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_{by Trent (originally posted on June 02, 2006)}
A couple of years ago, I was watching "Pirates of the Caribbean" at the theater, when the Spirit awakened me during one scene in particular.

A young girl was being forced to walk the plank off a pirate ship, and the captain of the pirate ship put things to a halt: "Wait, we can't just throw away something so beautiful!" He blurted, and for a moment the whole ship was silent. A glimpse of the young maiden's expression revealed a glimmer of hope, as-if there was a chance that she was too beautiful to be killed by the pirates. Then the captain continued and dealt an abusive blow to her ego, and dashed away any glimmer of hope that she might have: "I'll be requiring that dress before you die."

The ship erupted in laugher.

What the captain was saying was that the dress was more valuable then the girl. On the scale of importance a garment meant more to the pirate then her soul ... so lets keep the dress, but get rid of the person wearing it ..

Pretty low blow. I can't think of a worse insult.

But, this is the exact duplication of what happened at the death of the Lord Jesus:

John 19:23-24 (NIV)
[[[23When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 24"Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it." ]]]

In other words, they were saying that this Person ... this "King of the Jews" ... has no value, but His garments have value. The man had less value in their eyes then one outfit, and they mocking let it be known so that the Lord could hear their evaluation of Him - as worthless.

Now, that is a pretty low blow!

But, what is interesting is the Lord Jesus' remarks about the insulting guards that were drawing lots for his cloak:

Luke 23:34 (NIV)
[[[Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.]]]

You see, the more they sinned against Him, the more it revealed about His love ... they could not out-sin His love.
God is inseparable from His love, for it is written: "God IS love!"

If it said that 'God HAS love,' then He could run out of love and still be God. But it says that 'God IS love,' which means that for Him to fall short of Love is for Him to fall short of being God. This is impossible.

Romans 8:37-39 (NIV)
[[[37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither DEATH nor LIFE, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.]]]

"Neither DEATH nor LIFE."
"nor any powers."

That is what it says.
"neither angels nor demons."

When you can figure out something that you are capable that does not fall under the category of "death" nor "life," then you can have something to be worried about ... for only that which isn't part of death nor life can "cancel God's love."

Guess what? You cannot cancel God's love, because everything that you do is either part of death, or part of life and both death and life are powerless to cancel God's love.

In short, God is so forgiving that even the deepest abuse and senseless slaughter of His own Son, does nothing but pour out more and more forgiveness from Him. His forgiveness is like a gushing well, that has no bound, becoming even a river of unmeasurable width and the deepest depth .. flowing continually and for all time ... ever-increasing as it flows.

You are just going to have to rest in that.

Here is exactly how to rest ... say "thank you."

It is that easy.