Love God and Do As You Please!!
~St. Augustine of Hippo
By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love Him because He first loved us.
~ 1 John 4:13-19
Oh beloved, it is true. There is a Kingdom principle (one of those aspects of the Gospel that seems almost exactly 180 degrees out of phase with the world in which we live): There are absolutely no rules in the Gospel.
None.
There is only Him. Only Jesus and His Great Love.
He is the Gospel. He is the Good News. He is the Love behind the whole thing. In casting off any rules, and casting ourselves onto Him alone, we become recipients of a Love so powerful that it actually kills us – and makes us totally new. This really happens. Nothing is the same for a person who truly believes – who truly surrenders to His Love.
And this Love is both pure and purifying. It is unique in that it is not stained or contaminated when it comes into contact with the putridness we were. Maybe it is the infinite lethality of His Love that actively defends it from being spoiled by our former foulness.
It is His Love that sets us free. First, it sets us free from our sins. And as it burns through us, it sets us free from ourselves. And in doing these two things, it sets us most surely free to love Him back, and to love others. This is the truest freedom. We no longer want what we want. We want G_d. We want others to be filled with His Love – by Him – and by us.
And we find that this freedom is not like being released into some empty field. It is this never-ending, irrevocable thing. We are free (as in truly free). Forever.
Love isn’t like a reservoir. You’ll never drain it dry. It’s much more like a natural spring. The longer and the farther it flows, the stronger and the deeper and the clearer it becomes.
~Eddie Cantor (1892-1964)
Do you believe it beloved? Are you experiencing this freedom? Get alone with Him tonight, get quiet, get simple, and surrender to His presence. Perhaps tonight it is the night for you. This writer prays it is for you. The Love is real. Time to believe.
… to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine Savior. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God.
~Henri J. M. Nouwen
