We're talking about laying our lives down. Esteeming other people higher than ourselves. Being clothed in righteousness--there is nothing more righteous than loving people. Being clothed in holiness--there is nothing more holy than loving people. I think tomorrow I want to end this Rant series with the idea of Jesus wrapping Himself in human flesh. In a sense clothing Himself with US so that we could understand what it means to be clothed with Him. "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." What did they see? A man who loved people. A man who was willing to give everything He was and everything He had for people that didn't even (consciously) want it or accept it. Because that's what love is. Love is giving. And when you're clothed in it... then you have something to give!