Disciples part 5
Learning to love by learning how we are loved. That is the essence and the key to being a disciple of Christ. Because a disciple of Christ is a student of love. If you didn't notice, it's all about love. Love is what matters. In my opinion? It is the only thing that matters. God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. Receiving and releasing His love for us, back to Him, by lavishing it on each other. And that's the thing about love--it is extravagant. It is unconditional. It has nothing to do with "derseving" or "earning" it. It is simply given. It is a gift. And that, I think more than anything, is what we need to learn. You can't earn a gift. Freely you have been given, freely you can give. That's how everything in this New Covenant works. In the Old it was do in order to be. In the New it is do BECAUSE you be! In the old it was forgive and you will be forgiven. In the New it is forgive BECAUSE you are forgiven. So instead of trying to get something (love) that we think we haven't got... and thinking trying to get it (usually by being someone we're not) is what makes us disciples... we need to simply understand and accept what we have got. I have no lack because my God has no lack. I can love because I am loved. We simply know and believe the love that God has given to us. We simply fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. And that's how we experience that love that we've been given; we give it away! Because love IS giving. You can't give what you don't have and you can only give what you do have. So knowing and believing that you have it is paramount. If you don't know what you've got, how can you do anything with it? You can't. We love because He first loved us. He gave us something, and because HE did that... we can do something with what HE gave us. We can let what's inside come out. And listen, what you believe is inside WILL come out. It has to. Your belief in it makes it too big and too powerful to stay inside, whatever it is. So if you truly want to be a disciple of Christ, a follower of Christ, a "good Christian" (I hesitate to even use that term because if Christian means Christ-like, then there are no "good" Christians or "bad" Christians) then what you need to do is let God lead you. Teach you. Guide you. Direct you. And protect you! That's my prayer every day. "Thank you, Abba, Father, for leading me, guiding me, directing me, and protecting me." Giving Him glory where it's due, proving to myself that I cannot lean on my own understanding, committing my ways to him, and making sure my focus is where it belongs. When you have an attitude of gratitude it goes a long way towards making everything else fall into place. If you know what you've got and your grateful for it, that goes a long way in making sure you're not chasing something you think you haven't got. It helps the disciple have discipline, if I can say it that way. Which, by the way, is a fruit of the Spirit. Self-control is VERY important. Because you CAN do whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you should. So. Hopefully this Rant series has given us a good foundation to build on, because I'm pretty excited about what comes next. Shout out to Mike and his feedback because now that we can kind of see what it means to BE a disciple--one more time, a student of love... learning how to love by learning how we are loved--now we're going to talk about what disciples are to do. Or, you know, the Great Commission!