Above All part 3
Above all else... there is love. Even under the Old Covenant Law of Moses Jesus summed it up by saying, "...Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40). Love God and love people. That's the whole deal of the whole thing. That's what matters, above all else. And here's the key: We love God BY loving people. By letting Him love the hell out of us so that we can stop judging each other by appearance, and start judging righteous judgment. So that we can give what we've got instead of trying to get, get, get. But see, I say this almost every day, you can't give what you don't have. And you can only give what you do have. That's why 1 John 4:19 is so vitally important. And I love this: In the KJV it reads, "We love him, because he first loved us." And in the NLT it reads, "We love each other because he loved us first." Which, to me, makes perfect sense. Because we love Him BY loving each other. Whatever you do to the least of them you do unto Him, right? But what I'm getting at is the "He loved us first" part. You can't give what you don't have. But what you have... is love. Because the God who IS love, loved us first. When we didn't have anything He gave us everything. When we were yet sinners (unbelievers) He gave us something (someONE, Himself, LOVE) to believe in. He gave us what we needed in order to truly live by giving us His life. He gave it FOR us on the cross--Jesus died so that we could die. So that the old man could die. So that we, who were already dead in our trespasses and sins, could become dead to death and sin. And He also gave His life TO us. So that we could live His abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life as HE lives His own life in us, and through us, and as us. So that we might experience that relationship of love between Father and Son, and between each other. He filled us with His love. And all we have to do is fill ourselves to overflowing with that love. All we have to do is LET God love us. And then it comes out of us. Naturally. Because its too big, and too good to keep to ourselves. I think that's the ultimate irony of the universe--the thing we want to "get" so badly is the thing that we already have... and the thing that we couldn't keep to ourselves if we wanted to. Because love IS giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. Giving everything you have and everything you are is the only way to truly live. That's what life IS. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. So, as easy as it is to get caught up in "stuff" what we really need to do is keep our priorities straight. What we really ought to do is set our affection on things above, not things on the earth. And when we do that we ought to set our affection on what is above all. The most important thing there is. Love. Love God, and love people. Love God BY loving people.