I like this Rant series because it's hopeful. And I think hope is sometimes pushed to the backburner. Even though, "Three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT). We focus a lot on faith. And rightfully so. We focus the most on love. And rightfully so. Love is the greatest of all. Faith works by love. They are more than hand in hand. But what about hope? Hope lasts forever. Hope springs eternal. If it didn't, it wouldn't be hope. The word "hope" in our verse today in the KJV is number 1680 in Strong's Greek Concordance. It means, "Expectation or confidence." And when we're talking about building (on the foundation of Christ... love), we have to have an expectation that we aren't building in vain. We have to have a confidence that what we're doing means something. Because when we build... here a little, there a little... it can seem like we're running in place sometimes. It can seem like we AREN'T making much of a difference. It can SEEM like we ARE building in vain. Which is why we must not despise small beginnings. We have to trust in the Lord that HE is the one who is really doing the building. I mean, Jesus was a carpenter, right? When God was speaking to King David He said, "And since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. Moreover I will subdue all thine enemies. Furthermore I tell thee that the LORD will build thee an house" (1 Chronicles 17:10). And I think there are two ways to take this: 1. God will build a house FOR us. 2. God will build US into a house. Which goes right along with what we see in Revelation 21:3 in the Message Bible, "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." He built a house--US--for HIM to live in! "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). Christ in you. The hope of glory. The expectation, or confidence, that the glory within will come out. Naturally. By little and little. Until it's every breath you take and every move you make. Until it's not something you have to try to do. Until you have filled yourself with the love that God has filled you with and it overflows and gets all over everybody you come into contact with. Until people look at you and see Jesus. Until you look at YOURSELF and see Jesus. Until you begin to love others with the love that Jesus loves you with. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). We ARE the Son(s) of God. And as He reveals Himself to us, and in us, and through us, and as us... we SEE Him as He is... and we BE Him as He is. We be OURSELVES as we truly are. So we can have that confidence that even the longest never-ending life-long journey starts with a single step. A baby step. And all of the stumbles and falls are simply occasions to learn and grow. Don't worry about the destination. In a sense we have already arrived because the work is finished. So just enjoy the ride!

The smallest spark can start the biggest fire. A Holy Ghost wildfire that burns out of control. With love. Consuming everything in its path and feeding on itself (Himself) and growing and growing and growing. I'm telling you, sometimes you don't even realize how big the small things are. So while I started this Rant series talking about adding a little here and a little there, line upon line, precept upon precept, I want to move even more into the giving it away aspect. Because that's what this life is all about; receiving and RELEASING the love of God. Giving away what you've got. Because that's what love is; giving everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. And realizing that you destroy your enemies by MAKING them your friends. Killing everybody you meet with kindness. Even if it's just giving a cookie to a hungry co-woker. Sometimes the smallest things are the biggest things. Sometimes the least you can do is the most you can do. And sometimes you can change someone's whole world with a tiny act of kindness. So don't despise small beginnings. Rome wasn't built in a day. You have to start somewhere. When God called Moses to square off against the most powerful man in the world (at the time), He asked Moses, "What do you have in your hand?" He didn't wait until Moses thought he was ready. His perfect timing MADE Moses ready. Even when Moses thought he was totally and completely in over his head. Even when Moses tried his hardest to get out of it. God knows the way because He IS the Way (and the Truth, and the Life). He knows what's best for us. Which is why He gave us His only beloved Son. He wanted the best for us, so He gave the best to us. And from that moment on we had everything we would ever need. From that moment on we could stop looking for love in all the wrong places. Because from that moment on the Holy Spirit took up abode in us. The Spirit of Truth leading and guiding us into all truth. One step at a time. Showing us how to love by showing us how we are loved. Showing us who we are in Christ by showing us who Christ is in us. And God isn't worried about the length of our maturation process. He is longsuffering. He has sworn to NEVER leave us nor forsake us. When we stumble, He helps us up. And after a while we learn to walk in newness of life and then He HOLDS us up. He KEEPS us from falling. So that what's inside us--love--can come out of us. Naturally. By little and little... and then by greater and greater. That spark starts a fire. That mustard seed blooms into the biggest tree of all. The Tree of Life. There's a lot to be said in the Bible about the seed. But what I think I'm trying to say today is that when a seed is planted... a tree of that same kind grows. When LOVE is planted, the Tree of Life grows. And then the Fruit of the Spirit--which is love--blooms. And we, the branches of that tree (or vine), bear that fruit. We give away what we've got because we're no longer trying to get something we think we haven't got. We, again, receive it and release it. Starting small but ending big. Starting with love and ending with love. Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. Alpha and Omega. Beginning and end.

Here's my thought for today: You have to start somewhere. And there's no place like the one you're in right now. No time like right this second. Look at Zechariah 4:10 in the NLT, "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand." Don't despise small beginnings. What's that old saying? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. As long as you're moving forward, it doesn't really matter how fast you're going. You're learning and growing. Making mistakes, but learning from your mistakes. Starting where you are, with what you've got. And giving all you've got, and all you are. That's what this life is all about. Learning to love by learning HOW we are loved. Receiving and releasing the love of God. One step at a time. Because love is a consuming fire. It feeds on itself and grows and grows. Job 8:7 puts it like this, "Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase." In the NLT it goes like this, "And though you started with little, you will end with much." Remember Jesus' story about the Kingdom? "It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it" (Mark 4:32-33). The Kingdom is an ever-expanding Kingdom. Love consumes everything except itself. The Holy Ghost wildfire grows out of control. But it starts with a single spark. A single act of love. Stepping out in faith and releasing what's inside you. I used the cookie story as an example. That's a small beginning. But from that tiny mustard seed love began to grow. And grow. And grow. By little and little. And sometimes by leaps and bounds. And sometimes in fits and starts. Sometimes it feels like one step forward and two steps back. Sometimes it seems like nothing is happening at all. Sometimes it seems like, "What's the point?" But that's why I quoted that verse in Job. Because even if you start with little... and even if it seems to be growing slowly... you WILL end with much. Because what you're starting with is what you end with! Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. So it might SEEM small at the beginning, but it's really the biggest thing there is. I've said it before, sometimes the least you can do is the most you can do. Sometimes it doesn't seem like much, but it's everything to someone who has nothing. We don't always seem to understand how powerful the little things are. Like a kind word in season. Or an ear to listen. A shoulder to cry on. These are things we can do. And these are things people desperately need. Knowing someone is there for them. Knowing someone cares. That's awesomely powerful. So don't despise small beginnings. The Lord rejoices to see the work begin. He's more interested in AVAILABILITY than ability. Showing up is a lot more than half the battle. The point of life is to live. And, you knew I was going to get here, to live is to love and to love is to live. So start small. Start right where you're at. But start! 

The way you walk by faith... is one step at a time. By little and little. That's how you POSESS the land that you've been given. Let me say it another way, "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little" (Isaiah 28:10). That's how you build anything, right? Well... anything that you want to last. You lay a foundation, and you build on it. Line upon line, line upon line. I like the way it repeats itself there too. Because when we're talking about an eternal, everlasting, abundant, Resurrection Life... that's a lot of building. And that's ok. That's the point. We "get" it all right from the beginning. But we only begin to experience everything we've got a little bit at a time. Take 2 Peter 1:5-7 for example, "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity." We're not adding things we DON'T have. We're adding things we DO have. And notice that it "ends" with charity--or love in action. Guess what: It also BEGINS with love. Jesus, God in the flesh, love in a body, is both beginning and end. That's the foundation, and that's the manifestation. That's where we start--remember, when we look into the mirror with an unveiled face we see the glory of the Lord and we are changed into that image from glory to glory. We start at glory--and that's where we end. It's perfection, which means maturity. It's knowing who we are in order to BE who we are. To BE transformed into what we've already BEEN transformed into. And sometimes it seems like a big change. Sometimes when you have an experience with the love of God you immediately lose your appetite for some of the things you thought you wanted (when you were looking for love in all the wrong places). Sometimes it's like a switch gets flipped, or a lightbulb turns on. But most of the time it happens a lot less dramatically. Most of the time you don't even notice the change taking place, until something happens and you respond to it in a totally different way than you once would have. The cookie story, in my case. At one of my previous jobs I had a cookie on my desk. And I was more or less staring at it all morning because I couldn't wait to eat it at lunch. But then one of my cowokers mentioned she was hungry and didn't HAVE a lunch. And before I knew what was happening... I gave her my cookie. At THAT point I was able to kind of stop and think to myself, "Well. That's not something I thought would ever happen." Because the change came by little and little. It was gradual. And, look, I know giving your cookie away isn't necessarily a HUGE deal. But in my case it kind of was. It was a baby step, sure. But it felt like a big step forward. And the best part was... it was natural. I wasn't TRYING to do anything or be anyone. I was just filled to overflowing with something and that made it easy, effortless, to give it away!

I spend a lot of time talking about the Finished Work. And appropriately so, I think. Because it's uber important that we stop waiting for a move of God and we start getting a revelation of Jesus. The Finished Work of the cross WAS the move of God that humanity was kind of unknowingly waiting for. But that was 2,000 years ago. We don't need God to move. We need to understand what happened WHEN He moved. We don't need God to do anything or give us anything. Because He already did everything and gave us everything! This everlasting life-long journey is not about getting. It's about understanding what we've got. Receiving and enjoying (by releasing) the gift we've already been given. Which is where the title of this Rant series comes into play. I mentioned this idea a few days ago and want to pick up on it. When Jesus was talking about being built on the rock so that your house would stand when the rain and the wind comes... He wasn't necessarily (or only) talking about a strom in a negative sense. The rain is healing rain. And the wind is the Holy Spirit! Sometimes the things we struggle with the most are the "good" things in life. And I think that's because we are so used to the "bad" things. (I'm using quotation marks because at this point in our lives we need to stop judging things by good and evil, stop judging things by appearance, but it makes my point.) Sometimes we don't get what we want because we're not ready for it yet. That's a blessing, by the way. I mean, haven't we all heard stories about people winning the lottery and then, in very short order, ending up broke? Because they couldn't handle the sudden wealth. If you watch sports you see the same thing with KIDS who are suddenly rich and famous. They make a lot of mistakes because they aren't ready for what they've been given. My point: In this never-ending life-long journey we need to take things one step at a time. We need to learn to walk before we can run. We need to take baby steps. And that means we need to let ourselves make mistakes. We need to be able to try things. Do it wrong so that you can learn to do it right. Experience is the best teacher. So. Let me quote my key verse of Scripture for this Rant series. Genesis 23:29-30, "I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By litte and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land." See that? The work was finished. The Promised Land wasn't just promised. It was delivered. But at the same time, it was something for the people to grow into. Too much too soon is a receipe for disaster. But little by little we can learn and grow. We don't want to get TOO comfortable--a rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out, and nothing amazing ever came out of a comfort zone--but we want to have a handle on one thing before we add on to it. And, again, we're not adding anything NEW. We have it all. We're just adding what we HAVE to what we're experiencing. But we'll look at that too. Maybe tomorrow. My thought for today is: Baby steps. One thing at a time. Breathe. Relax. Be still, and know that He is God. Know that God is love. You're ok. It'll come. It'll flow. When you stop trying to force it. When you just LET it. By little and little.

It boils down to this: "This is real love--not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other" (1 John 4:10-11 NLT). That's what the love of Christ is all about--He died for us. Laid His life down. And by doing so He showed us how much we are loved... and He showed us HOW to love. How to love Him, and how to love each other. How to love Him BY loving each other. And that, by the way, is the New Commandment; loving each other AS He loved us. Since He loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other that much. See, it's not just God's love filling us up. Because scientically speaking, in order to truly be full something has to be filled to overflowing. So it's God's love filling us up, and flowing out of us. It's not the light of the world simply shining ON us, it's the light shining IN us. Shining THROUGH us. Coming OUT of us. The love of God filling us up and then flowing out of us. Which is what Jesus spoke of in John 7:38 (NLT), "Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'" Did you see the key there? Believing in Him. Knowing and believing. Knowing how we are loved equips and empowers us to love. And it doesn't come FROM us. It comes from Him. It comes THROUGH us. Out of us. When we know and believe it's in us. When we receive it, we can release it. When we release it... that's HOW we receive it. We experience the gift we've been given by giving it away. As we are loved... we love. We let God love us, and then--because it's so big, and so good--it comes out all on it's own and gets all over everybody we come into contact with. It's not something we produce, or need to find, or can possibly earn. It is something freely given from Father to Son. The unstoppable, unconditional RELATIONSHIP of love between Father and Son. The Son knows His heavenly Father loves Him, and because of that He can live an abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. Because Jesus laid His life down for us (and took it back up), we can lay our lives down for each other. Because He gave us everything--everything He has and everything He is--we can give everything to each other. And, like I always say, that's what love IS: giving everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. Esteeming others higher than yourself. Not worrying about getting... but focusing on giving. And I know I've mentioned this before, but I don't think anyone ever went broke by being generous. I think the more you try to get, the less you end up having. But the more you give... the more you experience. Guys. That's HOW you experience love. You give it away. You share it. And in sharing it, it becomes even more real. If you know it... throw it. If you've got it... give it away. "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!" (Matthew 10:8 NLT). That's what love is all about: Seeing and need and meeting it. Giving what you've got. Freely. As a gift. Not expecting anything in return. Not trying to get... but joyfully giving!

Love is what matters in this life. Because you can't have life without love. The tricky part is when you understand that love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. It seems backwards, and upside down. But that's the way of the Kingdom. James 4:10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall life you up." Or Matthew 20:16, "So the last shall be first, and the first last..." (Which actually makes even more sense when you understand that JESUS is the first AND the last. The beginning AND the end.) It's almost like the Kingdom goes out of it's way to defy conventional wisdom. Which, I think, is the point. The Kingdom isn't about "figuring something out." Or about taking something with the violence of human effort. The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Love. And love IS giving. So, once again we see the backwards effect: The more you take, the less you have. The more you give away the more you experience. Because, really, that's what love is; it's an experience. It's sharing what you have with someone else. Even when Jesus was preaching to the masses, and they were hungry, He knew what to do. Not, "Go get food." But, "Give them what you have." You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. The problem is that we often don't KNOW what we have. We think we're lacking something. So we look for love in all the wrong places. We run around like chickens with their heads cut off and we rob ourselves from experiencing what we've already got because we're too busy trying to get the very thing that we've already got! What we ought to be doing is giving it away. Giving everything we have and everything we are. That's love. Laying our lives down for our friends. That's the love of Christ. Loving without limits. Gladlly giving it all away without any thought, or worry, about what we'll get back. Or how our gift will be received. It doesn't matter how it will be received. We can't control people. And if you're "loving" someone in order to control them... that's not love. Love doesn't HAVE a motive, love IS the motive. Seeing a need and meeting it. Living out of our abundance. "If you have two coats, give one to someone who has none." Right? Pretty simple. And notice that I didn't say "easy." I said "simple." Because in the beginning, it can hard. Giving something away can be scary. Because if you look for something for a long time, and then finally find it... giving it away seems like the opposite of what you should do. But perfect love casts out fear. Because there is no fear in love. You can't be afraid OF love, and you can't be afraid TO love. Not if you want to truly live. Not if you want to experience Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as He lives it in you, and through you, and as you. Not if you want to experience love. Because love is experienced when you give it away. When you share it. When you serve, instead of trying to get people to serve you. When you humble yourself. When you esteem others higher than yourself. When you stop being self-centered and start being Christ-centered. People-centered. When you start to understand how much Jesus loves you... and then start to love others that same way. With the same love. The love of Christ!

It's only when we understand how loved we are, that we can begin to truly love one another. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. Because the New Commandment is to love one another AS JESUS loves us. Which brings me to my point for today: It is only when we understand the love of Christ that we can understand how loved we are. It is only when we understand that He loved us enough to literally die for us that we begin to understand what love truly is. I think it's all about love. You probably know that if you've heard me preach or read any of my Rants of books. So it's very important to me to understand what love is. And, look, I understand that I don't understand. I know that all we know of Him is the outer fringes of His glory. I get it. We can--and will, and should--spend our entire everlasting lives testing the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of His love for us. And never coming close to the limits. Because there ARE no limits. But I want to document a couple of verses that I think give good definitions of love. To me, the love of Christ is as follows: "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13 NLT). "I will gladly spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me" (2 Corinthians 12:15 NLT). And, "God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him" (1 John 4:9 NLT). And the common theme here is giving. Love IS giving. Giving all you have and all you are. That's what Jesus did. He gave His life FOR us, and He gave His life TO us. Because He wanted us to have it. He wanted us to experience His everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life. Not by US trying (and failing) to live it. But by HIM living it in us, and through us, and as us. Because He didn't just lay His life down. He took it back up again. He gave everything He is and everything He has to us, by giving HIMSELF to us. By giving us a gift and also making sure we can enjoy it. That's the love of Christ. Not just dying for us... but living IN us! One more verse for today: Galatians 2:20 (NLT), "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Get it? The New Commandment is for the New Man! Not me living "for" Him, but Him living IN me! Me living in Him. Living BY Him. Living BY faith. And, as I always like to point out, faith is not a blind leap. We don't try to make something happen though faith. Faith is knowing and believing that something has already happened. Faith is believing God loves us because He SHOWED us He loves us. Faith is the EVIDENCE of things not seen. And faith works by love. Because having faith in God is having faith in love. Because God is love! I'm telling you, this revelation of the love of Christ changes everything. Instead of looking for love in all the wrong places we can begin to share the love that we already have. And that is what makes life worth living. That is what makes it possible to live life. Because to live is to love... and to love is to live!

Here's what I was thinking--because I'm a writer, so words are very important to me--when we use a phrase like, "the love of Christ" what we're really saying is "how Jesus loved." And this is how Jesus loved: He loved us so much that He would rather die than be without us. Literally. He loved us so much that He gave His life for us, and He gave His life to us. He loved us so much that He endured the cross, and all of the pain, and embarassment, and humiliation that came with it. There was nothing He wouldn't do for us, even to the point of laying His life down for us. Giving everything He had and everything He was. Because He wanted us to have it. Because He loved us. Romans 5:8 says it like this, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." When there was nothing we could do for Him, He did everything for us. We had an external Law of rights and wrongs, dos and don'ts. But we couldn't hope to keep it. Because external behavior modification can never, and will never, bring REAL lasting change. You might see a little bit of success getting people to do what you want if you scare them badly enough. But if getting people to do what you want is your goal then you're about as far away from love as you can possibly get. Because love is not about getting. Love IS giving. Giving what you've got. Inside. Letting what's inside come out as you fill yourself to overflowing with it. As you focus on the love of Christ... that love begins to control you. And not in a scary, "Do it or else," kind of way. But in the way that love is so big, so central, so important, that everything you do flows from it. Then you begin to see others the way God sees you. You begin to obey the New Commandment and love others AS Christ has loved you. Once you begin to receive it, that's when you can release it. And I'm convinced that the best way TO receive it is BY releasing it. I think the biggest step you can take in this walk of faith is to walk in love. To reach out to someone and give them what THEY need. Which, by the way, is what YOU have. 1 John 4:16, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Known and believed. We have BEEN loved, and because of that we CAN love. The NLT puts it like this, "We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them." We know how much He loves us. And that's WHY we can put our trust in His love. It's not a blind leap of faith. It's simply experiencing the gift we've been given by giving it away. By sharing it with all those around us. By loving others as HE loves us. The love is Christ is all about sacrifice. About taking care of others because we KNOW and BELIEVE that we are taken care of. Our heavenly Father has our back. And that equips and empowers us to have the backs of those we come into contact with. We don't have to worry about getting. We can simply give away what we've got. That's the love of Christ. Giving. Giving yourself. Everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends. 

I asked my son, Logan, what I should Rant about today and he said, "God... love... you know, all that good stuff." And I said, "Okey dokey, little buddy." And I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Because I feel like in a very large way I've already succeeded with him. Every night when we say our prayers I ask him three questions: Who is God? What's His name? Where does He live? And Logan answers: Love. Jesus. In your heart. That's what was important to me to teach my son about "theology." The rest of it... I try to let him know the truth contained in Romans 8:38 (NLT), "And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love." Which is the answer to the question posed in Romans 8:35 (NLT), "Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?" In the KJV it phrases it, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And the answer, in a word, is nothing. I make absolute sure to let my son know that even when I get mad (yes, I get mad sometimes) I still love him. I make sure to let him know that no matter what, Dad's got his back. Nothing can separate him from the love of Christ. Nothing can separate US from our heavenly Father's love. And, as we go along in this Rant series, we're going to see that when we understand the New Commandment (for a New Man, walking in newness of life)... when we understand what it means to love one another as Christ loves us... that means that nothing can separate us from each other! We are connected on a deep level. The heart. Different branches of the same tree. Different parts of the same body. But, like I said, that's the next couple of days. And even though I always DO get ahead of myself, I don't WANT to. So my thought for today: What's important? What matters? What should I Rant about. God, and love, and all that good stuff. And the strength of God's love. And the reason that that love is so strong. Here's why it's so strong: Because HE is the One holding on to us! I've heard it said, "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on." And I like that. But when we turn our attention and our focus away from ourselves and onto God (where it belongs) what we find is that the "rope" isn't a rope at all. It's a vine. And, again, we are the branches. The vine is what supports us, not the other way around. We think we're hanging (for dear life, sometimes) but really God is hanging on to us. And He will NEVER let go. He will NEVER leave us nor forsake us. NOTHING can separate us from the love of God, because the love of God is only dependent on one thing: God. Even that New Commandment--we are to love as HE loves us. If He wants us to love a lot... He has to first love us a lot. He fills us up to overflowing and then it comes out naturally. That's what's important. That's what matters. That's what it's all about. Even my five year old son knows that!