ME

So he answered and said, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27

"The use of the Bible term heart is best understood by simply saying 'me'." Oswald Chambers

Before I think, before I feel, and before I do...there is me. This is the essential me, the heart of me. When I am very still I meet me.

It is this continuous, essential me that must abide in Jesus like a branch abides in it's vine. It is at this me level that a "continuously renewed immediacy" (Thomas Kelly) can and must happen between me and Jesus, if love is to be delivered to my neighbor from my soul and strength.

As this essential me learns to be one with Jesus, I will begin to think, feel and do with Him as one. Now He can send me as the Father sent Him. Now I can begin to experience what Jesus experienced as He lived among us while living as one with His Father. As Jesus walked among us He was continuously experiencing us instead of simply me.

Us must replace me if I am hoping to be like Jesus and be sent as He was sent. This is why the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have taken up residence in me. Me must embrace us. The Trinity waits quietly within, for me to grow quiet enough to meet them. Being still within is the only way to experience the us that leads to active love.

Perhaps the reason the Bible term heart is best understood as simply me is because before I think, feel or do in the physical realm my heart beats on, so that I can think, feel and do. So it is in me. When me becomes us then the heart of God beats in me as my heart. Then continuous love can begin to be delivered through my soul and strength coming from us.

Me must be us. Autonomy must end so love can truly begin. From us I can finally be sent to love as they love.

Only us can keep the salt salty. (Matt. 5: 13)

Only us can keep the light visible. (Matt. 5:14-16)

Only us can bear the fruit. (John 15:1-8)

It is us that glorifies God.

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:20-26