The New Commandment part 5
The New Commandment is to love one another as God loves you. Which means you have to first LET God love you. That's the number one difference between Adam--the son of God--and Jesus--the BELOVED Son of God. God loved (loves) them both. But Jesus let Himself BE loved of God, while Adam was too busy trying to EARN the love of God. The old man does what he does in order to get something he thinks he doesn't have. The New Man does what He does because what He has is too good to keep to Himself. It overflows naturally as we fill ourselves with the fulness of what we've already been filled with! And that's the key: The law and the prophets were summed up in the idea of loving God with all your heart and mind and soul. It was all about what you could do for Him. But the problem was that while the Law of Moses DEMANDED perfection it was unable to PRODUCE perfection. And no matter how hard we tried there was always one thing we lacked. So Jesus came, at the appointed time, and fulfilled the demands of the Law. He nailed it to the cross because it was contrary to us and against us. He finished the work and moved us out of the Old Covenant and into the New Covenant. And in the same manner that the Old was all about earning your bread by the sweat of your brow--all about DOING in order to BE--the New Covenant is all about RECEIVING the true bread from heaven that was given to us as a gift. See, on the cross Jesus didn't just give His life FOR us. He gave His life TO us. He said, "I want you to BE ABLE to love one another, so first I'm going to show you that I love you." And when we let ourselves BE LOVED, that's when we find that we have something to give. Something to offer. And what we have is exactly what we need, and exactly what everybody else needs! Love is the answer. It is the solution. Love is the way, the truth, and the life. Love is the way to live. It is the truth about living. And it IS life! To live is to love, and to love is to live. The New Commandment isn't about something we have to do along with everything else. The New Commandment IS everything else. Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--is the Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. Which means we start with love and end with love. And He's also everything in between. Every situation needs love. Every person needs love. All of creation--which is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God--needs love. The Beatles said it like this, "Love is all you need." But in order to give it--which is what love IS, after all. Love is giving--we have to HAVE it. Because you can't give what you don't have. Hence the New Commandment. Love as you are loved by God. Receive what He has given you and release it to those around you. Live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by letting Him live His own life in and through and as you! Don't try to follow an external law and be somebody you're not. Just be who you are and let what's already in there come out! Just receive it and release it. Receive it and release it. Receive it and release it. That's HOW we obey the New Commandment. That's HOW men will know that we're disciples. That's HOW it all works, and that's what it's all about! It's all about love!