Transition part 3
Coming out of the old and into the new (out of death and into life) can be hard. It can be painful. Uncomfortable. That's what the people of Israel found out when Moses lead them out of bondage and into the Promised Land. They whined and moaned the whole way. Even to the point of begging Moses to let them turn back and return to their slavery. Because it was the only thing they knew. And, to coin a phrase, sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. But when it comes to this transition... its not about the devil at all. Not even "New levels, new devils." Whatever that means. Its about Jesus. Period. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOUR body. The Old Covenant was about rules and regulation. The New Covenant is the Spirit of the Lord--the Spirit of love. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Freedom. Freedom to be loved, and to love. In fact, that's the New Commandment for the New Man. To love one another as Jesus has loved you. To receive and release the love of God. To receive it BY releasing it. To release it BY receiving it. To fill ourselves to overflowing (so that it comes out naturally) with what we've already been filled with. Sounds simple, right? But its not necessarily easy. Look at what Jesus said in Mark 2:21-22 (NLT), "Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins." And here's the deal. Here's the key. Here's the revelation that is (hopefully) going to help with this transition: We are new creatures. We're not trying to buff and polish an Old Man in order to make him look good. That Old Man died in the watery grave of baptism. The second death, when you consider he was dead the day he (Adam) ate from the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil). So the transition is not even FOR that Old Man. He's gone. The transition is letting him go. Laying aside the sin (unbelief) and the weight (the corpse of who we were before the cross) that so easily besetts us. We aren't trying to force the new into the old. The old has passed away. All things are become new. WE have become, are becoming, and will become new. As we understand and embrace our new (TRUE) identity. Passed out of death and into life. Because of love. Not chasing love, but accepting love. Knowing and believing that we ARE loved. And that we always have been loved and always will be loved. That's what makes this life worth living. And that's what makes it possible to experience Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love by letting Him live it in us, and through us, and as us. We don't try to get people to love us. We don't try to live Jesus' life. Nobody can live His life... except Him. So we let Him live it. God in the flesh--our flesh. Love in a body--our body. And then, when we know that we have love, that we are loved, that we are LOVE... that's when we CAN love. That's when we can give what we've got instead of trying to get something we think we haven't got. That's when we be who we are instead of trying to be someone we're not!