Priorities part 2
Above all... love one another. That's about as simply as I can put it. And that, to me, is the Gospel. The good news. Because we know that God never requires anything that He doesn't first provide. So if His New Commandment (for the New Man) is to love one another as He has loved us... that means He needs to love us as hard and as big as He wants us to love each other. All of the emphasis is right where it belongs--not on what we are expected to do, but on what He has done for us. What He is doing in us, and as us, and through us. Look at 1 John 4:19, "We love him, because he first loved us." In the Message Bible it reads like this, "We, though, are going to love--love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first." Everything we have and everything we do comes from the gift that we were given on the cross. God gave us His only begotten Son. God gave us His Spirit--the Holy Spirit... the Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth... the truth that God is love and He loves you. Jesus gave us His life. Not so that we could try to live it, but so that we could experience it as HE lives it (one more time) in us, and through us, and as us. So our priority is NEVER getting. Love IS giving. We already have everything we need. We don't seek the Kingdom as if we are trying to get it because we don't have. We seek the Kingdom to find out what we already have. And by knowing what we have, and believing that we have it, we can experience it by giving it away. By sharing it. Our priority needs to be on what we HAVE to GIVE, not on what we think we NEED to GET. We can love... because we are loved. He first loved us. He filled us up with His love. And when we know and believe that glorious truth, we fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with. See, while our priority must be on loving each other... we love each other naturally when we know and believe how loved we are. When we focus on God's love for us. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. I guess I can maybe see a little bit of merit in "faking it 'til you make it." I think another way of saying that is "be mature." Like I always tell my kid, "Feel what you feel but don't let it control you." Whether or not you like someone doesn't necessarily matter. You can still love them. You SHOULD still love them. The people that are the hardest to love are oftentimes the people who need love the most. Because they aren't getting it anywhere. Because they're hard to love. But love doesn't keep a list of right and wrongs. Love doesn't make people jump through hoops in order to earn it. Love just... loves. No matter who. No matter how. No matter what. So stop judging people (by appearance) and trying to figure out whether they "deserve" love or not. We, though, are going to love. Love and be loved. That's why we were created. God first loved us, and because of that love we can love each other. All of each other. And I'm tellling you, when love is your priority, you'll be amazed to find it everywhere you look. What you magnify is what manifests in your life. What you feed is what will grow. Make love your number one priority and just watch and see what happens...