Trust Issue part 3
It's like people are more concerned with your motives than your actions. Even though we shout from the rooftops that actions speak louder than words. And I think this applies to love more than anything else. People don't trust love. Because it seems too good to be true. So they second guess your kindness. They assume you have an alterior motive. When the truth is, love doesn't HAVE a motive... love IS the motive. We do what we do because we are moved with compassion and motived by love. And that's the same reason Jesus did what He did. The same reason God does what He does. Look at Psalm 50:12 in the NLT, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it." God created everything. He owns everything. He doesn't need anything. His motive is not to get anything from us. His motive is that He loves us. And since He doesn't need anything from us, we can trust Him. He can trust His love. Because it has nothing to do with "us" in the sense of what we have or what we can do for Him. It has everything to do with "us" in the sense of who we are. And who we are is God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. He loves us because of who we are, and because of who He is. Period. He doesn't love us in order to get something from us. If He was hungry, He wouldn't tell us. Even when Jesus WAS hungry and DID tell the disciples, He ended up taking care of Himself... by taking care of the woman at the well. He didn't depend on anybody for anything. Because He was full of what HE needed, and what everybody else needed. He was full of the one thing in the universe that truly fills us up and sustains us. He was full of love. The word "love" in 1 John 4:8, "He that loveth not knowneth not God; for God is love" means "love feast." It's the fruit of the Spirit that comes from the Tree of Life. It is the one thing we need to eat in order to truly live. Remember Jesus said in another place that unless we eat His body and drink His blood we have no life in us? No part in Him? That's because He literally IS the way, the truth, and the life! And, because of His great love for us, He gave His life for us on the cross. And He gave His life TO us on the cross. So that we could have His life. So that we could experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life that is the unconditional love relationship between Father and Son. He wanted us to experience His love--by receiving it and releasing it. By letting Him love us and loving each other with that same love. He wanted us to be able to trust Him. So He loved the hell out of us when we had nothing to give. People are always like, "Take my heart, Lord." But that's backwards. He gave us HIS heart. He circumcized OUR heart to SHOW us His heart underneath. Beating with love in our chests. He never wanted anything for us... except love. And that's what He gave us when He gave us Himself. When He gave us His Spirit. When He died both for us and as us and then rose again so that we might walk in newness of life!