Refuge part 5
Knowing (and believing) that God is our refuge--our hiding place, safe place--is important. But equally as important is knowing what that safe place empowers us to do. We hide behind love. Yes. But that means love goes before us. We aren't cowering. We aren't isolating ourselves. This isn't hide and seek where we kind of want to be found but we're trying not to. This is walking by faith and not by sight. Letting what's inside come out and knowing that we will be safe while we do it. Look at Hebrews 6:18-19 (this is, by the way, the only time the word "refuge" is used in the New Testament of the King James Version of the Bible), "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." The two immutable things, of course, are the Father and the Son. With love in between, connecting them. The ultimate truth of the universe is, "God is love and He loves you." A Father's love for His Son. In whom He is well pleased. Impossible for Him to lie about that love because He IS love. So that's our foundation. That's the rock that we stand on. The refuge we dwell in and the hope we lay hold upon. God--LOVE--is the sure and steadfast anchor of our soul. That's where we run to when we're in trouble. Love. That's what equips and empowers us to live the life we've been given. We let God love us, and we love Him back by loving each other. That's the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life that we have been given. And we live it by letting HIM live it in us, and through us, and as us. By hiding in Him. Let me quote one more memory verse for this Rant series: "I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). We died. Yet we live. Because HE lives in us. Not our life--this new life is not just another chance to do it by ourselves! HIS life. With HIM living it in us, and through us, and as us. We dwell in Him even as He dwells in us. We love because He first loved us. This life "I" live is lived by the faith OF the Son of God. Not faith IN the Son of God. That's important. Because its His faith. And His faith never falters. He knows who He is. The beloved Son of God in whom He is well pleased. He knows who His Father is. He knows His Father's love. And that love equips and emopwers Him (and us IN Him) to love. Loved people love people. Knowing (and believing) that we are loved is what equips and empowers us to love. And to live is to love. To love is to live. We died. And that's important. But that's not the end of the story. We have a hiding place, but that's not the end of the story. Because a city set on a hill cannot be hid. When the light shines people see it it. And want it. They run TO it--to love, to God--instead of running FROM it. And that's the whole point of the whole thing... Relationship. Connection. Love, love, and more love!