Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Watching Love Grow

Transcript

Watching Love Grow · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into this.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you that don't know, my name is Rick.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rick Manis, M-A-N-I-S, for anybody watching, and you want to cast me in your next movie or something?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's me.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, somebody knows.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Paul talked about love a lot, and this is interesting from someone whose background was a Pharisee, which means separate.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was essentially a separatist.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We know legalists for sure.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we see it's in his Revelation of Christ, he talks a lot about love.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've been known to say a thing or two about love.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I have I keep falling in love with the concept of love, the feeling of love, the idea of it, the depth of it, the mysteries of it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh probably nothing I love talking about, thinking about, contemplating about, thanking God for, than his who he is, his nature and love.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like you can just go deeper and deeper and deeper, and it gets gooder and gooder.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But he would say things, Paul would say things like, uh, in love, all the laws fulfilled.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: For if I love, I'm not going to murder, I'm not going to covet, I'm not going, you know, not going to hate or want to murder or so on.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of takes care of all that.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And really, love, that that we're talking about, that kind of love that is God, you might say it's a realm or a place that you can live and operate that goes beyond certainly the knowledge of good and evil, wouldn't you say?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it seems like that in the Bible, that knowledge of good and evil is what caused everything to go south.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there's got to be something better than that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then people can argue, and and I think I think there's validity to it, that there's there's good in knowing good and evil, that there's good in knowing virtues and realities.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look at that this morning.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about watching the seed of love grow, because because the way I see it is that Jesus talked about a seed that would be planted in us and it and it would grow.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now they said, strengthen our faith.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You just need the thing like a mustard seed.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said, one place, the kingdom of heaven is like a seed, but it grows and eventually becomes this big tree where all the birds of the air can find rest and make their nest.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: All of them.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says it's like a little bit of leaven.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of heaven is like a little bit of leaven in all this dough, and it continues to work in it until the whole thing is leavened or yeasted.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 9 says that the government would be on his shoulders, and of the increase of his government and of peace, there would be no end, so it's never going to stop, and it will only increase.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that good news?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it uh there's great peace in that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: But he said it's that seed in you, or that yeast in you, or he said the kingdom is in you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we also find out when we read the Bible that that God dwells in us, and we see that it's spoken as Christ in you.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It certainly talked uh talks about the Holy Spirit in you.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, so how many things are in you?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's and God is love.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul said in Romans 5 that that love of God was planted or poured into our hearts in the Spirit or by the Spirit of God.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe when we get down to it, when all the layers of egos and identities are unpeeled, we find out our authentic self is in the likeness and image of God, for God is love, and what a wonderful place this will be.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians chapter three is where I want to go, and I want to do it this way.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read uh this passage of Scripture that talks about love.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably my favorite passage of scripture.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I used to make t-shirts with this part of this passage in it.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul the Apostle, who has gotten this revelation of Jesus, this ex-legalist that has been transformed by revelation by what he saw in Christ, talks about this thing called love.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 14, he says, So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect father of every father and child in heaven and on earth.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosing power, explosive power.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's that's something that can cause you to live really good and big from the inside.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Something really gracious, something really peaceful, something really powerful in this in this world that's got a lot of things that you have to contend with and navigate through.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 17 says, then by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be let's try not to gloss over this.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The life of Christ will be released deep inside you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Can you dig it?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: The life of Christ will be released deep inside you and the resting place.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: How many like rest for your soul?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: The resting place of his love will become the very source and the root of your life.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, yeah, love is cool.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing, but I'm talking about the very source of your life.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the r very root of your life.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if that doesn't seem like something big, it might be because you think of love as something separate from God, or maybe you think it's just a, I don't know, just a thing that God has, but not understanding or at least catching a glimpse of the essence of the very source of life itself.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's love who is God.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if God is pure love, more pure than we even know or comprehend, and we're being drawn into truth and we're we're we're becoming more at one in with his heartbeat because of that drawing and that working of the spirit, then we're being drawn like a magnet into the center of the universe, so to speak, which is God himself, the love, the creator, the source of everything, and he's the source, and he's the very root of who we are.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for getting with me on that.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I just I have caught a vision.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a glimpse, I know.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: See, I I know a I know a little bit about a lot of things.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know a lot about hardly anything, but but I've caught a glimpse of something, and I've I've caught a vision of something, and I can see I have great hope for God's creation.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have great hope for this world, for for for this, for this world.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I see a kingdom that doesn't, that whose increase cannot be stopped.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, why is it continuing after 2,000 years since Jesus came with all the hell that's come against it, and the persecution and the slander and the religion that's that's that's that's hindered it, also and all of those things.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And why is uh is the kingdom still happening?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it still unveiling?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why are hearts still falling in love because they found out that they have been loved this whole time?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And how many of you realize that this is something that is happening around the world?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I run into people quite often, very, very often, that have gotten a revelation that God loves me and so much of this other stuff that I thought that God that God was counting against me, it was nothing to him.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not that it was good, not that it shouldn't have stopped necessarily, but God wasn't keeping score and it did not invalidate my value, it did not make me less lovable to the very root and source of our life himself, who is love.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's grace 101 right there.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: But this love that we look into, I wanna let me say this.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that cause us to have some kind of problem in our mind about it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean the problem where we say, I love love.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Love is great, or yeah, but does love mean that we have to do this or be that, or does love allow this?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and we and I I I think one of the reasons could be that we still have this idea that these this this these tares that have been planted into our garden that look like something that God would plant.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it could be called religion.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: It could be called moralism.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I thought for a long time that moralism was probably the biggest part of Christianity or being a Christian.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say it this way.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: It actually was a big part of my of my Christianity and being a Christian, but I'm finding out it wasn't necessarily a big part of being a child of God.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll show you something about it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I I will agree with just about everyone that morality or having morals on the face of it, it is a good thing.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's good in that, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be more better to be moral than immoral, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I agree with you with all of you on that.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it does have does have flaws.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: There are things that are wrong with our life being based on morality.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, a choice was made in the Garden of Eden.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Two trees in the garden, one was a tree of life, and who is our life?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: God, that tree is God, and there's a tree of knowledge of good and evil, which includes what I'm talking about today.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: But let's look at moralization, let's look at the imperfections of it.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: How can living by and let me say it this way by putting morality above love, morality above people, morality above, you know, putting it so high, what are the imperfections of that?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it can become a virtue card and it creates a sense of moral superiority.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why we will say, but look at them, but look at those people.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what about them?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we mean well, I'm sure we do.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say we, I'm talking about me.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've experienced all of this, is why I would talk about it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: A sense of moral superiority.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: We are, we are better, we are and so number two, that uh in itself breeds judgmentalism, and you can't help it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is why people struggle with it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: People will say, Rick, I get it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about love.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I see that now, but man, I catch myself just I can't stop judging these people.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I can't I keep I look at what they're doing, and and and and you're like, how do we deal with that?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or how do we get rid of that or something?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when our mindset of moralism, you can't help it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be there, even though we have the best intentions and we're living a moral life, more or less.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: We can't, the insides, we cannot help but bring that comparison that brings judgmentalism because there are better people than others.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing it does is it overrides empathy and compassion.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, so often, and I see this a lot, is that it becomes the right and wrong becomes more important than the person.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a table that Jesus overturned every single time.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: The right and wrong, a woman caught in adultery, Jesus, it's wrong.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Tell her it's wrong, follow up on the fact that it's wrong.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't say it's awesome and good and wonderful to commit adultery.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't even get in that realm.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: He operated in the love realm, the higher realm.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: He made the person caught in the act more important than the right or wrong about it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Pharisees were in the right or wrong.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Would they have brought any kind of restoration there?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, they would have brought destruction, they would have killed the woman, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's not that's not any kind of restoration in that.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And God is love, and if his heart is for restoration, if his heart is that the kingdom of God would increase and have no end, and that the seed of love and the kingdom of God and the things of God would increase and have no end, then it's about restoration.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the the Bible tells us that talks about the time of the restoration of all things.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Ephesians talks about God restoring and gathering all things unto himself.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all all this is about this beautiful redemption and this beautiful, this beautiful ending, so to speak, not an end, but where this is all going.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's wonderful and it's beautiful, and it's restorative, and it's in the heart of God, and it's God's will, it's his eternal purpose.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's wonderful to be in it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Bible says the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they would have destroyed that woman.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, can I just throw this out there if you want to be a little bit accurate into the theology of that?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody told us that Jesus was talking about somebody with horns and a pitchfork and a person called Satan or the devil or whatever.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he's and none of that's mentioned anywhere in that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about, what he said was, all that came before me are thieves and robbers.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: John said, No man had perceived God at any time, but the Son, he declared him.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes declaring, your father, loving Father, your father loves you, your father cares, your father will hear, your father.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: He opens this whole thing up to something bigger, to something real, to something eternal, to something different.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that thief that came to steal, kill, and destroy, you could also go to 2 Corinthians 3, where Paul plainly declares that the ministry of Moses turned out to be a ministry of death, a ministry of condemnation.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because, well, he ministered the law.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you could say that the law is the tree of knowledge of good and evil on steroids.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's amplified and spelled out, right?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says all it's going to do is bring death.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: It brings condemnation.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we have people, Jesus shows up into a culture and to a time when people were operating in that and they were promoting that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that I believe that their hearts were very sincere.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I believe they thought they were doing the right thing, the good thing, the God thing.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: They were not standing for evil.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: They were not the Pharisees and Sadducees and all the religious leaders.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't up there standing, you know, they weren't promoting, promoting, you know, murder and illicit sex and stealing.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't telling people to do those things.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were trying to not have those things.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: But moralism on itself crumbles under its own weight because it doesn't carry the heart of God in it.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't put the people above the issues.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we could use some of that focus, especially in the time that we're in, because we're a people who come to places like this and we talk to each other about the things of God and love and goodness and grace.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we have exactly what could be ministered to a world that is so factioned and so against each other and so moralizing and they're they're they're virtue signaling each other, standing for what they believe is right, and overriding empathy and compassion.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two major parts of what love is all about.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that that is an imperfection of moralization, or is that even a word, moralizing?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It feeds the lie of separation.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it brings emotional distance.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've experienced yourself, but I've certainly heard of it a lot.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's something you just hear.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: People mention it because it happens to be a thing.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is that there are families that don't even they can't even get together in the holidays anymore when they used to do that?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But in the last few years, they can't do it.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're they're emotionally distant from each other now.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're separated because they've got some issues of what's right and what's wrong, and that happens to be more important to them than the person.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus didn't come to save what was right and what was wrong.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: He came to save the persons, the people, that which was lost.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It feeds the lie of separation.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've pointed this out a lot, but I like to say it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good picture.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we have we have God making a human, and then to give them a human a helper, he takes from that human, he doesn't take something else and say, now there's a helper for you.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: He takes from the part of that human, a part of that very human itself, and makes them male and female.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the male looks at the female and says, You're flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone, we are one flesh, recognizing the union, recognizing that though we're two separate dust bodies here, we are one flesh.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Me and you.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're the same.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: We come from the same.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're of the same.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're made of the same.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We were one flesh.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then after the whole choosing the knowledge of good and evil, and God says, Well, you know, what who told you you were naked?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did you eat of that tree that I told you not to?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then Adam goes, It was her, not me.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then we talk about, then we quibble about it, like, well, see, she she did it first.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm better than her, the male says, because she was deceived.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: In my mind, I always think, yeah, but you chose.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody said, Amen.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: But see, the blame starts right off of the bat with that knowledge of good and evil, even though on one level it's it's good to be good and not evil, but it carries with it a poison.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it carries with us this lie, this sense of separation.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, was the was the female separate from the male?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, they were one flesh, and they continued, and and and there's been children and generations, and now we've got a whole world populated with billions of people, and they're so, and we we have this lie of separate.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're just now learning that we're not separated from God, let alone people.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: But thank God we're learning that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God we're finding out that God always was with us.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: God always loved us.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: God was always with the man from the beginning.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Probably the one of the biggest slanders against God was that he left you when he said, I never do that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I never will.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I can look back on my life when I was living what I would call, what people would call godless, you know, not having a thought about God, not a good thought anyway.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was lost, and I was certainly ignorant, and I was certainly blind to just about anything spiritually true, but I was still valuable, I was still precious, I was, I was worth Jesus doing what he did.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was worth God's love because God loved me.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was precious.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I came from him just like your child and your grandchildren.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: They came from from from from you, and you love them by virtue of they're just it's they're just them.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they're yours.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: But God had never left me in those years.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: God was always, in fact, I look back, I'm still here because God was with me all those times.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not separated from him, other than as the Bible says, I was separated in my mind.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then we start learning, and I, you know, I was talking to someone this morning about it, and we we I talk about people all so often that as we as we come into this walk of grace and we learn this whole kingdom thing of love, and we're finding out who God really is, and how powerful, as Paul described, how powerful that is for our life to be to have that source of source of our life be love himself, which takes us out of that whole realm of the knowledge of good and evil and elevates us into a place where the moralism doesn't have to be a thought anymore.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally unnecessary in the realm of love.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Paul was trying to describe when he said, Because if I'm in love, these things are a non-issue.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't live there.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do those things.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm in love, am I going to want to kill you?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm in love, am I going to want to take the things that you have?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not if you're in love.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how do you get in love?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: You find out that you've been loved.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only answer I know.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only thing that's ever worked for me.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I found out God loved me without any conditions.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And people and and I fought against it myself.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I started telling other people, they fought against me too.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, no, brother, that's not what it's that's that's not where it's at.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, it it changed me.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I tried the other, I tried the moralization and the living and the knowledge of good and evil, and I tried all this other stuff, and I did it for 20 years, and it wore me out, and it didn't give me rest for my soul, it didn't give me peace, and it didn't make me fall in love of love with God.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It made me try to obey him, but you can beat a horse and it will obey you, but you can love the horse and it'll be loyal to you.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when I found out he loved me, I fell in love.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I never have to pray God help me to love you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: He loves me, and you can't help but love him.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then the lie of separation with yourself.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You you quit rejecting you because that knowledge of good and evil, it'll bring a separation within yourself.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: You'll start rejecting you because you'll think that there's parts of you that are bad.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's things about you that are bad.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta get rid of this bad stuff.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta become something better.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta get better.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta rise up.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta, I gotta, I gotta change me.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And while there's changes and there's growth and it's wonderful, beautiful, hallelujah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's not you.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You were fearfully and wonderfully made, and God knew all of your inward parts when he made you.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Bible.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: How wondrous are his workings when he created you.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder he likes you so much.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: He made you.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I heard Red Skelton say at the end of one of his shows.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I hope we hope we made you laugh or smile, and we hope we didn't we didn't make you know offend anybody.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I love everybody, even my enemies.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one that made them.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: While moralism looks to be good, it's not the the end all to beat all.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not moralism is better than immoralism, but love.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: With moralism, we we have knowledge about it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: People go to the Bible to find out what's right and what's wrong.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is it wrong to do this?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it wrong to do that?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go to the Bible.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's the Bible say?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: What does the Bible say?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And while we love the Bible, I love the Bible.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wish everybody understood the Bible more, including myself.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I love as I continue to learn understand more about it.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: When we look in the Bible, New Testament, we don't see people settling things by saying, Well, let's go to the scriptures.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: What would they do?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They would get together and they would say, What does the spirit say?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the apostles got together about the circumcision of the Gentiles, and as they got together, it seemed right to them, the Spirit, to do this.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Paul himself, who was a legalist and trained in the scriptures and has memorization and all this stuff and knows this stuff.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's all about the spirit, the spirit.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He that's led by the spirit, follow the spirit.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: God gave us the spirit.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's the spirit in the spirit that leads you, the spirit that guides you, the spirit that teaches us, the spirit that helps us in our weakness, the spirit, the spirit.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: He never talked about the spirit before.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know anything about it.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of the teachers of the Pharisees comes to Jesus.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus starts talking about the Spirit.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Born of the Spirit, living by the Spirit.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, what?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, You're a teacher in Israel and you don't understand spirit things?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: See, in this life, it's the Spirit, Holy Spirit, Spirit of grace, Spirit that pours the love into our hearts.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Spirit is wonderful.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's pure, he's beautiful.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: He is love.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: He is powerful.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's the root and source of our life.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's the restorer of mankind.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we got situations today.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've got how many how many know that there is such a thing as left and right in our country?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've mentioned this a number of times, but I happen to be to be blessed that I have friends on both sides of that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's that's not easy to do these days because it's so easy now for people to isolate themselves and you start going on, you know, if you're I if you're in social media and all that, you can fix it to where you don't hear anything but those that agree with you.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I still have the others.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know personally, left and right.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know it's possible to love both of them just as much.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: But brother, you don't have to agree with them.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we know that.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't agree with a lot of things on both sides.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I've seen.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I listen to my people that are really strong on the right, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: We and all that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they've got their virtues, and they've got the things that are important to them, and they're fighting for these things, and they've got a separation, they got an enemy over here who are not fighting for the right things.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're fighting for the wrong things.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they're saying.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then I talk with my friends on the left.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we're fighting for the right things, they say.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're fighting for the wrong things.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they're fighting against us.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are sitting there saying, Well, Rick, they're wrong.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I got friends over here, they're saying, but they're wrong.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but come on, Rick.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know who's really right.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is that really the point?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that really the point?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's what here's what I see in that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'm going to agree more with certain people than I do the other.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We all have our ways of seeing things, of course.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I do see something common in both of them.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Often, not all the time, of course, but quite often, almost epidemic.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I see fruit, not just not just the morals and the virtues that they that they stand for.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're fighting for these and they're fighting for those.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a there are common fruits that I see in both of them.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: They are so much more alike than they want to admit.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the fruits?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're both angry.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the right and just start talking about those guys.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they're this and they're that.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the left, start talking about those guys.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Totally different things are topics, but the same and they're this and they're that.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what these people on the left say about those on the right?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're idiots.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're just stupid.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even make any sense.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know what they're saying about them?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're idiots.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're just stupid.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: They don't make any sense.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we make people as small as we can so we can think we understand them.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the same fruit.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're both angry.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're both condescending.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're idiots.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: They just they're just stupid.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe, I can't believe you can be so ignorant.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Rick, those Christian friends of yours, how can they be so idiots?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: How can they be so stupid?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe they can be so ignorant.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're saying, why don't you, why don't you stand up and come against them and help make some changes in Christianity?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Rick, why don't you tell those left people that what's the truth so they'll stop doing that?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're both but they both have the condescension toward the other.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you thinking, yeah, but they're wrong.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but they're wrong.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, but look at the fruit.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same fruit.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Something that tells me something.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Peter and uh excuse me, James and John were in Samaria with Jesus, and the Samaritans rejected Jesus.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's a good thing to reject Jesus?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's wrong.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's my opinion.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's morally wrong to reject Jesus.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they rejected Jesus.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you what these morally right people were going to do was they were going to call down fire on these people because anybody that rejects Jesus deserves to be burned with fire.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Shall we do it now, Jesus?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what did Jesus say?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know what spirit you are you're of.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, were they standing for something right?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess, yeah, right.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not, don't reject Jesus.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: You should have received him.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, you don't know what spirit you're of.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm about.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my heart.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm here for.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to destroy or condemn.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to restore.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: But they saw them as them.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: See, they they they they're they're feeding into the lie of separation.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is showing them, you know, who is your neighbor?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Talks about the Samaritan.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you think you're better than them?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even know how one you are.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not only are you one in God's heart, but you're you're more alike than you think you are.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: You stand for different virtues.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have a different morality as far as what's more important in that in that area, but the fruit.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's another fruit?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: The sense of separation on the left.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those Christians, they they just blow and go.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: They think they're holier than thou.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you think you are?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like the tree of knowledge of good and evil rotates, because it seems like who matter who you are, no matter what you think, you're always going to stand on the the right side of good somehow, at least in our own thoughts.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think that that's the important thing, and it's what the Pharisees did, then we live in that realm.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we can stand for what's right, and we can be the bastion of truth, and we can be the soldier of the right and the keeper of the light.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: We can be that guy.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've been that guy.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I really have.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I thought I was guarding the gates, and then God showed me something bigger and more beautiful and life-giving when that stuff did not give life.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: I fought that fight.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was a soldier for all that's good and right.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I meant the very best.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I meant well living in that realm, but I had no peace in my own soul, had no rest for my soul, still crying out to know this thing called love and understand it.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm operating in this realm.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then God lets me know I love you just like you are.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been wrong about I love you.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Takes you to the higher realm, heaven.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that if we have been risen with Christ that we have, then let's set our attention on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that, things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, I'm not talking out there somewhere.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about someplace that you are also seated with him in that place, and you see who you are, because when we see who he is, we see who we is.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as we as he is, so are we now in this world.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, I'm so excited about sharing the love.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that much about it, but man, I've tasted a little bit, and that's a little bit that I can I can live on, and it becomes the root and the source of your life.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's enough to make me religious.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying hallelujah.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's finish this.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 of that same passage.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences, the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all of its dimensions.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: How deeply intimate, how far-reaching is his love, how enduring and how inclusive it is.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's endless love that is beyond measurement.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: It transcends our understanding.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: This extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to life.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the kingdom of heaven.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is the kingdom of light, the kingdom of love.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Never doubt God's mighty power to work in you and accomplish all of this.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Any of you feel left behind in any of this?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: God's doing stuff.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he knows your frame.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if he's taking time with you, then so be it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let him take time because he's doing a wonderful work.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you, right now, even are astonished at the things you see concerning God?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: You never thought you'd know these things.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't even know they were there to see, because he's achieving infinitely more than your greatest request.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had no concept about this kind of love.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I still have a hard time trying to describe it.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it's here, it's real, it's empowering, it's amazing.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: He can achieve more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: He will exceed your wildest imagination and outdo them all because his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2.13 says, For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good pleasure.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: What about behavior?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Law in the realm of love, you don't even, it's it becomes irrelevant.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you just allow that you're not getting it.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: In love, I haven't had condemnation, even though I know that I mess up, even though I I can do things that can hurt somebody and all that, and I don't like it, I don't want to do it, and I'll apologize for it and I'll try not to do it again.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's behavior, that's character.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't come from moral moralization.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Moralizing, it comes from the source and the root of our life.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're concerned about behavior.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Find out that God loves you, and you start to live in the realm of love.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that seed, God's will is accomplished with that seed planted in the earth through Jesus, and that seed is love.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in that love, all the birds find a place to rest.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is of the increase, there'll be no end, it will spread.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be too things are real hat really happen.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are things to be concerned about.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: There are things that are not good at all.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are there are there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of horror that's happening in this world.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a seed in this world that has been growing for 2,000 years into something.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And all of creation resides in hope, looking for the wonderful manifestation of the children of God coming into their own.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Children of love, would you stand up?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time today.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for for allowing me to speak with you.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it was a blessing.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it I hope you were able to see something by the Spirit.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I hope God spoke to your heart in some way that brought edification to you because just knowledge would puff us up, but love edifies and builds us up.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have a wonderful day out here in this gorgeous Florida weather.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to have good days in Christ.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what you have to deal with, you can have a glorious day for God is with you.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.