Life part 4
When you stop trying so hard and just let what's inside come out... that's when you can begin to truly live. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. Love is what's inside. And all we have to do is let it out. Notice: I said LET it out, not FORCE it out. I don't think you should have to "fake it 'til you make it." I think Jesus gave His life for us, and gave His life to us, so that we can experience it. Not so that we can try really hard, but so that we can rest. He did it all so we could get it all. He finished the work so that we could enjoy the fruit of His labor. Look at John 7:38 in the NLT, "Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'" The very thing we thirst for is the very thing that's already in our hearts! We look for love in all the wrong places, when all we need to do is look within. All we need to do is look into the mirror with an unveiled face, see the glory of the Lord, and be changed into that image from glory to glory. See that? We start at glory. We start with everything we need. Just like in the Wizard of Oz, we go through this great journey to GET something, and we find out that we had it all along. We couldn't have completed the journey without it. But there's a key here and it's found in Matthew 7:7, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Now don't get it confused. I just said we can't be looking for love in all the wrong places. In order to find it, you have to seek it. But not in the sense of it's something you don't have. You need to seek it in the sense of EXPLORING it. Believe in Him and you can come and drink. Ephesians 3:17-18 (NLT), "Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is." Your roots will grow down into His love. And then--once you understand that you're connected to the source--you can stop looking FOR something and you can start looking AT something. You can start looking AT what you've got. You can start enjoying the gift you've been given--eternal life... knowing the Father in the context of being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--by receiving it and releasing it. By sharing it. How else can you understand how high, and wide, and deep, and long His love is for you unless you USE that love? That's how you seek it. That's how you test it, as the KJV says. That's how you experience it. Love is experienced when we give it away. God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son. So that we might know that we ARE His Son. So that we might know Him as a loving heavenly Father. So that we might love Him by loving each other. That's how we experience Jesus' life. We let HIM live it in us, and though us, and as us. We let Him reveal Himself to us, and in us, and through us. We let what's inside come out. By knowing and believing that it's in there. By filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Not by trying to get something, but by giving away what we have. That's what it means to truly live. That's the abundant life that Jesus came for us to have!