In Love's River

When we start to understand the scope and ramifications of grace we will begin to love ourselves and loving ourselves is so important. When grace saturates our thinking then performance takes a back seat. Action become a result and not a goal or cause. Grace magnifies God in every way. A gracious God is a God that must love us in all circumstances and if He loves us and others it is suggested to us that we can begin to love that way also.

"We love him, because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:19 KJV

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." - 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 ESV

Did God criticize to reconcile us? No, He did what was necessary without overriding our free will to make reconciliation possible without 'imputing sin'. He defines what sin is but does not associate us with individual sins because those sins have been placed on Christ. God was critical of Christ on the cross. He isn't ever going to be critical of us because of double jeopardy. We have been declared innocent and can never be prosecuted again.

Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of people that love themselves out there. They love themselves so much that there is little room to love anyone else much less God. But, The that love is shallow, muddy and stagnant. It has no depth and performance moves this love around and even drys it up because it is not grace based love.

Grace based love has depth and living movement. It flows like a stream.

"On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." - John 7:37-39 ESV

Yes, When we drink then rivers flow out of us. Not just any water. We drink the water that Jesus provides and then we have water that flows out of us.

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