Works part 4
Works (and labor) don't work. You can't earn a gift, no matter how hard you try. And you can't be someone you're not, either. Like Popeye said, "I am what I am." (God said that too, so...) But faith works by love, and faith without works is dead. So true faith--walking by faith faith--is all about DOING works of love. Charity. Love in action. That's what Jesus did when He first TOLD us what love is, and then SHOWED us what love is. He said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay his life down for his friends" (John 15:13). And then He went to the cross and did that very thing. He put His money where His mouth was. He put His Words (the Word of God is love, right?) into action. And that's why I like the definition of love found in 2 Corinthians 12:15 in the NLT so much: "I will gladly spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems the more I love you, the less you love me." Guys... love is giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. And God love is giving everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. And understanding that you can only destroy your enemies by MAKING them your friends. By heaping coals of fire--GOD is the consuming fire--on their heads in order to melt their hearts. I'm telling you, its really hard to not like somebody who just loves and loves and loves you. So my point is: what you do matters. Not because what you do defines who you are, but because what you do FLOWS from who you are. Rest is NOT inactivity. Rest is Holy Spirit directed activity. And since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth... the truth that God is our heavenly Father and He loves us unconditionally... the activity that the Holy Spirit directs us to do... is... love. And that, by the way, is what works. Shoving Jesus down somebody's throat doesn't work. They'll just choke on Him. And scaring people straight doesn't work. People will run FROM an angry God, so we shouldn't portray Him that way. What works is loving the hell out of people. And the only WAY that works is when we let Jesus love the hell out of us. That's the New Commandment; love one another AS Jesus has loved you. Receive it and release it. Now let me say something as I wrap up this Rant: There are times in my life when I can strengthen myself in the Lord. Praying in the Spirit and things of that nature. But most of the time... God works through people. So in order to let God love the hell out of us we need to let other people love us. We need to guard our hearts. Because out of the heart flows the issue of life. Which is love. (What else would flow out of the heart?) So guarding the heart isn't about closing it down and keeping people out. Its not about building walls to hide behind because we've been hurt before. Guarding your heart is about keeping it OPEN. Keeping it open to love. Faith works BY love because when Jesus said, "...Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22), He was saying, "Have faith in LOVE." Because God IS love. Nothing works without love. When we know it, and believe it, that's when we can walk in it. That's when we can experience it by receiving it (from others...) and releasing it. The work of God is to believe. In love.