Kill 'Em part 5
Be the change you want to see in the world, right? Fighting fire with fire (in the traditional "eye for an eye" sense) just leaves everybody burned to the ground. You can't overcome evil with evil. You have to show people a more excellent way. And that more excellent way is THE Way (the Truth, and the Life) that is Jesus. That is love. That's what heaping fiery coals onto someone's head is REALLY all about--again, not burning them, but instead melting their hearts. Destroying your enemies by making them your friends. Killing them with kindness. Killing them all. I think on of the things we lose sight of when we're talking about giving what we've got is that what we've got was freely given to us. Look at Matthew 10:8, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." I want to focus on the receiving and the giving (or receiving and releasing, as I like to put it) but let's take a quick second to make the point that the things we are to give--the things we have received--are much more than monetary things. We get caught up a lot of times with the idea of money. And Ecclesiastes 10:19 DOES say, "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things." So I'm not saying we don't need money to live. Paul said if you don't work you don't eat. But I AM saying, in the grand scheme of things, there are more important things than money. Like raising people from the dead. Just as WE were raised from the dead. Freely we received it, freely we ought to give it. Before the cross we--all of us, the human race--were dead in our trespasses and sins. Then Jesus was raised up from the earth, and drew us all into Himself, and died. So we got a second death. He killed us all. With the kindness of His sacrifice. He gave His life FOR us, and He gave His life TO us. He died--and us in Him--so that we might live. And not just live ANY life, but live HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Jesus is lived by us when we let Him live it in us, and through us, and as us. In order to have a new life, we needed a new birth. And before that new birth we needed the second death. The death OF death. And now, in the same way that we have the ministry and the word of reconciliation because God was in Christ reconciling us to Himself, we now have the word (LOVE) of life. But in a very real sense, in order to GET to that word of life, we have to first identify with that second death. We have to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive unto God. We have to receive the gift of God--eternal life--that we have already been given. And then we can share that gift. We can give it away. And when we understand that we are connected to that limitless source of life (love), we don't have to be afraid to give it away. Because when we give it away we don't lose it. We EXPERIENCE it. And when we understand how freely it was given--it cost Jesus a lot, but He didn't charge us anything--we can freely give it away. To anyone. To everyone. By tweet that started this Rant series went like this: "Kill 'em with kindness. Kill 'em all." And that's how I want to end this Rant series too. Kill 'em with kindness. Kill 'em all!