Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – love makes me me, sets me free to be me, and then sends me to be me. It’s light and freeing.
1 John 5:3-4 TPT
[3] True love for God means obeying his commands, and his commands don’t weigh us down as heavy burdens. [4] You see, every child of God overcomes the world, for our faith is the victorious power that triumphs over the world.
Observation
Obedience, sacrifice, submission, what ugly terms these are in an age of individualism, where I am the most important person and everything revolves around me. Individualism means that I obey what is good for me regardless of the cost to others. And here comes God manipulating me again with his insipid “If you truly loved me you would obey me,” and the individualism in me vomits. How easy it is to misinterpret God’s blessing for his manipulation when my total focus is me.
His commands are firstly light, they are not “heavy burdens,” that come with manipulated must-do’s laced with or else’s. And secondly, they give me complete freedom, they “overcome the world.” Far from robbing me of self, they make me fully alive to self. God is so for me, for the beauty of life to be fully released in me, this must be the starting point of understanding when walking with God, otherwise, we will twist his invitation to life into an oppressive ugliness.
Anything that flows from love flows lightly. It does not mean it’s doing is easy, it means that its motivation is not heavy and wearisome. The only way to follow God is to be loved by God, because as you personally experience his love, then you see how beautiful love is, then you understand that you carry this love, you are made in the image and likeness of this love, so you are free to beautifully express love on all who encounter your world. This is overcoming the world. I overcome the stories of the world that shape me as a man outside of love, and I overcome the world’s story of individualism as love is expressed and received to myself and then reflected to others. And love reshapes the brokenness of the world, we all know this.
It’s not that if you don’t obey God he won’t love you, that’s ridiculous, God can’t operate outside his ontological being. The truth of God’s being, his ontology, is that God is love, and the way of his being is love. God never operates in any way in opposition, or contrary, to his ontology, not possible. It’s just that as you truly encounter love you will truly and more deeply obey love, be love, be shaped by love, for that is what love does. You see obeying God is not some moral list of imperatives that must be followed explicitly, or else no more love. It’s be loved and be love, for the only command of God is to be love, and the only way to be love is to be loved. So obedience is the freedom to be truly you, the person of love created in the image and likeness of love. The deepest you is God, by that I mean the deepest you is love. And this is overcoming the world, be you, the person of love.
Application
I will never live in any way, or hear any voice of manipulation flowing from love’s mouth. I will follow love’s invitation into her embrace, and from love’s embrace I will become me, the person of love. I will truly obey love by being found in the embrace of love with a rhythm that shapes my life. From embrace I will walk free, I will overcome a world that distorts, twists and kills love in me. I will live obedient to the truth that I am forever, fully embraced by love. Then go be me.
Response
Thank you that love is you and love is all you are about. You are not a moralist armed with the hammer of judgement, you are a lover of outstretched embrace for all. Your love makes me me, your love is the only way to be free to be me. Your love is a beautiful life that is light and freeing. It calls me into a life that is bigger than anything I can individually create for myself. I love being loved by you.
Meditation
Meditate – every child of God overcomes the world.
Consider:
Do you hear manipulative coercion from God’s mouth?
Do you have a rhythm of love’s embrace?
JOURNEY DEEPER