Day 4
0:10 - How do I love God? Like, how do I just look at you and love you? How do I get to know you and love you? Sometimes it’s the people that we see all the time that we have the hardest time loving in the natural. Because we see every little weakness and imperfection. “Oh, that just bugs me when they do that!”
God's Love for Us
➡ 1:10 - The gospel is the answer for how to love - Meditate on these things - How do I just look at people and love them? It’s the gospel. And I’m going to break it down today. The gospel is your only answer. It’s the finished work of Christ. It’s the fact that Christ came. What motivated Him to come. The message He sent in coming. And these are the things that I think we are called to meditate on and camp on.
1:30 - We get distracted from camping in the reality of God’s love - I think sometimes we want a whole lot of knowledge in different areas and get distracted and topical - teaching on topics. And I don’t know that we ever get established in the basic, foundational truth of God’s love for us through Jesus Christ and really understand it.
Why He Came
1:55 - Understand why He came - To redeem sons and daughters - How many of you were taught that He died to forgive your sins or that He died because you committed sin? But how many heard that He died because your life is worth living and you were created to be a son and He wanted to redeem you as a son? But that changes everything.
2:05 - "Sinner" mentality makes His love a mystery - Did He die to remove your sin alone? Or did He die to remove your sins so you could be sons and daughters? If you just think He died to remove your sin, you are stuck continuing to be a sinner and “Thank God He died to remove my sin because I’m always going to sin. I’ll always be a sinner. And one day we will all be together. And it’s amazing He wants to be with me. I don’t know why He would want to spend eternity with me."
2:30 - God’s love shouldn’t be a mystery - We need understanding - Why does God want me to be with Him forever in heaven and I don’t even really know Him now? I used to think about that all the time growing up. And yet He paid a price for me and died so that I could be with Him in heaven forever. And yet on the earth, I felt very far from Him. It was a lack of understanding. We haven’t preached the whole truth.
3:00 - He died to remove sin and redeem sons - The gospel doesn’t expose that you are a sinner. It removes sin from you… so that you can get on being who you were created to be - sons and daughters - filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.
3:10 - He came because of love - Sinner mentality keeps His love a mystery - That’s why the gospel of Jesus is love. See we don’t get it if we just think of sin because we think, “Why would He die for me if I’m destined to be a sinner and always just going to mess up and fail Him? And that’s an amazing love.” And then we sing songs - “I’ll never understand your love,” etc. No, you can (understand why He loves you). “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.” I want to know how much it cost. I want to get a revelation of that. I want to see what it means to lay down your life so that I’ll know how to lay down mine. I want to understand the price He paid so that I can FOLLOW HIM. I don't want to make it a mystery.
4:00 - He loves what's underneath the sin - When you are talking like that - I don’t understand why He loves us so much - You’re exalting all your weaknesses, imperfections and failures and saying, “This is who I am. It’s amazing He loves that.” That’s not what He loves. That’s what He paid the price to remove. What He loves is what is underneath all of that.
4:35 - The impact of forgiveness - Love - So if you are forgiven much, you’ll love much. Do you see why people struggle with forgiveness? And why satan keeps them condemned and guilty and ashamed and questioning? Because once you really accept forgiveness, there is a “love much.”
5:10 - Understanding that I am a son changes my outlook - Look at the impact on my and your life when you hear that He died to redeem your value. He didn’t just die because I am a mess up. That changes my destiny. That means I’m not labelled as a mess-up. Do I have the ability to mess up? Of course. But do I have the grace to be a son? Do I have the leading of the Spirit to do His will? Do I have the empowerment of the Spirit and the wisdom of God through the Spirit to be Christ-like? If you don’t see the whole reason why He came…
5:45 - We've only preached part of the gospel - Leaving us sin-conscious - I travel the country and preach the gospel the way I see it. And I know what it’s done in my life. And I have pastors, behind the scenes, cry and tell me that they feel like they haven’t preached the gospel to their people. Because we hear a message growing up, embrace that message and repeat it. And it hasn’t produce the life that intends to produce because we’ve only preached a piece of the message. And we remain sin-conscious in the process.
6:25 - Sin mentality prevents receiving His love - All you see is the problem - When you remain sin-conscious, it’s impossible to receive the love of God. If you remain sin-conscious, you disqualify yourself from (God’s) love because you are faultfinding. All you see is what’s wrong with you. And it makes it impossible to receive His love. Or it makes God a mystery. If you try to say He loves you what’s predominant is your failing, sin nature instead His love that redeems you.
7:00 - Man who stands - Why are you even talking about sin? - Grace without transformation - Man stands up during preaching and says, “You need to get a revelation of Christ. Why would you even talk about sin? God knows we are sinners and we will always sin.” Man storms out. Turn to Roman 6 - Started to teach on dying to sin. The man embraced the philosophy that we are what we are and Jesus paid the provision to at least be forgiven one day.
10:00 - The whole gospel - to restore His image in you - We’ve almost at large produced that (wrong thinking on transformation) when we have failed to preach the whole gospel - when we make it all about the fact that we are sinners and not created to be sons. It’s real simple. The gospel is here to restore you back to His image.
10:20 - He came as a man - our Model - The whole reason Christ died was to set an example and show us… Well first He had to come as a man, to defeat the devil as a man, because a man lost the thing, because God gave it to a man in the first place. So He came as a man. He didn’t come as God - (Note). But the whole reason He came is to win that back, and in the process, teach us and show us and live out the example of what you and I were created to be all along.
10:45 - He is unshakable love - And He is love. He is the living epistle of love. Jesus wasn’t changed by the things that people said against Him or what they did to Him because He is love. It didn’t change a thing with Him because He is love.
11:30 - Complaining - Jesus in the wilderness v. Hebrews in the wilderness - right mentality - Jesus didn’t complain and He came out filled with power and the Spirit of God. The Hebrews complained in the wilderness. And that mentality killed them in the wilderness. Both faced the same trial and temptation and yet they came out very different. Why? Jesus was selfless but The Hebrews were selfish. It’s simple.
12:05 - Perspective put in place through relationship and grace, not the flesh - And when you see that in your Bible, here’s what you’ve got to do in your heart because you can’t say, “Ok, today I’m not going to be selfish.” Just like you can't say, “OK, today I am going to love God.” You can't do that.
12:50 - You love your neighbor as yourself. The healthier I see when I look in the mirror, the clearer I will see your life.
13:30 - Participant’s comment - “I’ve always looked at sin as a burden that was too heavy to carry.” That kind of sounds like Pilgrim’s Progress.
14:00 - Who is weary and heavy laden, come unto me. My yoke is easy. My burden is light - Mt. 11:28-30. Why is it light? Because it is pretty free to live in righteousness. It’s pretty free to not try to work this thing out in your own strength. It’s pretty free to live in communion with Holy Spirit being led by the Spirit. It’s life and peace.
14:30 - The gospel is more than just covering over of sins - Remission of sins - So you have to understand that it’s more than the forgiveness of sins. All I knew most of my life was that Jesus died on the cross for the remission of my sins. Well, what does that mean? Remission means the removal of sin - as if I have never sinned. If you still maintain a sinful identity just because of your ability to miss the mark…
False Identity of Sin
14:50 - Sinner identity - We think our ability to miss the mark determines who we are. We think our ability to sin makes us sinners. And people preach that.
15:00 - Well, what are we, if we are not sinners? I’ve struggled with a particular sin every day for a long time, “God, come on, it’s been years. Why am I still struggling with this? Do you see the frustration that is building in you because of that? And you are expressing that - Why? Because your heart is actually pure. You’re sincere. You care about it. Then why do I keep doing it? Because of a lack of understanding. I’m glad you’re in this school. We’re destroyed because of a lack of knowledge - Hosea 4:6.
15:30 - Frustration with sin reveals a heart for God - So the frustration looks like a bad thing in a sense, but it actually reveals your heart. It reveals that you care. Now in time, if you don’t deal with that, and you don’t get answers in a timely fashion, and you just let your frustration take you into more frustration, it can harden your heart, your heart can get cold and you say, “Oh, whatever.” And then you just quit and yet your heart is in prison, suffering because deep, deep down inside, you don’t want that in your life. That’s why it’s easy to cry. That’s why there are tears. That’s ok. It’s a good thing. That means that you are alive inside. You have a heart for God.
16:15 - Frustration over time - If you are not careful, you will just beat yourself because this is marking you. “I’m just this.” And, “Come on God.” And when you look in the mirror, “Argh,” because that’s what you see instead of, Father, my heart is so for you. I want to understand this. Keep fathering me. Lead me Holy Spirit into truth because this is not who I am. I don’t want a repeat performance thing. I want a complete redemption and I believe my life is worth your blood - worth your love. Thank you for fathering me.
16:55 - Don't focus on the sin - Build on your true identity - When you are frustrated you don’t see the doorway to receive love and you feel like that has to change before you FEEL like you are lovable. All of the sudden that thing (repeating sin) is who you are. No, that thing inside your heart that I see called hunger and desire for God is who you are. That’s who you are. You have to build on that. You have to grow in that - your heart cry, Father, the temptation is to be so frustrated around this and judge myself. You have never judged me. You’ve done nothing but love me. Teach me to love. Let my heart and my understanding open up to that truth because you obviously love me. Jesus, you already died for me. The price is paid. The blood is speaking. This thing is already set. I must grow in it. Keep fathering me. Keep teaching me. Keep giving me understanding. But I am not bailing out. I’m not getting frustrated. I’m not turning tail and running. You are going to walk me through this.
17:30 - The toll of continuing in a false identity - Do you hear the life in that mentality? Versus, "God, this is really cruddy. You need to change my life. I'm not getting it. I’m just a loser if you don’t change me." - There is a “blah” in that. And if you are not careful that is just where you are camping. And then even more years might go by with no change.
18:15 - And what’s the toll on your heart if you continue in that false identity? After a while your heart feels like it covers over and dies but I promise you it doesn’t because of grace. Down inside it puts people in a prison - there is still this distant cry for freedom. They are wearing a false identity.
Look to Jesus to Find God's Love - Nowhere Else
18:40 - My family never expressed love. It’s hard to me to understand what love is. How can I possibly enter into this kind of love you are talking about?
19:00 - Not being loved doesn’t disqualify you from receiving God’s love - I’ve never heard my dad say, “I love you.” My grandpa - I knew he loved me - but he never said it. I didn’t have any kind of love in my background. I grew up in the city with a dysfunctional family - a lot of screaming at home - an alcoholic dad… but I am not trying to find love there. That has nothing to do with my ability to receive love - the fact that I never had that.
19:40 - Human love wasn't even love - False motives - You see, until Christ came, love wasn’t. Even if some of us seemed to have love. You would be amazed at how falsely motivated it was a lot of times. As quick as you could be love, you could be cursed. If you do good, you are accepted. If you don’t do good, you are cut off. So some people were just whipped into a place where they lived out of discipline, because that’s what was favorable. It wasn’t even love.
20:15 - We teach that not being loved disqualifies you from receiving God's love - The orphan spirit - I don’t understand that message. I am concerned about that message. Because it gives everybody the permission to weigh God on the basis of human experience and life. What does it matter if nobody ever said, “I love you.” Jesus came and died on a cross. That’s the “I love you.” That’s the part that was missing. He sacrificed Himself for me no matter where I was, no matter what I was doing. He came and believed the best in me and deposited His life into the earth so I could have life, even though I was lost and yet a sinner.
21:00 - Stop looking for love in all the wrong places - I can’t find love anywhere else. Stop looking for love in all the wrong places. It doesn’t matter if your parents never said, “I love you.”
21:20 - We have to stop trying to find God through a rational explanation. Faith says Jesus came and died for me. That’s amazing. No one ever died for me before. No one ever unconditionally removed every mistake I have ever made. Nobody ever purposed to give me the whole kingdom. I have to meditate on that and understand what love is.
21:50 - Get your eyes on Christ - We live through Him - 1 John 4:9 - In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. - Until “this,” love wasn’t revealed. You could psychologically give yourself permission to not receive the gospel because you could continue to say, a year from now, “It’s just hard because I never had love in my life.” Most of us didn’t. The gospel is greater than that. We get our eyes on Christ - our life is in Christ - we live through Christ.
22:50 - Manifest - seen or known or realized.
22:55 - What is love? - Christ crucified - The measuring stick of love is Christ crucified. For me to begin to accept God’s love, I have to know that Christ crucified is the truest expression of love that there ever was and ever will be. It’s the only door - the only door to truth in that area. Christ crucified is the only foundation for love. Why is that love? Because there is a statement in it. “I’m giving my one Son because you are all really my sons. And you are lost right now. But if I give my one Son, you’ll be found. It pleases me to bruise Him, because I can get the bruise and pain off of you, if you will trust that I am your Father.
23:45 - “Our Father” means that you’re family - Call no man on earth your father. You have one Father - Mt. 23:9. Teach us to pray - Our Father - Luke 11:1-2. When He called God His Father they wanted to kill Him. Jesus made Himself family with God. Our Father - if He is your Father, you are a son. Father means come forth from.
24:25 - Breaking from the hurt of sin against me through right perspective in Christ - The love of a father - I never had love in my household. I was told by my own dad, “You’ll never be nothing. You’re a loser.” What was he doing? Taking His own frustration out on me. Why would I let his sin against me produce that in me. Why would I believe him when it hurt so bad, now that Christ has come? Now that Christ came it put everything my dad said in right perspective. Now that I am looking through the cross, I understand what dad’s dilemma was. So all his words were an expression of him and his pain and it was being vented to me. Why am I taking that as my personal identity and my ability not to receive love because I didn’t have love around me. I’ve got love now. Why? Because the just live by faith - Rom.1:17. Now the gospel is here. God loved. God is love. It doesn’t say my dad is love. God is love.
25:30 - Does my dad have the privilege of growing in love and becoming love and loving his own son? Absolutely. Is my life dependent on him getting that revelation? No, my life is in Christ.
25:50 - That we might live through Him - Your whole identity is formed through Christ coming. Everything about your life - destiny, purpose, motivation, value, significance is all because Christ came.By Faith Receive His Love
26:20 - Faith takes me to the reality of God’s love through alone time with God - Faith takes me there. I believe first the gospel. And all this reality starts flooding my heart. I get alone in the bedroom and believe that I am that valuable to God in spite of every word my dad said in pain and hurt and failure. I believe I am that precious. I believe that He loves me. I thank Him for teaching me love. I am not trying to find love through my family experiences. I’m finding God through a crucified Son.
27:10 - You can't change what happened but you don’t have to be a product of it - Or that will become a natural reason that you can’t be free. And here is your dilemma. You can never change your past. You can’t change what they did or didn’t do. But you’re not stuck there. That’s not you. Unfortunately, that’s the reflection of where they were. Satan would love for you to be a living product of that. And for that to reproduce itself. And for you to be the next generation to carry on that emptiness - to reproduce after its own kind. And for you to be the spitting image of all of that memory and pain. That’s its intention. The gospel is saying, “No, I love you. Your parents might not have showed it but I already have.”
28:30 - Walk by faith not feelings - Inner healing and deliverance - That stuff is so huge in the church because we are not living by faith in the word. We already have the answers. And we are waiting to FEEL different. No, I believe different. And as I believe different, I begin to FEEL different. I am full of feelings but I don’t live by them. All I need to do is find it in God’s word and it is the truth.
29:30 - Excuses not to receive love - You’re giving yourself an excuse not to see. You are saying, “It’s hard.” Let me be a friend to you - No, it’s not. It’s not hard for you to sit on a bed when nobody is looking and say, Father, today I chose to make a distinction. Anything about my life or towards my life before you came through the gospel - even though I’ve been saying I’m a Christian all of these years, before today - none of that determines the love in my life. The fact that You died for me Jesus is where I am camping from now on. And Holy Spirit I appreciate You bringing me a revelation of who You are in my life. Father, I believe you love me or Jesus would’ve never died for me. I believe you’ve washed away all of my sin… That’s what we have failed to do because we don’t FEEL that’s true. So we are waiting to FEEL that’s true before we get alone and have that kind of expression with God.
30:30 - Father, thank you that you love me and you made me precious in your sight - that you saw my life was worth dying for - that you saw fit to love me and let that love never fail. God, I stand clean and righteous in your sight because I am predestined to be a son and You saw fit to redeem me as a son. So a son I shall be. Most people don’t think that way let alone pray that way. ➡ That’s why we are having this school.
31:20 - Live from truth, not FEELINGS - Not a lot of people see what I am trying to say. We’re just waiting to wake up one day and FEEL better - or some rosy song playing in our heart. The bottom line is you give yourself to the gospel. I can't tell you how many times I have sat on the bed, driven in my car, looked in the mirror and proclaimed truth over my life. But this mentality of feeling like it’s “hard” to receive love because I’ve never known love in my life - it has nothing to do with truth - it has to do with emotions and psychological reasoning and FEELINGS.
Perspective on Hurt
32:30 - Example: Sexual abuse as a child - Trashed by life - Let’s say you were sexually abused when you were little and it was a repeated thing. You might have even cried out in your heart, “God, don’t let that happen again” and it still happened. You may feel like God forsook you. And all of the sudden your identity is through that incident. And your whole life you are in a cage because this thing speaks to you. It identifies you. It destroyed your honor, integrity, your heart and trust toward God.
33:50 - Hearing the gospel - And at some point the gospel comes. You begin to understand. You begin to see who you really are. But your mind will go, “If I was so precious, why did God let me get touched wrong? How come I had to go through that?”
34:10 - The plan of the enemy is to stop reception of the gospel - You have to understand that this gospel is the truth about you no matter what. You don’t even have all of the answers to all of those questions. I put it in a general place - sin is trying to destroy us and scar our hearts from the time we are born so that when we hear the good news, there is nothing good about it (we can’t receive it) because we are so trashed by life. It’s the plan of the enemy.
34:40 - What does it matter? That abused boy died. But even if we were touched wrong as a child, what does that have to do with anything now that Christ has come? Because when Christ comes and I get born again that boy dies and the man that has been waiting to live finally resurrects from the dead and I live for the first time.
35:10 - New and healthy perspective on the past - So all of the sudden - the person who touched me wrong - I see them in a healthy perspective. It’s man devoid of truth, perverted, deceived and possibly destroyed if truth doesn’t come into their life. And do you think that I am going to harden my heart because somebody did something to me when I was four, now that I am forty and understand truth? Are you kidding me? I feel so sad for a person in that position - that has the ability to violate someone’s innocence. It would be better to have a millstone around your neck and cast into the sea than you cause one of these little ones to stumble - Mt. 18:6. That ought to cause a trepidation for the souls of those people. You say, “Are you kidding? He deserves hell.” No he doesn’t. He deserves truth - for his eyes to be illuminated or Jesus would have never died on a cross.
35:45 - If you can’t get your heart in that place, you are having a real hard time receiving this and even letting Him love you. You are having a hard time seeing the value of people. If you are looking through that eye towards others, you have that same place in you with God. There is a hindrance. No, the gospel heals all of that. The gospel shows me how God sees me and sees my life.
36:15 - I can have compassion on people who have done terrible things because I have missed the mark and needed the blood. We all have need of the blood. It just means that someone through deception did this. Our war is not flesh and blood - it’s deception and perversion and sin through the enemy’s power.
37:20 - Realizing my wretched heart helps me understand the deception of others - The night I got saved I knew my heart was wretched - self-centered - self-serving. "My life is pitiful." But that was only for a moment and since then I have been a son. It was important for me to have that experience and then I understand that it is just the deception of sin in every man.
37:45 - The gospel identifies me - The peril of sin working in people. My perspective on them. How do you stop that process? By rising up and realizing - the gospel identifies you. You are not a boy who was touched wrong. You are a man who was touched right by the gospel and grace and mercy and you’ve taken on a brand new identity and your honor is restored and you’ve been separated from sin. Faith takes you there.
38:20 - Locking into wrong identity - Or you are letting your heart be hard and you are waiting for vindication and justice on something that can never be changed. And you are locking your identity into the former days and who you were - not who God is causing you to become through the truth that you are hearing.
38:40 - Moving to right identity by faith - That’s what faith decides. You either lock into a wrong identity and demand from rights at the cost of truth that makes you free or you embrace the truth that makes you free and everything else dies.
39:00 - The fact that my dad was an alcoholic and it seemed all of those years were wasted - it does not matter at all. I’m losing nothing. It doesn’t matter. It’s frail and pale in the light of knowing Him. But if I let that have a voice, I will never be released to knowing Him. But now that I have been released to knowing Him because I have made that not matter by faith, as I get to know Him that thing is nothing. I don’t even feel like I lost anything. Why? Because grace is greater. Truth is greater. Or I am sitting here with a sad heart wishing to get those years back that were stolen. I got them all back and plus because I have a Father and I am so loved and so free.
40:00 - Free from me - Free from you - You always hear me preaching, “I’m free from me.” That’s the first person you are free from. If you don’t get free from you, you are a prisoner. Because then people owe you. People can still hurt and abuse you.
40:20 - You can’t emotionally abuse me - It’s impossible to emotionally abuse me. That’s silly to me. Why? Because I know who I am and why. So if you are living in a way that would agree with or aligned with emotional abuse in the world’s terms, I would feel sorry for you. Why would you have that much power in my life, when I am called to be Christ-like. Why would you be that barometer? I would still be expecting you to make me complete - still in need of you to treat me right so that I am ok. We are still trying to find love in all the wrong places. And all of these things are evidence that we fail to just let Him be the source of love.
41:25 - That doesn’t mean I can’t receive love from you. But I won’t receive pain or hurt from you. You can sharpen me, encourage me, edify me and cheer me on. But there is nothing you can take from me. If that wasn’t true, I’d be in trouble because I live on the earth too. It’s my perspective that keeps me.
Deny YourSELF
42:00 - First, deny yourSELF - Matthew 16:24 - If any man come after me let him first deny himself… So if you come to God you have to first deny yourself. That’s how you truly come to God. You can come with questions and unresolved issues, but at some point, you’ve got to realize that, “Wait a minute. I am my biggest problem because of the way I see, expect, demand… I have a lot of rights. I’m not denying myself.”
42:50 - Retaining your rights - to have first impressions - to draw close to some that I feel comfortable with and avoid others that I am not totally sure about. That’s what it means to have rights. All of the sudden you are driving the car. And you are living the way that you have always lived but you are incorporating the Christian confession into your life but you are still full of rights. Then men can still offend you and break your heart and you are still just playdough or putty in the hands of men. No, I’m playdough or putty in the hands of the great potter. When you are in the hands of men, it doesn’t make a masterpiece. When you are in the hands of God Almighty you come out sculpted baby - ready for the Master’s use.
43:45 - Still a god unto yourself - still driving the car - If you come into Christianity holding onto rights, you will be greatly disappointed, deceived and hurt and you might embrace the thought that you could find fault with God, in time. In time, you could put Him in the court of your mind and find Him guilty. Because you are still a god unto yourself. You’re still driving the car.
44:20 - Surrender your rights in prayer - You are surrendering those rights in a place of prayer. You are denying yourself in that way. Father, I have no need from any man except that I would see their value and love them. Father, no longer am I giving in to offense - no matter what the circumstances. It’s not warranted. It’s never acceptable. Hurt and anger, strife and frustration - they are no longer a part of my life. They are not my destiny or the identity of who you are in me. You are perfect love. And I thank you Father that you are molding my heart into agreement with yours. You’re causing my eyes to look through your truth and your wisdom. Father, I thank you that you are forming love in me. I’m choosing love. I’m letting love rule and reign. I’m not letting any other mindset, any other feeling, any other emotion… I was created for your image. And your image I shall manifest. Father, what men say or don’t say isn’t the issue. What you have proclaimed through Jesus Christ is my truth. I sit alone and pray that way. Most of us think that praying is praying about what concerns us.
Don't Focus on What's Wrong - Build on What God is Doing
46:30 - Only seeing what is wrong with me - A lot of times we get trapped seeing ourselves way far from truth and then all we pray about is what’s wrong with us - and God changing what’s wrong with us. And it actually creates a stronghold of what’s wrong with you. It falsely identifies you.
46:45 - For example: peace - It’s kind of like peace. “I don’t feel peace. I don’t feel peace. Pray for me, I don’t feel peace.” Then you’ll ask people to pray until you FEEL peace. And the Bible says that you have peace with God. Here is what you are doing. You are living sensual. You are being mystical. You are waiting for something to fall into your lap - the package of peace. Peace comes through knowing that you’ve been made right with God.
46:30 - Holiness arises out of knowing I have been made right with God - When you are weighing your life - thinking of your faults and weaknesses - then you are already thinking you are not right with God. I have good news for you. This doesn’t give you permission to remain the same. I don’t preach a loose gospel. I’m called to holiness but holiness comes out of knowing that I have been made right. I’m not TRYING to be holy. That’s impossible. Grace empowers you to live a holy life because your heart beats in agreement with God. But the first thing I do is know that He came for me while I was yet a sinner.
47:00 - I'm a son now - So if He came for me while I was yet a sinner, then anything that I stumble in along the way, sure doesn’t bother him because I was a sinner when He came for me. Am I a sinner now? Absolutely not. I am a son. “What are you saying? Are you perfect, brother?” I never said that. I said I am a son. He is perfect. And His love is perfect. And I am growing in Him and He is making me purer and purer and purer. And the pure in heart shall see God - Mt. 5:8. And righteousness is producing holiness in my life - Rom. 6:22. And I’m not trying not to sin. I’m being a son. And being a son empowers me to live like a son. And it’s all that I can see. I can't see anything else.
47:40 - If I stumble - If I would stumble today, in any way, I can’t see anything else because being a son makes me run and jump on his lap and thank God for who I am becoming and that is not who I am in Him and who He is in me. And I thank you for your amazing love and how the blood washes me and how clean I remain in you. God, you are making me wiser, sharper, smarter. Thank you for the light that is in my life.
48:20 - Negative mindset - “Dumb me. You’ll never get it right.” - That’s the counsel that runs through our minds. I bet it doesn’t come from wisdom. That kind of mindset doesn’t produce life and doesn’t help your identity.
48:40 - If I stumble - I run to Him. Why? Because He is my Father and I have relationship with Him. Why do we run and hide and put fig leaves on and try to cover our sin, when you can’t? And why do we live naked and ashamed when He has robed us so beautifully? What He did identifies me, not what I have done. I camp there until that becomes my stronghold.
49:20 - Let truth be your best friend and build on it - You and I were a mess in our hearts before He came. You might think, “Well, I am still a mess.” No, your heart is touched by truth - the gospel. Now you care - your heart cares. You have to learn to let truth be your best friend and build on it and appreciate what God is doing in your heart. You know Lord, years ago I didn’t even care about this. And the only reason I think it’s an issue now is because truth has come to me. And the truth is I don’t want to live less than you. I don’t want to live in weakness. I don’t want to live in a continuing cycle of sin. I just want to live as your son. I just thank you that you love me and you see me as precious and valuable. And you are working a wisdom in me. You’re working a love in me - a truth in me - a truth that is my freedom. And I thank you that you love me.
50:25 - Build on what God is doing - If you don’t start doing that you’ll never see the value in your own life. You will be crying out for God to love, what you don’t like because you are not separating the two. Or you will want everybody to appreciate what you don’t even like. Why? Because when they look in the mirror they go, “Oh, you are such a loser.” Satan is telling them, “That’s who you are.”
51:30 - That is so not who I am. I am your son and I want to be. And I receive your love and I am not ashamed of this gospel. It’s the power of God unto salvation because in it righteousness is revealed. And you qualified me to be yours. And I thank you that you are working wisdom in me and pouring yourself into me in a way that my life is lived righteous. I accept that I have been made clean. And I thank you that my actions are clean because you have cleansed me from within. Talk to God continually like that.
52:00 - Reading and meditating in the word.
52:35 - Faith takes you into intimate communion. You may be waiting to change first. But the gospel changes you. You are changed along the way.
53:00 - Thank you for light - Presumptions in your mind based on natural wisdom. You don’t want to be presumptuous. You don’t want snap judgments. You want to hear clearly - discern rightly. Don’t judge yourself for incorrect presumptions. Don’t go on then to pray from insecurity - demeaning place. Father, I so thank you for the light in my life that is teaching what I am seeing right now. And the reason that I can see it because you are purifying me. I don’t ever want to snap-judge or presume. I don’t want to even hear things for what they are not. I want to walk in your wisdom. And I am so thanking you right now that you are working that in me....
55:30 - Focus on what has been made right - not what is wrong - Be careful that you are not so introspective that you are writing a negative resume. And that you are praying because you are so messed up. They are always praying for God to change them because they believe that they’ve got a lot of issues. You’re not going to change focusing on what’s wrong with you. Grace changes you when you focus on what has been made right through the crucified son. You have to grow in the answer. You don't troubleshoot. The truth makes you free, not your natural reality and focusing on it.
56:10 - Camp in His love - The truth is He loves you. Some of us need to camp there for the rest of our lives. Father, you love me so much. My life is so worth dying for to you. And you by your Spirit are teaching me that reality. You are teaching me the value of my life. I’m open for that. You wouldn’t have put your Son on the cross if I wasn’t your will... See - it’s not hard. Faith takes you there. Or your mind determines your life instead of your heart.
New Perspective - Truth
57:10 - Heart set free through new perspective - Your mind is trying to keep your heart in jail. Jesus said, I have come to open prison doors - Luke 4:18. Why? Because He has come to make your perspective brand new. He has come to put truth on your scenario. And get human wisdom out of you so you can live out of your heart. A man believes with his heart not his mind - Rom. 10:10.
57:45 - We don’t judge (see) ourselves on the basis of where our hearts want to take us. We judge ourselves on the basis of our lives and our performance. That’s inaccurate. I can’t change my performance without Him changing it through me.
58:25 - What do you do when pain and loss bubbles to the surface when communing with the Father? What am I missing?
59:10 - Don't go looking for pain and loss - If that is a supernatural experience there is a place where God will just move it away. I never encourage people to go looking for pain and loss or feeling like I’m just denying pain and loss. In the natural, I have so many reasons why I could feel pain and loss. I don’t think you are missing anything.
59:35 - Confessing the word - Enter into relationship - I’m not encouraging you to just speak (confess) the word over your life. I’m encouraging you to enter into relationship with God the Father through the word - and personally relate to Him, not just quote and confess the word over your life. I know that’s taught in the church but I’m personally not a fan of that. I’m a fan of communion and knowing Him.
100:00 - You can confess the word over your life and it not be your reality and then you question the word or wonder what you are doing wrong - throwing yourself into works. The gospel is so healing, so liberating… It’s like physical loss. Is physical loss real? We would be fools to deny the sense of physical loss.
100:25 - Loss of grandparents. -
100:40 - New perspective on physical loss - Is there physical loss? Yes. Is there a day where I am going to feel sad because they are not there and I can’t just stop in and say, Hey? Probably. The gospel puts things in such a perspective - there is such a thankfulness to life.
101:00 - Right perspective on pain - Those things that bubble up - it’s not that we have to go through them one by one - that’s what inner healing and deliverance programs come from. The gospel truth heals and restores your heart. So when you are in a place, seeking God and then these things start to bubble up, Father, I thank you, you are my answer for everything. I think what the Lord wants to do in communion is put that pain in proper perspective so that you are not in hidden pain. He’ll just put a right perspective on it.
101:50 - Thankfulness for grandparents. Did both graveside services.
102:25 - Face physical loss, but not apart from the gospel. You’re not trying to deny the loss. The gospel heals you of everything. Old things pass away. All things become new.
103:00 - Shift your perspective to see through His eye - Truth - Why would these things bubble up when you are communing? What a safe time for them to bubble up. Because there is a grace in that place for your perspective to shift. You can see it for what it really is. And God can begin to separate you from that. You can begin to realize that you really are ok. I really am ok because you have come and rescued me. And I thank you… Ask Holy Spirit how you are to respond and what direction to start praying in and He will take you there. I don’t think it’s a bad thing (for stuff to be bubbling up). God is shifting your perspective to see through His eye. He doesn’t want you hurt and broken.
104:00 - Graveside of grandpa. When dad was missing grandpa was there. We miss the graces that are all through our lives. We are so busy seeing what is wrong that we miss what is right.
105:15 - Healthy identity is part of that perspective of truth - A healthy identity is what every one of us should cling to. My life is in You, Jesus. You are greater than any hurt or loss I may be harboring. You are taking my perspective and lifting it above that.
105:30 - Grandma and grandpa. Thankfulness is a beautiful thing.
107:00 - There are some things designed against every one of us to get us to think through a mind that produces no life - a mindset that steals what is right in front of us.
107:50 - Potential for growth from the seed - The kingdom is seed form. The gospel is seed form. The gospel comes into us in seed form. We tend to miss that - and “by faith” and the “power of the seed.” We get focused on what seems to be our present reality. And the just live by faith - Rom. 1:17.
108:00 - Prayer for participant with question above - @58:25. ...We ask that when those things well up in times of communing that you would bring it into gospel light. That you would cause her perspective to look through the eye of truth in such a way that you would establish freedom in her life. And not sell anything here short...