Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Love Did This

Transcript

Love Did This · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

0:11
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to eChurts Live.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Live.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm Ryan Seacrist.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: This is Kelly Rippa.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Not really.
0:20
SPEAKER_04: Not really.
0:21
SPEAKER_04: This is each area.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Hey Kim.
0:24
SPEAKER_04: Hi, Kim.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: And there's Carol.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Carol is my old, old friend.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Not that she's not old old, but we go way back.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Stephen.
0:32
SPEAKER_04: Kim said, Ryan, you look different.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was out for a little bit.
0:39
SPEAKER_04: You had some work done.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: I had some work done.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to look a little more like Rick Manis.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Because everybody wanted to look at it.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Hi Sandra, thanks for coming.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have fun tonight.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: We've got a good topic.
0:55
SPEAKER_05: I'm excited about this topic because we were on vacation in Yellowstone celebrating our anniversary and birthdays, and we were really talking about this a lot.
1:08
SPEAKER_05: Love did this.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Love did this.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Love did this.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: And when we say love did it, we mean God did it.
1:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: Because God is love.
1:18
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: So should I go ahead and read our opening scripture?
1:22
SPEAKER_05: I guess so.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: So what I have is John chapter 1, verse 1 and 2.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him, nothing was made that was made.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Without him, nothing was made that was made.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: All things were made through him.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: This is the same John who tells us later on in his first letter to the churches in John chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4, 8.
2:08
SPEAKER_05: God is love.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: Wait, somebody's asking something about that.
2:13
SPEAKER_05: Why are there so many send a join requests to join your broadcast?
2:18
SPEAKER_05: Am I on with you?
2:19
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, can I do that?
2:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're on with me.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, to send a request to Oh no?
2:27
SPEAKER_01: That's not right.
2:28
SPEAKER_05: I mean, it doesn't show up on our end.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't have any qualifications that you have to pass to.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: You just look and you're there.
2:36
SPEAKER_05: Send a join request to join.
2:39
SPEAKER_05: You have joined automatically, and we're seeing your when you just look at us, you're you're there.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: That's a little strange.
2:47
SPEAKER_05: That is strange.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: It's not a uh it's not an invitation.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Send a join request.
2:53
SPEAKER_05: To join your broadcast.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: To join your broadcast.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
2:56
SPEAKER_05: We need to like do, we need to like attend a Facebook Live video show.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: We don't attend any Facebook Lives, do we?
3:04
SPEAKER_05: We haven't recently.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Zayna says her and her husband are looking forward to this.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Truly, God did this.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Our oh marriage too was God's idea.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: So was ours.
3:17
SPEAKER_05: I totally think the same way.
3:20
SPEAKER_05: I was thinking the same way when you were talking about doing this as well.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: But we were saying, so so without him, there was nothing made because all things were made through him.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And John said in 1 John 4 8, as you finished the sandwich for me, as I began, the sentence for me, is that God is love.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: So we could say that nothing was made without him, and he is love.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: What we know as agape love, not human love, not limited love, not fickle love, but all 100% committed, absolute love, the kind of love.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: And the definition really that makes the difference between agape, the God kind of love, and the human kind of love, is that human kinds of love, the love for something or someone depends on the quality of the object that is loved.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: You love a person because there is something good about them.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: It's not normal for humans to just love a person because they're bad or evil.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Right?
4:30
SPEAKER_01: In fact, people struggle with that.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not um if somebody loves a beautiful painting or a song or a beautiful lake or something like that, there is something about that object that that causes that love to be uh felt and expressed by you.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: But with God, it's the other way around.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: With God, it's not so much the the um the qualities of the object as it is the quality of the one loving.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: It comes from it's it uh the the quality of that love uh comes from the quality of the giver, not the quality of the object.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: Am I saying that?
5:11
SPEAKER_01: Am I making any any sense there?
5:13
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I read somewhere or I heard somewhere that the actual definition in the Greek of agape, that it assumes there's a preference, like a divine preference for whatever the object is.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: It's what they're they're preference, they're preferring as and it comes from uh it comes from it's it's initiated by the giver of the love.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh, for God so loved the world, right?
5:43
SPEAKER_01: When the world, and and the world is described in different places, and we understand this, that when we were yet enemies of God while we were sinners, uh you know, the list could go on and on, but it was it was initiated by the one giving the love.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't initiated because we were so good that he couldn't help but love us.
6:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: It was because he was so great that he couldn't help but love us.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: If he didn't, he would cease to be God.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: He cannot deny himself.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: That's why the scripture says even if we are not faithful, yet he still abides faithful, he cannot deny himself.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, even if we are faithless, he abides faithful because he cannot deny himself.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't stop him from being God, it doesn't stop him from loving us, it doesn't stop the way that he is toward us at all because it has nothing to do with us as the object of that love.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: It's all based upon the the greatness of the one that's that's giving.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: Um here's an example that uh I think illustrates this well.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh I've shared this before, but but some years ago I got this revelation or this idea that um whereas I used to tip servers based on their performance, I thought, I I I I I I was thinking about how God gives based on him, not on our performance.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: So I just decided I'm changing.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I said, I am no longer going to tip someone based on their performance.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to based on someone based on my wanting to give.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
7:27
SPEAKER_05: I was a server, so I know what it felt like really to have your performance always being evaluated and judged, and you were always hoping that nothing would go wrong, you know, that that everything would go smooth.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: The tip seemed like a grade, in a way.
7:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but then there were some people where you knew you didn't deserve what they gave, and you're just so thankful.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: And and what did you think about those people that did that?
7:54
SPEAKER_05: That gave they were really cool.
7:57
SPEAKER_05: Really good.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens with us with God when we see how he gives more than actually is given back, or more than would is deserved, at least by our measurements.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, it makes us think more highly of him.
8:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, good point.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: That's really what uh uh grace is all about.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh, what are people saying here?
8:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get too far ahead.
8:19
SPEAKER_05: Zana said, when Abba sees us, I believe he sees the love he has invested in us.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he sees he sees all those things because that's that's truly what he sees everything.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with his eyes.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: He looks at us and and loves us.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: That's just how great he is.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: And and honestly, um, you know, he loved us before we were Christians, before we received the love poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit of God.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: He still loved us even then, before that.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: And uh another good thing that we like to talk about is that he doesn't love us for our potential, he doesn't love a future perfected version of us, he loves us now.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: While we were still sinners, he loved us.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: So, when we talk about love, did this, so when we're talking about our salvation, when we're talking about our relationship with God, what did all this?
9:21
SPEAKER_01: Love did this, and love made everything.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: And so, like you were talking about, we we take a uh what would you call it, an outdoorsy vacation, a nature vacation.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And I would catch you sometimes saying, Look, love did that.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Love did that, you would see this beautiful vision.
9:43
SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna cry.
9:45
SPEAKER_05: Because so we're at Yellowstone, and so you don't know what you're gonna see, you don't know what wild animals are gonna come across, you don't know what's gonna happen, and almost immediately we drive onto the property, and there is um an elk, like four elk, like a family of elk, right?
10:05
SPEAKER_05: This far from us on the other side of a road.
10:07
SPEAKER_05: Like it just felt like such uh a loving uh gift that God gave us.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
10:16
SPEAKER_05: Right?
10:17
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like you could stick your right stick your arm out and touch him from the car.
10:21
SPEAKER_05: And then um, you know, even some of the like waterfalls and the the the different um what are they called?
10:27
SPEAKER_01: The geysers and the mud muds and things.
10:32
SPEAKER_05: You felt like you were honored, like he was showing you a piece of the world that we don't typically get to see here in Florida, and it it felt very loving.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it felt feels very loving that God would create something so beautiful, amazing, mesmerizing, and when you see it, it blesses you, and you even feel blessed to see it.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, the more you become aware of the goodness of God, this at least this has been true in my life, you notice everything, or you notice more of everything.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: It's like you don't have to go up into the great, you know, the the the big sky west.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: You can you can you know go outside and see a tree in your in your neighborhood and look at that and what and and love did that.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: What caused all this life?
11:26
SPEAKER_01: Only love could do this, sure.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: Only love could give life, only love could make something beautiful, and I love this, and we point this out a lot.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: He made a beautiful creation.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: This planet, this this little this blue ball spinning in this vast universe, small dot in the big picture, and it's just teeming with life and beauty and blessing all over.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Everything we look at, we if we can see it with with with with with clear eyes, everything is beautiful.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: And it and and and there's not a uh uh by our definition, there's not a perfect tree, and we wouldn't even want they wouldn't look but we wouldn't like to see a million per trees all look the same.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't like to see, you know, uh a thousand hills and mountains that all look the same.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: We would not like to see rivers that run perfectly straight.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: We would not like that.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: God knows what we like, and he created that uh for us.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, uh Paul told Timothy, he says, God gave us all things freely to enjoy.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: Freely, that was with love.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: When you give freely, you're giving with love.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: That's good, asking nothing back, just because of who he is, love did that.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: I noticed you one place uh you stepped out of the car, and here's this big open field.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: It looks like a savannah, you know, where the wolves run and elk and stuff like that, and it's just big, and you got out and you saw this one solitary flower in this vast sea of grass, really.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: This one flower all by himself.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: What was that one flower doing right there?
13:18
SPEAKER_01: One tiny flower.
13:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Love did that.
13:21
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: Love did that.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: And when you were, when you when you noticed it and you were drawn to it, you were being loved by God.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: And that's because that's who God is.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And we're saying these things because because it's good to be aware, it's good to remember the the character, the heart, the personality, the motivations of God.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: It's altogether lovely.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: And when you see him as he is, you notice not only the beauty of the things we're describing, but the beauty of his love and commitment to us.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: It's nothing like a human commitment.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, a human type of love does not, would not, cannot bring forth that kind of beauty into existence.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Only the supreme divine creator who is love himself could do that, and only someone like that could save us so gracefully as he did.
14:21
SPEAKER_05: Gwen says it's like he's romancing, uh it's it's like he's romancing your heart.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And you know, and and many people, you know, uh reject him, but he doesn't stop.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: He just keeps giving.
14:38
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Freely to enjoy.
14:40
SPEAKER_05: Oh, and then um Zaynus said, All creation speaks.
14:44
SPEAKER_05: I I think that is so true.
14:46
SPEAKER_05: I saw it so clear at Yellowstone.
14:49
SPEAKER_05: His glory surrounds us.
14:51
SPEAKER_05: And even like in non-impressive places, you still see his the specialness that he did just for you.
15:00
SPEAKER_05: Kim said, I remember I was having a tough day and looked out my window.
15:04
SPEAKER_05: He put two beautiful gold finches on my shepherd's hook.
15:08
SPEAKER_05: It never happened before, but it was like a kiss from him.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: That when you when when things like that happen, when you see that, that kind of beauty, that kind of life, what makes what what would even make a gold finch?
15:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're beautiful little birds.
15:26
SPEAKER_05: You don't but they're so gorgeous.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and when you see one, you you feel like you're being loved, you know.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: If we see a hummingbird in our yard, don't you always feel special?
15:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like, and and you become more aware, love did that.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, what what was that hummingbird doing here?
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Love did that.
15:45
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: And I remember when we were walking on a trail up in the mountains of uh Arizona, and uh we were walking on the trail.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: It was the trail that people uh walked on commonly out there, and we saw this this bluff up to the side, we were looking up at it, and you said, Let's climb that.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: There we went.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: And we climbed up there, and we sat on top, and we were watching all watching the people go by every once in a while, and we were sitting there looking, and then we looked to the side of us, and there was this beautiful flower there.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: And we're like, why would God bother to put a flower right there?
16:21
SPEAKER_01: And one of us said, Maybe it's just in case somebody climbed up here, you know, and you feel you feel loved.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: And what what what the reason we're using these kinds of descriptions tonight is because um because God is love, and I think when we look at it that way, we can see what his character is, and as we see that more, it takes away these false images of God that we have: a vindictive God, a punishing God, a hateful God.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh he hates nobody.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: He hates nobody.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: He can't deny himself, even those who are without faith, faithless.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: He says he still stays the same.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: He cannot deny himself.
17:05
SPEAKER_03: That's good.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: And and I love it.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: His love abides forever.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: He's loved us with an everlasting love.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Now, what that that doesn't mean that everybody just lives in that everybody gets to experience uh unicorns and rainbows uh because it's the awareness of that love that makes the beauty of life spring up in us.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: And and it's the it's the knowing of him, is where the enjoyment of life, the heaven on earth experience comes.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and and this is where when you see him that way, then you can really begin to move, move together with him in a relationship of somebody that you're coming to know now, because this this creator, this God is very personal and he loves us.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: And that's when you start to get this personal thing where you start, he starts speaking to you things, either by whatever.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: He speaks in many ways.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: People say some people say they've heard an audible voice.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I ever have, but I get I hear thoughts and sentences, I hear, uh, and many times it's a goldfinch or something like that.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, he speaks in so many ways, but it's very, always very intimate, personal.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: It feels like a friend, somebody who's for you, somebody who's with you, and just and and no matter what, it's not just words anymore.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: You really know that he's with you.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: Like Jesus said, He he knew that.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: He said, You guys are all gonna leave me tonight when he knew he was gonna be crucified.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: He says, But I will not be alone.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: I will not be alone.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Love did that.
18:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
18:42
SPEAKER_05: Corey said, she said, I don't know why I'm struggling so much tonight.
18:47
SPEAKER_05: After all the years, I am having a hard time tonight with myself.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And you and that's you're you're you're you're not alone because a lot of people are doing that, and it's very common.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: A hard time with with with with ourselves, and and and a lot of that is um it's it's hard for for for a lot of us to to to to know and trust that love where we can just rest in that.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Rest in that and understand that if no matter what you ever could do, it would not change God's love and commitment, care, his kindness, his patience with you.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: We um a lot of um religious ideas and the images of God that we men have made up of God have given most of us the idea that we're always trying to measure up, that we're never good enough, and we're always striving to be, trying to do better, and we don't pray enough, we don't do love enough even, we don't hear God, we don't know all these things.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: There's always we don't, we don't, we don't, we need, we need, we need.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and uh we want to, in fact, in just one moment, I want to I want to pray for you, Corey.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: And uh but there is a liberty knowing that God is what we're talking about, knowing that he's love.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're focusing on this name of God.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, God has many different names in the Bible that describe who he is.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: John wrapped it all up together in his revelation and said, This is who God is.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: God is love.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And when you come down to it, everything funnels down to that.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: Father, uh, you know how to do for Corey what nobody else knows knows how to do.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're greater.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: If if our hearts condemn us, you are greater than our hearts.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Um you know how to to rise up and to speak and to bless our soul.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: You know how to to override all the things of the soul that torment us.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: And you're bigger than all that, and greater are you that's in us and in Corey.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: So, Father, I'm trusting you.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: I am trusting you and asking you to do a rescue in this situation, to do something that I don't know how to do, and and Corey doesn't know how to do.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: If we did, we would just do it.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: But we trust in you, and I'm and I'm trusting you, my father, to love her in a way that overwhelms her.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: And even right now, let there be like a springtime happening in her soul, that the winter is over and past, and the fall has begun, and the birds are starting to sing in her heart, and the sun is starting to shine in her heart, and the dark has been at her back, but the sun is on her face.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And I thank you, Father, for blessing, blessing our friend tonight in only the way you can.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Let your goodness happen.
21:39
SPEAKER_05: Yes, Amen.
21:41
SPEAKER_05: What did uh Kim said, I can relate, Corey.
21:44
SPEAKER_05: I've been I've been having a hard time with myself too, and lots of anger over past hurts and abuse.
21:52
SPEAKER_05: I tell Daddy, please take the anger and help me forgive.
21:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and and and Corey said, It's awful today.
22:00
SPEAKER_05: She said, I'm full of self-sabotage at 51 years old.
22:06
SPEAKER_05: I want to be free from finding disgust in what my daddy created and loves.
22:11
SPEAKER_05: What a battle.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: I we uh most of us can can uh sympathize.
22:16
SPEAKER_05: I would say I had a similar, I had a bad day on Saturday.
22:20
SPEAKER_05: And in what Kim is saying uh is true for me.
22:24
SPEAKER_05: I don't I don't think this is for everybody, but um, you know, when you've had a like a history or a past of abuse, there are protective walls that come up and self, I would say self-destructive habits come out of that, and you heal over time and gradually God heals those things, but there's times when things come up and it put it's like it pushes on the wound that's not quite healed yet, and and you know, it you just can have a brings you back to that old familiar place, familiar, and I know what it feels like to say, I'm so sick of my flesh, because you've at least for me was feeling like, well, I'll never change, you know, I'll never get better.
23:05
SPEAKER_05: But it's just a lie.
23:07
SPEAKER_05: And the truth is exactly what you said, Corey, is that what God made so beautiful, we don't have to feel disgust.
23:15
SPEAKER_05: And you know, I used to pray like, God, just take that thing out of me that wants to hurt myself or wants to think badly about, just take it out.
23:24
SPEAKER_05: And you know, Rick often talks about how God is weaving his ways so he into us.
23:30
SPEAKER_05: So we have these history, it's our story, it's just our story.
23:35
SPEAKER_05: We have these things that had happened to us when we were younger or even recently, and he's weaving beautiful perfection into those imperfect, painful, wounded, and it makes it something good, yeah.
23:49
SPEAKER_05: And that's when something good can come from something that was meant to destroy.
23:55
SPEAKER_05: And I mean, I I even really on Saturday I felt that feeling of I'm gonna tear the whole walls down, I'm just going down and everything's gonna go with it.
24:08
SPEAKER_05: That is how I lived my life for a really long time, and I recognized it was almost strange because I haven't really felt that way in a long time, but it it's still a part of my history, and God looks at me with love, understanding, and compassion, and he knows that it's not always a quick, easy thing to get out of years and years of training yourself this one way, but but but to recognize we are growing, there is some growth.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And it gets better as a thing, is that is that those those days when you feel like that they become fewer and farther between, and so but then they become the exception rather than the rule.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:53
SPEAKER_05: And the fact that you have a day like that, the lie that comes is like, oh, I'll always be this way because this is how I always used to be.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, I thought I was over it, but there it is.
25:04
SPEAKER_05: But it that's just a lie because the truth is you've had more good days than bad days, at least in my case, strung together.
25:12
SPEAKER_05: So that can't be that it never is.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: What did Corey just say?
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Something really good says uh let me see.
25:22
SPEAKER_05: Keep going.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: More there.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: He's so gentle and he knows how we can't understand his patience with this.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: That's true, because it's totally based on him, not about how much we deserve that patience.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't, it never runs out because that's who he is again there, too.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: That's part of love.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: Love is patient, that's him.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh, even if we're not, he is, and that's the thing.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: Because we need his patience.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: It's not our patience that he's demanding.
25:54
SPEAKER_05: It's almost hard to comprehend that kind of patience because we have no patience with ourselves.
26:00
SPEAKER_05: That idea that he could be that patient.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, I really like what Kim is saying right now, too.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: She said, I stopped trying to change myself, stopped trying, period.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: And that is a wonderful place.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: That's when I started to get it.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: When I finally just stopped and I found out that me stopping my striving to change, it did not cut my relationship with God, it made it more real.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: It did not make me a worse person or cause me to sin more.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: It actually did the opposite because I was receiving grace and love.
26:39
SPEAKER_05: Right.
26:40
SPEAKER_05: And uh it's almost like perfection comes in in those moments, and you can't go back to sinning because his perfection is coming into you.
26:49
SPEAKER_05: There's only up, there's only upward movement, not downward movement.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: It does it gets better.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's not, you know, it's it, you know, you hear a lot about how people like, yeah, one day, you know, somebody touched me and boom, you know, it's never been the same since.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, in one sense that's true, but but but really the way that he does it is he's he unites our thoughts with his.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus says, he says, if you're if you're tired of working so hard, if you're tired of striving and you're you're burdened down with this, he says, Come and I'll give you rest.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Come and and take my yoke upon you, and you'll find rest for your souls, because I'm meek and I'm humble.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: So come learn of me, he said.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: And the good thing about his yoke is that when he says, take my yoke upon you, he's carrying the whole thing.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: So you don't have any weight in this.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: This is what is so good about understanding the grace, the grace of God, the graciousness of not just what he did.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Of course, it was gracious what he did, but but he did it because he is gracious, he's graceful and he's full of grace.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and the liberty, the freedom, the joy finally came to me when I knew that I didn't have to do anything, I didn't have to get better because God loved me so much that he made the way through Jesus Christ that that I could be complete, I could be blessed, I could be favored, I could be loved, if I never got any better, because none of it had anything to do with me, if I never got any better, if I never quit doing the the the unchrist-like things that I still did, if I never stopped those things, got never quote got the sin out of my life, if I never stopped those things, it would not change a thing.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: And if I ever could overcome all those things and become this perfect specimen of a Christian child of God, which there is no such thing, uh, that wouldn't change it either.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't uh because it's based upon God's the joy before him was us.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus could go to the cross and it says, for the joy set before him, he endured it.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: We were that joy.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he loved us and loves us.
29:33
SPEAKER_05: I I have this picture of him walking the streets of Calvary.
29:37
SPEAKER_05: You know, there was this big celebration going on, Passover feast was happening in Jerusalem as he walked this walk, you know, and they all saw a criminal because he was gonna get executed.
29:50
SPEAKER_05: So they they were like making a spectacle of him, but I see him so committed and committed to me.
29:58
SPEAKER_05: He keeps going, you know.
30:00
SPEAKER_05: At any time he could have stopped and said, enough of this.
30:03
SPEAKER_05: I can show you all who I am.
30:06
SPEAKER_05: But he kept he was so committed.
30:09
SPEAKER_05: He was I just imagine him saying, Judy needs me, Judy's gonna need me, Rick is gonna need me, Corey's gonna need me, Kim is gonna need me one day, and so he kept going on that awful walk and did what only he could do to be there for us, and for us to know that he knows, he carried it all on him, so he knows what it feels like, he knows what that sin and that self-destruction and that self-hatred, disgust.
30:43
SPEAKER_05: He knows he felt it all.
30:46
SPEAKER_05: And so we can always rest assured that we have someone who sympathizes with our weaknesses because he he's experienced that and he he and he knows, yeah, and he did the the the most incredible thing of sending the Holy Spirit to reside in us so that our imperfect selves could join with his perfection and we could become one, so we would always know we have someone, and that perfection is his love in our lives, it's not our performance, it's not what we do.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: That's a fable.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: There's it's no such thing.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Man made that up.
31:30
SPEAKER_05: It'd be like you'd become a robot, like this perfectly shaped and say everything perfect, like it's such a uh a false, yeah.
31:40
SPEAKER_05: It's part of the world system to get you to lust for more.
31:43
SPEAKER_05: Like, I've got to have a better body, I've gotta have a more better job, I've gotta do this, I gotta do so.
31:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so but it's a it's it's not um, it's not something that you ever and even that word perfect, what is that really?
31:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's not to think about.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
32:01
SPEAKER_01: What does what does it look like?
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Someone says, well, it's the absence of flaws.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but but that's so subjective.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: What is a what is a flaw?
32:08
SPEAKER_01: That's not the real definition.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: The definition of perfection biblically.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: I say this a lot.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: If you look up in the Bible, it tells you what perfection is.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: Look in the New Testament, everywhere you see the word perfect or perfection, it's talking about love.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew 5, all of that.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: It's all talking about the God kind of that's the only perfect thing there is.
32:32
SPEAKER_05: Let me show you a more excellent way.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Love is patient, love is kind.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Who is that?
32:37
SPEAKER_01: You could say God is patient.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, God is kind.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: God, God does this does uh he's just he's he is the perfect one.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: That's why he could create what he did.
32:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: And he's not perfect because he doesn't do things wrong, even though he doesn't, in our even in our definition.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: He's perfect because he's love.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: And love is automatically perfect.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: I saw that Ted said something.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, somebody said not receiving our audio.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh-oh.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Is that anybody else?
33:11
SPEAKER_01: I think other people are hearing us.
33:14
SPEAKER_05: Um, Ted said, if God could hate, he would hate hate.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: I totally agree with that because I hate hate.
33:23
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
33:24
SPEAKER_05: Like if he could hate.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: He would hate hate.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, and so what does he do?
33:29
SPEAKER_01: There again, and he doesn't come to annihilate hate.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: We got a lot of people in the world trying to annihilate hate, but not but not having any love to replace it with.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: And so what God does is he brings in love.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Romans 5, 5, the love of God was poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that dwells in us.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: And so he did that, and then what happens?
33:51
SPEAKER_01: Then the hate removes it.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: The light of God removes darkness.
33:56
SPEAKER_05: You know, I I've been thinking a lot about that, that that how you are interacting with people, like even if you have the right theology or the best grace message, if you are punching people with it or trying to one-up someone with it, you really are missing everything.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says knowledge puffs you up, uh-huh, but love builds you up.
34:27
SPEAKER_05: Now, what I find so fascinating about it is when you meet different kinds of people, people are so different.
34:33
SPEAKER_05: And so you might say something, it doesn't resonate resonate with them at all.
34:38
SPEAKER_05: But if you find the thing that resonates, there's a way to say it that they can actually hear and receive.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: And love does that.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Love looks to it.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: It takes the time, yeah, and to we the there's they we want people to we want to speak to people in a voice that they can hear.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, because his voice is one that can be received by anyone.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: Not not the way a lot of us Christians are talking, but the way that the way that He speaks to us.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: As Hebrews 1 says, God used to speak to us through the prophets, but now in this last day, he's spoken to us by his son.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: And he said, And my sheep hear my voice.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: He's at this way, because he's love, he is love, and he speaks from that that perspective.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: He's he's not trying to um push us into a religion or or real really even to a box of thought or idea.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: It's just his whole he is love, so that's that's what he does.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: He just loves and loves and loves and loves, and that changes everything else.
35:47
SPEAKER_05: Right.
35:48
SPEAKER_05: I I know I have said this in the past, and I've heard many people say this is it's so hard to hear, it's so hard to hear the Holy Spirit.
35:56
SPEAKER_05: And you would always say, Well, if you believe it's hard, then it will be that's why it is, but we think it's hard, yeah.
36:02
SPEAKER_05: So I had a couple things happen uh over, like I would say this last month, where I purposely would go out and say, Lord, I need to hear from you.
36:10
SPEAKER_05: And I like took a long walk and came back, and I'm like, didn't hear a word, didn't hear anything.
36:17
SPEAKER_05: And then I would say, like, maybe 20 minutes later, you prayed for me, and God answered through that prayer.
36:24
SPEAKER_05: But I wanted to hear it on that walk, and I didn't necessarily hear it on that walk.
36:28
SPEAKER_05: But um, you know, the other day I was doing uh some just some private prayer time, and I said, Lord, will you just speak to me now?
36:36
SPEAKER_05: Like, just I'm I don't need anything big because I because what I was saying was it seems like when I need the answer, that's what I want to hear right now.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: But we kind of put a demand on that.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: We want you to speak this way at this time, quickly, and so I can hear it, right?
36:52
SPEAKER_05: So I said, just let me hear like when it's not important, like when it's not a big thing, and it was like, I love you.
37:00
SPEAKER_05: He said he was like he was saying, I adore you.
37:03
SPEAKER_05: You are you bring a smile to my face, you are you know, sunshine to me.
37:09
SPEAKER_05: I am so proud of you, you are you know, a delight to my soul, and Rick is right about everything.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: About everything.
37:19
SPEAKER_05: Actually, he did tell me something that I was disagreeing with you on, that he said, no, Rick has the right perspective on this, and he was explaining that.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: It's the perspective of God's love.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of things I want.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I like Gwen's thing because it's very appropriate.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: It says, the Lord told me not to attach value to how you act, what you look like, what you own.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: None of these things gives you value.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: You already are valuable.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: That's the world's way.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And that and Nakim said said uh something there, and she said something right there, and then her last statement before that, um, that I want to address because this is important.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: So she says, I don't know how to love myself and extend myself grace, and um I want to know that I'm I'm that I'm I'm valuable.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: Um there is, and I'm not, and and I and I, and I know that Kim and the people watching this are not doing it this way, but there's a way that the world tries to tries to give value to themselves and tries to love themselves, and um, and that's this this world's thing of puffing themselves up like I'm fabulous, I'm I'm awesome, I'm you know, I I love me, and and you know, I'm this and I'm that.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: And and that's their way of dealing with this common, common shame that humanity carries and can't get rid of.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: That's why they're always trying to look better, be trying to be better.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And and so they do that, but it it's it's false, it doesn't it doesn't work at all.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: The way that it works is simply knowing what we're talking about tonight, coming to know that.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus says, come with me and learn of me.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm meek, I'm humble, I'm you know, I'm love, I'm patient, I'm caring, and he and so it's when when we knew, when we find the out that God loves us regardless, and love created us.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: Nothing can create it, no man is gonna be able to create this.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: Love created us, and that made us valuable by virtue of who created us.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: And the fact that he he loves me finally made me realize there again, like I'm saying, nothing I do is gonna make me more valuable.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: God will always love me like this, and and I and I want I say this because I totally relate, as we all do.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: I totally relate because I spent so many, many decades of my life trying to become more valuable, valuable to people, trying much to become more valuable to God.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: God, I want you to use me.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: God, I want to, I want to, I want to, you know, find that costly anointing so so so you know I can do good things for you, you know, all that while so I can do what's pleasing in your sight, you know, all those kind of things.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: And so all those ideas make us feel not valuable because we never measure up.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: Measure up.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: And so when we look at God, the more we look at God, and honestly, those of us that are in that situation of just really um, you know, hard on ourselves that way, we probably need to not not look at a lot of other things even in Christianity other than the character of God, his absolute pure love.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: And and and I'll tell you why it's hard to believe it, even though you hear it said, is because this love is too good to be true.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: It blows us away just to and and and and even though I'm talking about it now, I know that I cannot comprehend with my mind how deep this thing is, yeah, and and and how far it goes, how infinite it is, but I'm glad it is.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: But but accepting a love, and it throws away all these, all the venge, vengeance of God, all the punishings of God, all the all the dark images that were created of God, this kind of love that makes makes God shows the beauty of God.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: And the beauty of God, like somebody said, creation declares his glory.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: These things that love has created, they're reflections of who he is.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: That's why, that's why there's even such a thing that we recognize as beauty.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: It would not be anything beautiful if it weren't for a beautiful heart that's giving and loving always, always, always, always, always.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: And he gave us, he poured his love in us by the Spirit, and the Bible says the Spirit was given to us so we can know what's freely given to us.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we we struggle for a time.
42:15
SPEAKER_05: It's the Spirit's job to convince your heart.
42:19
SPEAKER_05: Because we both had this experience, we didn't know each other at the time, but when you would hear God loves you, I it would be like ten words, like ding, God loves you.
42:30
SPEAKER_05: I'd think, so what?
42:32
SPEAKER_05: Like, I have all these problems, I have issues.
42:36
SPEAKER_05: It it was like it was a faraway love.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was so God's sitting in his chair loving me.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: And meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm struggling here.
42:43
SPEAKER_05: Like, I feel like the the convincing of the heart has changed everything for me.
42:51
SPEAKER_05: Not just that I know God loves me, of course, he loves everybody.
42:55
SPEAKER_05: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've got to fix this, I've got to do this.
42:59
SPEAKER_05: It's not that, it's that everything changes.
43:02
SPEAKER_05: I remember I remember when I was learning about the grace of God, and I, the Lord said to me, sit down.
43:10
SPEAKER_05: And I usually was very involved in church, very I I was very active to kind of get out of myself, right?
43:17
SPEAKER_05: And I remember just thinking the worst possible thing would be that I would become a couch potato and I would just watch TV all day.
43:26
SPEAKER_05: And I remember saying to the Lord, but Lord, I'm just gonna it'd just be awful.
43:30
SPEAKER_05: I'll just watch TV all day long and blah blah blah.
43:34
SPEAKER_05: He goes, I'll I'll watch with you, I'll sit down and watch with you.
43:37
SPEAKER_05: And you know what?
43:39
SPEAKER_05: I don't watch Tiva all day long anymore, you know.
43:42
SPEAKER_05: But I did for a while watch TV.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: And if you did, there's nothing wrong with it.
43:45
SPEAKER_05: Nothing, nothing.
43:46
SPEAKER_05: I think I was so afraid that I would get stuck in that.
43:50
SPEAKER_05: But with him, it's like it's okay to rest, it's okay, like Kim is saying, to stop trying, trying.
44:00
SPEAKER_05: Trying, just sit down because, in the hindsight, when I look back, God was sitting with me, but He wasn't just sitting with me, letting me stay that way forever.
44:11
SPEAKER_05: He was sitting with me and convincing my heart and convincing my heart till one day I was singing in the car.
44:19
SPEAKER_05: I was driving to work and I noticed that I was singing for the first time in a long time.
44:23
SPEAKER_05: In like a couple years, and I was singing, and I knew that something had moved and changed, and you know, that was sort of the beginning of the end of that uh that depression.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: I like what you said that that that it's it's it's okay how you know I'm I'm just I'm just sitting here.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, a lot of times people get we're striving to give ourselves grace, and then we can put on top of that, we'll condemn ourselves for trying so hard because we know that's not the answer either.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
44:58
SPEAKER_01: You can say, God, you know, I know I'm really, really, you know, trying to accept this.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: He says, it's okay.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, well, I know I shouldn't be trying so hard.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: Because love does that.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: It's always I'm I've never, but God's God is his assurance is always anything that I've ever been or done.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's okay.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: Because love does that.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Love does that, and love is big enough for that.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: And I want to I wanted to see um down Kim.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: I think back up now.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is right.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to uh bring out something that something else that Kim just said because this is good and it's helpful um to people.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: Um which one was it?
45:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
45:53
SPEAKER_05: I think we already did those.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: We've moved on.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, the uh what I want to bring out is is that these comments that people are making now, these are common and and it's helpful, and I'm glad that I'm glad that we have this opportunity, this this format, so we can communicate like this, because it brings up it brings up points like that, that all of this that we're doing, trying to measure up, even doing that with love, with God, it's still, it's like it's okay.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: I know where you're at.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: So he's not condemning us and like, come on, you're doing it wrong.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, he's he's he's he's love.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: And that love is uh it gives freedom, it gives freedom to mess up.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: It gives some this is the love that's so big and so wide.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: He's not calling us to walk a tight line here because what he did for us with Jesus, putting this whole thing together uh with us and him, we don't need that tight line anymore.
46:53
SPEAKER_05: That's so good.
46:54
SPEAKER_05: Is is this the comment you were talking about?
46:56
SPEAKER_05: Like, oh, I'm not doing uh what I should read my Bible or do more reading.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: So you think it's it's your fault, and just all those things along that along those lines of of putting it on us.
47:10
SPEAKER_05: So that's when you know when it feels like the weight is on your shoulders, then then that's not you the weight goes on him and and he'll take care of it, right?
47:21
SPEAKER_05: I think that feeling of burden, that's how I was feeling when I had that hard day, was like I it was all on me.
47:28
SPEAKER_05: Well, it's really not all on me.
47:30
SPEAKER_05: Okay, this is really good from Gwen.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
47:34
SPEAKER_05: When I was too tired and disappointed to pray or read my Bible, the Lord said, just listen to worship music and let me encourage you.
47:43
SPEAKER_05: It's like listening to music is so effortless.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: So effortless.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: That's that's really good.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: And here's another thing is God knows what works for you, how you hear and receive and stuff like that.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: So with me, he might just say, turn on the football game and let's watch this together.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, whatever.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: But he's just that big, he's that, he's just that loving and that that personal.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: Now there was another comment I made.
48:07
SPEAKER_05: He's not he's not just he's not as like pressed, pressed as we are to fix the situation.
48:14
SPEAKER_05: He's much more like you said, he has a lot of room.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, and because that's not his agenda either, so much.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: He's love.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: And really, love fixed it.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: And all the other things, the externals, how we act, the you know, our lifestyle, the our faith, all that stuff, those get affected by the love.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 5, 6.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: How does faith even work?
48:41
SPEAKER_01: Faith works by love.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: People struggling, I'm trying to believe God, I'm trying to trying to embrace this, I'm trying to, you know, make this real to myself.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: And it says, come and learn of me.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: It says, faith works by love, his love.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: And so so, you know, this is why we're so we're basically a one-note ministry.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: Everything funnels to who God is, God is love because that is the truth that really will make us make us free.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes, he is so loving.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: This is an interesting thing.
49:14
SPEAKER_05: There always is.
49:16
SPEAKER_05: I had jumped on Facebook really hoping and asking God to meet me, and as soon as I jumped on, another grace friend was Lot Friends Live was on.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: Not but not, right?
49:31
SPEAKER_05: I'm sorry it made it worse.
49:34
SPEAKER_05: I would never have stayed on a live like that and felt like I was just staying to have another excuse that God's grace was too far from my reach.
49:47
SPEAKER_05: And then you two popped up.
49:49
SPEAKER_05: I was tempted to feel guilty to just leave because I was hoping the grace on this grace ministries live would find me.
49:59
SPEAKER_05: Oh my, I just had to.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: Come and get your love.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: That you know, that's one thing, one thing we've got is is is the the word of God who is love and and and and that good news.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: And nothing but.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: Nothing but because God's not sending out any bills.
50:20
SPEAKER_05: Kim said, Yes, wait goes on him.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: Isn't this good?
50:24
SPEAKER_05: Gwen said, I've forgotten how good God is.
50:27
SPEAKER_05: He's so loving.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: He's so loving, and he keeps amazing with his love.
50:31
SPEAKER_05: He's gentle, he's love.
50:33
SPEAKER_05: Yes, faith works only by love.
50:36
SPEAKER_05: They didn't love me anymore.
50:38
SPEAKER_05: We love you.
50:39
SPEAKER_05: We love you, and God loves you, you know.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: And that's the love of God that starts to flow through us more.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: That people don't have to be anything for us to love them anymore.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that perfect love.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Where did this come from?
50:52
SPEAKER_01: I didn't used to like anybody.
50:54
SPEAKER_05: Right.
50:55
SPEAKER_05: And I do think that what you're going through, especially Corey, what you're sharing is something that is going to be used for good in the future or when you're talking to someone or ministering to someone, it's really your walk, like your crucible, your place of meeting God.
51:16
SPEAKER_05: And that will help someone.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: Our best ministry or our best way of blessing uh seems to come from our our struggles, our our personal experiences.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: We have we always have a story that relates somehow.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: And those things that seemed so hard at one time and were, they become tools, they become things to bless others with now.
51:40
SPEAKER_05: It's like he made it into something good, like he'll he'll make it into something good.
51:45
SPEAKER_05: And what it does, because love really listens to people, it doesn't try and fix people, it just listens.
51:52
SPEAKER_05: And one way you can listen is when you've had a similar experience.
51:57
SPEAKER_05: You can listen in a way that maybe someone who hasn't ever had that experience might not be able to relate or really hear or really understand.
52:08
SPEAKER_05: And it's not to say you can't relate to people who've gone through different things than you, but it's just I think it's a nice thing to know that someone else understands and has been there.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is, and that's why, and that's how God makes everything work for our good.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: We don't like those hard things at all.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: We're not even supposed to, I don't think, but but they always become something good.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: A good question, right there.
52:34
SPEAKER_05: Okay, Gwen, your question.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: Question of the of the of the night, right here.
52:38
SPEAKER_05: No, this is just one of many questions of the night.
52:41
SPEAKER_05: Um how come the Bible says he hates, though?
52:46
SPEAKER_05: Like people who do wicked things or Esau, etc.
52:49
SPEAKER_05: etc.
52:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, on that's that situation we know that Jacob was chosen for certain things, so Jacob Esau became the lesser in that sense, as far as the choice of God.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: But he does use the word hate.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: I've looked it up.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: Um here's what I say about that.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, number one, as I had quoted before in Hebrews 1 says, verse 1, says, God, who in various ways and different times spoke to us in times past through the prophets, talking about what was written in the Old Testament scriptures by the prophets, has in these days spoken to us by the Son.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: And he said, and it's a new and living way.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: Now, the new and living way did not change God's personality, he always was love, but it revealed his true personality because Hebrews also says that the types and shadows of that old covenant, old testament, if you will, uh uh says it was an uh a shadow of things, but it was not the very replica, the very image of the things of God.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is the exact image of the things of God.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: This is what would come to us through the Son.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Also in John chapter 1, verse 18, this is what I always come to.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: It says, no one, now think about this.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: After all the the scriptures that we read, especially in the Old Testament and all that, no one has seen God at any time.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: But the Son.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: But the Son, only begotten Son, who's with the Father, he has declared him to us.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: So whenever there's a confusion about that, and we like like he says, Well, I hated Esau or stuff like that.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: Remember that they all knew in part and saw in part.
54:35
SPEAKER_01: For whatever reason.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, there was a very particular reason.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: There was a veil over them that's not done away except in Christ.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: Jesus unveils what he demonstrated, what he taught about the Father, what did he say?
54:50
SPEAKER_01: Did he ever say, God hates you?
54:52
SPEAKER_01: He said, He says, Your father loves you, your father cares for you, your father will uh, you know, it's all it was always the father, the father, the father, the father loves the son.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: The father's not impatient with the son, the father, you know, and it was always about, he talked about it, he demonstrated it everywhere he went.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: He did not before he healed people, he didn't ask them if they deserved it, if they've had read their Bible lately or any, you know, any of that, that kind of stuff.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: He just gave because that's what love does.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: And and John got that revelation that when we saw the Son, who declared who the Father really is, John said, God is love.
55:32
SPEAKER_01: That's something nobody had said before.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: But John saw it because of Jesus, saw who God really was.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: When the law didn't give us a picture of it, the prophets didn't give us a picture of God, Jesus gave us the exact image of God, and he loved showing a God who loves the whole world.
55:56
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the the love for the whole world, it's a big love.
56:00
SPEAKER_05: It's a it's a really big love.
56:02
SPEAKER_05: And you know, it's so funny because the you know, when you talk about um God didn't so hate sin that he came to save the world, he didn't so hate our behavior that he came to save us.
56:17
SPEAKER_05: It says he so loved us because actually love is more powerful than hate.
56:25
SPEAKER_05: And so he brings the light in, and that wicked way or that, you know, bad behavior, it just falls off because the light is shining and it and is big and it embraces us.
56:39
SPEAKER_05: That's really how healing happens and how change happens, is the light comes in and the darkness depends on the water.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: That's why God did it the right way by doing what he did inside.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: Because the law of the prophets, where it says all these other things.
56:56
SPEAKER_05: It was the outside.
56:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it never did work.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: Martin Luther King Jr.
57:00
SPEAKER_01: had saw it so clear in some of the things that he said.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: That's when he said, hate only begets hate.
57:06
SPEAKER_01: So just by hate, even just by hating hate, that's not enough.
57:10
SPEAKER_05: Right.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: You have to love the person.
57:13
SPEAKER_05: If you notice that, you can see it in culture even today.
57:16
SPEAKER_05: Is there's a lot of people who hate really bad things, but their hate isn't changing the people's.
57:24
SPEAKER_05: It's making it worse, right?
57:25
SPEAKER_05: It's actually, you know, they it says that um what the law excites sin, or or like, so you're you're putting this hate on this, and it actually increases it.
57:36
SPEAKER_05: So if you really wanted to change someone, it has to change from the inside out.
57:42
SPEAKER_05: The only way is is love.
57:47
SPEAKER_01: God knows best.
57:48
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
57:48
SPEAKER_01: What he did was the best way, and what he did worked.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: It actually changed even someone like me, and it's changing me.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: And so, if the other way, if it was still about still about uh do good and not evil is the way to do it, well, that's the tree of knowledge of good and evil that got us in trouble the whole time.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: So it has nothing to do with that.
58:09
SPEAKER_01: He in fact, the axe was laid to the root of that tree, so we don't have to live by the knowledge of good and evil anymore.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: And that was, of course, you know, Adam lived with that, with that, with that shame.
58:21
SPEAKER_05: Hey, my friend Geraldine.
58:23
SPEAKER_05: Our friend Geraldine is here.
58:25
SPEAKER_05: She says, I love how you share and have shared for years about the love overcoming our pain and our pain falling off.
58:34
SPEAKER_05: You are my rock star, brother.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
58:37
SPEAKER_01: I think she was talking to me.
58:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm a rock star with the game on.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: Go play.
58:42
SPEAKER_05: She was talking to both of us.
58:43
SPEAKER_01: I think she was talking to you.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: You're the rock star.
58:45
SPEAKER_05: No, you're the rock star.
58:46
SPEAKER_05: I called you a rock star.
58:48
SPEAKER_05: Like um Arrow Aerosmith, uh, what's his name?
58:51
SPEAKER_05: Steven Tyler.
58:53
SPEAKER_05: When when Rick was young, he was really thin and had long, straight black hair.
58:58
SPEAKER_05: And big lips.
58:59
SPEAKER_05: And big lips.
59:00
SPEAKER_05: And people thought he was Steven Tyler.
59:02
SPEAKER_05: And he loves Steven Tyler.
59:04
SPEAKER_05: He I mean, he doesn't love, but he likes him a lot.
59:08
SPEAKER_01: But now I like my life much better than I would like his.
59:11
SPEAKER_01: True, true.
59:13
SPEAKER_05: Okay, um, Corey said, Esau sold his inheritance not desiring the blessing.
59:22
SPEAKER_05: The blessing is a shadow of God hating that anyone would choose to perish then receive his love.
59:30
SPEAKER_01: I could go with that.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: Um that's actually pretty good.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, some of the things in the Old Testament, and you you run into a lot of-that way.
59:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's so interesting.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: And and there again, he hates things, not people.
59:49
SPEAKER_01: Why?
59:50
SPEAKER_01: Because because he loves people, and so does he hate sin?
59:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, he does.
59:55
SPEAKER_05: That wasn't hurtful to us.
59:57
SPEAKER_05: It's harmful to us.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: That's why.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not because it just it broke his rules.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: Hey, those were my rules, and you broke them.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_01: That's not why he hates sin.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: He hates sin because it hurts us, and he loves us.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want, he doesn't like anything that hurts us.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_05: Corey said, Oh, you two are awesome.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_05: God has me laughing after all that.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_05: I'm so glad.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_04: That's so good.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_05: It's good to love.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: But we, you know, we really believe in the the prayer when we call on God to help us in ways that we don't know how to help or rescue ourselves.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: That's that's what he's really good at.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: And um, and so uh, you know, that that love that we know that he has, it it helps us to have faith when we pray that God's gonna bless the people that we do.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: And also, I like like when we're in a a a live meeting, a church meeting somewhere, or a home group, or and we're ministering, teaching, and people want prayer.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's a divine appointment.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: I feel like God wanted wants us to pray for that particular thing, and and it's a divine, it's an honor that we actually get to honor to be a part of it.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: Right, that we actually get to touch God on this thing and and and receive goodness in that situation.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_01: So Geraldine said you guys match so cute, almost.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_05: I'm navy blue, I'm black, and we were told that navy blue and black doesn't go together.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it does tonight with us.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_01: All right, we need to go.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_05: We do.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for joining us.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_05: We've been away for a while, and so it's nice to get back and start uh doing our each other.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_01: We enjoyed being back live again tonight.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: Love did this.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_05: Love did this, love did this for me.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, so we um if those if you're not real familiar with this, uh rickmanis.com, we've got lots of other resources.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: There's free stuff, there's videos, there's there's blog, there's a blog that Judy writes, there's um uh once in a while.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_05: Heaven on Earth University.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: We have Heaven on Earth University, which is in-depth courses with a with a uh curriculum format.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_05: Uh has a lot of different uh we have books for sale and we have our meetings schedule where we're gonna be.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: So if we're near you or uh we want you to come to our meeting, and if we're not, we want to see you.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, if uh uh if you've if you've got a church, we would love to come and speak there.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_01: We always like seeing our friends.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: We've got a we've got a lot of Facebook friends that we haven't even seen yet, still, face to face.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's a lot of them we meet as we go.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_01: We'll run into people and they'll say, Hey, I'm so-and-so, I'm your Facebook friend.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a face, you know.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_01: So that or or or or it doesn't even have to be a church.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: We go to home groups.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_01: Home groups are wonderful, they're such a blessing.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: We just really get have a good time in the word and with ministry.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_05: Sometimes it's just really nice because you're more, it's more intimate and you can really talk and run.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: Get a few friends together, and we'll make it some way for us to be able to make it.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: Just get a few friends together and let's have a good night around the things of God.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: Makes it easy.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: We're real easy.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_05: So remember, love did this.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: Love did this.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: So look at yourself in the mirror and say, Love did that.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_01: God bless you guys tonight.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: We sure love you, we believe in you.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_01: And we'll see you next week, right?