To Be part 5
We all want... ALL we want when you get right down to it... is to be accepted and loved. That's it. That's the desire of mankind's heart. That's why we're willing to DO in order to BE. We're willing to earn it, because we want it that bad. But there's the rub. You can't earn a gift. And the gift of God is eternal life. Eternal life is knowing the Father and the One who the Father sent--living in the context of the Father/Son relationship. Knowing that you ARE loved and accepted. Which is where the Holy Spirit (our love receptor) comes in. God didn't declare that Jesus was His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased until AFTER the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. It was always true, but until the eyes and ears of the heart were opened, it couldn't be known and believed. It couldn't be received. It was always true, but it seemed to good to BE true. It seemed like something that had to be earned. Earning our bread by the sweat of our face made perfect sense to the carnal, unregenerated mind. The Law of Moses made perfect sense to the natural mind. Do good and be rewarded. Do evil and be punished. Ignoring for a second that God went as far as He could to NOT punish us, by giving the system of animal sacrifice. Grace was always present, even when we didn't see it. And why didn't we see it? Because we weren't looking for it. Noah found grace IN THE EYES of the Lord. Because that's where grace is. That's WHAT grace is. If I hear grace described as "a license to sin" one more time I think I'm going to lose it. Who is talking about trying to get a license to sin? Honestly. Who wants to "sin" so badly that they are trying to get a license to do so? And why do we think anyone would need a "license to sin"? Before the cross sin abounded. Then grace much more abounded. And now sin has no dominion over us because we are not under the law, but under grace. Grace doesn't excuse sin. Grace obliterated sin. Sin, of course, being unbelief. Not what you DO, but what you BELIEVE. Because what you do FLOWS from what you believe. If you believe you want to sin... or if you believe that you ARE a sinner... then you're going to sin. Whatever that word means to you. That's not the focus of the Gospel though. That's not the good news. The good news is that the Word (Jesus, love) became flesh and dwelt among us, and then took it a step further and took up abode within us! Now we don't TRY to be accepted and loved by the Father (or each other). Because now we KNOW the Father. We KNOW the Son--we know that we ARE the Son--and we know that the work is finished. We can rest. We can stop looking for love in all the wrong places because we are connected to the source. The source lives in us. LOVE lives in us! And that's why we understand His love. It's not from the outside-in. It's from the inside-out. We have what we've always wanted. And in knowing that we have it... we can share it. We don't need to try to be accepted and loved by others, because we can accept them and love them no matter how they treat us. And when you accept and love someone it's kind of funny but before you know it they accept and love you too...! And I'm not saying we love IN ORDER to be loved, but it is a nice fringe benefit. No, we love BECAUSE we are loved. And that love just grows and grows and grows.