Obedience part 5
When you let God--love, your heart--lead, things turn out better. That's just the way it goes. Because God knows the end from the beginning. Not only does He know where we should go, but He knows the best way to get there! He brought the mountains low and the valley high and made the way straight. God isn't trying to make things hard for us. He's trying to show us our perfection--and that is a process... a maturation process that can take some time... but he's not in the business of hurting us or making us suffer. In probably the most famous Bible verse (John 3:16) Jesus tells us that God sent His only begotten Son that we might not perish but have everlasting life! He doesn't want us to just survive, He wants us to thrive! And it's only when we truly understand--and believe--that God has our best interests at heart that we can truly obey Him from a place of rest. We think obedience means doing something we don't want to do. "Well, I have to do it because my Father told me to." When, really, that's not the case. Because whatever God tells us to do... that's the best thing we could possibly do at any given time. Because the ONLY thing God EVER tells us to do... is love people. What He commands, and what we need to obey, is found in John 13:34 (NLT), "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." That's the only thing we have to do. Because we were given life... so that we might life. Living is loving and loving is living. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. And it's not just life... it's abundant life. And what makes the abundant life abundant... is love! It's Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! It's Jesus living His own life in us, and through us, and as us. It's obeying Him by giving Him the wheel. But in giving up the wheel, we don't bail out of the car. Co-laborers with Christ. Doing what He commands us to do by letting Him do what He wants to do (one more time) in us, and through us, and as us. That's how we operate from a posture of rest. Rest, friends, is not inactivity. It is Holy Spirit directed activity. And, once again, the only thing the Holy Spirit ever directs us to do... is love one another. God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. That's the New Commandment, and that's how we obey the New Commandment AS the New Man that is Jesus. Just as Jesus loves us... that's how we are to love one another. Receive and release His love. Breathe it in and breathe it out. Let God love the hell out of us and then love Him back by loving the hell out of each other. And that's important to understand, because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. We love... because He first loved us. He gave us what we needed. Now we have it. Now we can use it, and share it, and give it away! Love IS giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. Here's my big ending: In order to obey God we have to know what He wants us to do (love one another... love Him BY loving one another) and we have to, you know, DO IT. Put our money where our mouth is. Charity is love in action. It's more than just an idea. It's actually LIVING life by LOVING the people that you come into contact with. To live is to love and to love is to live. If you want to live... you have to love. If you're loving people, you're obeying God. You're trusting Him that what He wants us to do (love each other) is the best thing to do!