The Great Commission part 4
As a disciple of Christ--or student of love--we learn how to love by learning how we are loved. And then, according to the Great Commision, we take that love that we are loved with and we share it with the people we come into contact with, thereby making disciples of our own. Which DOESN'T mean putting yourself ahead of, or above, or over people. It simply means loving people with the love that we are loved with. Teaching people how to love by loving them. I've always felt like positive reinforcement is a more excellent way than negative. Chastening and correcting is more excellent than punishing. God is not in the punishing business. So why are we? Why does our sense of justice seem to stem from and require an eye for an eye? Look at Matthew 5:38-39 (NLT), "You have heard the law that says the punihsment must match the injury: 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also." In other words, DON'T retaliate. Don't give back what someone gives to you. Instead, give what GOD has given to you. It doesn't matter how someone treats you... you can still love them. It doesn't matter if someone is awful to you, you can still be kind to them. Stop trying to justify yourself--he did this to me so it's ok if I do this to him--and just love people. We all want a better world. I truly believe that. Even if we can't agree on what that would look like. Well, to me it looks like people loving each other. To me it looks like people letting the love inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Didn't Martin Luther King Jr. say something along the lines of "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that"? Guys, it's all about love. Jesus' commission to His disciples was... go love people! Baptize (or immerse) them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--which is Jesus, which is love! So don't make it too complicated or too hard. Just love the people you come into contact with. Just let that love of God that's already in you... come out. Receive it and release it. Receive it BY releasing it. Release it by receiving it. Fill yourself to overflowing with the love that God has already filled you with. Obey the New Commandment, and love one another as Jesus loves you! There's a part I haven't touched on yet in our key verse for this Rant series, and I think I'm going to close with it tomorrow, but I want to mention it here. Jesus threw in a part about authority. That's important. Because we are not "junior Jesus." We are kings and priests equipped and empowered to rule and reign on the earth. Jesus is the fulness of the Godhead bodily. All of God inside a human body. YOUR body. Jesus is God in the flesh, love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR bodies. And because He lives in us (and we live in Him) we are not trying to do what He did. We are letting Him do what He's of a mind to do... in us, and through us, and as us! We aren't trying to follow in His foot steps, we are letting Him make His own foot steps with our feet. We're not "trying to be like Christ." We're letting the Christ inside (the hope of glory) come out and be revealed. Not trying to be someone we're not but embracing who we are. Resting in the arms of our heavenly Father and letting Him be who He is (one more time) in us, and through us, and as us! Letting the love that HE put inside of us come out so that the whole world can see it, and hear it, and experience it!