Disciple part 5
To end this Rant series I want to talk about Luke 6:40, "The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master." And, listen, I don't want to get stuck on the first part. But I will address it. Being a disciple is NOT about elevating yourself. Because its a disciple of Jesus. A student of love. And the greatest expression of love that a man can have is laying His life DOWN for His friends. Its not a "the student has become the master" type of thing. Because God's love is unfathomable. The deeper we go into His love, the deeper we find that we can go. Its a love without end. A never-ending life-long journey into the heart of the matter. Which is the heart. God's heart beating with love in our chests. But that's all I want to say about the first part, for today. Because I want to focus on the second part. The "every one that is perfect shall be as his master" part. And, right off the bat, that's NOT about "perfection" as in, "I never make a mistake." Everybody makes mistakes. If you don't make mistakes you can't learn from your mistakes. Learning and growing. A STUDENT of love. Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Perfect in the Bible means mature. And the more mature we become--in love--the more we are like Him. The more we are our true selves. Look at 1 John 3:2, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Seeing is believing. When we see Him--when He appears to us, and in us, and through us, and as us--that's when we know what WE look like. That's when we know what LOVE looks like. Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. Learning to be who we truly are by learning who God truly is. The heavenly Father who loves His Son unconditionally. God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. That's the dynamic. That's what we need to learn. We need to learn that Daddy loves us no matter what. Not because of what we do, but because of who we are. Because of who HE is. God IS love. And I think that's actually a hard concept to wrap our heads around. Because we see Him as a distant, angry, taskmaster who is just out to get us. Guys. On the cross, God got us. He drew us all into Himself. Planted Himself in all of us. The reason we can even BE a student of love is because He gave us His love. Filled us up with it. So all we have to do to be "perfect" is fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing--by LEARNING--that its in there. When He appears we shall be like Him. When LOVE appears... its us!