Eternal Life part 4
A life without beginning or end. A life that isn't determined by what you do, but by who you are. A life filled to overflowing with love. That's what Jesus gave us when He gave us Himself. When He gave His life for us, and gave His life to us. When God poured His Spirit out on all flesh. He took what we (thought we) had and showed us a more excellent way. It's like the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Only, we can do better than that. "When life gives you lemons, stop taking what life gives you and start living out of the abundance of the Kingdom!" It was God's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. He didn't want us to have to work for it, or try to earn it. He just wanted us to have it. He wanted us to be able to enjoy it. To share it. He wanted us to be able to partake of the Divine Nature. And that's why--again--Jesus gave His life for us... AND He gave His life TO us. Because He wanted us to have it. Our heavenly Father wanted the best for us, so He gave the best to us. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). See, it's not what we DO that allows us to have everlasting life. It's what we BELIEVE. Because what we do FLOWS from what we believe. You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. That's why it's so vitally important that we know and believe the love of Christ. When we know that we are loved... that's when we have love to give. When we know that we are loved... that's when we can love. And that's how we truly live. To live is to love and to love is to live. 1 John 3:14 says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." So even though we are alive, without love we abide in death. Love is what makes abundant life abundant. Love is what makes everlasting life everlasting. Love is what makes eternal life eternal. Because love never fails. It never goes away. Just as God promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us. He's always with us--LOVE is always with us. Forever and ever. And if it's always with us, always present, then all we have to do is believe it. We don't have to earn it. And thank God for that because we CAN'T earn it. Under religion there's always one thing we lack. The Law points out our failures. It demands perfection without being able to produce perfection. We work ourselves to death trying to live. We perish because we're trying to be someone we're not and we're trying to get something we haven't got. That's not life. And that's CERTAINLY not eternal life. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love each other. And the only way to truly love each other is to know and believe that we are loved. To receive and release the love of God. The gift of God. Eternal life!