Consuming Fire part 5
When you are totally consumed with, and by, the love of God... that's when what's inside you--the love of God--comes out of you. When you set your affection on things above, that's when things on the earth stop dragging you down. Jesus can, and will, and does keep us from falling. LOVE can, and will, and does keep us from falling. And the more we focus on that love--the more we are consumed by it--the more it manifests in our lives. What you feed is what will grow. What you starve, by denying it your three t's (Time, Talent, Treasure) is what will whither and die. See, I hear so many times that God is all-powerful. And I'm not denying that. Of course He's all-powerful. Otherwise He wouldn't be God. But what that really means is that LOVE is all-powerful. And that DOESN'T mean simply most powerful. Like... things other than love are powerful, but love wins by the skin of His teeth. No. All-powerful means ALL of the power. Nothing else has any power. Except the power that we give it when we give it our attention and energy. We make mountains out of molehills. We let stuff get into us. And then it's hard to get out of it. Or past it. Or through it. When, in reality, all we have to do is let what's already inside us come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Instead of trying to get something we think we haven't got, we can simply give what we have got. We can let what's inside come out by filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. We can let God love us--burn us up... consume us--and then we can love Him back by loving each other. I think if we made a conscious effort to make God--LOVE--first choice instead of last chance we could save ourselves a lot of hurt and struggle and heartache. I think if we were as interested in God as He is in us a lot of things would be different in our lives. We wouldn't be so worried about all the stuff we get worried about. We would be able to trust the master plan of the Creator of the universe. All things work together for our good. So we don't need to force everything to be exactly what we think it should be. We can let it go and let it flow. Let go and let God, as they say. When His fire burns... it consumes everything except itself (Himself). Leaving only love remaining. When everything else burns up... love remains. Because love never fails. Because love endures. Love is the Alpha and Omega. The first and the last. The beginning and the end. And everything in between. It's all about love. Love is the Holy Ghost wildfire that feeds on itself and burns and burns and burns until there is nothing left BUT itself. It's like a snowball rollilng downhill, if I can totally mix my metaphors. It just grows and grows. Think about it, love is infectious. When you toss it around like confetti it gets all over everything. So don't be stingy with your love. Be consumed by it. Let the fire burn. Give what you've got instead of always trying to get what you think you haven't got. Trust the plan. Trust that your life is in your heavenly Father's hands. All things work together for good. The fire burns everything away except itself (Himself). Love burns everything away except love itself (Himself)!