Immortality part 5
If we're talking about life--which is, believe it or not, most of what Jesus talked about--then we're talking about love. So if we're talking about living forever, then we're talking about loving forever. Because love never fails. It LASTS forever. Immortality isn't necessarily about our human bodies never dying. Immortality is about what we do with them, and LEAVING something that lasts. LIVING while we have this opportunity to live. Giving what we've got instead of always trying to get something we think we haven't got. Living out of our abundance. And, like I always say, what makes this abundant life abundant... is love. That's what we have. That's what we give. That's how we live. Forever. I tried to focus a little bit on how everlasting doesn't have a beginning or an end. It always has been and always will be. Because it seems like we're waiting for one thing to end before another can start. When really, its available to us right now. All we have to do is put it on. BE transformed into what we've already BEEN transformed into. By the renewing of your mind. By letting the mind of Christ (that's already in you) BE in you. You don't DO in order to be. You do BECAUSE you be. You don't love in order to be loved. You love because you ARE loved. You don't kill yourself trying to GET a life. You were crucified with Christ and He GAVE you HIS life! That's the gift of God--immortality, eternal life, knowing the Father in the context of being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--and we already have it! We don't need to GET anything. Certainly not by loving. That's backwards. Love IS giving. We don't love in order to get. We love because we have. Because the God who IS love first loved us. He gave us everything He had and everything He was on the cross. So that we might know and believe His love for us. So that we might be able to receive and release His love for us. So that we might come out of darkness and into the light. Out of death and into life! That's what happened when Life Himself died on the cross--the old passed away and the new came forth. Death could not hold life down. Life wins. LOVE wins! There is nothing holding us back from experiencing this gift--the life of living and loving--except unbelief. And Jesus took that away. He took away the sin of the world. He gave us something (someONE, Himself, LOVE) to believe in. He gave us the Holy Spirit--the love receptor, the Spirit of Truth--to defeat the lie. So now we can just ignore the lie. We don't even need to fight it, because Jesus won the war to end all wars on the cross. All we need to do is fight the good fight and faith and believe in love. Even when it seems too good to be true. ESPECIALLY when it seems too good to be true. Because the truth is, love is SO good that it (HE) must be true! Jesus came that we might have LIFE and that more abundantly. So He gave us what we needed in order to experience that life. He gave us HIS life. He gave us His Spirit. He gave us Himself. So that HE could live His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, immortal, Resurrection Life in us, and through us, and as us. So that we could enjoy the gift we were given. So that we could know and believe that we are loved, and so that we could love each other with that same love. That's what life is all about. And a life of love will never end. Because love lasts forever!