Sacrifice part 2
Yesterday we saw the sacrifice Jesus made. Nobody took His life. He laid it down, and He took it up again. God's judgment wasn't death. It was LIFE. He raised Jesus (and us in Him) up to abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice--laying His life down for His friends--because He loves us. Because He IS love. My thought for today goes like this: "We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters" (1 John 3:16 NLT). It is also found in John 13:34 (NLT), "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." That's the gospel, as simply as I can put it. God loved us and gave His life for us. So we ought to love each other and give our lives for each other. Loving God by loving others with the love that He has loved us with. Everything else--to me--is just details. Getting to know people and making connections with them so that we can love them better. Because everybody loves in different ways, and everybody receives love in different ways. But the bottom line--the TOP line, because it's the most important--is love. Giving everything we have and everything we are. Gladly. Regardless of the response. We don't love because we are looking for a response. We love because that IS the response. That's HOW we respond to God's love: We receive it and release it. Jesus made the Way of Grace (He IS the Way, and the Truth, and the Life). And we respond with the Walk of Faith. We respond to what He has done on the cross by knowing it and believing it. By filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with. By apprehending what we've been apprehended of. When we understand the sacrifice that Jesus made... we can make the same sacrifice. Because we understand that HE is the One living HIS life in us, and through us, and as us. And that's when the sacrifice of laying our lives down, of giving maximum effort, doesn't seem like a sacrifice at all. It doesn't seem like "work" because it comes from a posture of rest. It's natural. Because it's our new nature. A new nature for a New Man. A New Commandment for a New Man. Not a beast nature, but a love nature. So that in Him we can live, and move, and have our being. So that in US HE can live, and move, and have HIS being. So that we can experience His life as He lives it in us. So that we can stop with religious works and labors and enjoy the fruit of HIS labor. Which is the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. And we experience love by giving it away. By sharing. By, again, filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with and watching it come out naturally. Like Peter when he healed a man just by letting his shadow fall on them. He wasn't trying to do anything, or be anybody. He just couldn't contain what was inside. Because it was too big. Too good. Too abundant. The sacrifice isn't a bad thing at all. It's the best thing. Giving what you've got so that others can experience it. Seeing a need and meeting it. Being who you are and doing what you can do. Where you're at. Because of who Jesus is, and what He did. Because of who He is in you, and what He's doing in you!