Fruit part 5
You are what you eat. That's what it comes down to. What you consume, what you fill yourself up with, is what will come out of you. Because what's inside--what you BELIEVE is inside--is too big to STAY inside. It has to come out. We all live from the inside out, whether we realize it or not. Here's the choice we have: What we feed is what will grow. What we starve is what will die. What you magnify in your life is what will manifest in your life. That's where your measure of free will really comes in. You get to choose where to set your affection. Now look at Colossians 3:2-3, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." The what... and the why. What to do... and why (and how) we can do it. It is the power of God working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. He puts the want to in us, and the ability to. So all we have to do--as always--is receive it and release it. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Let God love you and love Him back by loving the people you come into contact with. Whatsoever you do unto the least of them you do unto the King. The trick is that you can't give what you don't have (how could you?) and you can only give what you do have (what else could you?). So you need to KNOW what you have. You need to receive first, so that you can release. You need to know what you've got so you can give what you've got. Eat the fruit, then bear it. Eat it... and share it. God is love. That means love feast. That means more than enough for everybody who might want some. There's plenty of room at Papa God's table. According to Psalm 23:5, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." We have everything we need. Just exactly when we need it. Because Jesus prepared it for us. The six course meal that is the Six Steps to the Throne. When Jesus was Crucified, Died, Buried, Quickened, Raised, and Seated, He did all of the heavy lifting. He did what needed to be done. When He died we died. And now our life is hid in Him. Hid in love. You can't find your life without finding it in love. You can't live without love because to live IS to love. Jesus did all of the heavy lifting and now we get to enjoy the fruit of His labor. Jesus did all of the heavy lifting (and finished the work), and now we can rest. The fruit of the Spirit is love. That's what we feast on. That's what we fill ourselves with--now that HE has filled us with it--and that's what overflows out of us. Receiving and releasing. Eating and sharing. Freely we have received, freely we can (and ought to) give. So don't feel bad about the blessings God has put in your life. Just realize that you are blessed... to be a blessing. Just realize that you have abundance so that you can live out of that abundance. And realize that love is what makes the abundant life... abundant. Love is what makes life worth living. And love is what makes it possible to live. Love is what makes the world go 'round. As the Beatles once said, "All you need is love. Love is all you need." So when we think about fruit... when we think about our diet... eating healthy... being healthy... it's all about love. Letting God love us and loving Him back by loving each other. Letting God love us (receiving), and loving Him back by loving each other (releasing). I think tomorrow I'm really going to hone in on tending the garden. Tending YOUR OWN garden. So tonight I just want to finish this Rant series with the truth that the fruit of the Spirit is love. We feast on it by eating it, and by sharing it. By giving it away!