Settled part 1
This is what I preached about tonight in my Guerrilla Gospel video, and its what has been on my heart for a while now, so I'm going to take my pastor's advice and preach it until my heart is empty on it: When you're settled... things can flow. When you're running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you will wear yourself out and not accomplish much of anything. Banging your head against the wall only ever gets you a headache. But let me quote my passage of Scripture before I get too far into wandering around and hoping I can make my point. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:17-19). And I know I say this about just about every memory verse or passage that I quote... but this is one of my favorites. I've been thinking about writing a book about it. Because there's so much here and its all so good. But the phrase I want for this Rant series is "rooted and grounded." Because to me, that's a big part of being settled. In order to know where you're going, it helps to know where you came from. And in order to be happy where you're at, you need to put down roots. But here's what I was focusing on in my video: When you're rooted and grounded IN LOVE, you can begin to EXPLORE love. From glory... to glory, as one of my other favorite verses (2 Corinthians 3:18) says. You have to start WITH love in order to get TO love. We love because He first loved us. Everything we have to give comes from the One who gave us everything. And the problem is that so often we get mixed up, twisted around. We look for love in all the wrong places. We are completely unsettled when it comes to believing that we are loved. And I get that, most of us have been burned by the idea of love. People telling us they love us when they didn't mean it--when they really just wanted to manipulate or control us. And once you get burned, its hard to get near the fire again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME. That sort of thing. But the thing about love is... love just keeps giving and giving and giving no matter what. Love never fails because love endures. Love doesn't worry about getting. Love doesn't worry about what someone does with it after it is given. But you can't give what you don't have. And if you're running around trying to get something--if you're unsettled, if you're not rooted and grounded in love--you'll miss out. Let me end this Rant series with the memory verse I want to pick up on tomorrow. Colossians 1:23, "If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister." Rooted and grounded, grounded and settled. Established. Confident. Full of. Love.