Love. It's the most important thing in life. Because it IS life. To live is to love and to love is to live. According to 1 John 3:14, "...He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." No love... no life. It's that simple. But here's the tricky part: You can't give what you don't have. And you can't earn a gift. So if you're trying to "get" love you're doomed to fail. The only way TO love is to know that you ARE loved. To receive and release the gift you've been given. To let the Holy Spirit--the Spirit of truth, our love receptor--lead and guide us into all truth. To let ourselves BE loved by God. Because that's where it comes from. It comes from God. It comes from inside. We love, because He first loved us. The circumcision made without hands--the circumcision of the HEART--cut away the flesh of human effort (of trying to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow) and revealed God's heart beating with love in our chests. When we understand our true identity, that we are Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--then we will stop looking for love in all the wrong places and we will start looking within. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. We will stop trying to get something and we will start experiencing, and enjoying, what we've got. We will stop abiding in death and we will begin to truly live! But here's the question: How do we make that switch? From trying to get... to giving what we've got. Well, we have to KNOW what we've got. We have to BELIEVE it. And then we can receive it and release it. Receive it BY releasing it. Look at Isaiah 12:3, "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." And connect it to John 7:38 in the NLT, "Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'" The wells of salvation are WITHIN. Within our HEARTS. Where else could love comes from? And knowing and believing that love is in our hearts--knowing and believing that we ARE loved--produces joy. What else could it produce? Love is the desire of our heart. And when we delight ourselves in Him we "get" (or experience) that desire. Because, again, He IS love. Delighting ourselves in love allows us to enjoy and experience it. And the way to delight in it--the point of drawing it out of the well of your heart--is to give it away. To share it. To live by loving. To love by living. To be Christ-centered, which means to be people-centered. To love God, with the love that He loves us with, by loving each other. To pass from death unto life by letting love in, and out. To walk in newness of life by walking by faith. Faith, which comes from hearing. And hearing from the Word (Jesus, love) of God. A life of love is a life of faith. Because hurting people hurt people, but loved people love people. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. Guarding your heart isn't about closing it down because you've been hurt, and you don't want to be hurt again. Guarding your heart is about keeping it open. To love. So that in being loved, you can be LOVE. You can let what's inside come out. You can experience it, and enjoy it, by giving it away. By sharing it. By letting your light shine. By loving others with the love of God that you already have inside!

When we look within we find what we have. And when we know what we have we can give it away. Share it. And in that way EXPERIENCE what we have. That's why when I talk about receiving and releasing, I usually add that the best way TO receive is BY releasing. See, we talk about blind leaps of faith. But faith isn't blind. Faith is trust. And we trust God because He has proven Himself trustworthy. Romans 10:17 in the NLT says it like this, "So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ." Faith comes from hearing. It's KNOWING and believing. You can't believe something you don't know. You hear the good news about Christ--that God loves you, and always has, and always will--and then you have a foundation to build on. Then you have something--someONE, Jesus, love--to believe in. And when have something... that's when you can give something. And that's why it's so important to preach the gospel at all times (and if you have to, use words). That's why it's so important to SHOW people the Father, just as Jesus did when He went around loving people, and healing people. And I'm not just talking about physical healing. I'm talking about emotional healing. Because sometimes the emotional hurts are much worse than the physical ones. And sometimes just knowing that someone is there for you can heal those emotional hurts. That's what love is all about. Giving everything you have and everything you are to those around you. Loving God by loving others. Loving others with the love that we are loved with. So looking inside and finding that love--strengthening ourselves in the Lord--is not selfish at all. Because when we fill ourselves with what we've been filled with... when we apprehend what we've been apprehended of... what we're really doing is filling ourselves to OVERFLOWING. So that what's inside COMES OUT. And instead of trying to force it out, knowing and believing it's in there lets it come out naturally. Our new nature--the love nature--begins to, as 2 Corinthians 5:14 says in the NLT, control us. We begin to be who we are instead of trying to be someone we're not. There's such a huge difference between being a son of God, and being the beloved Son of God. The difference between life and death, in face. The difference between being loved and KNOWING that you are loved. The difference between trying to earn God's love, and letting yourself BE loved by the God who IS love. When you're trying to earn something that can't be earned what you're really doing is robbing yourself of the gift you've already been given. But when you be still and know that HE is God... when you be still and know that God is love... then you can begin to experience that gift of eternal life. That gift of a life filled to overflowing with love. That gift that is meant to be given away. Shared. Because love IS giving. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. Knowing (and believing) that you are loved is what equips and empowers you to love. Receiving is just the first step. It leads to releasing. Because what you receive is too big, and too good, to keep to yourself. It's not too good to be true, it's so good that it must be true. And something that good must be shared!

Knowing that you are loved is what allows you to love. Because love is never about getting. Love IS giving. And you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you do have. 1 John 4:19 says, "We love him, because he first loved us." And in the NLT it says, "We love each other because he loved us first." We loved Him BY loving each other. But we CAN love Him by loving each other, only because He first loved us. And that's what I want to focus on today. HIS love for US. Which, as I mentioned yesterday, can seem a little bit selfish at first. Because being Christ-centered (instead of self-centered) really means being people-centered. And you know I've preached and Ranted many times about how if I take care of you... and you take care of me... then neither one of us has to take care of ourselves. But I don't think that's very easy to do--maybe even it's IMPOSSIBLE to do--if you put "worry" into the equation. The best definition I ever heard for "worrying" is, "Praying for what you DON'T want." And I think that's how we get into trouble a lot of times. We are worried about things that haven't even--and probably won't even--happen. We worry about what we (think we) haven't got. And, understandably, we try to get it. We look for love in all the wrong places. Because we don't know and believe that we already have it. This, I truly believe, is the biggest problem mankind has. We don't know that we are loved. Which means we CAN'T love each other because we're too busy trying to get love. We're too busy robbing ourselves of what we've already got to experience it and enjoy it. To give it away. To share it. So, really, focusing on how much our heavenly Father loves us is not selfish at all. It is the opposite of that. Look at the New Commandment (for a New Man): "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). We love with the love we are loved with. Hurting people hurt people. But loved people love people. When Jesus said to love one another AS HE has loved us... He wasn't just telling us TO love. He was telling us HOW to love. And notice the past tense there, "As I HAVE loved you." God always has and always will love you. He IS love. There's nothing else He could possibly do. His love is MEANT to fill us to overflowing and to come out naturally. But it starts when we fill ourselves with what we've been filled with. When we apprehend what we've been apprehended of. If you know what you've got, you can give it away. Once you receive it... you can release it. So strenghtening yourself in the Lord, building yourself up in faith, is not selfish at all. Because love is too big--and too good--to keep to yourself. The more you have, the more you can use. The more you ARE loved, the more you CAN love. So in order to love one another AS Jesus has LOVED us... we have to know the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of His love for us. We have to know what we've got. And in knowing (and believing) we receive it... and release it. But it comes FROM Him. And then it comes THROUGH us. We ARE loved, so we CAN love!

The love and affirmation of the Father equips and empowers the Son to live. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. Because you can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. In order to love, you have to know and believe that you ARE loved. And that's what the Holy Spirit is all about. He is the Spirit of truth that leads and guides us into all truth. The truth that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands. The truth that we ARE that beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased. And I can tell you from experience, when your son knows you love him... that's when he ACTS like a son. That's when he's about his father's business. Not in order to earn something, but because he already has something. That's why Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he SHOULD go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." That's why 1 Corinthians 3:11 says, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Jesus--God in the flesh, love in a body--is our foundation. That's where we start. LOVE is where we start. And when we train up a child in the way he SHOULD go, by laying that foundation of love, that's when we find ourselves on the right track. On the straight and narrow road that leads to life. I've mentioned this before, but I'll spend a little time on it here. The straight and narrow road does NOT lead to heaven. We have already beeen given heaven. The days of heaven on earth. So we don't have to wait until we die to go to heaven. We already went to heaven when Jesus died. When He established the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom of love. And the reason the way to life is narrow is because, again, 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. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we live the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death" (1 John 3:14). Love is the difference between life and death. Because love IS life. Jesus isn't just our foundation--and He's certainly not our boss--He's our life. Our abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life! And what makes the abundant life abundant... is love. So in order to truly live we must love one another. Otherwise we abide in death. And the only way we CAN truly live--by loving--is knowing that we are loved. Building on that foundation. Training our children (and ourselves) up in the way we should go. Filling our children, and ourselves, and each other, up to overflowing with the love that we have been loved with. Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing it's in there. Living from the inside-out. Not trying to get anything, or prove anything. Not making ourselves look bigger by making others look smaller. Not trying to control or manipulate... or even earn anything. But simply sharing what we have. Letting the love inside us come out by focusing on that love. By focusing on how loved we are. I know that can kind of sound selfish, or self-centered (and I think I'm going to tackle that aspect of it tomorrow) but it's really not. It's really the only way to live. To look into the mirror with an unveiled face, and see the glory of the Lord, and be changed into that same image from glory to glory. To know what's inside and in that way stop trying to get something (anything!) else. To love... because we know and believe that we ARE loved!

I want to talk about perspective for the next few days. Specifically, the idea that it is equally as important--if not MORE important, at least in the beginning--to understand that we are loved. Because you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. If you're running around like that chicken with his head cut off looking for love in all the wrong places... you'll never be able to love anybody. And if you're always trying to earn something that can't be earned... you'll rob yourself from enjoying the gift you've been given. Let me show you what I mean, "And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, borth into prison, and to death" (Luke 22:33). Peter professing his love for the Lord. Which is something I hear all the time. People talking about how much they love Jesus. And it reminds me of the words in Matthew 6:16-18, "Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad contenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." Because it's not about putting on a show. It's not about making yourself look bigger by making someone else look smaller. It's not about "proving" how much you love God. Look at what Jesus said to Peter in Luke 22:34, "And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me." In other words, words are wind. They blow this way and that way. And if you're focused on how much you love Jesus, then you probably don't realize how much Jesus loves you. That's why "How He Loves" by the David Crowder Band is my favorite song of all time. The focus isn't on you and what you do. The focus is where it belongs: On Jesus. And not only on what He does--He loves us--but who He is. God IS love. Any love that we have... comes from Him. "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). And we love Him, by loving each other. We love each other by letting the love that's inside us come out. By filling ourselves to overflowing with His love. It's not about how much I love God. That's a result of how much He loves me. When Jesus was baptized and the Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove--the Holy Spirit, our love receptor--God declared His love for His Son. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." And that's the difference between Adam--the son of God--and Jesus--the BELOVED Son of God. Jesus let Himself BE loved. Jesus know God loved Him. And don't get me wrong, God loved Adam too. Adam just didn't seem to know it. He tried to earn it. Eve ate from the tree of death in order to get something she didn't think she had. But when you know who you are in Christ (who Christ is in you) that's when you can live from the inside-out. That's when you can stop looking for love in all the wrong places. You can go straight to the source. Because the source lives in you. You ARE the source. Filled to overflowing with love. And when we focus on HIS love for us... when we focus on how loved we are... that's when (and how) we fill ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with. That's when--and how--what's inside comes out. Naturally. Because we know it and believe it. Because we receive it and release it!

I've said this many times before: God doesn't want to be a PART of your life. He wants to BE your life. Because He IS life. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 in the Message Bible, "Christ's love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own." I think that's the secret of life. Working--LIVING--from that focused center. Letting Christ's love control us, as it says in the NLT. To live is to love and to love is to live, right? Life means breath. So we ought to love God (by loving one another) with every breath we take and every move we make. He put us all in the same boat. Drew us all into Himself when He was lifted up from the earth on the cross. Showed us that we are all different parts of the same body. Different branches of the same tree. The Tree of Life. And the fruit of that tree--the fruit of the Spirit--is love. Thats not what we produce--HE is the vine and we are the branches--but it is what we bear. What we carry to those who need it. And by the way, those who need love... is everybody. So it doesn't matter who you are, or where you are, or what's going on around you. Live where you're at. How YOU can do it. Because we're all in the same boat. We all died when He died... so that we could all live. So that we could all LOVE. And we are equipped and empowered to love because He FIRST loved us. Because He gave His life for us, and to us. You can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. You don't try to "get" Jesus' life by "living the right way." You CAN live the right way--a life of being loved and loving others--because He GAVE you His life. Because He IS your life. His life is the light of men. In order to see clearly--which is vitally important because what you see is what you be--we needed the light to shine. God said, "Let there be light." Jesus said HE is the light of the world, and He said YE are the light of the world. It's the same light. The same life. HIS abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life. And it's not us trying to live it. Nobody can live Jesus' life except Jesus. It's us letting HIM live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. It's us letting Him love us so much that we are filled to overflowing with that love. So that it comes out naturally. And I think that's where I want to go with my next Rant series--putting our focus in the right place--but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I want to finish this Rant series with the way 2 Corinthians 2:15 finished. "...a far better life than people ever lived on their own." One of the first sermons I preached after I started WWW (Word Without Walls) was called, "Life on Another Level." Because I don't think we really understand, or realize, what's available to us. We haven't completely received the gift we've been given. We still run around like chickens with our heads cut off looking for love in all the wrong places. When all we have to do is go to the source. Or rather, realize that we are CONNECTED to the source. God--LOVE--is not just a part of our life. God--LOVE--IS our life. To live is to love, and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other. And because of the cross, we know that we have both!

When you stop trying so hard and just let what's inside come out... that's when you can begin to truly live. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. Love is what's inside. And all we have to do is let it out. Notice: I said LET it out, not FORCE it out. I don't think you should have to "fake it 'til you make it." I think Jesus gave His life for us, and gave His life to us, so that we can experience it. Not so that we can try really hard, but so that we can rest. He did it all so we could get it all. He finished the work so that we could enjoy the fruit of His labor. Look at John 7:38 in the NLT, "Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'" The very thing we thirst for is the very thing that's already in our hearts! We look for love in all the wrong places, when all we need to do is look within. All we need to do is look into the mirror with an unveiled face, see the glory of the Lord, and be changed into that image from glory to glory. See that? We start at glory. We start with everything we need. Just like in the Wizard of Oz, we go through this great journey to GET something, and we find out that we had it all along. We couldn't have completed the journey without it. But there's a key here and it's found in Matthew 7:7, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Now don't get it confused. I just said we can't be looking for love in all the wrong places. In order to find it, you have to seek it. But not in the sense of it's something you don't have. You need to seek it in the sense of EXPLORING it. Believe in Him and you can come and drink. Ephesians 3:17-18 (NLT), "Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is." Your roots will grow down into His love. And then--once you understand that you're connected to the source--you can stop looking FOR something and you can start looking AT something. You can start looking AT what you've got. You can start enjoying the gift you've been given--eternal life... knowing the Father in the context of being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased--by receiving it and releasing it. By sharing it. How else can you understand how high, and wide, and deep, and long His love is for you unless you USE that love? That's how you seek it. That's how you test it, as the KJV says. That's how you experience it. Love is experienced when we give it away. God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son. So that we might know that we ARE His Son. So that we might know Him as a loving heavenly Father. So that we might love Him by loving each other. That's how we experience Jesus' life. We let HIM live it in us, and though us, and as us. We let Him reveal Himself to us, and in us, and through us. We let what's inside come out. By knowing and believing that it's in there. By filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Not by trying to get something, but by giving away what we have. That's what it means to truly live. That's the abundant life that Jesus came for us to have!

We like to complicate things, don't we? There's a line from a song that says, "All I've really gotta do is live and die..." But we make it about everything else. Even though we know better. Because when you begin to receive (and release) the gift of God, you begin to understand that all you've really gotta do is LIVE. And that's what it MEANS to receive and release that gift. Because the gift is eternal life. A life with no beginning and no end. Like in Hebrews 7:1-3, "For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually." Eternal. Perpetual. Always was and always will be. It drives me nuts when people talk about earning a good afterlife. They waste what they have right now in the hopes that it'll get them something better when they die. To which I always say (usually in my head, because I don't want to argue with people) IF we die. And even IF we die, it's merely a change. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:51, "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." So the change happens one way or the other. For some it happens through the gates of physical death. And for some it doesn't. (Understanding, of course, that we have all BEEN changed. And we simply need to BE transformed into what we've already BEEN transformed into.) My point it, we rob ourselves of the gift we've been given by trying to earn something that can't be earned. We waste what we've got because we hope that by suffering now we'll get a reward later on. And in that natural, that's kind of the way it goes. But God put His super on our natural when He gave us His only begotten Son. He made things supernatural. Look at that passage in Hebrews again. Melchisedec blessed Abraham. And then Abraham gave him a tenth. We receive... and we release. We receive... BY releasing. A gift is even better when you share it. It's not good for man to be alone. LIFE is better when you share it. When you love those around you. And the best definition of love I've ever seen is found in 2 Corinthians 12:15 in the 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." Giving everything you have and everything you are. Gladly. No matter of the consequences. That's what it means to truly live. You're not "working for God." He's not your boss. You're living in Him. Even as He lives in you. Because He is your life. And God is love. So LOVE is your life. Love is literally the difference between life and death. It (He) is what makes life worth living. What makes life possible to be lived. Not getting, but giving. Because you've already been given. Sharing what you've got. Laying your life down. That's what life is really all about. That's what Jesus did on the cross, and that's what we ought to--what we've been equipped and empowered to--do to each other!

Jesus is not my boss. He is my life. And, according to John 1:4, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." I like it even better in the New Living Translation, "The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone." The Word, of course, is Jesus. The Word is love. Love gave life to everything that was created. Remember in the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth? The mind and the body? You? It was dark, and void, and without form. But the Spirit was there. Hovering over the water. And then God said, "Let there be light." He gave us His only begotten Son. So that we could see. So that we could see that we HAVE the light of the world, and that we ARE the light of the world. His LIFE is that light. John 10:10 says, "The thief cometh not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Isn't it funny that we WASTE our lives being so concerned with other things, when Jesus literally came so that we might HAVE life. In other words, He did all the work so that we could enjoy the fruit of His labor. God--like any good Father--does not want His Son(s) to struggle. He wanted the best for us, so He gave the best to us. He said, "Let there be light" so that we could see things clearly. Because what you see is what you be. What you magnify in your life is what manifests in your life. What you feed is what grows. Looking into the mirror with an unveiled face is how we see the glory of the Lord. And in seeing that image we are changed into that same image. From glory to glory. Looking in the mirror and seeing what's inside is what lets what's inside come out. Filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've been filled with is how it we let it out. And notice I said "let" it out. I didn't say force it out. Because if you're trying to come into the sheepfold any other way but the door, then YOU are the thief and the robber. You're robbing yourself from experiencing and enjoying the gift you've been given. The gift of God. Eternal life. HIS life. HIS light. And watch this: "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). Did you catch that? Because I think it's monumentally important. He is the light. And WE are that same light. So if there's no darkness in Him at all... that means there's no darkness in US at all. His LIFE is the light of men. That means we are FULL of life. ABUNDANT life. And what makes abundant life abundant? LOVE. We are FULL of love! We've spent so much time looking for love in all the wrong places that we don't realize we have--WE ARE--the very thing we've been looking for. All we ever had to do was look in the mirror. Look inside. And then, seeing it inside--knowing and believing that we are loved--watching it come out. Naturally. You don't try really hard to live. You just do it. You don't try really hard to breathe, or to make your heart beat. They just do it. Automatically. Naturally. And in the same way, you don't try really hard to love. You just do it. Because you ARE loved. And love is too good to keep to yourself. It's too big. It fills you up and overflows out of you. And that's what life is all about. That's what LIVING is all about. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. Jesus is not my boss. He is the Word (love) made flesh. He is my life!

This is the same title as my current sermon series. Because I'm stuck on it. And if you know me at all you know that my pastor once told me if I get stuck on something I should preach it until my heart is empty on it. So that's what I've always done, and that's what I'm going to continue to do. But while I've started the sermon series by focusing on the "everlasting" part of everlasting life, I want to Rant about this idea that I hear floating around sometimes. And basically it goes like this, "My boss is a carpenter." I think I saw it on a bumper sticker. Or maybe a t-shirt. But what it boils down to is the idea that we are working for the Father. And, listen, Jesus more or less said as much in Luke 2:49, "And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" But I think the important word there is "Father's" not "business." He wasn't coming from a place of employer/employee. He was coming from a place of a Son who was invested in the family business. Which is what the word "sonship" is all about. In Romans 8:15, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have recieved the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father," the word, "adoption" is number 5206 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "the PLACING as a son." It's not like you weren't part of the family, but now you are. It's about responsibility, and maturity. It's about what Galatians 4:7 says, "Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." It's about what's in your heart. Are you "working" for God, trying to earn something--servant mentality--or are you taking care of Daddy's business because you love Him, and you know He loves you? Basically, what I'm trying to say in a very roundabout way, is that God is not my boss. God is my life. And to take it a step further, God doesn't just want to be a PART of your life. He wants to BE your life. Because He IS life. Jesus said, "...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). The way to the Father. The truth about the Father. And the life of the Father. Which, as a Son, is our inheritance. The gift of God. Eternal life. It's not something to earn, because it's not something that CAN be earned. You can't earn a gift. A gift is freely given and must be received. And, look, Jesus used that word again: "No man cometh unto the FATHER but by me." Which makes sense when you understand that eternal life is the unconditional love relationship between Father and Son. How could anyone come to the Father in any other way but through the Son? AS the Son? Jesus said in another place that anybody trying to enter the sheepfold any other way is a thief and a robber. We rob ourselves from the gift we've been given when we try to earn it. We already have it, but we miss out on enjoying it because we're too busy trying to get it. Because we don't know and believe that we have it. Because we still think of Jesus as our boss. And we don't see Him as our life. We still think there are times when, "I'm gonna leave God out of this one." WRONG! He's everywhere all the time. And more than that He lives in you. In Him you live, and move, and have your being. In you HE lives, and moves, and has His being. There is no leaving Him out. Just as He promised to never leave nor forsake you!