My Favorite part 5
It saddens me to see that people still struggle with duality. With good and evil. Because, as James 1:8 says, "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." Like we have "Christian times" and then the idea--and I saw this in a movie, so I'm pretty sure its a common idea--that sometimes "God's gonna sit this one out." We have this idea, even IN church, that we need to "make" the Holy Spirit move. MAKE the Holy Spirit show up. When, in reality, there is NO separation between God and man. To the point where God LIVES in man. He lives in us. So what we need to do is settle that issue. Look at these two verses so I can kind of try to tie this thing together. First, John 10:30, "I and my Father are one." Jesus said that. In the red letters. Now add this to that: "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17). As Jesus is, so are Jesus. Jesus and the Father are One. WE are one with the Father. We don't summon His presence. Its not "break glass in case of emergency" and then genie God shows up to grant our wishes. Its Him living in us. All of the time. Us living in Him. All of the time. Praying without ceasing. And, just for kicks, I looked up the meaning of the word "pray" in my favorite Bible verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, and "pray" means, "to pray to God, that is, supplicate, worship." And here's the thing about worship--you don't worship in order to get something. You worship because you have something. This idea that we have to do something in order to get God to do something has to go. That's not how it works. We love because He FIRST loved us. We love because HE filled us with His love. And now we love BY filling ourselves to overflowing with the love that we've already been filled with. You don't praise someone in order to get them to do something. That's not real praise. That's manipulation. You praise someone because they've done something worthy of praise. You worship someone because they deserve it, not SO THAT they'll deserve it. That's backwards. So when we pray--talking AND listening... supplicating and worshipping--without ceasing, its really about being aware of God at all times. That attitude of gratitude. That lifestyle of praise and worship. Giving thanks for what we've got, instead of trying to get stuff we think we haven't got. Love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. We'll always be swinging from one branch to the next on the tree of knowledge of good and evil--He loves me, He loves me not--until we completely get off that tree. Its not about turning over a new leaf as much as its about getting on the right tree. The Tree of Life. Eating the fruit of that Tree, the fruit of the Spirit, which is love. Feasting on love. Knowing and believing that we have the love of God. That's worthy of praise and worship, isn't it? That can erase the duality, can't it? Because its ALL about love. Life is all about love. To live is to love and to love is to live. We can't do one without the other because they are the same thing. So praying without ceasing is loving without ceasing. Living without ceasing--which sounds to me like the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God!