Edification part 4

04/24/2020 20:03

I keep saying it, and I'm going to keep saying it: We're all in this together. So check this out: "Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do" (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Comfort yourselves together. Because we're all in this together. Edify one another. It's a give and a take. Receiving and releasing. And that's the thing that's so cool about relationships-- it's a ying and a yang. Sometimes you pick up the slack, and sometimes you let them pick up the slack. There's a theme song on one of my favorite shows that goes, "I can't do this all on my own... I'm no Superman." It's so true. We can't do it all on our own. And we're not supposed to. Even Matthew 18:20 says, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." When we come together... it's powerful. Things work out better when we work together. There are things that I cannot do. That you can. So if I try to do things that I'm not supposed to, not only am I robbing you from doing what you were meant to do, but I'm probably going to screw it up because I'm not supposed to do it! It's a double threat. Good for nobody. Now, on the other hand, if we edify each other, build each other up, that's when things really do work out better. The tide raises all ships. A victory by one person doesn't have to be a defeat for another. We can root for each other. Support each other. Help each other. We can make things better for each other. See a need in someone else and meet it. Let what's inside come out. Fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with. And the coolest part is, when we edify each other... we are also, in a sense, edifying ourselves. We get a side bonus, if I can say it that way. If you want to feel love... love someone. You get what you give, if I can say it that way. You experience what you put out there. You manifest what you magnify in your life. What you feed is what will grow. So if you feed the PEOPLE in your life... they will grow. Feed them love and they will flourish. I always say love to a human is like gas to a car. Without it you can't go anywhere or do anything. It's that important. We were built to be love machines--and not in a weird way, stay with me. We were created to receive and release love. That's why, when we feel like we aren't getting any love... everything is off. Everything suffers. Another song lyric, "What you got if you ain't got love? The kind that you just want to give away..." If we don't have love we really don't have anything. Nothing that matters, anyway. Didn't Paul write about counting everything but Christ as dung? So in order to experience what we've got, we have to give it away. Because love IS giving. And when we love each other, we edify each other. We equip and empower each other to experience the life that we are experiencing--the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love that is the life of God! You can't experience love all on your own. You need to receive it and release it. You need other people. You need those bonds and those connections. Those relationships. We need each other. We're all in this together. And the best way to experience that is to edify one another!