New Beginning part 5
The New Beginning is all about, well, NEW. Not the same old same old. Not another crack at trying your best, and good luck to you. No, it is literally the life of God (Who IS life) filling us to overflowing and bursting out through the seams. Its about the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God. Which is literally a life of love. Because love is everlasting. Love is eternal. Love is what makes the abundant life... abundant. And love is what brought Jesus back to life after He gave His life for us and to us. Look at 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." And see, we were already IN death. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were the walking dead from the moment Adam (our representative at the time) ate from the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil). And just real quick, Adam dying was not God punishing Him. That was simply the natural consequence of his action. And if you think about it, what else could have possibly happened? God warned Adam. If you eat from the tree of death... you will surely die. Well. Yeah. But God didn't want that to be the end of the story. So He gave us a New Beginning. A completely new story. He gave us the only thing that could bring us out of death and into life--LOVE! Love is the difference between life and death. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. Living and loving aren't just connected. They are the same thing. That's really what this New Beginning is all about--its about love. But it shouldn't surprise you by now that I think its all about love. In the beginning we were wandering around in the dark, trying to fill that God-shaped (love-shaped) void by looking for love in all the wrong places. By trying to earn something that can't be earned. Then the cross happened. We were drawn out of Adam and into Christ. Out of death and into life. Because God gave us His Spirit. The Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth. The truth that God is love and He loves you. The truth that the very thing we were trying to earn (and robbing ourselves of enjoying) is the very thing we've always had. We just didn't know it. Couldn't believe it. God's love seems too good to be true. So He proved it to us by laying His life down for us. By giving His life TO us. Picking His life back up and living it in us, and through us, and as us. Jesus walked on water (I think, in large part) to prove to us that we could walk in newness of life. That the old rules didn't apply anymore. Why else would He walk through a locked door, or things of that nature? He wanted to show us that we didn't know it all. We didn't have it all figured out. The things we took for granted weren't necessarily true. Being convinced that we didn't deserve love CERTAINLY wasn't true. See... God's love isn't too good to be true. It is so good that it MUST be true. Because it is the truth. And the way. And the life. God's love is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. The endless New Beginning!