Stand Firm part 4
Standing firm means you will not be shaken. No matter what happens. You are planted on the Rock (which is Jesus, which is love). You know where your strength comes from. God, who is all powerful (which doesn't mean MOST powerful, but means nothing else has any powe) is love. Our strength is found in love. But the key to remember here is that love is never about getting. Because love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. Your strength, then, lies in your ability to give what you've got. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. If you're trying to get something, you're coming from a posture of lack, or incompleteness, or weakness. And, yes, God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. But that doesn't mean we operate from the position of weakness. That simply means we know that we can't do it without Him. That means that we rely on Him. God doesn't just want to be a part of our life--He wants to BE our life, because He IS life! If you fill yourself with love, you won't have room for anything else. And that's not being selfish or greedy. Because that's making sure you AREN'T being selfish or greedy. You can't be selfish AND love people. Because love is giving. And I'm going to be real with you: Sometimes love is hard. Because sometimes... when you love someone... you can't have what you want in that situation. You have to lay your life down... for them. Give them what THEY want (or, yes, even what they SAY they want). You can't use love to control people. You can't use love to manipulate them into your idea of who or what they should be. The Holy Spirit convicts us. Takes us by the hand and shows us HOW to be who we really are. Shows us that who we really are is who we are in Christ, which is who Christ is in us. And that--our true identity, that we are the beloved Son of God in whom He is well pleased--is where we get our strength from. That's where we stand without being shaken. That's where we operate from. Not from a posture of lack, but from a life of abundance. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. And what makes the abudant life abundant... is love. What gives us our strength... is love. What equips and empowers us to stand fast, and not be shaken, is love. Love never fails because love endures. And, again, sometimes that's really hard. Sometimes you can't change what's going on and you just have to endure it. You can't hide from it, so you just have to be courageous and face it. Look for the bigger picture. See God's grand scheme. Understand that it came to pass, not to stay. Understand that everything works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end yet. Longsuffering is a fruit of the Spirit. Which basically means suffering for a long time. God's chosen people were slaves for, what, 400 some odd years? That's a long time. But their end was way better than their time of tribulation. Job is an entire book of the Bible about patience and endurance. Preserverance. And here's the key--if you're looking for love in all the wrong places, you won't be able to find it. If you're looking for love at the source--in God's heart beating in your chest--you'll find it in every situation. That's what coming boldly to the throne of grace to find grace in time of need is all about. Standing firm. Going to the source. Letting what's already inside you come out with every breath you take and every move you make. And no matter what... not being shaken!