Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / The Image of God

Transcript

The Image of God · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I got to uh after I said hi to a couple of people, I came up here and I'm just I was just looking out at the crowd.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I waved to a couple of you know that we made eye contact with, and I just like my thought was this like look at this crowd, this look at all these good, beautiful people.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've got an enemy in here, not that I know of, unless you're keeping it secret, but but I I uh I'm excited.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited being with you and talking with you and sharing with you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've got a little bit of a mouthful to say, it won't take long, but it's it's I think there's something really good to talk about.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um what we say every day, and when Judy and I are on the way to church here, and I know I'm going to speak, I just say, isn't it wonderful that that we get to say something good about God today?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't you like the music?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't you like that that that second song really just just grabbed my heart?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: How deep and how high.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful love.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you know I've been captivated by the love of God.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's his love has somehow just filled my field of vision, it's changed me, it's it touches me, it um it has made everything better.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I have enjoyed and I am enjoying um moving in deeper and deeper into this powerful and beautiful, life-giving love of God.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk about, I guess I've titled it the image of God.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I titled it the image of God is because I just I am the least creative person when it comes to titles.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna talk about the image of God, I guess.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But and that has to do with identity.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Leslie talked about identity last week.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think of identity, in fact, this came to me right there, right before we got up while we were singing the last song.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Remember people were questioning Jesus about paying taxes.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Give me a coin.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he took a coin and he said, Whose inscription is this?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whose image is on this thing?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, It's Caesar.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this was money that was minted by Rome, and they're the ones that made it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you've made a deal, you might work or do business or something, and you do certain things, and you get some of this.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but ultimately it's Caesar's image upon this thing, and it's it's it's the money that they've they've printed, they've made, it's their, it's come from there, and he says, so give to Caesars what's his.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is his stuff.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is not kingdom of God stuff necessarily.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is we're talking about that.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But conversely, there's also an inscription or there's an image upon you and I, right?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are made in the image of God, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that coin was made in the image of Caesar, we're made in the image of God.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is common knowledge, right?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's first page of the Bible, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: God made man in his image.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think of the image of God, I think of identity, because that must mean something.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I think of the image of God, for one thing, did you ever wonder this question?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: If we're made in the image of God, and do you believe that we are?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that we are made in the image of God?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Man was made in the image of God.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some people think we lost it, some people think we didn't, but whatever, Jesus in Christ, we have it, no matter what.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we're made in the image of God, why all the bad stuff?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why are these images of God doing such horrible things?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do these humans, the images of God, produce such bad stuff?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we can go beyond just, well, they're just bad people.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's listen let's go a little bit deeper than that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Bible says that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I do see with the Adam and Eve thing, and I don't know if I can exactly prove why, but for some reason we see a lack of knowledge there.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason we see a lack of identity.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And identity is important.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I like to talk about, you remember Simba, the Lion King, you know, his that whole thing was that for a while he had lost his identity.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know who he was, right?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the prophet came to him, the monkey came to him and said, You don't know who you are, you know.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then he told him, he said, You are Mufasa's boy.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are God's child, you are God's son in the image of your father.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the story goes, and things happened, and then he remembered, and then when he remembered, he starts running back to Pride Rock because Habakkuk II says that if the vision is made plain, then those who see it will run with it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you're growing in Christ, you're catching, you're catching a vision of God, because God has a vision.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe in Habakkuk II, that's the vision that we see that He's He says, I want that made plain.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's one thing we can have vision for our life and our family and different things, but uh uh and for our work, but but God's got a vision for creation from the very beginning.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And from what I've seen, this is my belief, and it's okay to have a belief, it's just a belief.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Don't have to hate me because I might believe different than somebody else, but in my belief, what I've from what I've seen in the goodness and the beauty of God is that it makes sense to me that the whole earth would ultimately be filled with his glory.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like he said, and that's what he said in Habakkuk II.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he said the vision was, is that for the whole earth shall be filled with my glory, with the knowledge of my glory.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how that comes about, people might have different ideas about it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think most Christian tradition that I'm aware of is uh thinks of thinks there's got to be some kind of cataclysmic explosion of some kind or some cataclysmic visitation or something that happens that just puts a dividing line between good people and bad people, and of course we're always gonna be on the good side, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna wipe out the bad, and then all it leaves is us good, and then we can all live happily ever after.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I see more of it in God's plan.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think God loves the whole world, and God's got a plan for restoration of them, and and and uh I'm a part of that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are many that would have included me on that bad part of the world that needed to be annihilated.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But God had a different plan.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than just say Rick's one of the bad ones because I did act bad, I did do bad things, I did do anti-God things, anti-Christian things.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was opposed to the agenda of what most Christians are opposed to.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And rather than just be annihilated and and and be gotten rid of so that all you good guys can have this world to yourself, he included me in it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: He brought me in.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: He gave me, he showed me life and he revealed to me who he is.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when he reveals to us who he is, then that reveals to us, it begins to reveal to us who we is.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: For as he is, so are we, and that we're talking about image here.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's this thing that some sociologists or psychologists will talk about, uh, believe in, it's called uh mimetic theory.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in this mimetic theory, there's this thing called mimetic, this idea of mimetic desire.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mimetic, some of you might know, has to do with mimicry.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and the idea of mimetic desire says this that man is a creature that does not know what to desire.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: He turns to others in order to make up his mind.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is that essentially man just left to himself, and I'm and I'm bringing in the assumption not knowing the image of God.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say man is in the earth, we've got the whole Adam and Eve story, so we've got mankind not knowing the image, not knowing really who they are.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably why they went after the tree of knowledge of good and evil, try to become something when they were already made in his image, even though the the the whispering of the serpent said, No, if you do this, you'll be like God.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they could have said, Well, we're already like him, we're already in his image, we're already in his likeness, but they didn't say that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, sort of having a blank canvas here, what what do people do?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of explains why, even though we weren't there when the fruit was chosen, man follows after that same pattern because they just repeat so much of what they've seen.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we can see this day to day in action.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: We see Adam and Eve.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in the Adam and Eve story, what was it?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: It shows that Eve partakes of the fruit.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Adam sees that Eve has partaken of this fruit.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: She has seen that it's desirable to make one wise, and so Adam ends up doing what she did.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: He starts, he takes of the fruit too.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: We see that mimicry in that.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a better example.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Put a bunch of children in a room with toys, plenty of toys for all of them, and put them in a room and they grab their toys and they're having a good time, and then one of them looks over and sees another one playing with a toy and decides that it wants that toy more than this one because that one's that one wants that toy.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna leave this toy and I'm gonna crawl over here, and now I'm gonna want this toy.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that gets played out a lot.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's famous.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: People see those kinds of things.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's an example of mimetic desire.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't care about that toy until I saw somebody else have it, and that tells me that that's desirable and that's good, and I should want that, and so I go after that.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, fashion is like that a lot of times.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can remember um some years ago when I started seeing um some young men wearing uh plaid shorts.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I first saw that, I'm thinking of I never I hadn't seen plaid shorts in a long time before that, uh, except for like men on vacation and I called them Bermuda shorts.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I don't want to take on that fashion, I'm not wearing that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's that those are Bermuda shorts.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not wearing it.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And people are like, like, nah, Ricky, you ought to get some.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So they look good.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: People wear them now.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not wearing them.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And like I do, I'm very slow with fashion.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: It takes me a few years, but after a few years, I start changing.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, yeah, it doesn't look so bad.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I do own a pair of plaid shorts now.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this is years after the, you know, after the fashion was was in vogue.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually I changed.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it enough, and finally I mimicked it, and there again, there's that idea of mimetic desire that's going on.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole point of me saying this is this is that without knowing who the image is, we just take on whatever we see and looks the the most right or the best to us.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Culture is formed that way, isn't it?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that there are pockets of culture in the world is because people kind of act like each other in that area.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: They talk like each other, they kind of dress like each other, they have similar habits, and and and Judy and I see this a lot in traveling around the country.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are pockets of culture.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: People are this way, and they have certain similarities about them that people over here have a different type of similarities.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And those things are done because of mimetic desire.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They see how somebody else is, and it looks like it's the best way to be, and so they just kind of take it on naturally.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have other people as our model, quote often.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Traditions, religious traditions are exactly the same thing, right?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of us were so dogmatic about our religious beliefs when a lot of them we just kind of came into because of, I don't know, we were just there.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I happened to be around a certain type of denominational Christian when I first came to the Lord, and that was kind of the church that I came into.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there listening to these people in church, and they're telling me their doctrine.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they should know, I don't know.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm new at this, and these are old hands at it, so everything they're telling me, I'm listening to it, and like, oh, okay, so women shouldn't dress like that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, oh my need to cut my hair, and I would.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just tell me what I tell me, tell me what's right, because I don't know.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever you guys say is right, I will mimic that, I will conform to that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't know.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started getting exposed to another brand of Christianity that was different in some ways and believed in some some ways that this one didn't really believe in.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've I'm looking at it and I'm making friends with some people that believe in that, and it's like, oh, I after a while I'm like, oh, that yeah, that's that's the way I want to be.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that has happened a number of times, but but we have those things, and we're just trying to establish, trying to find identity.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Who are we?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we do know, we start off by saying it's God's image that we were made in.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we look at that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in Ephesians 4, this, there again, the first three verses of Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 17, um, what we see is that mimicking, or we see people acting like others.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 17, this I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk like the rest of the Gentiles walk.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You see that?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do like you've been doing.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've been acting like them, so you shouldn't do that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: In the futility or the vanity or the hopelessness of their mind.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they have their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we just act like whatever looks right.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the blindness of their heart.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when we talk about this ignorance of the blindness of his heart, this is not a reason to hate, despise, or despise, or punish or torment anybody.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually a reason to kind of pity somebody, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or have want to have mercy upon somebody.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: They can't see.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God spoke about it in Isaiah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, this people, he says, he talked about hypocrisy.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Their mouth is near me, but their heart is far from me.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and they're blinded, and the eyes of their seers are covered, and they live in the blindness of obscurity.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he was going to do something about that hypocrisy, because they weren't living what they were professing that they wanted to be or professing to be, and their heart was far from them, and rather than hate them and slap them down and punish and do something to torture any of these people, or or or try to pressure them to try to get them to straighten up, he had a better idea.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And his idea was he would open the eyes of the blind.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Therefore, I'll do a marvelous work and a wonder.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I will open the eyes of the blind, and they shall see out of obscurity, and they will rejoice in the Lord.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the coming of Jesus does, doesn't it?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It opens our eyes.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is the revelation, he is the expressed image of the Father.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 says, These people who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness and greediness.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we see a pattern being followed here.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what we have in Jesus, who is the expressed image of God, we have the new model.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, we have a new creation, a new teaching, a new and living way.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's called a new life.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have Jesus stepping in and bringing in a different model, bringing in the image of God that had been missing from our vision.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Father is this, the Father is that, the Father loves you, the Father cares, the Father will hear, the Father, the Father.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you orphans.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you alone.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you comfortless.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never leave you.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forsake you.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Father cares.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: We care, we care, we care.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: You are loved.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you more valuable than the birds?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're precious.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get it?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you've been mimicking before.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you've been acting like, what you've been following before, but do you see this new and living way?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm showing you the Father.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews says that while the Old Testament had shadows of these things, but not the very image of these things, Jesus was the very image of the Father.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this was necessary because mankind needed to see a new model with something new.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And looking at Jesus, what we see is we see a new model.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I'm not saying is that Jesus is this, he's the perfect being, and we have to try to act like him, and let's try to do what Jesus did, but we're gonna fail, and so we always have that sense of failure about us and all that.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, we're not talking about just trying to emulate or trying to do or copy something that somebody else is living or doing.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about who we are.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because when Jesus shows us the image of the Father, he does show us the image of the Father, but remember, even though he came as the Son of God and He came as completely God to us, he also came as completely man to us.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just this thing that we see in Jesus.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's very, very God and He's very, very human.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like it's such a strange thing that a being could be both God and man together in one.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, but something else I want us to think of.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is that really so strange?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: If the whole eternal purpose was that God and man, not just God and Jesus of Nazareth, but God and you also be together as one.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, isn't that one of the reasons for so much of humanity's struggles is this sense, as he says, this sense of being alienated from the life of God and being alone and having to do life on ourself.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if there is a God, then the only way we relate to him is we try to just please our or appease him because he's a God that's far off.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in Christ, we see God and man together.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in Christ, seeing with God and man together, we see the real identity.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when we talk about grace, we're talking about that kind of love relationship, that kind of oneness and union with the Father.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Without any conditions, but it's based upon the heart of the Father, the eternal purpose of the Father, the will of the Father, the love of the Father, the goodness of the Father.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he created us never with the intention of just leaving us alone and say, here you are, flesh creatures, figure it out.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't figure it out, there's gonna be hell to pay.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or did he create us with the intention of being our very source of life all the time?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And even though it was man that pulled away, the love of the Father was always there.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even throughout the Old Testament, we see it popping out here and there, Deuteronomy.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Here I am.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I set before you life and blessing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's death and cursing, but choose life that you may live, and I am your life, I am it, I'm your source.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: But people don't see it.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: See, they're blinded, they don't know, they don't get this, they don't understand this, they cannot see, the Bible says.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus brings vision to us.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening to you and I is that vision, light is happening, and we're we're seeing things.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like a day is dawning in our life.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's happening to you, aren't you finding yourself getting happier and happier inside?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you finding yourself falling more and more in love with your with your daddy, with your heavenly father?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because the light keeps showing you more beauty, the light keeps showing you more of his goodness, and it's it's touching your heart and it's melting your heart, and you're just sometimes all you can cry is, Father, I love you.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Abba, Father, Daddy, Daddy, I'm home.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's happening with the revelation of Jesus Christ is that in him the Father is revealed.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: But not only is the Father revealed, just like Simba, when he saw the revelation of his father, he also saw who he was.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says in Colossians that when he is revealed, we also shall be revealed with him in glory.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: When Saul of Tarsus was going out to go kill some Christians, have some Christians killed, he got a revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what did Saul, did Saul of Tarsus become a whole other person that he was not?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Was he originally, was he born and created by God to be Saul of Tarsus, a legalistic Pharisee destroyer of the church of God?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is that who God created him to be?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or was that what he was just acting like?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And why was he acting like that?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he had plenty of Pharisees around him, and he didn't know any better.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know until he knew.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: When he saw Christ, he began to come to a realization of who he was, and he started living his life.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the one that would talk about these things and talk about the image of God and who we are and this one all this wonderful and very really very deep revelation when you think about it.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a simple truth in one way, but it's something that nobody else seemed to be saying.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why could he say it with conviction?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because when he knew who he was, he didn't have to copy anybody else.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had met his father, and he wrote about it, and he says, and what this is what causes our hearts to cry, Daddy, Abba, Father.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You see, in Christ, we see the Father, we see who we are, we begin to get a realization of our true identity.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as for the the accusation that too much grace, too much grace, you've heard this.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you preach too much grace, people will just do what they want to do.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what I have found is that you almost you have to preach a grace that's too much.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at it, it's bib too much grace is biblical grace.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's called abundant grace or superabundant grace.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the Greek word is hooper paraso, and it means too much.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: It means superabundant.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than you can quantify.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of grace that can give you any kind of idea of who the Father is.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because a limited grace does not show you a picture of daddy, it shows you something else.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times people are scared of more than a limited grace because of that's all they've seen before, and that's what we are comfortable with, and we've adopted traditions and doctrines according to a limited grace.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: When we have an unlimited father with an unlimited love and an unlimited grace, and it opens up a new vision to us, and when we it's only a God with unlimited grace in seeing him, it's where you can truly see that you're worthy of love.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because if he's got a limited grace, there's always going to be disqualifications for you and me.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be God loves you but.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's an unlimited grace, then you're free to be loved.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you're free and you're worthy, just like the prodigal son, to go ahead and be loved and be have your, be wrapped around by his arms and wear the royal robe and wear the family ring and accept the party that God wants to give you.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can only do that if you can accept that his love is way, way bigger than we thought.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what that does, that lets the prodigal son know that, oh, I came back here to be a slave.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I realize I can't be a slave.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Daddy will never let me be a slave.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Daddy will only let me be a son in his house.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then he, that's when the prodigal son not only finds out how good his daddy is, but he finds out who he really is in the house.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it changes us.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we love the message of God's goodness and his grace and his love so much, because we have tasted and seen the Lord's goodness and it has done the kinds of changes that we want.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And will a Christian just do whatever he wants?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Finally he can begin.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: He or she can begin to do what they've always wanted to do.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Paul, when he was Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee, you know what he wanted to do?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to please God.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be the best servant of God that he could be.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to live as right as he could live.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to live a squeaky, clean life.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to, he wanted to feel righteous.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to, he wanted all those things.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was going about it all the wrong way, and he said, you know what?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It never produced that for me.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: But when he got a revelation of Jesus and he could just be who he is, then he starts writing about love is this, love, love, love.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't the kind of things Pharisees talk about.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not in that way.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: But now he can be who he really is.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now he can be who he really wants to be.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I can relate to that because I finally, when I began to see the beauty of God's goodness, I finally felt like now I'm finally starting to love people that I kept wishing I could love people with, because I didn't do it.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I was commanded to.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it was biblical, it was right, it was a good person would do that, and I had the motivation, I wanted to do that, but dang you guys, you guys would make me so mad.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: People, humans?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: But something happens with the revelation that empowers you when you find out who you are.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's an empowerment that comes in, comes with that, and this love starts happening, and it's bigger than you because it's it's it started surprising me.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have to ask God to help me forgive so much.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was just kind of like, you're forgiven, you're forgiven.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have to try so hard, it became more natural because I was aligning with my natural true self, my true identity, who's inscripted by God, who's made in the image of Daddy himself, and we start to live that out more, and we start to act that out more.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is important because the more we can see this and embrace this, the more natural that thing empowers us to live that way.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm finding out.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, when we behold Him, it brings in a new desire for love and peace, and it becomes greater than all of the blame and the accusation that maybe we placed on us, ourselves, and certainly on other people.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, it surprised me that the love took over, was taking over, because before it was about the checklist, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was about living right, means you do this, you do this, you do this, and you don't do this, this, this, this, and this.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so we we wake up every morning determined to walk that line the best that we could.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we found out in the revelation of grace that love starts taking over.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we start to get a new desire and a new vision for goodness and love and peace.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And after a while we realize, oh, this is who God is.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is who God is.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And after a while of that, after you've heard that a whole lot, you start to see that and embrace that, then you'll start to start to realize, wait a minute, this is who I am.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I am a living, breathing manifestation of the love of God.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I do it very imperfectly in my flesh and got a long way to grow in this.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm still I can see it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I can see now who I who I am.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do I fail at it at times?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do I do it imperfectly?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do I get selfish sometimes?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I don't like it because my motivation is coming out of my new image, my real image, my eternal beginning image that I was created from before He knew me in the He formed me in the womb.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: He knew me, and out of that image is the image of the Father, and it's taking over, and it's it's it's surprising me.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's messing up some of my old traditional thinking.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's something more beautiful than what I had thought before.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus steps in and brings in a whole new image, a whole new vision, a whole new world, if you will.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then the passage changes in verse 20.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but you've not learned Christ that way.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: If indeed you've heard him and you've been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning the former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think our behavior is very important.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's important it's important that that's what attains our righteousness.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it gets God's approval.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's what makes God have to, it allows God to love us or bless us or whatever.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think our behavior is important for this world.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think while this world is doing all their doodads and they've got all their ideas and they're all fighting each other and they're doing this, and they both, everybody thinks they're fighting for the right, and all this is going on, and we can even choose a side in that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if you get to get the image, uh get a vision of the image of the Father and the image of who you are, you realize, well, wait a minute, we're not of this world.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: We really are, we really are the children of the Most High God, and we are what Judy and I call the third option.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: While they're fighting over this way and that way, and I want this to happen, and I want that, and I want this person and that person, and this flag and that flag, and all these things are going on.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And while you can have, we we do have opinions on these things, let's not forget that we're bringing in the kingdom of heaven.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: We bring the heavens option.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the image of God into this world, which everybody, all of us here are inscribed with.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: But so many of us aren't aware of.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And creation is looking for the manifestation of the children of God because they bring in the third option, children of light.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: They bring in the third, what are the what is that third option?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's God.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's love.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's love that heals, not destroys.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's love that restores, not damns and demands.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's love that's bigger than all these other things.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's love.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus steps in, and while we've been mimicking all these other things and destroying each other and fighting over this and hating and having contempt for this group and that group and all those things, beloved, these things are not of God.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how right, right they might be.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is an image of God.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's Christ in the earth, there's Christ in you, that hope of glory, that's the secret, the mystery that's hidden from the ages.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And creation is groaning and waiting and standing on tiptoe to see the glorious side of the children of God step in.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the children of God, we're talking about bringing heaven.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 23 says, Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love this, which was created according to God.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: The new man, that's Christ in you.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Created according to God in true righteousness and true holiness, not this contrived thing that we thought it was.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore putting away lying, let everyone speak truth with his neighbor because we are members one of another.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, he's not changing the subject and then starting to give a message about quit telling lies.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about what we say about each other.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Speak every man truth with his neighbor because we're members one of another.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about identity here.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Put on the new man created in righteousness and true holiness.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then we go down to verse 29.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for necessary edification, that it may impart what?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Grace to the hearers.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's this?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is the work of restoration going on.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a dream, I've got a vision, beloved.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I see a world, all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of his glory.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I see a kingdom of God that's in the earth right now, and it's in the hearts of people, and my Bible says in Isaiah 9 that of the increase of that government and of peace, there shall be no end.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is gonna get good.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere down the road, it's gonna get better and better, it's gonna be beautiful, and God shall be glorified in all creation.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even as God in Christ forgave you, Jesus stepped in and boom, we have a new model.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have a new vision, we have the true image of God to behold.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are not with just a blank slate here, we have the image of God.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when we see this image of God again, it's not just something we're trying to copy, because what we're looking at when we behold Him, we see us.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the key.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because in reality, while you're dealing with your life, and sometimes it gets hard, and you're just trying to pay the bills or get past the sickness or all the stuff, the family stuff, all the stuff that goes on in this temporal situation, we had we deal with it, we have it.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: But in all of these things, we're more than conquerors.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: In all these things, we are who we are.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: In all these things, guess what?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: We exist, always will, shall dwell in the house of the Father forever.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're alive.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: We are alive as the living beings, the children of God Himself.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we're alive with the life and the light and the love of the Father.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the power, and that's what really matters is the life and the light and the love of the Father.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see a world catching on to this.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can see people starting to see, catch the image, and say, aha, this is it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is who our deck, who is who God is, this is who we really are, this is who we really are in this earth.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we see the whole earth being filled with his glory.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then under that banner of love, we march, under the banner of love, we sing, under the banner of love, we bring forth the knowledge of God.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 5, 1, which is just the continuation of the thought, says, Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, look to the image and walk in love as Christ has loved us and given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the image of God, but he's also the man image of God.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: He also reveals to us us, he's the image also of man in God.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 3, 18 says this.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: We all know this verse.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: But all of us with an unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, I love this, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: It says it's just when we behold his glory, when we behold his glory, it's like looking in a mirror.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because 1 John 4, 17 says, as he is, so are we now in this world.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a hard concept sometimes in the mind to grasp, but just let it be a simple truth that you're God's child, you were made in his image.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe for a while we didn't even know what that was.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's being revealed.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing a beautiful something.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: And something else about this image is it'll give you an assurance and a security.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the work of righteousness.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: It'll give you a settledness because you realize my citizenship is not of this world.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am an ambassador from heaven.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am from Father from my Father.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm living forever, forever.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in your day-to-day dealings, when you're dealing with this life, you'll find a bigness inside of you, a Christ in you, which is a part of who you are.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find a bigness to deal with your day-to-day trials.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find a peace that passes understanding in that identity that you're safe with daddy.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: That you'll never be orphans, you'll never be comfortless, you'll never be not safe.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why are these things happening?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a whole other thing, but we have a tendency to look at the temporal things of this life as if they're the eternal things almost.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you can sometimes zoom out and realize who we are as children of the eternal, most high, wonderful Father.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're living in temporal situations.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they're coming and going.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can zoom out, but I'm a child of God.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, this is a tough thing.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: My brain doesn't know what to do right now with this stuff.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm okay.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's a storm on the Sea of Galilee right now, but I'm always going to the other side.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm safe.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm his child.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm loved.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am cared for.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why Paul would say, so we look at the eternal, not the temporal things.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: We look at the spiritual and not the natural, because the natural are temporal.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're temporary.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let them be temporary.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: These things, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, these things are not destroying the plan of God.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're not destroying me and you.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're not.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: God is God.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, peace.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Be still.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: All is well.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's well with your soul.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And from that place of wellness, somewhere along the line, the believers in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, somewhere down the line, the believers in God will bring and learn and teach restoration and reconciliation.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the beauty of his holiness and his goodness and his love.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming to the earth.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know because I see it happening in you.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I see it happening in me, and I'm seeing effects of what it does.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a very small snowball compared to the earth right now, but of the increase of it, there shall be no end.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And restoration and reconciliation is coming.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: And love.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere down the line, ultimately, somewhere, there will be love, acceptance, equality and understanding between the races and the nations.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: There will be love, restoration, reconciliation, understanding, and forgiveness of the different groups and classes of people.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: For love will prevail, I promise you.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Will I see it in this lifetime?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can just hope to see more, and I believe I will.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: But God's got a vision.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you can catch the vision of the beauty of his holiness, it'll bring peace to your soul, and we actually become more of the answer.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Love is God, God is love, and you are love.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Get down to it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're the image of God.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Love.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Creation wanting to see you.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not the image of who we thought we were and who we were acting like.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Creation is looking for the children of God.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 13 says.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 12, he says, You read this verse, he says, For now we see through a glass darkly.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well then we'll see face to face.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now we know in part, but then, and the then is when that which is perfect is come.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the perfect that he's talking about?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 30.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's love, it's the nature, the image of God.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you see that, then we shall know as we are known.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because Daddy already knows who you are.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know who you are?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because the first part of it is we find out how beautiful Daddy is.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the second thing that comes from that is we find out how beautiful and in his image we really are.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if we are, then they are too.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that'll make you look at it differently.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third part is when you see who you are, other people start to see who you are.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because while we start out seeing through a glass darkly, we come to know just like we've always been known by the Father.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: We come to know us like He's always known us.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all stand up?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, beautiful image of God.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful children made in his image.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to deal with life and get through life and all these things that we bump up against.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: But you're living forever, and you'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're so much bigger than all of those things.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the truths that cause the heart to not be shaken.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is so much more effective than just trying to quote scripture and talk yourself out of it.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that's who you are.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: You look glorious, you look beautiful in your spirit.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Proud to be your brothers and sisters.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you for your unspeakable gift.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for Jesus.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: My prayer is that there just be a pulling away of all the veil of your goodness and your glory.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let us behold, let us see in ever exceeding measure that we can run, run, run, run, run.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let the beauty of the Lord be seen.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let it be, let us be able to stand like we're on mountaintops saying, Behold your God to the earth.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: For I believe that if anyone can see my Jesus, they love you.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let them see and let it shine and reflect through people like me.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: I give you thanks, Father.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for your goodness, your love, and your way of comforting and assuring everyone here of their station in life, station with you and who they are.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I thank you for these things.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.