Faith Walking part 5
Faith walking is the opposite of sleepwalking. When--before the cross--we were asleep at the wheel, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were trapped in the lie of unbelief. The lie that says we have to do in order to be. The lie that says we have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. The lie that says we have to earn God's love and acceptance. Faith walking, on the other hand, is walking in newness of life. Living by believing. Knowing the truth and letting the truth that you know set you free and make you free. Free FROM sin and death. Free TO live and love. I'm telling you right now, if we really based our lives--everything we do and everything we are--on the truth that our heavenly Father loves us... I think everything would feel different. The truth that is already true (always has been and always will be) would become true for us. And then, like Jesus, we would live in perfect harmony with the Father. John 6:57 says it like this, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." And notice that we are not living FOR the Father. We are not trying to earn anything FROM the Father. We eat and drink the love feast that IS God, and it sustains us. It fills us up to overflowing with what we've been filled with. And we live BY the Father. He gave us everything we would or could ever need when He gave us His only begotten Son. When He gave us His Holy Spirit. When He gave us... Himself. Remember, Jesus didn't just give His life FOR us. He gave His life TO us. So that we could partake of the Divine Nature. So that we could experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. Not by trying to live it, because nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus, but by letting HIM live His own life in, and through, and as us! We don't try to follow in Jesus' foot prints. That's not what faith walking is all about. Instead we let Jesus make His own foot prints with our feet. We let Him take us where He wants us to go. Remember the picture of the wind? No one knows where it comes from or where it's going. But if you let it carry you then you'll get where YOU need to go. Song of Solomon 4:16 uses this same picture of wind, "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits." We have everything we need. But it's not until the wind blows that what's inside comes out. And that's when our beloved comes into the garden and eats His fill. That's when we love God by loving each other. That's when appearance, or what's on the surface, or what the world tries to show us, ceases to matter and we get to the HEART of the matter. Which is God's heart beating with love in our chests. Walk by faith. Live by believing. To live is to love and to love is live. We live by loving. Because we know and believe that we are loved. Have faith in God. Have faith in love. Walk by faith. Live by God. Love with the love you are loved with. Let what's inside come out. Not by trying to force it out, but simply by believing it's in there and knowing it's too good, and too big, to STAY in there. It comes out. Naturally. Because that's our new nature. The love nature!