The Nature of Love part 5
The love nature is our human nature. It was buried deep inside, but through the circumcision made without hands it has been revealed to us and in us and through us! It is our true nature. Our true identity. Love isn't just what God does... love is who God is. And because He lives in us love isn't just what we do... it's who WE are! Look at John 20:31 (and I really believe this is a Scripture that gives us the purpose of the entire Bible), "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." That's the point. Knowing ourselves by knowing Him. Understanding who we are by understanding who He is. Living through His name, or nature. Remember Jesus said He lived BY the Father. He didn't live FOR the Father, He simply let the Father live THROUGH Him. And in the same way we live BY Jesus. He lives THROUGH us. In that way it's not even Jesus AND me, it's Jesus AS me. That's what it means for me to present my body as a living sacrifice. Self-control is giving up control. Letting Jesus do whatever He wants in and through and as me. Not me trying to be Jesus, but me letting Jesus be Himself in me! That's when the nature of love--laying down your life for your friends... not trying to get something you don't have, but giving what you do have--flows out from within. That's when (and how) the light (that we are) shines. Not when we try really hard to make it shine, but simply when we know and believe that it is (HE is) shining in us! What's in you comes out of you. Or rather, what you BELIEVE is in you comes out of you. That's why faith is so important. Knowing and believing the love is Christ is how we live through His name. Because that's what His name is! Jesus is the Word of God. And the Word is love. Jesus is God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. And when we know that it's in there... when we understand that we are filled to overflowing with the love that IS God... then it comes out naturally. Then we can stop faking it 'til we make it. We can stop "acting" like Jesus (because all that will ever be is an act), and we can BE who we really are. We can live this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life that is the gift of God from a posture of rest. Not trying to get anything, or get anywhere, but understanding that we have everything we need--all things that pertain to life and godliness--and we've already arrived where we need to be--the Promised Land of rest that flows with milk and honey (righteousness and revelation)! We HAVE the love nature. The name, and the nature of Jesus. But it's only when we understand what the nature of love IS that we can truly begin to experience what we have. And that understanding comes from the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us into all truth. The Holy Spirit whispering in a still, small voice deep inside that Daddy loves us. God's heart beating in our chests. The love inside of us coming out... naturally.