The Love Letter part 5
God--who IS love--told us and showed us through He is by dwelling in a man named Jesus. Then that man gave us His Spirit and took up abode in all men. We are God's love letter to the world. Not a Law written in stone that we are required, but unable, to keep... but a life (of love) that keeps us. God wrote His letter, His Word (Jesus, Love) on our hearts when He cut away the flesh of human effort and revealed His heart in our chests. He brought us out of the power of darkness--out of the lie of thinking that we are a servant that has to earn God's love--and into the Kingdom of His dear Son. He brought us out of religion and into relationship. He equipped and empowered us to read His letter of love to ourselves (so that we could know who we are) and to each other. It's the idea of receiving and releasing. And that's why we're here. We're here to be loved by God and to love one another with that same love. That's the New Commandment Jesus gave when He said, "A new commadment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). That's it. That's what it's all about. Letting God love us and loving one another with that same love. And that's so amazing because it takes all of the emphasis off of us--as far as both the motivation and the power to do this thing--and puts it all on Jesus. Paul told us that it is the power of God working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. It starts with Him and it ends with Him. We love because He first loved us. We know He loves us because He wrote it on our heart. Because He gave us His Spirit. And that's where our desire to love one another comes from. See, the carnal mind is selfish and only cares about BEING loved. And it will do whatever it has to do to get that love that it believes it lacks. But the mind of Christ can love others because that desire has already been satisfied. Through the mind of Christ we know and believe that Daddy loves us. Through the Spirit we can cry out, "Abba, Father." We can know God as He truly is (our loving heavenly Father) instead of how we've thought He is (a cold, distant taskmaster who is just waiting to get us every time we mess up." Jesus said it like this is John 3:17, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." God's not out to get us. In fact... on the cross He GOT us. Jesus was lifted up from the earth and He drew us all into Himself. He drew us out of bondage and condemnation and brought us into freedom and acceptance. He showed us the greatest expression of love that a man can have when He laid down His life (both for us and as us). And then He executed the judgment of God when He rose back up from the grave and conformed us to His image. The image of LOVE. The letter that is read of all men. Love in us flowing out of us. That's what eternal life is; knowing the Father and the One whom He sent. That's what life is all about; being loved and loving one another. To live is to love and to love is to live. God wrote His letter in us, and through the Spirit the Word has become (and continues to become) flesh everytime we love one another with the same love that we are loved with!