{"id":19486,"date":"2020-11-13T09:40:53","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T14:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19486"},"modified":"2020-11-13T10:28:22","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T15:28:22","slug":"god-the-lover-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19486","title":{"rendered":"God, the Lover of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Transforming Power of\nLove<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>God,\nthe Lover of Life<\/strong><br>\nFriday, \u202fNovember 13,\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6B_iXPaoTD4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Love\nis who you are. When you don\u2019t live according to love, you are outside of\nbeing. You\u2019re not being real. When you love, you are acting according to your\ndeepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your dignity.\n<\/em>\u2014Richard Rohr<em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Drawing\nfrom my many years of teaching, I can honestly say that the most powerful, most\nneeded, and most essential teaching is always about love. Love is our\nfoundation and our destiny. It is where we come from and where we\u2019re headed. As\nSt. Paul famously says, \u201cSo faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of\nthese is love\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My\nhope, whenever I speak or write, is to help clear away the impediments to\nreceiving, allowing, trusting, and participating in a foundational love. God\u2019s\nlove is planted inside each of us as the Holy Spirit who, according to Jesus,\n\u201cwill teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you\u201d (John 14:26).\n<em>Love is who you are.<\/em>&nbsp;All I can do is remind you of what you already\nknow deep within your True Self and invite you to live connected to this\nSource.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nfirst letter of John reminds us \u201cGod is love, and whoever remains in love,\nremains in God and God in her or him\u201d (1 John 4:16). The creation story in\nGenesis says that we were created in the very \u201cimage and likeness\u201d of God\u2014who\nis love (Genesis 1:26; see also Genesis 9:6). Out of the Trinity\u2019s generative,\nloving relationship, creation takes form, mirroring its Creator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If\nwe are truly created in the \u201cimage and likeness of God\u201d\u2014then our family of\norigin is divine. We were created by a loving God to <em>be love <\/em>in the world. Our core is original blessing, not original\nsin. Our starting point is positive and, as it is written in the first chapter\nof the Bible, it is \u201cvery good\u201d (Genesis 1:31). We do have a good place to go\nhome. If the beginning is right, the rest is made considerably easier, because\nwe know and can trust the clear direction of our life\u2019s tangent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nmust all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of\nreligion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their\noriginal identity \u201chidden with Christ in God\u201d (Colossians 3:3). God\u2019s job\ndescription is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May\nwe pray together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God,\nlover of life, lover of these lives,<br>\nGod, lover of our souls, lover of our bodies, lover of\nall that exists . . .<br>\nIn fact, it is your love that keeps it all alive . . .<br>\nMay we live in this love.<br>\nMay we never doubt this love.<br>\nMay we know that we are love,<br>\nThat we were created for love,<br>\nThat we are a reflection of you,<br>\nThat you love yourself in us and therefore we are\nperfectly lovable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May\nwe never doubt this deep and abiding and perfect goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are because you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"345\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-10.26.20-AM-500x345.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19489\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-10.26.20-AM-500x345.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-10.26.20-AM-300x207.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-10.26.20-AM-768x530.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-10.26.20-AM.png 1952w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Transforming Power of Love God, the Lover of Life Friday, \u202fNovember 13, 2020 Love is who you are. When you don\u2019t live according to love, you are outside of being. You\u2019re not being real. When you love, you are acting according to your deepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19486"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19491,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486\/revisions\/19491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}