Recovery part 4
Recovering your ilfe is not about YOU doing something. It is about what GOD did on the cross. In our key passage for this Rant series Jesus said, "I'll show you how to take a real rest." That's what being a disciple is all about--a disciple of Christ is a student of love. Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Letting God love us and then loving Him back by loving each other. And that is how we rest. Rest is not inactivity. It is not being a "holy couch potato." Rest is Holy Spirit directed activity. And what could the Holy Spirit--the Spirit of Love--possibly direct us to do but love? Like when we talk about the heart. Out of the heart come the issues of life. Which means love. What else could the heart possibly be concerned with? It's all about love. Because it's all about God... and God is love! Jesus SHOWS us how to rest, and that's how we take a REAL rest. Jesus SHOWS us how to love and that's how we really experience love. We recover our lives (as God originally intended them to be) when we be still and know that HE is God. When we get to the place of totally and completely trusting in Him... understanding that His death on the cross was the death of our old man, it was our death... and that this life we live is HIM living His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love in us, and through us, and as us... that's when we get "our" life back. When we understand that it's HIS life. HE lives it. We experience it through Him as He lives it through us. And guess what else--that takes all of the pressure off. We can stop trying to be someone we're not in order to get what we think we haven't got, and we can embrace who we are. Who we really are. Which is who we are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in us. We can get back to basics. Stop running around like chickens with their heads cut off. We can major on the majors and minor on the minors. Get to the place where we understand that what is important in life is God and people. Loving God and loving people. Loving God BY loving people. Letting Him love us and loving Him back by loving the people we come into contact with. Receiving and releasing the love of God. Getting away with Him. Focusing on love. Feeding the thing that really matters so that it will grow. Feeding love by giving it away. Because that's what love is--love is giving. You can give without loving but you can't love without giving. You can waste your life chasing something you think you haven't got, or you can live your life to the fullest by giving the love that you have inside to everybody you cross paths with. A life of service is a life truly and fully lived. Laying your life down for your friends, and knowing that everybody is your friend... whether they know it or not. Knowing that you can destroy your enemies by making them your friends. Knowing that love is all we need. Love is what everybody needs. So if you know it... throw it. If you have it... give it away. Share it. And in that way, experience it! Breathe it in and breathe it out. Love with every breath you take and every move you make. Stop separating life and love. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. To live is to love and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. So stop trying so hard. Stop trying to be someone you're not in order to get something you think you haven't got. Jesus will show you what you need to know. How to take a real rest. Who you really are. All you have to do is look. Listen. Learn. Experience the love of God by both receiving and releasing it. That's your life. And that's how "you" recover it!