No Ill part 1
I always seem to come back to the nature of love. We have the love nature. Our new (true) nature that was revealed to us when Jesus laid His life down on the cross. When Jesus gave His life for us and to us. Love is not just what God does, love is who God is. And as He is, so are we in this world. So love is not just what we are capable of. Love is who we are. Love wrapped up in a human body. Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in your flesh. Love in your body. The Word (which is Jesus, which is love) made flesh. We have the love nature. We have the love of God inside us. The trick is getting what's inside to come out. And we do that by knowing and believing that it (HE) is in there. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Letting God love the hell out of us so we can love Him back by loving each other. These are things that I know. So I preach and teach and Rant on them constantly. But what I want to explore for the next few days is... since we have the love nature, we ought to understand the nature of love. And there's no better place in Scripture to see the nature of love than "The Love Chapter." 1 Corinthians 13. A literal list of things that love (or charity, love in action) is all about. A personality profile of Jesus. A look into the mirror of who we really are. Because when you read all that stuff you can't come at from the idea of, "These are the things I need to do." You don't do in order to be. You do BECAUSE you be. What you do flows from what you believe. When you start to see yourself in those things--I AM patient, instead of "I need to be patient"--that's when you can stop trying to be someone you're not. And I've heard it preached many times that when you ask God to give you patience, He gives you opportunities to be patient. Kind of a "learn by doing" scenario. So be careful what you wish for, right? But the verse that struck me when I was getting ready to start this new Rant series is Romans 13:10, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." And I want to get into the "fulfilling of the law" part... but not today. Today I can't get past the phrase, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour." Think about that. And think about this: What if we treated everybody--EVERYBODY--the way we treat the people in our lives that we love the most? Think how different things would be? My son, Logan, in his infinite six year old wisdom, drops this logic on me almost every day, "You'll do it for me, right dad? Because you love me?" And I can't argue with that logic. There's nothing I wouldn't do for him. Yes, I expect him to try his best first. But that's because I'm trying to prepare him for life. If he needs help, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that his daddy's got his back. He knows that as long as I have a spot, he has a spot. He knows what's mine is his. He knows he's special to me. But, again, what if we treated everybody like that? What if we went out of our way to work no ill to anybody. And not only no ill, but what if we went out of our way to work GOOD towards everybody? What if, instead of picking and choosing who to give maximum effort to... we lived a life of service to everybody? Radical? Maybe. But love is all incompasing. Love is all for one and one for all. You might not like everybody, but when you truly understand the nature of love you will love everybody!