Breathing Love

"Loving is the supernatural attitude of the Christian, because love is the nature of Christ. When Christ has His proper place in our hearts, we do not have to be told to love - just as we do not have to be told to breathe. Eventually it must happen, because loving is as natural to the spiritual person as breathing is to the natural person." - John MacArthur

In a world filled with instant gratification, self-focus, and anything but loving attitudes it is tough to find many people who truly "breathe" love. I am extremely fortunate and blessed to be surrounded with a network of family and friends where love is endless. We spend our lives searching for a specific love, a specific feeling and specific ways where we can feel love but what are we doing to breathe love on others? At some point, love always involves sacrifice, growth and loss. Christ did not shy away from these to experience love. He lived His life with total abandon in the arena of loving others as demonstrated with the sacrifice of His own life as loyalty to His Father. He knew to love His Father was to obey His will and to gain His life Christ would have to lose it on earth.

We are to be imitators of Christ who anchored every action on earth in love and sacrifice. Love does not come natural for we were born with a sinful nature, a selfish nature and a nature of self-focus. There is a dormant love that lies in the center of our heart which can only be activated by Christ's spirit. When the Spirit, the throneseat of Christ, becomes positioned in the center of our lives Christ rules from within us - not out of Book or from Heaven above. The Spirit is God-consciousness and the soul is man-consciousness according to my precious Grandmother. With Christ on the throne He rules from within, trial by trial, tear by tear and moment by moment. All this is anchored in and powered by love, an eternal love with a "hands on" approach instead of some unapproachable ruler who sends in proxies.

The soul responds to whatever it has placed on the heart throne whether the ruler is Christ or the world.