Habitation part 3
Some people come home and just crash. I get that. Its our safe place. Its where we feel comfortable. Where we can let our guard down. But its also where we can be productive. Because there are--or CAN BE, anyway--less distractions. We don't have to deal with the outside world so much when we're at home. So it can--and should--be a place of rest. A place of recharging. Filling ourselves back up, in a sense, after we've emptied ourselves out. And it can also be a base of operations. When you invite someone into your home, that's an intimate thing. Kind of a big deal. Because that's where you live. That's where you sleep. Now let's apply all of this to what we've been speaking of the last couple of days. God is our habitation. We are His habitation. We are where God lives. He is where we live. We live in Him. He lives in us. We live in LOVE. Love lives in us. And I'm telling you--I read somewhere that one of the best things you can do when you have a baby is to sleep with their blanket before you give it to them... so that it smells like you. Smells like home. Smells like love. I'm telling you, you can't have a better night sleep than when you know you're loved. There have been times in my life when I couldn't sleep. When I couldn't shut my brain off. And normally it was about relationships. Either ones I wanted, and didn't have... or ones that weren't what I thought they should be... or things of that nature. Because I think I realized pretty young that the important thing in life is people. Relationship. The connections we make with each other. And, really, the only connection we can make with each other--the only connection WORTH making with each other--is love. Its so important that we understand that you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. You can't love someone unless you know and believe that you are loved. You can't give love unless you have love, right? Makes sense? So you have to come from that base of operations. You have to come from your home. Your habitation. Your dwelling place. When you dwell in love its because you know (and believe) that you are loved. Because love--Jesus, God--dwells in you. He builded us together as His habitation. And, again, the only connection that lasts--the only connection that matters--is love. He builded us together. He connected us together. Different parts of the same body. The body of Christ. The love in us flows out of us. When (one more time) we know and believe that its in there. When we dwell in it. When we let it fill us up to overflowing and flow out. Naturally. Our home is love. That's what I think I'm trying to say. We feel comfortable when we're loved--when we receive God's love. I think maybe tomorrow I'm going to talk about the transition we make when we move into our new (true) home. Our new (true) nature. Our new (true) identity. Which, of course, is Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in our flesh. Love in our body. They say charity starts at home, right? Well, charity is love in action. And it starts inside. In our dwelling place. Our heart. Home is where the heart is. HIS heart beating with love in our chests!