Sacrifice part 1
I want to talk about the power of love for the next few days. And I know I did a similar Rant series a little while ago, but you know the advice my pastor gave me, "Preach it until your heart is empty on it." That's what I've learned, and that's what I'm going to do. So. The power of love doesn't come from fighting. It comes from surrendering. It comes from taking what someone gives you and giving them the love that's inside. Not an eye for an eye, but turning the other cheek. Showing people a more excellent way by showing them love. And when we're talking about love we're talking about giving everything we have and everything we are. We're talking about laying our lives down for our friends (with the understanding that we destroy our enemies by MAKING them our friends). So to start this Rant series I want to build the foundation that in order for us to be able to love this way, we first had to be LOVED this way. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice on the cross. Nobody forced Him to do anything. And certainly nobody killed Him. Even though the religious folk of the time thought that was exactly what they were doing. Jesus said, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father" (John 10:17-18). And, really, when you think about it, not even death could kill Jesus. The only reason He was dead for a couple days was because He had some stuff to do, like leading captivity captive. What I'm trying to say is, when death tried to hold Life down... death lost. 1 Corinthians 15:26 in Young's Literal Translation puts it like this, "the last enemy is done away--death." One of the reasons Jesus died is so that DEATH might die. So that we might be FREE from the bondage of sin and death. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and we needed a second death (the death OF death) so that we might be born again and walk in newness of life. This wasn't something we could do for ourselves. Certainly not through the external behavior modification of the Law of Moses. But this was something that needed to be done. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). See, religion seems to want to teach us that God was angry. And He absolutely, positively HAD to kill someone. And that someone was us. Until Jesus stepped in and saved us from that angry God. Religion wants to teach us that the judgment of God was death. But that's not it at all. Jesus sacrificed Himself for us because we were ALREADY dead. And God didn't want to leave us that way. He would literally rather die than be without us. Than have us be without Him. So He did what needed to be done to close the gap, if I can say it that way. He did what needed to be done to reconcile us back to Himself. He gave us His Son, and His Son gave us His life, so that we could LIVE. The judgment of God is LIFE, and that more abundantly. The judgment of God was to ACCEPT Jesus' sacrifice and RAISE Him from the dead. Raise US from the dead. Because Jesus didn't just die FOR us, He died AS us. When He died, we died. And when He rose again, we rose again. He made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could partake of the Divine Nature and enjoy His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as He lives is in us, and through us, and as us!