What It’s all About

**To my readers: I hesitated posting this for two reasons: 1. I confess I continually live misunderstanding the love of Christ; and 2. our lives would be so much different if we did understand what love does for us in our relationship with Jesus. Jesus is wooing our hearts by showing us all He's done for us already and we don't have to add to it at all - we just need to accept it. I struggle with the acceptance part. I hope this helps you and I hope your lives are overcome by the love and providence of Christ.

11.16.13

2 Corinthians 5.10 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (ESV)

How I live will be judged. How I live will be examined. How I live will be rewarded. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. How I live will be, in time, given what is due, whether good or evil. Consider me stopped in my tracks.

Jesus doesn’t expect me to perform – if He expected that it would be all about the Law, or a law, or a set of rules, or a list of actions. But with Jesus, it is all about relationship and love for one another: Him loving me, and me loving Him by doing what He directs me to do. My love is proved for Him by my doing what He says. No obligation. No coercion. Just humility that what He says is best and I don’t have to perform in doing it; I just do it.

In appearing before Jesus there shouldn’t be a dread – unless, of course, I have something to dread. But if I have something to dread then maybe I’m not living in love with Jesus. Maybe I’m trying to live a double-life. Maybe I’m not as truly in love with Him, as He is with me. I should be looking forward to my appearance before Him. If I’m not, either I don’t have an understanding of what that appearing is all about or I’m attempting to harbor something inside believing He can’t see it and I can continue to do whatever I do. It sounds like insanity to me.

I know as I sit here today and think about it, I’m to expect to receive what is due me for whatever I’ve done in the body, whether good or evil. Paul tells me that in 2 Corinthians 5. And Paul, bless his heart, isn’t talking about law. He would’ve rather been dragged down a dirt road naked before he went back into the bondage of legalism. Paul reminds us all that our lives will one day be examined to see what they were really made of, and what they really accomplished in and through Jesus Christ.

So, that brings me to today. That brings me to a place where I have to come running to Jesus for all the crap I’ve pulled this week and say to Him:

Lord, forgive me and help me. Break those bonds in me; or help me to realize fully they’ve already been broken and I’m just fooling myself by insisting they’re still real. May I see and live, by faith, the freedom that is mine in You, and may I live the free life I have in You. Not free to serve myself and live according to my agenda, but free in You to live as You wisely and lovingly direct my every move. Help me to live in real faith. Help me to live in real love. And help me to give up the horrid things I hold so precious and dear that hold me back from all of You. Amen.