Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – God does not burden me with a list of do’s and don’t’s, he gives me Himself and then sends me to be like Him.
Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG
[1-2] Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behaviour from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
Observation
‘Be like God,’ on one level that sounds ridiculous. But then I realise that being like God is being my true-self me. For I was created in the image of God, and the me I created is my small, false self. It’s not that I need to change to be someone I’m not, it’s being me. When I realise who I am, then I start to be me, it’s no longer striving for change, but allowing my true identity to continue to shape my walk. When I don’t live according to the ways of God then I am not being me. This happens often and is not filled with condemnation and shame, as like any child I am growing in being me.
The true-self me is a lover. When I understand this is who I am then it shapes everything I do. Being love happens as I “keep company with him and learn a life of love.” Love is not an abstract idea that I intellectually study and learn, it is intimately encountered in a transformative way that naturally overflows in me. It’s be loved and then be love like I have been loved. Extravagant, risky, other-focused, give-love must be experienced personally to be lived and shaping personally. It’s as I linger in the presence of love that I become like love.
The issue behind most of my, of all, poor behaviour is my need to be loved. When I am loved and understand that my true-self is love, then everything within me shifts. Love is what we all need, for without it we never move comfortably into our own skin. And when we live from our loved true-self those around us experience heaven on earth, and it’s transformative for them. This is why God sums up life as a life of love. And this is why love is mostly what God does. As I spend time intimately experiencing God’s presence mostly what I experience is being loved.
Application
I will live in the presence of God’s love. I will come and learn the life of love from my God who loves me. I will observe and experience His love that I may love like Him.
Response
Thank you that you created me as love. This is my natural being, my true self me, and it is such a blessing when I live me. It is beautiful living in the skin of a lover, being loved and being love. It truly is a glimpse of eternity in the now. And I love its overflow effect on those around me. Thank you for this life of love, thank you for being love to me, that I can be love.
Meditation
Thank you for this life of love, thank you for being love to me, that I can be love.
Meditate – Keep company with him and learn a life of love.
Consider:
Do you have a rhythm of being in the company of love?
What stories in your life keep you from being in the presence of love?
JOURNEY DEEPER
