The T-shirt part 4
Let me quote my Scripture for today before we get into it. Romans 5:3-5, "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." There's a lot there, so let's unravel it. First things first--we don't whine and cry in tribulations. We glory in them. Remember Paul wrote that he boasts of his weakness, because God's strength is made perfect in weakness. We don't moan and wail because we go through things. We take things in stride. Because we know that all things work together for good. We know that there's a plan at work. A grand scheme. We know that tribulation worketh patience. We don't have to freak out every time something "bad" happens. And in fact we can stop judging things as "good" and "bad" (or good and evil) altogether. We can stop eating of the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) and we can eat the fruit of the Spirit (which is love) that comes from the Tree of Life! Eat it, and share it. Because patience worketh experience. That "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" kind of heart knowledge. When you no longer just know ABOUT something (in this case, something being the love of God... the love that IS God) and you begin to KNOW it (Him). And that experience worketh hope. "I got through that, I can get through this." And that hope is contagious. "I got through that, YOU can get through it too. In fact, I'll HELP you through it. Because I know the way. Jesus carried me through, I can carry you through!" Why? Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. And watch this: "shed abroad" is number 1632 in Strong's Greek Concordance. It means, "to pour forth; figuratively to bestow: - gush (pour) out, run greedily (out), shed (abroad, forth), spill." Basically, the love of God fills us to overflowing. He poured Himself out into us and held nothing back. He bestowed the fulness of His love upon us. How? Through the Holy Spirit which IS given to us. Not which needs to be given to us. I firmly believe that God poured out His Spirit on ALL flesh. Jesus made the required sacrifice one for all, for all of you all. It is finished. Nothing needs to happen for us to "get" anything from God. He already gave it to us when He gave Himself to us. Now we are positioned to receive this gloroius gift of eternal life. Receive it and release it. Share it. Be a witness. And what does a witness do? He tells other people what he has seen. What he has firsthand EXPERIENCE of. I like the idea of "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." But in reality it's so much deeper than that. So much better. It's not just knowing ABOUT God's love for us. It's about KNOWING His love for us. It's about testing the height, and length, and depth, and breadth of His love for us by USING that love. By loving others as hard as we can. By letting what's inside of us come out. And we do that by knowing and believing it's in there. We do that by glorying in tribulations. By letting the things we go through mature us. Learning and growing from them and then sharing what we've learned. Sharing the love. Helping others as they go through the same kind of stuff we've been through. That's why it's not good that man should be alone--because we're all in this together. Different members of the same body of Christ!