The Lord our God is a loving, caring, giving being. One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn, and I am not so sure it has been completely learned, is to receive. God loves. Love is outbound; love flows out from one to another. Love has to be given and it cannot be taken. Love can be received or it can be ignored. Caring is also outbound; caring is generated from within and aimed at an outward target. Caring does not have to be received, but it can be ignored. Giving, by definition, is outbound. Giving, depending on what is being given may have need of being received and can also be ignored. When one ignores what is given (even if it is love or care) they do not get joy out of the gift.
When the act of giving is ignored the perception is that the gift was earned or taken. The perception of the one receiving a gift has a lot to do the value placed on the gift. God is the greatest servant mankind has and by definition our greatest leader. Suffering is the result of mankind ignoring the gifts from God. Joy and praise come from the realization of the gifts.
This is love, not that we love but that God loved us first (see 1 John 4:10). God, in the form of Jesus, came to earth as a man to live as all men do and die as all men do to bring us eternal life. All men die once in the flesh, but it is not required for all to die in spirit. God knows the things of man but man knows not all things of God and what is impossible for man is possible for God. God gave life to mankind and mankind ignores the gift. Mankind ignores the gifts of love, grace, and abundance.
There is emptiness in mankind that we try to fill with more. More of what depends on the individual, more food – more lust – more sex – more strong drink – more money – more land – more guilt – more self-righteousness. It goes on and on. Mankind, as a whole, will not receive the gift of God, and seek after more rituals and more doctrine. The emptiness is so great that we have created industries in an attempt to fill the cravings.
How can we receive from God? That lesson I am still learning; here is what the Spirit is teaching. Accept God. Do not try to make Him what He is not; accept God. Accept that suffering is because of the rejection of God. Why do those that accept God still suffer? We dwell in a world that has rejected God. Accept that you need God. Accept that Jesus came to allow us to release the guilt that is keeping us from returning to God. The terms we use are forgiveness and grace, but in practice they mean freeing us from the guilt that keeps us from returning to God. The guilt is gone; we have to do the returning by accepting the gifts of love and grace. We have to accept that life is a gift from God and be thankful for it.
We need to accept the gift of the Holy Spirit that brings with it the seed of God’s love and plants it within us. To be more precise, the Spirit takes us and removes the part of us that rejected God and places in us the Son anointed to rescue us. Love flows from God through the vine to the branches and love grows on the branches. To say it another way, Christ is a body and the Spirit joins the parts of the body together with the head and the head is Jesus.
Accepting God does not mean a complete rejection of the world. God created the world. God so loved the world that He sent His Son so that we might live in Him. We are not rejecting the world, but accepting God whom the world has rejected. We are no longer seeking the more, the things of the world. It is not a rejection of the gifts that are being abused by the world, but moderation based on our emptiness now being filled by God.
There can be a pendulum swing to a denial of the things seen in the world. An example would be to reject wine to the point of replacing wine with something else in the Passover sacrament. Wine and strong drink is abused, but so is sex; do we give up having children? Wine and strong drink are abused, but so is food; do we give up eating? Accepting God should lead one to serving mankind. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Accepting God allows one to see the acts of giving from God and abstinence, if necessary, becomes thankfulness. God’s love and care fills one to overflowing, the love and care flows outbound to others.
It is not for me to teach you a prayer of acceptance; find the prayer of acceptance within yourself. It is not for me to tell you where your life will take you, or what things you should do as you serve God by serving those around you. The Holy Spirit will guide you. What I can do, and there are others that God has sent into the world that can also do, is to lay hands on you and pray for you. What I can do is to write and say the words given by the Spirit. I cannot give you understanding of the words – understanding is from God. What I can do is to share with you experiences, both wins and losses – both joys and pains – both trials and triumphs – both a life in rejection and one lived in acceptance.
Give the praise to God. If you feel love coming from my direction, it is from God and God overflowing from within me. If you hear truth, it is the Holy Spirit. If you see one that loves God it is Jesus dwelling within and shining forth. If you see me make a mistake, forgive me and trust God. Please pray with me, receiving is still a lesson being learned.