The Way part 3
Here's what love does: Love picks you up when you've stumbled and fallen. Love brushes you off and tells you that you can keep going. Love isn't negative. He is positive. And that's why I always key in on one certain word in Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The word I always key in on is "should." Train up a child in the way he SHOULD go. Stop giving kids (and people in general) so many things they SHOULDN'T do... and focus on what they SHOULD do. I'm telling you, if you're fighting AGAINST something you're in a losing battle. Because just simply by focusing on it--even in an attempt to not do it--you're empowering it. For example: If you're focusing on not going to the bathroom... you're still thinking about the bathroom. Your mind is fixed on it, and even though your intention is to avoid it... the more you think about not going, the more you'll need to go. But if you focus on something else, you might not even need to go. Because you aren't even thinking about it. Basically, what I'm trying to say in my wander around and hope I make my point way, is that we oughta be on a righteousness hunt instead of a sin hunt. We ought to tell people what's RIGHT with them instead of always harping on what's wrong with them. Condemnation does not make people change. If anything it reinforces the incorrect image they probably already have of themselves. To the point where they think either, "Well, that's who I am. Everybody can see it. There's nothing I can do about it." Or they think, "If that's how everybody sees me anyway, that's how I might as well be." Why don't do the crime if you're already getting sentenced for it. That kind of mindset. And that kind of mindset can be fatal. Because it doesn't offer any hope. It is the GOODNESS of God that leads to repentance. And repentance is thinking again, or thinking differently, about something. Thinking differently about YOURSELF when you hear the TRUTH about yourself. Not feeling like you have to keep going the way you were going. Because you hear a voice from behind you (the truth about you right now, not something that you could attain someday if you try hard enough) putting you back on the right path. The straight and narrow path (that is love) that leads to life. There's nothing wrong with straight and narrow. There's nothing wrong with standing on the Rock and not being shaken. You don't have to go along with everything you hear. And you don't have to believe everything you think. You can think again. You can get past what you've been conditioned to think and you can let the mind of Christ (that's already in you) BE in you. You can USE the mind of Christ. You can think the thoughts of God. You can hear, and speak, His Word. Especially if someone else has been filling you up with it. Training you up in the way you SHOULD go. The Way. Upward and God-ward. Love, love, and more love. Just love. Only love. That's the Word. That's the Way. Love doesn't just light the Way... love IS the Way. So give what you've got--love--by knowing and believing that you've got it. By receiving and releasing it. Receiving BY releasing. Releasing BY receiving. Love doesn't condemn. There is no condemnation in Christ. So encourage people. Root for people. Cheer for people. Help people. Love people. That's the Way to live!