Shopping in the local hardware store/nursery, I found an amazing employee who understood shrubs, landscaping, and tools!  We talked as I tapped into her experience on which products to buy and what I would need to make my front lawn "looking good".  I mentioned I was in great health, but I didn't want a lot of physical upkeep on the lawn.  "Low maintenance!" I said.  With that, she asked me if I had "dementia".  Chuckling, I said, "What? I am 72 but I do not have dementia!"  "Dimensions!"  "Do you have the dimensions of your yard!"  Oh, how funny, and we both began to laugh!  I think you could have heard us all over the huge store!

 

Jesus said, "If you have ears to hear, let them hear!"    (Matt 11:15 )  I  was listening to her but was hearing  something  different than what she was saying!    Isn't that so much like we do when we read the Word of God?    We read it through the filter of what we have heard before instead of hearing it fresh!

 

Recently I was at a wonderful conference where I put on a new pair of  lenses  in reading an old familiar scripture. It was from John 13:34,35 .  " A new commandment I give unto you,  That  ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another."   

                           

I had not realized Jesus said: "to love as He loves us".    I automatically assumed He was talking about "Loving my neighbor as myself" He quoted it in Matthew 22:35-40.    In this Matthew passage, the Pharisees were trying to trick Him by asking Him what  the greatest commandment was .    He replied it was to Love God first with all our heart, soul and mind! Then He summed up all the rest of the commandments  by saying to  lov e  our neighbor as oursel ves !    This is called the Royal Law and is done out of obedience to Him and His Word.    He was talking to those who were under the old covenant.

 

But in John 13 Jesus is preparing His disciples, not the Pharisees, for the New Covenant.    This is a New Commandment!    Now we are to love AS He loves.    Whoa!    That's impossible to do in myself.    It is a supernatural Love that  must  come from being surrendered to Him!    As we are in Him and He is in us, we are filled with His love and it overflows to others.    It is not an act of works!    It's by His Spirit!    It automatically takes care of loving our neighbor as ourselves but on a higher level!    Listen to this from these passages from the Passion Version.  

1 John 4:7 "Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another because God is love. Everyone who loves is  fathered by God  and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him."

Ephesians 3:14 "So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah,  the perfect Father of every father and child in Heaven and on the Earth ."

(That's where the Love comes, by being "fathered" by the perfect Father!)

 

1 John 4:11- 13: "Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then loving one another should be our way of life!    No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God's splendor. But if we love one another, God makes His permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in Him,  His love is brought to its full expression in us.  And He has given  His Spirit within us  so that we can have the assurance that He lives in us and that we live in Him."

 

Then in Ephesians 3:16-19 The scriptures give us the dimensions of His love that are beyond measurement!    We can ,  by His Spirit ,  experience it and comprehend it (without dementia!)    Pray today that you will experience Father's love!    Ask Him to "father you and bring you into an  intimate knowledge of  Him!"  So  that "the resting place of His love will become the very source and root of your life!"

That's why we are here on earth....to experience and reveal the Love of the Father!  Nothing else matters or can be compared!  When we get that in place, everything else will fall into its place!