Taking care of others is how we take care of ourselves, but there has to be a balance where we don't hurt ourselves. If I try to do something I can't do... I'm probably just going to make things worse. And that doesn't help anybody. So when I quote my memory verse for today, Philippians 2:4, I'm going to try to explain it as best I can. "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Now there is an important word there--also. Because it implies that we should look after our own things AND the things of others. I can see that. One of the most important things I try to teach my kid is that you've got to do what you've got to do. You have to take care of business. There's a time and a place for everything. And personal responsiblity is a something to be valued. Its a rare thing when someone will stand up for people rather than throwing people under the bus to cover their own behinds. And that, by the way--passing the buck--is NOT self care. That is NOT taking care of yourself or looking after your own things. That's cowardly. And it may "work" in the short term, but if you get to be known as someone who will sell someone else out then people will definetly stop trusting you. So instead of that... instead of knocking people down so you look bigger and better... what we ought to do is look after people. Protect them. Take care of them. When someone knows that you will put yourself on the line for them, they're way more willing to go the extra mile for you. And I'm not saying you should do it SO THAT they'll reciprocate. You never "love" in order to get, or else it isn't love at all. Its manipulation and control. But it is a nice effect. Its hard to have someone's back that doesn't have yours. But its easy to have someone's back when they do have yours. And this really blows people's minds--when you have someone's back even though they threw you under the bus. When you bless people that despitefully use you. When you not only turn the other cheek, but go that extra mile. Let me say it like this, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). And I can tell you from experience, if someone is awful to you, and you turn around and be nice to them... it might not matter. They might not stop being awful. But YOU will feel better about the whole situation. Self care. Taking care of yourself and not letting things drag you down. Rising above it. "I'm over it." Mind over matter, right? If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. So take the high road. Give everything you have and everything you are. Love is maximum effort. But once you've given it all you've got, let it be what its going to be. You can't make people do anything. No matter how hard you try. No matter how much love you give. And I'm not saying love fails--because love never fails--but its not always going to look the way you want it to look. So just be ok with that. Let go and let God. Take care of yourself by not letting anger, or bitterness, or jealousy, or hurt eat you up. Find that balance where you do what you can do and then shrug your shoulders. Have a clear conscience. If you really try... then saying, "I tried" is good enough. And another lesson I try to teach Logan--once he's tried his very best, if he can't do something, I'll step in and help. If he can't take care of it himself... that's what his daddy is for.

Saying no. If you're like me its the last resort. Because if you're like me you want to help people. You want to do what you can do. Someone ask you to do something and you want to say yes. But there are a few things I want to talk about regarding saying no. And the first one is: Sometimes you aren't helping. Sometimes you're enabling. Saying yes when you SHOULD say no--because no is the right answer--is a problem. So you need to look at the situation and use some wisdom and understanding. Helping or hurting, right? Sometimes hanging on does more damage than letting go. You can't help everybody--you just can't--and you can't help everybody by just giving them everything they ask for. If I can be blunt, that's called being a doormat. Letting people walk all over you. And I'm not saying you should fight back. Turn the other cheek, right? But what I'm saying is, if saying yes doesn't really help the person... say no. You don't have to change them. Let me use alcohol as an example. Because its legal if you're 21. But if someone has a problem with drinking... and they ask you to buy them some booze... say no. You don't have to try to force them to get sober. You don't have to try to convince them to go to rehab. Unless its your kid or your spouse that's probably not your job. But you don't have to enable them either. You don't have to hang out with them when they're drinking. And you certainly don't have to buy them any booze. So taking care of someone else by saying no is important. But the one I really wanted to get to is taking care of yourself by saying no. And I want to use Colossians 1:10 as my memory verse for today, "That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Walk worthy. Or, as it always strikes me when I read this verse, "Stay in your lane." Being fruitful in every good work doesn't mean trying to do EVERY good work. I say it all the time, "I can do anything, but I can't do everything." And, realistically, I can't do EVERYTHING. There are some people I'm in a unique position to reach. And there are some people that I can't reach no matter how hard I try. So doesn't it make sense to say yes to the people that you can reach and no to the people you can't? Don't try to operate outside of your gifting, if I can say it that way. Don't try to be someone you're not. Don't try to do something you can't do. I can write. I can't draw. So I write. And I don't draw. I used to try to draw, and I would get so frustrated. So frustrated. Because I couldn't get what was in my head to come out through my fingers. I wanted to write and draw my own comics. Man... they were bad. I can't draw a stick figure with a ruler. Truly. So I decided to be who I am. I decided to write. Period. And I don't get frustrated anymore. This is the same thing when dealing with people. I have a truck, so if you ask me to help you move something, I'm all over it. But I don't really like social interactions. So if you ask me to go to a party... polite pass. That's how I take care of myself. I do the things I can do and I don't worry about the things I can't. I say yes when I can--when it makes sense and saying yes is helping and not hurting--and I say no when I need to. No is not a bad word, or a dirty word. Its just a word. And we can't be afraid to use it--properly. When we need to.

Taking care of yourself. Seems like a no-brainer, right? But that's not how it looks to me. It looks to me like people are wearing themselves out trying to get something they think they haven't got by being someone they're not. Trying to earn something that can't be earned. Trying to win the rat-race. But if you win the rat-race all you get is to be king rat. And, really, who wants that? "Whoever dies with the most toys wins" is NOT a real thing. Stuff doesn't last forever. Love does. That's your legacy. That's how you'll be remembered. And that's how you take care of yourself. Look at Ephesians 3:16, "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." The inner man. The hidden man of the heart. The true you. God's heart beating with love in your chest. Strengthened by love. So that you can love. When you think you can't hold on... hold on. To love. God's Spirit--the Holy Spirit--is the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth. The truth that God is love, and He loves you. The ultimate truth of the universe that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands. We don't need to try to get anything. Because we have everything. Our heavenly Father has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. He has blessed us with all Spiritual blessings in the heavenly Christ. He gave us His Son. His Spirit--the love receptor. He gave us Himself. And when we feel weak, all we have to do is look inside. Let Him strengthen us--and that's so important. David strengthened himself in the Lord. But on this side of the cross its never about what we do. Its always about what God has done. For us. In us. Through us. As us. Letting HIS strength be perfect in our weakness. Because when you try to do it yourself, I think for the most part, God will let you. Love doesn't demand His own way. When you work God will rest, right? And when you rest God will work. So what I think I'm trying to say today is that self care is really about letting your heavenly Father take care of you. Not wearing yourself out. Not trying to do everything yourself. Not trying to get anything. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Love that is the gift of God is not lived from the outside-in. It is lived from the inside-out. What's inside coming out as we know and believe that its in there. The LOVE inside coming out as we let God love us to overflowing. Because, see, we don't love because we want something. That's not love. That's manipulation and control. We love because we have something to give. Something that everybody needs. Not wants. Needs. People need love. Either way--whether we know we have it, or we think we don't--Christ's love controls us. And trying to get something that you already have--trying to earn something that can't be earned--is how you rob yourself from experiencing it. That's not taking care of yourself. That's wasting the gift you've been given. But letting God strengthen you in the inner man is what equips and empowers you to truly live. To experience what you've got by giving it away. By sharing it. Taking care of yourself by taking care of others. And I think tomorrow I'm going to talk about saying, "no." But for today I want to end with saying, "yes." Saying yes to God loving you, and letting that love take care of you!

I mentioned this idea of "self care" a couple of days ago and I want to pick up on it and really dig into it. Because I think its important. And when I Rant--yes, I write to figure things out a lot of the time--but when I Rant I want to put something useful out into the world. Something helpful. So let me quote my memory verse and then we'll get into it. "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God" (1 Samuel 30:6). Now, let's be clear: The people had a legit complaint. Their sons and daughters had been stolen in a raid by their enemies. And they were looking to David--their leader--for leadership. Now threatening to stone him was probably a bit much, but if anything happened to MY kid... I'm not saying it was right, but I'm saying I can see where the people where at. So David more than likely did to. And, as their leader, it fell on him to make it right. So what do you do when everything is going wrong, and even the people you love and trust are turning on you? You strengthen yourself. And if you do it right, you strengthen yourself in the Lord. You strengthen yourself in love. Now let me say this--sometimes (believe it or not) I have a bad day. Sometimes I get into a bad mood. And its usually enough for me to get some chocolate, some Mt. Dew, and a scary movie to recalibrate. To get it back to good. But then there are big things. Serious things. And that's when you need to get serious. Let me say it like this, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of teh Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13). And I know this verse is commonly associated with "eternal salvation" and that old cosmic elevator that I try my best to stay away from. But I submit to you that we need salvation right here and right now. When things go bad. When we don't feel like... ok, one of Logan's favorite songs has the line that says, "When you can't hold on... hold on." And I've always said that when you can't hold on, realize that it is GOD that is holding on to YOU. When we don't feel like we can face whatever it is that we're facing... we can strengthen ourselves in the Lord. We can let HIM be our strength. And we know that HIS strength is made perfect in weakness. When we can't, that's when He will. I heard a preacher say it like this, "When you work God will rest. And when you rest Gos will work." Because God waits for an opportunity. He doesn't force His will on us. He will never leave us nor forsake us, but if we think we CAN do it ourselves (to a certain degree) He will let us. But if we call on Him, He answers. Every single time. And maybe not exactly in the way we think He should. Sometimes "no" answer IS the answer. But when we can't hold on... we can let go and let God. We can stop fighting against things and we can let what's inside come out. We can strengthen ourselves (and this is where I'm going with this Rant series) in the inner man. We can love even when it feels like the more we love, the less we are loved. We can keep going (upward and Godward) even when it feels like we've hit a brick wall, or a dead end. We can take care of ourselves, and take care of each other!

Love is the difference between life and death. Because love and life are the same thing. No love, no life. Know love, know life. And what got Adam--and all of humanity before the cross--into trouble is that he thought he needed to earn God's love through the knowledge of good and evil so that he could do good and not do evil. But that's not how it works. Look at 2 Peter 3:17-18, "Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." There's a lot there, but let's unwrap some of it. And first things first, we need to know what we know. The ultimate truth of the universe: God is love and He loves you. That's where we have to start. That's the foundation. And when we're rooted and grounded in love, standing firm on that foundation, that's when we can move upward and Godward. That's when we can begin to grow. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. The knowledge of LOVE. Our steadfastness IS love. Love is longsuffering. Love never fails. Love endures. When we're talking about eternal life, we're talking about eternal love. And when Jesus, when love, is Alpha and Omega, beginning and ending... when we start with love and end with love... that's where we can begin to truly live. We know that we have passed out of death and into life because we love each other. Its the New Commandment: Love one another as Jesus loves you. Receive and release the Father's love. That's what life is all about. That's what life IS. And its available to us. Right now. It is the gift of God that He gave to us when He gave us His only begotten Son. So we can either get busy living, or get busy dying. We can choose life. We can choose love. We can guard our hearts by keeping them open. Keeping them open to love. Letting God love us. Filling ourselves up to overflowing with the love that we have already been filled with. We don't have to GET anything. That's how you work yourself to death. As my mother always says, "When you work your fingers to the bone, you only get bony fingers." As the old saying goes, "If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?" You can't earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. A gift cannot be earned. It has already been given, and must simply be received. Jesus sweated out great drops of blood to redeem us from the cursed earth dimension. So that we could experience heaven on earth. So that we could stop trying to earn something we think we haven't got by being someone we're not. So that we can embrace ourselves and just be who we are. So that we could truly live. A life of love. God loving us, and us loving Him back by loving each other. That's what any father wants for his children--a good, full, abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love! And that's what we have been given. That's what we have. That's what's available to us. Death died on the cross, and now we can live. Because now we can love. Because now we know that we are loved. Now we know that we ARE love!

Heaven and hell. Life and death. Love... and fear. That's right. I said fear. Not hate. I don't think you can actually hate something that you don't, deep down, actually love. I think hatred is more the reaction to rejection than anything else. And when we see what love casts out--in 1 John 4:18--its not hate. Its fear. Because fear has torment. Fear keeps us bound up. Running FROM God (because we think He's mad at us), instead of running TO God. Fear keeps us from living. Because we're afraid of reaching out. Afraid of losing what we've got. Because we think if we give what we've got and don't get anything in return... then we'll have nothing. But let me quote 1 John 4:18 because there's a very important word we need to focus on: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." And the word I want to focus on is "perfect." The first time it is used in our memory verse "perfect love" is number 5046 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "complete." Complete love. Agape love. Sacrificial love. The love that gladly spends all it is and all it has even though it seems like the more we love the less we are loved. In other words, love doesn't worry about getting anything in return. Love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. Jesus, the perfect man, gave Himself for us, and to us. So that we could have Him. So that we could experience His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of Love as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. Life Himself died so that death could die. So that we could live. Truly live. So that we could live fearlessly. We don't have to be afraid. We don't have to be afraid of losing what we've got because we are connected to the limitless source--the God who IS love lives in us! And we don't have to be afraid of being disqualified. Revelation 21:3 in the Message Bible says, "I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: "Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God."" God moved in. And He's never moving out. He's right where He wants to be. Even when you're at your worst. The old country song says, "Daddys don't just love their children every now and then. Its a love without end. Amen." You can make mistakes. You can try things. You can--and should--learn and grow. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Because the knowledge of Christ is the knoweldge of who you really are. And when you know who you really are you can stop trying to be someone you're not. You can stop jumping through hoops in order to try to earn something that can't be earned. You can embrace yourself. And once you do that you can embrace others. When you stop trying to change yourself you'll be able to stop trying to change others. You'll be able to just love them. And I'm not saying you should be a doormat, or a marshmellow, and let people walk all over you. There are some things that you should not stand for. If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. But its not your job to change people. To make them be who you think they should be. Its your job to live and let live. Let God love you and love the people you come into contact with. Receive and release His love. Don't be afraid to love. Don't be afraid to live. Living IS loving and loving is living!

Get busy living or get busy dying. That's about as simply as I can put it. And here's the thing--we know that we HAVE passed from death into life because we love each other. We WERE dead in our trespasses and sins, but we HAVE been quickened and brought back to life by our heavenly Father. And not just any life, but HIS life. The abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love. That's what has been given to us. That's what is available to us. So here's the deal: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). Its a choice. You can stay where you're at (where you THINK you're at), and listen to the world's report of doom and gloom. Or you can be like that man under the curse of the Law who does what he hates and doesn't do what he wants to do. You can struggle with "sin," or you can lay it aside. You can keep sleepwalking through life or you can awake to righteousness and sin not. And don't get it twisted--you don't awake to righteousnes BY sinning not. You sin not BY awaking to righteousness. 1 John 3:9 tells us that, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Which is good news when you consider that the wages of sin is death (not hell), and we're talking about life. Sin is unbelief. Believing that you have to earn God's love by performing. By being someone you're not. Believing anything other than the ultimate truth of the universe that says God is love and He loves you. Anything outside of that will cause you to go astray. Because either way, Christ's love controls us. Either we don't know we have it (ARE IT), and we do everything we do in order to try to get it, or we do know we have it and we do everything we do in order to give it away. Death... or life. Trying to earn something you can't earn... or sharing the gift you've got and in that way experiencing it. Life is a shared experience. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. And while you can't--I said CAN'T--dismiss self-love, and self-care... its so important to take care of yourself. To embrace yourself and let yourself live and learn, learn and grow... while self-care is vitally important, it takes two to tango. Agape love is giving yourself. Giving everything you have and everything you are to the people around you. Laying your life down for your friends. That's a life worth living. A life of service. That's what Jesus modeled when He got down on His knees and washed His disciples' feet. And that's what Jesus showed in fulness when He gave His life for us--and to us--on the cross. He made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could know that we are loved. And by knowing we are loved, love one another. Obey the New Commandment. Fulfil our destiny. Our EPIC (Eternal Purpose In Christ) Destiny. Everything is at hand. Its within reach. We don't have to earn it. We simply need to fight the good fight of faith and reach out and grab it. Make the choice. Choose life. And then get busy living. Get busy loving. It doesn't have to be earth shattering. The smallest act of kindness can literally change someone's whole world. Someone's whole life. And that's a beautiful, powerful thing. That's love!

I think if you look at heaven as life and hell as death--not destinations, but states of being--then everything is a heaven and hell issue. Because I think everything is a life or death issue. As one of my favorite movies says, "Get busy living or get busy dying." As I see it, those are your choices. And yet we spend so much energy making sure we take the cosmic afterlife elevator UP instead of DOWN. And I know that Jesus talked about having treasure in heaven. But, again, I think that was more of a state of being. The days of heaven on earth. The treasure of our heart's desire. Which is love. Experiencing the gift we've been given by giving it away. Let me get my memory verse out: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10). And there's so much here. So much about how JESUS is the tithe AND the storehouse. But the point I want to make is that God didn't promise to open up the windows of heaven FOR us. He promised to open US up, because WE ARE the windows of heaven! He didn't promise to pour out a blessing FOR us. He promised to pour US out AS a blessing. So much that there won't be room to receive it. Filling us up to overflowing so that we can live out of our abundance. So that we can give what we've got simply by knowing (and believing) that we've got it. That's what life is all about. The difference between life and death... is love. God loved us so much that He gave us His only begotten Son. And Jesus loved us so much that He gave His life for us, and He gave His life to us. He quickened us when we were dead. Died for us when we were sinners. To bring us to life. And not just any life, but HIS life. The abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life of Love that is knowing the one true God and the One whom He sent. Knowing God as your heavenly Father and knowing yourself as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOUR body. That's your true identity. That's who you really are. Who you are in Christ is who Christ is in you. And without that quickening Spirit--the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth that equips and empowers us to call out Abba, Father--we cannot truly live. We cannot experience the days of heaven on earth. We cannot rule and reign as kings and priests on this earth. Because to live is to love. To love is to live. Heaven on earth means receiving and releasing God's love. Obeying the New Commandment and loving one another as He loves us. Ruling and reigning in love. For love. By love. Because of love. We know that we have passed from death into life because we love. That's the key. That's the difference. What are those old two sentence stories? No love, no life. KNOW love, KNOW life. You can't have one without the other because they are not just connected... they are the same thing. Adam didn't know he was loved and he surely died. We know we are loved and we can live forever. Even when our mortal bodies are gone our legacy of love will live on!

I heard a preacher say one time, "We make everything out to be a heaven and hell issue... when really most things are life and death issues!" And his point was that we spend so much time thinking about the afterlife that we miss out on the life we have right now. And I'm not going to get into what I believe about heaven and hell right now, but I AM going to spend the next few days talking about life and death. And I want to start by linking two memory verses together. Ephesians 2:1, "And you hath he quickened, who we were dead in trespasses and sins." 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." What I think its important to notice is that, in both cases, death came first. Remember how God told Adam that on the day he ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would surely die? And at that time Adam was, in a sense, standing as humanity's representative. We were "in" Adam, so to speak. What happened to him happened to us. So when he died--a Spiritual death, because his physical body lived for hundreds of years after that fateful day--we died. From that point on humanity was dead in trespasses and sins. The walking dead. Going through the religious motions trying to earn something that couldn't be earned. But God quickened us. Brought us out of that death and into life through the cross. The second death that lead to the new birth. The death OF death. So that we could live. Truly live. So that we could live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as Jesus lives it in us, and through us, and as us. So that we could experience the gift that God gave us when He gave us His only begotten Son. So that, by beleiving in Him--believing in LOVE--we could stop perishing and have everlasting life. Let me say it this way: Before the cross (and, individually, in our own lives, before we were awakened to this glorious truth of the gospel) we were "living" but we weren't fully alive. Because to truly live is to love. And to live is to truly live. You can't have one without the other, because they are not just connected... they are the same thing. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, right? And God is love. So love is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let me say that again: Love IS life. And while we're wasting our life waiting to die so that we can be transported to some place called "heaven..." what we ought to be doing is experiencing the days of heaven on earth. Enjoying the gift we've been given by giving it away. By sharing it. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love each other. That's the New Commandment--to love one another as Jesus has loved you--and that's the proof of life. Think about how lifeless you feel when you convince yourself that no one loves you. I know you've probably done it. I surely have. You get burned by someone and you just shut down. You feel numb. Listless. Lifeless. But then think about those times when you've really gone out of your way to love someone. The joy you give to them that resonates in your innermost being. That's when you feel most alive. Not when you get something, but when you give what you've got. When you give the LOVE that you've got. When you give the love that you ARE. Life is a life or death issue. And its all about love!

Love is... giving. Plain and simple. It is the act of giving yourself--everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. Esteeming others higher than yourself. Not trying to get anything, but knowing that you have everything, and giving what you've got. Like I said... simple. But simple doesn't mean easy. Because there's almost a built in fear that when we give what we've got, and get nothing in return, then we won't have anything anymore. Isn't it funny that the grass always seems greener on the other side, but at the same time we're unwilling to give up what we've got in order to get something new? We hold on to "the way things are" just because its "the way things are." We settle for so much less than what's available to us. Because we don't think we deserve anything better. We've been without ourselves at our lowest point. At our very worst. And when we have this man-centered, performance-based, do good and get rewarded but do evil and get punished, religious mindset... when we weigh our good against our evil... we always come out on the short side. Because no matter how much good we do, its almost like we think the bad is more important. When in reality, when we're swinging from branch to branch on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, all we're doing is feasting on death. Because the tree of knowledge of good and evil IS the tree of death. God told Adam that on the day he ate of that tree he would surely die. Not because He was threatening to punish His creation. But because death is the natural consequence of eating from that tree of death. What God wanted was for His creation to eat from the OTHER tree. The Tree of Life. And the fruit of THAT tree is the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Love MEANS "love feast." It is the six course meal that is the cross--Jesus was Crucified, Died, Buried, Quickened, Raised, Seated. That's the meal that Jesus prepared for us in the presence of our enemies. And if love is a verb--and it is--the action we take is eating that meal. Understanding that His death was our death, and His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is our life! Understanding that we don't have to earn anything because God so loved us that He GAVE us His Son. So that we might know ourselves as His Son. So that we might experience the gift of God--Jesus' life of love--as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. And when we understand that its Jesus living His own life... that casts out any fear we might have of losing what we've got by giving it away. You EXPERIENCE the gift you've been given BY giving it away. By sharing it. You don't lose it. You can't. You can live fearlessly by loving fearlessly. By seeing a need and meeting it. Going back to our love feast picture, if you see someone who is hungry... feed them. Simple. If you have two coats and someone doesn't have one... live out of your abundance. Give them what you've got. And in that way... enjoy what you've got. Things are better when you share them. Because then they bring joy to others, and to yourself. Like a Holy Ghost wildfire that feeds on itself and grows and grows and grows into an unstoppable all consuming fire. Or, to say it another way, a snowball that picks up steam and grows and grows and grows as it flows downhill. But you have to make that first move. You have to step out in faith. Faith in God. Faith in love. Love someone, even in a tiny way, and watch what happens. Its awesome!