Old Commandment part 1
This idea is kind of tricky. Because we look at everything through the lens of our own experiences. Our own selves. So we have this idea in our heads that we started off at the bottom. "I'm just a sinner. That's who I am. That's my nature. And, try as I might, I can't rise above my nature. I'm only human." But then we build entire religions on TRYING to rise above that low, low level that we put ourselves at. Trying to be "better." Trying to be "more like God." That's kind of what we see even all the way back in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. They saw that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was good to look at it. And they easily, and immediately, swallowed the lie that the serpent hissed into their ears that says "You have to do in order to be." You're not like God right now... but if you do this certain thing, if you eat this certain fruit... you'll become like Him. But that, like I said, is, was, and always will be a lie. The truth is, we were created in God's own image. We didn't need to do anything to be like Him. We always have been like Him. We just didn't know it. Didn't believe it. We thought we needed a shift from old to new. From crap to glory. But 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." When we look into the mirror we see what we really are--what we've always been--and we are "changed" into that image. From GLORY to glory. We start at glory. We don't start at crap. God would not make crap. Look at 1 John 2:7-8, "Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." Did you catch that? Its a new commandment only in the sense that we can finally see it. Because the darkness has passed and the light of the world--the light of love--shineth. Its not something new that God cooked up when nothing else would work. Its what He always had in mind because nothing else WILL work. Nothing but love. Jesus gave us the New Commandment--to love one another as He loves us--not in the sense of, "We've tried everything else, here's something new." But in the sense of, "Here's HOW to obey the Old Commandment. Here's HOW to love one another." And the how is vitally important. Because you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. So in order to give love, we must first know and believe that we have love. That we are loved. That we are love! We love, because He first loved us. We simply receive and release the love He has given to us. Experience that love by giving it away. By sharing it. Its nothing "new." Its the alpha and omega. The beginning and the end. The problem was that we couldn't see in the mirror--couldn't see who we really are by seeing who God really is--until the darkness had passed. Until the light shone forth. Until God arose and His enemies were scattered!