Listen and Live part 4
If you want to live... you have to love. Because living and loving aren't just connected... they are the same thing! To live is to love and to love is to live. But you can't give what you don't have. So if you want to live (by loving) you have to first know that you ARE loved. That's why faith comes from hearing. Remember, God dealt to every man the measure of faith (Romans 12:3). He gave us something (someONE, Jesus, love) to believe in. By giving us the Word. Let me say it like this: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). And notice that its the truth you KNOW that makes you free. The finished work of the cross is, well, finished. God did everything He needed to do over 2,000 years ago. We don't need a move of God. God already moved. What we need is a revelation of Jesus. What we need is to KNOW what that move of God was! We need to KNOW the truth so that what's already true can be true... for us. And we know the truth when we hear it. When we see it. Right? Eyes to see and ears to hear. We know the truth when that still, small voice inside us whispers, "I love you." Because that's the Word. That's the truth. That's Jesus. A heavenly Father loving the Son in whom He is well pleased. And that Son--US... His body--living because of that affirmation. Because of that love. Look at John 6:57, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." I think this is important. Because it seems like so often we have the (slave) mindset of living FOR God. As if He's giving the orders and we better follow them or else. When the truth of the matter is, Jesus lived BY the Father. And when we eat of Him--the bread of life... the Lamb... the six course love feast prepared for us in the presence of our enemies--we live BY Him. Because then we know what's inside. We've eaten it. Consumed it. And what's inside WILL come out. Or rather, what you know and believe is inside will come out. The truth that you KNOW sets you free. The Word that you've HEARD gives you the measure of faith. And then that faith grows and grows as God continues to prove Himself faithful. That's the biggest problem I see with "praise and worship"... we use it as a way to try to get God to move. You don't praise someone to try to get something from them. That's called flattery, and its usually pretty fake. Manipulation. If you're trying to manipulate God I think you've probably taken a wrong turn somewhere. (But its ok, because God allows u-turns.) Praise isn't about what someone WILL do, or MIGHT do. Praise is about what someone HAS DONE. The FINISHED work. That's why we praise God. Because He did what needed to be done. Because He gave us what we needed to have. Which is Him. He gave His only begotten Son. And then Jesus gave His life FOR us, and TO us. So that we might have it. So that we might live, by letting HIM live in us, and through us, and as us. So that we might be made free. Freed from the bondage of sin and death. Freed from the lie that says you have to do in order to be. Freed by the truth. What else could defeat the lie but the truth? What else could defeat death but abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life? That's what we've been given. That's what's available to us. If we will listen... and live!