The Living God part 5
The living God is the loving God. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. So when we say God is not concerned with the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the tree of death) but is concerned with the Tree of Life... what we mean is that God (who IS love) is concerned only WITH love! The Tree of Life produces the fruit of the Spirit, right? And the fruit of the Spirit is love. So, as always, what are we talking about...? LOVE. It's all about love. And here's the coolest part: The living God... lives in us! He is the vine and we are the branches. So HE produces the fruit of the Spirit (love) and we bear it. We carry it to those who need it. And, spoiler alert, "those who need it" is everybody! We receive it and release it. We receive it BY releasing it. We let God love us--through the Holy Spirit, our love receptor--and then we love each other with that same love. That's HOW He lives through us. Because, again, to live is to love and to love is to live. So we understand Acts 17:28, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring," to mean in Him we love. In us HE loves. He loves us. And He loves those we come into contact with through us, and as us. We bear the fruit, feeding those who are hungry. Giving what we've got. Sharing the gift we've been given, and in that way making it even more real. We get so caught up with so much insignicant "stuff." When we ought to realize that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. It starts with Him and ends with Him. It starts with LOVE and it ends with LOVE. You know the old saying, "Let prayer be first choice not last chance." God doesn't want to just be a part of your life. He wants to BE your life, because He IS life. LOVE is life. It's literally the difference between life and death. If you don't love, you're abiding in death. You're not experiencing life. You're not truly living. Like Adam--who lived like 900 years after the day he ate of the tree of death and died--you can wander around as the walking dead, trying to be good enough. Trying to grab the carrot even though the stick is always moving. That's not abundant life. Love is what makes life abundant. Love is what makes LIVING truly possible. Being loved and loving one another. That's why we're here. That's why God created us. That's our EPIC (Eternal Purpose In Christ) Destiny. That's why God lives, and that's how God lives. He lives for us. In us. Through us. As us. He created us so He could express Himself. And since He is love... He created us to express His love. He's not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. The God of the loving. He has filled us to overflowing with His love. With Himself. And when we stop trying and start resting, that's when we fill ourselves with the fulness of God and that's when He (love) overflows out of us... naturally. Not fake it 'til you make it. But just living a life of love. Every day in every way. As He lives in you!