Inclosed part 2
We are a garden. GOD'S garden. He is the One who planted it (us) and He is the one who dresses and keeps it (us). Look Song of Solomon 4:16, "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." I love that so much. Because it tells us how we let what's inside come out--the wind of the Holy Spirit, faith, knowing and believing that what God says is in us... is in us--and because it tells us that our Beloved eats His pleasant fruits. What does that mean? In a nutshell, "And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which siad, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). When God eats of the fruit that He has planted in us... it makes Him a proud papa. A well pleased heavenly Father. When what He has planted in us comes out of us... that puts a smile on God's face. Which means it puts a smile on OUR face, because we are the visible face of the invisible God. We are God's expression. His love letter to the world. And, as always, this is not about what we do as much as it is about who we are. What you do IS important. Don't get it twisted. Your actions and choices matter. What you do matters. But what you do flows from what you believe. Either way Christ's love controls us. Either we know we are loved and do everything we do because that love we have is too great to keep to ourselves and we just have to share it... or we don't know that we're loved and we do everything we do in order to get that love that we think we don't have. One way is banging our heads against the wall and ending up with nothing but a headache. The other way is a more excellent way. Simply receiving and releasing the love we've been given. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. Letting Him eat the fruit of our garden--the love that we have... and the love that we are--by feeding the people we come into contact with. Whatsoever you do unto the least of them you do unto the King, right? How we treat people is how we relate to God. If we're always trying to get something (love) from people, it means we don't know and believe that we are loved (by God). But if we love people, that can only come from God first loving us. You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. What you know and believe that you do have. So letting God love you is the first step. Receiving. So that you have something to release. But that's the second step. That's the fulness. The whole point. Love is never about getting, because love IS giving. We don't have to get anything because Jesus has already given us everything. He gave us Himself. Laid His life down for us. Did all of the heavy lifting. Finished the work. Jesus did that... because He loved us. Gave His life for us and to us simply because He loves us and wants us to have it. To experience it. And we experience that life of love... by loving people. By giving what we've got. By giving everything we have and everything we are. The greatest love a man can have is to lay his life down for his friends. And to know that everybody is a friend... whether they know it or not. To know that we destroy our enemies by making them our friends. Pouring hot fiery coals of love on people, not to hurt them or burn them, but to melt their hearts. That's the kind of stuff that I believe God gets excited about. That's the fruit that He wants to eat. The fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. And He eats it, and enjoys it, and is proud of us, when we share that fruit. When we let what's inside come out by knowing and believing it's in there!