Unlimited part 2
Fear limits us. Fear of change. Fear of failure (or success?). Fear of losing what we've got (even when we don't like what we've got). But the simplde fact is life is always changing. I read somewhere that every seven years you have an entirely net set of skin, tastebuds, pretty much everything. The person you were is no longer the person you are. And that's ok. That's the journey. Learning and growing. Receiving and releasing. Living and loving. I Ranted a while ago about being a true disciple of Jesus. And what that means is being a student of love. Learning to love as we learn how Daddy loves us. But, again, fear holds us back. It keeps us from walking in faith. It keeps us from experiencing all that is available to us. You know, the Kingdom of God (Kingdom of LOVE). We continue to wander around like strangers in the land of promise, trying to earn something that can't be earned. Something that is freely given from Father to Son. There's a passage in the book of Joshua where God is describing the Promised Land. "And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them..." (Joshua 24:13). Land we didn't labor for. Cities we didn't build. Isn't that a slap in the face to the idea of, "Work hard and get what you can earn"? You can't earn a gift. But we always think the goodness of God, the blessings of God, are too good to be true. So we end up robbing ourselves of them. We end up trying to take the Kingdom by the violence of human effort. We end up trying to enter in by any other door than Jesus. Any other door than the heart. It all comes from the heart. The issues of life flow from the inside-out, not the outside-in. And since the issues of life flow from the heart, the issue (singular) of life... is love. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other because they are the same thing! So what am I saying today? I'm saying we need to stop limiting ourselves. Stop limiting God. We need to believe bigger. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21). More than we could ask OR THINK. According to the power that works IN US. What's that power? Love, of course. And what is it working in us to do? It's working to get OUT of us! To get all over everybody we come into contact with. But we worry. And we get scared. We think, "What if I love him/her but he/she doesn't love me back?" And the short answer is, "It doesn't matter." But the deeper answer is, "What if he or she DOES love you back???" I think a lot of the time we're more afraid of success than failure. Like Jonah, right? He got mad when the people repented. But here's the thing about love: There is no fear in love. None. In the same way that God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all... there is no fear in love at all. We don't have to be afraid to love. Because we can't lose what we've got when we're connected to an unlimited supply. We don't have to let anything hold us back when Jesus is carrying us higher and higher! Upward and God-ward! High above this earthly realm where literally anything is possible. "Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23). And that's where we'll pick up tomorrow!