lion rebel

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I find myself mildly amazed when I read from scripture and discover once again how much about love and loving others it is all about [from 1 peter 1 - the last 3 verses]: Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. The distinct decision we make to be obedient should signify a new start – a separation of our old life that comes from our parent’s earthly entanglement and our new life with comes from God’s holy entanglement with our own spirit. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Yet we succumb time and again to our old living, to the Resistance, to giving in or giving up the glory of the life God has called us to. We must conform to the living words of God, allowing his heart, passion, and Spirit to transform us.

The truth is it is a daily battle, something that we must pursue and choose every moment of every day because our old life is waiting at every step to enter back in and take control. The devil is waiting at every moment eager to regain his grip on our throats. But Peter’s promise for us is this: Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said, The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers; Grass dries up, flowers droop, God’s Word goes on and on forever. This is the Word that conceived the new life in you. The love of God is far greater than any self-love we can afford for ourselves. It creates a new and holy lifestyle – that is the love of God as it takes the form of a wonderful disease that spreads from one converted fellow to the next and the world is transformed.