The Son's Responsibility part 4
Everything we do is a response to the Father's love. "We love each other because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19 NLT). And I like how in other translations of this verse, like the KJV, it reads, "We love him, because he first loved us." I like that because we love Him BY loving each other. How we treat people is how we treat God, because God lives in people. Jesus said, "And the King will say, 'I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'" (Matthew 25:40 NLT). God loves us, and we love Him back by loving each other. That's our response. That's our responsiblity. 1 John 4:11, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Or John 13:34 (NLT), "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other." It's all about love. And, more specifically, loving God by loving people with the love that He has loved us with. Receiving and releasing His love. That's how we be about the family business. That's how we let what's inside come out. And that's how we experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love that is the gift of God. We don't hoard it, afraid that we will lose it if we use it. We experience it by giving it away. By sharing it. By filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. By letting God love us and then loving Him back by loving people. That's as simple as I can make it. That's the secret of life. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. That's why it is so important to understand the Divine Order of things--knowing and believing, in that order. You can't believe what you don't know. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. It's the response--and responsibility--of the Son that comes from the love of the Father. We love because He first loved us. Love is giving, and you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. So in order to give love... you must first be given love. You have to receive before you can release. But receiving isn't the whole thing. Like I said, you don't receive in order to hoard. Or hide. Nobody puts their light under a basket. They put it out where it can shine and light up the whole room. Love is the light of the world. Love is what let's people see things clearly. When it was dark and void, God said "Let there be light." And with those words, everything changed. When you inject Jesus--love--into a situation... everything changes! And that's our responsibility as the Son(s) of God. Look at one more memory verse today, "So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere" (Luke 9:6). That was the ministry of Jesus' disciples. And that, if you want to make it really simple, is what we are responsible for today. Being a witness and healing people. And that, by the way, doesn't always and only mean physical healing. Sometimes you can help someone emotionally heal by just being there for them. Loving them. Giving them what they've been lacking, or missing. Seeing a need and meeting it. To me, it's always been that simple. See a need and if at all possible... meet that need! Don't complicate things. Don't worry about whether or not someone "deserves" it. Deserve's got nothing to do with it. You are loved... so you can love. You are loved... so you ARE love. Let love be your responsibility and your response. Let the love inside of you come out!