Out and In part 5
Freedom works two ways: What you were freed FROM, and what you were freed TO. Let me say it another way: Jesus brought us OUT--of the bondage of sin and death--but He also brought us IN to the Promised Land of rest. I think a big problem we have in the church world is that we spend all of our time and energy focusing on things that have already been taken care of. It seems like we're always on a sin hunt, even though the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world over 2,000 years ago. He freed us FROM sin (unbelief) and death, so that we might be free TO believe in Him and live! If you're still focused on the "bad" stuff then you aren't enjoying the "good" stuff. And if you're still stuck judging things by appearence (good and evil) then you don't understand the righteous judgment that was handed down from Father to Son on the cross. The righteous judgment of LIFE. God's judgment was not to kill His only begotten Son. God's judgment was to raise Him from the dead. And since Jesus had drawn us all into Himself when He was lifted up on the cross, what happened to Him happened to us. When He died, we died. And when He rose again, we rose again. To partake of His Divine Nature and walk in newness of life. To experience and enjoy the gift of God--which is eternal life, which is knowing the Father in the context of being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--by letting Jesus live His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life in us, and through us, and as us! He brought us out to bring us in. But we still seem stuck where we used to be. Weighed down by the corpse of the dead old man that we insist on dragging around. Trying to make the old man behave. He's dead! And buried! He gone! We don't have to let that weight and that sin (unbelief) beset us. We can lay it aside. Because Jesus took it away. We are overcomers not because we overcome, but because HE overcame! And now there is nothing left TO overcome except unbelief. The good fight of faith, right? Laying hold of eternal life. Receiving the gift we've been given. Not by earning it, but by believing we already have it. By resting in the loving arms of our Father. He did the work, and now we get to enjoy the fruit of His labor. The fruit of the Spirit, which is love. He brought us out of death and into life. And look at 1 John 3:14 to see the difference between death and life: "We know that we have passed from death unto life, becuase we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." See, we HAVE passed from life to death. He brought us out of death and in to life. But it's all about love. We can still abide in death, even though we've passed out of it. We can wander around like strangers in the land of promise. We can fail to enter into His rest. Through unbelief. God made the Way of Grace. And we respond with the Walk of Faith. We know and believe that Daddy loves us, and we love each other with that same love. And that's what it means to live. To truly live. Love is what makes abundant life abundant. Love is what makes life worth living. Because to live IS to love and to love IS to live. We have been given the Holy Spirit. The love receptor. And now we can receive it and release it. Because we weren't just brought out, but we were brought in.