Edification part 3
I don't know why it seems like it's easier to break things down than to build them up. Especially when one of those (the building) is so much more postive and important. Train a child up in the way he SHOULD go and he will not depart from it. Set that strong foundation and build on it. "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). He is our foundation. And He is love. So love is our foundation. That's what we build on. That's how (and why) we edify each other; because we love each other. Look at 2 Corinthians 13:10, "Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction." Those, to me, are the two sides of the coin. Edification and destruction. We can either build people up or tear them down. We can either help or hurt. And, as I was trying to say yesterday, the thing to understand is that love focuses on others more than it does on itself. Esteeming others higher than ourselves. Taking care of the things of others and not just ourselves. If you're ok with something, but someone else isn't... put them first. Don't do that thing--or at least don't do it around them. You don't have to flaunt your freedom. Especially if it makes someone else feel like they aren't free. Putting others first is the sacrificial, agape, God love. He laid His life down for us. Literally gave His life for us, and to us. For no other reason than He loved us and wanted us to have it. He wanted us to experience His life so He gave it to us. Period. And that's what we can now do for each other. We can love one another as Jesus loves us. That is, in fact, the New Commandment for the New Man. Receive and release God's love. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Let God love us with every breath we take and every move we make and love Him back by loving people with every breath we take and every move we make. That's the Divine Order of things. That's how this life--this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life--is supposed to work. But it has to start with Him. He is the foundation that was laid. We love... because God first loved us. Listen. You can't give what you don't have and you can only give what you do have. God gave us His love. Because He didn't want our destruction. He didn't want us to perish. He wanted us to live. To have everlasting life. And, as we know, to live is to love and to love is to live. Living and loving aren't just connected. They are the same thing. When we love people... we live. We experience that life that Jesus gave to us. Because when we love people... HE is living HIS life in us, and through us, and as us. And watch this--which is where I think I'm going for tomorrow's Rant--when we edify others, we are also edifying ourselves. When we build that bond with someone else it also strengthens us. The tide raises all ships. We are all in this together so the stronger we ALL are... the better off we ALL are!