Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
This podcast episode focuses on the topic of resting in God's love. The hosts discuss their favorite attributes of God, which include His faithfulness, patience, and steadfast love. They emphasize the importance of embracing God's enduring patience and unwavering love, regardless of our circumstances or mistakes. The hosts encourage listeners to trust in God's promise of rest and to cease from their own efforts. They highlight the concept of God as a safe space and compare it to a net that catches and supports those who fall. The hosts emphasize the importance of not dwelling on past mistakes or living in constant fear and guilt, but instead, leaning into God's forgiveness and guidance. They urge listeners to keep leaning into God and to remember that sin does not change God, but it does affect us. Overall, the episode explores the idea of finding rest and peace in God's radical love as the foundation for daily life and relationships. Hey, I'm Nathan, and this is the Love Shaped Life podcast, and I'm so glad you're back. In fact, Love Shaped Life is the place we want to see, experience, and live the love of God. With me in the studio is my friend, Bob. Bob, we've talked about sort of how to start the episode off, and before we talk about what episode this is, you had a question you wanted to ask me. I do. I want to ask you, what is your favorite attribute of God? Yeah, so right now, I want to say my favorite attribute of God is His faithful, and I want to add patience. So you're saying faithful patience? Faithful patience, to kind of keep hanging in there with me in my journey. We can expand that to talking outside, but if we're talking about it impacts me, just the sense that God is this enduring patience with me, and I appreciate that attribute about Him. How about you? I'm going to go ditto, but I'm going to call it steadfast love. Okay, so a little bit different here. As you look through the scriptures, you'll see this concept of steadfast love, that God never quits, never gives up, so with me, it's the same thing, right? You're just grateful to God that I'm fully known, and I'm fully loved, and that lifts me. That's awesome. I've chosen to embrace that, and I've chosen to embrace the fact that, like He tells me, I'll never leave you, and I'll never forsake you, right? He didn't say, I'm going to leave you if you're bad, I'm going to leave you if you do this, you do that. He says, no, I'll never leave you, and I'll never forsake you, so that's what I'm grateful for. That's the attribute that I think all of us should embrace and be grateful for as we look at the scriptures, the fact that we have a God that will never let you go, that no matter whether you're in the valley, on the mountaintop, whether you're going down a road you shouldn't go down, whether you're entangled, right, because sin will entangle you, it'll make you a slave, whatever you are, that God is for you, God is pursuing you, God hasn't changed, His love for you is deep, and He'll never forsake you, He wants you back, and all you have to do is say, Lord, I choose, right, so no matter what dark spot you're in, don't try to fix yourself, don't try to clean your life up, just say, Lord, I choose, I'm coming home to you. And that choosing can simply be, I give up, I give up, I give up, and just let God move in. I mean, He's not going to take over, like, He's not, He's not just move over and rearrange the furniture, but He's saying, okay, I give in. And then God starts to take steps toward us, He does continue to wait for our response, but continues to take steps toward us, and as we keep giving up, giving in, He's able to do His thing. We're giving Him permission to do His thing, right, you have to give God permission to do His thing because He's given you freedom, freedom of choice, and He will never violate your freedom of choice. That's who God is, the devil will seek to violate your freedom of choice because he's a liar and a deceiver, and he practices coercion and manipulation and force, he'll do anything to hold you in chains, but God will set you free and will keep you free, because the only way love can flourish is in an environment of freedom, right, where individuals are free. The only way love can flourish. So that's my favorite. Yeah, that's good. So in case you missed it, as in the podcast title, we're in the fifth and final episode of our five-part pod in our journey to oneness with God, and this final episode is the fourth, talking about the fourth principle. The first one was see, that's see God's love, the second one was to meditate on it, turn it over in our minds like a diamond, looking at all the sides, reflecting, ruminating, processing that. Number three, our last episode, was accept. Now this very practical, hands-on, taking those negative mantras and displacing them with the truth of God's love, the truth that comes to us through the text of Scripture. Today, in this fifth episode, but fourth principle, we're looking at rest. How do we just lay back and rest in the truth of God's radical love for us, as the space, the place, the home base out of which we live daily life, out of which we engage in relationships. So I want to start off with this idea of George Mueller and then a Bible text. George Mueller says, let not the consciousness of your entire unworthiness keep you, dear reader, from believing what God has said concerning you. Bob has mentioned this George Mueller quote, that's the quote word for word, about not letting our unworthiness, our disbelief in the truth of God's love keep us from experiencing what he has in mind for us, this big dream of us just living in total rest in God's radical love. Remember Jesus said, come unto me, all you who are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your soul. Oh, that's good. I think one of the greatest things we could have in our human journey, in our relationship with God, is that rest, peace, when we're talking about resting in God. So that's the invitation, right? We're accepting that invitation, and the promise is that God would give us rest. And come unto me, all you who are labor and are heavy laden, oftentimes just doing life in our own is very exhausting. We're trying either to live up to certain things, or do this, or do that, it's exhausting. Especially when it comes to a relationship with God, that false picture that I need to do certain things, do, do, do, do, do, do, right? It becomes exhausting. So Jesus is saying, listen, stop that, stop. Come unto me, all you who are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Give up that. Trust in me, right? Because I've done it for you, and I'm offering you this gift. So cease from your own labor, cease from your own works, and accept me. That's right. That's right. And we're going to get to that in Hebrews 4 today, which has a great principle there. I wanted to just touch on this, an incredible verse from John. We said John kind of got this picture of God's love. He really saw it. First John 2, my dear children, he's writing to a group of believers, I write this to you so that you will not sin. That is, so that you won't just keep walking in your old broken habits, hurting people, being hurt, right? I'm writing these things so you'll stop those bad habits, that destructive way of life. But, and this but is super important, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Here's the deal, that John is informing the believer, listen, I'm telling you this because I want you to get beyond the destructive way of living for self, right? But I'm not writing this to you so you live with a constant burden of guilt and fear. What if I blow it? What if I can't hold this up? John's saying, listen, but as you're taking this in, understand that your life is unfolding in the magnificent wonder of God's safe space, grace. Amen. Safe space. Wonder of safe space. Right. That's just who God is. Safe space. You know, when they were building the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, as the structure was going up, as the workers climbed near the top, obviously it was a fearful thing and many of them fell out of fear. They fell out of fear. So what they ended up doing was putting the net underneath them. And as that net was put underneath them, there was, you know, people weren't falling like they were before. And if they fell, they knew they were going to be okay. So it's interesting. It wasn't that they didn't fall to their deaths because of the net. The net actually reduced the number of falls, period, off the structure. Correct. So you'd be safe, but it actually gave them greater confidence. Correct. Because it pulled out that constant nagging fear. That's incredible. No. And the same thing with God. You know, I think of that scripture verse that says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Right? So God's seeking to guide our steps. But though he fall, though he fall, the Bible says, he shall not be cast down, for the Lord upholds him by his hands. Right? That's right. So falling is a part of the journey. Right? That's it. We don't sweat it. We don't sweat it. Falling is a part of the journey. Just move on. Just move on. And embrace God's forgiveness and deal with the situation if we need to ask forgiveness for somebody else. And that's right. Whatever the case may be. Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. And we're not saying, pretend like you didn't make a mistake. Right. We're just saying, deal with it, own it, deal with it. But don't get hung up. I'm a failure. I can't do this. Correct. Just do what you got to do in the moment to make it right with the person. Take those steps, but then just move on in the grace of God. And remember, God, though he fall, though he fall, he will not be cast down for God upholds him. So God is the one who's reaching out his hand to pick you up. That's right. I think there's another writer, I think it's in Proverbs, that the righteous man falls seven times. Right, right. So the Bible is saying, listen, this stuff is taught because God wants us to live a life of flourishing. Right? Yes. But he doesn't want us to live it out of the anxiety that what if it doesn't work out today? What if it doesn't work out in this moment? He's like, listen, don't sweat that. I'm forming you into something new. Just rest in what I'm doing. When you find yourself out of that, broken on the side of the road, tripping up, don't freak out. Just lean in again. Lean into my forgiveness. Lean into my help to fix what you mess up. Right? Just lean into me. We've got this. Lean in. The most important thing we can do is just keep leaning in. Yeah. And remembering that sin doesn't change God. Your disobedience. But it affects you. It affects you. It's hurting you. Right. So it's hurting you. It's hurting you. It's affecting your character and who you are. That's right. So it's something we want to flee from. Right. And flee to God. Right? Yeah. But when we fall into that trap, when we fall into a sinful situation, whatever the case may be, or just maybe the little mistakes we make along the journey of life, then we've got to remember that God is for us. Remember? Romans chapter 8. God is for us. Remember those four words. Yep. Yep. God is for us. Right? Yep. He's not against us. He's for us. He's always for us. He's always for us. Yeah. That's right. And I think for you, if you're coming from kind of a non-religious background, we throw this sin language around, but sin simply means living for myself. Yeah. Beautiful. I appreciate it. At the expense of all others. Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking about sin. We're just meaning living for myself at the expense of others. Living for myself rather than living by the rhythm of love. That's what sin in its basic form is, is the violation of faithful love. I like what Paul mentioned here. He said, I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor personalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ. That's beautiful. Yeah. Nothing. This is Paul, right? You mentioned before in a prior podcast. Yeah. Paul, who was Saul. Right. Who was a persecutor. Now he sees God. He sees the beauty of God. He's totally converted. He's all in, and he's convinced that nothing can separate him from the love of God. That's beautiful. Nothing. That's awesome. That God would never quit on him, and he'll never quit on you, and he'll never quit on any other human being. That's right. That's right. That's why we need to make choices to embrace what God is saying. Yeah. Lean into the truth of that love. Lean in. Lean in. For us. That's the best part, right? That's the best part. That God wants us to live a life resting in his love. That's it. That's it. So there's this author. She was for, I think, like five months, New York Times bestseller with her book, One Thousand Gifts Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann Voskamp is her name. She went from crippling depression to discovering a new life, basically, and a major component of that was the practice of gratitude. So we might talk a little bit more about the practice of gratitude, but part of resting in God's love is expressing gratitude for who he is, from the little gift of daily life to the wonder of God's love. So here's the deal. I think it's really important for all of us to cultivate a habit of gratitude because naturally as human beings, we're ungrateful. We moan and groan. We complain. We do. Whatever the case may be. Just read the Exodus. Yeah. And Deuteronomy. And Leviticus. It's like this. Numbers in Exodus tell all kinds of stories about complaining. But it's either too hot outside, too cold outside. It's either too cold in here, too hot in here. Right. The free food doesn't taste good. Yeah. The free food doesn't taste good. That's what the Israelites said. The free food doesn't taste good. So cultivating a habit of gratitude. Listen, when we wake up in the morning, right, and we're seeking God, we want to seek God in prayer, but we want to take a moment out to express to God, thank you, God, for loving me. Right. Reminding ourselves that we are loved by God and expressing gratitude back to God because I'm going to live today, I'm choosing to live today in the space of being loved by God. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I'm not going to live in negative thinking. I'm not going to pull me down. I'm going to live in a space that I am loved by God. That's right. Right. That's right. And that gratitude springs up joy in our heart because it's reminding us of the reality. We're living in the reality of what God says. That's right. And I have a journal where I literally, and I'm not as disciplined, but there was a time where I was doing like five or ten things I was grateful for. Wow. It was during a time when I really wanted to experience the power of gratitude. So literally physical list, gratitude. And one of the things to do is to say, listen, I can't repeat myself in the list. So once I name it, that's it, I'm done. I got to name something else. And it forces the mind to think of something fresh, to look at other places. You can go through all the easy ones first, breath, life, fresh air, family, right? You can get those out of your mind. But then after that, you can't use them again. Yeah. So you've got to start being creative and think about other things. It's just another way, and certainly you can thank God for the same thing every day. But it's another way to expand your view of how full life is with the goodness of God. Amen. And gratitude lifts our thoughts. It lifts, yeah. So it lifts our thoughts from any negativity into a positivity, just simply by expressing gratitude. In fact, they say that listing five things that you're grateful for increases your happiness by 25%. That's incredible. Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, my, if you want to add 25% to happiness, just list five things that you're grateful for. And I think not only expressing gratitude to God, but expressing gratitude to those around us. Yep. Absolutely. Right? You know, whether it's your children, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your boss, right? Whether it's maybe find something to express gratitude to people for. But especially the fact that you are a forgiven child of God, and God has invited you to live in His presence. Thank you, God, for the opportunity today to live in your presence. Yes. It's a good time to repeat that mantra. You could repeat the mantra, I am the beloved child of God. Whatever these mantras are, that's a great time to wrap those in and declare the truth of who you are based on what God says. Amen. I just wanted to say this episode is about rest. And you talked about giving away compliments. So we give away gratitude. Thank you to the spouse. Thank you to the kids. Thank you to the neighbor. Whatever it is. Give away gratitude. Here's the thing. When we live in this space of resting in God's radical love for us, we stop needing to worry about ourselves because we're filled up. Beautiful. When we're filled up, we can just give away gratitude. We can give away kindness. We can give away love like candy because I don't have to be scraping around for my own survival. I'm taken care of. That's beautiful. And so now I can give away. So in reality then, living in God's presence on a daily basis, spending time with Him, learning to draw life from Him, our love cup is being filled up. Right. I'm plugged into an unquenchable source. And so I'm good. Since you mentioned the word plugged in, most of us have cell phones, right? And one thing I've noticed about all of us as human beings, when our cell phone is about to die, we're looking to get it plugged in, right? Because we just don't want to seem to live without our phone, right? So we want to get it plugged in. You go through airports, there's plenty of places to plug your phone in. Just all around us, we want that charge. So we need to remember every day, we need to plug in to God, right? We need to plug in to God to get charged. Jesus talked about this relationship of the vine and the branch in John chapter 15. And He's saying, listen, dwell in me and I'm going to dwell in you. That's one bit, right? That's good. Just like the branch can't live without the vine, you can't live without me, right? So the branch is constantly receiving life from the vine. God is the source of life. He is love. And that life is flowing out from Him. But we still need to come and choose to come into His presence and then go into the day living life that we're resting in His love. And I also want to say this, remember, in this journey, we're talking about a cycle of living, right? This is learning to see God in His beauty. There's no end to that, right? And praise God for that, right? He continues to want to stretch our brain to see more of His beauty. We're processing that beauty in our mind, right? We're accepting it as our own because God is speaking to us, right? He wants to speak to us as an individual, but then when all of that is done, we have to live life choosing to rest in the God that we have seen, right? And whatever circumstances are coming my way, whatever life challenges are coming my way that day, I'm choosing to rest in God, right? He's got my back. He's got my back. That's it. That's rest. That's the lifestyle, the rhythm of rest. Word for me and Voskamp, right on topic, humbly let go. Let go of trying to do. Let go of trying to control. Let go of my own way. Let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joys, fire. Give the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will and I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust. That is Ian's way of describing a life of just kick your legs back and rest in the reality of God's love. That's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful, right? Letting go, right? Letting go. We can let go. And that's hard for us as human beings. No, it is. Let's face it. It is. We want to hold on. We want to hold on. We're holding it all together. We think. We're holding it all together. Not very well. That's right. Because letting go is a fearful thing. It's a risk. It's a fearful thing. Yeah, there's risk. There's risk in letting go. But the more we see of who God is and the more we're embracing who God is for ourselves, the more it energizes us, so to speak, because trust again comes to life and we're willing to let go. That's it. Because that's the safe place. That's it. And so here's the thing. Don't worry about, I'm afraid to trust God with this. I'm afraid to give this up. Don't worry about it. Lean into the truth of God's love and pretty soon your hold on those things will relax because you come to know that God is safe to trust. So don't worry about what you're not ready to give up yet. Don't worry about what you're not willing to let go. Lean into love and that love will do something in your heart. All of a sudden, those things you thought you had to clinch with your fists, you'll be like, hey, I'm good because I'm truly safe in his love. Dean Ornish said something. Do you want to read that on love? Dr. Dean Ornish, in his book on love and survival, he says this, the scientific basis for healing power of intimacy, this is the book that he wrote, The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy, right? He wrote this, I'm not aware of any other factor in medicine, not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery that has a greater impact on our quality of life, our incidence of illness and premature death from all causes than does love and intimacy. That's amazing. It's powerful. And he's a lifestyle medicine doctor. Yeah, and he's not a theologian trying to defend some biblical idea of love. He's just saying, as I look at it through the medical lens, love and intimacy is the thing. Right. It's the greatest healing power. Right. And he's talking about a human, right? Right. But we're talking about divine, not neglecting the human, but what we're talking about is this oneness with God, becoming one with God, who the Bible says is love. God is love. He's the source of love. So being connected with Him, all the more power. Yeah, opens up then the safety to be intimate, the source of giving away love, because now I've got it. I'm filled up. You're filled up. So I can give. Yeah. And remember the gospel of Jesus Christ, why Jesus came to this world not only to reveal the love of God, but for us, it was to heal the brokenhearted, it's to bind up our wounds, it's to set the captive free, it's to open the eyes of the blind, it's to set the oppressed free. You know, we've been oppressed with negativity, we've been oppressed with guilt. He wants to set us free. This is what He's come to do. So embracing Him, we're embracing that whole gift that's found in Jesus Christ, the Savior. Right? So the love of God packed in Him, developed in Him, and He's pouring that love in us. And all that He created for us, developed for us, the freedom, the healing, that's what He wants to do. That's what He wants to do for every human being. Right? That's good. That's the power of the gospel. That's it. Right? The power of God unto salvation. That's it. We forget that, though, and we look at it all again, back to, I want to live each day resting in this God who loves me enough to die for me, who loves me enough to never give up on me, and always there for me, so I can live life resting in it. That's such a good reminder, even to me, thinking of my own life and thinking in my head, am I really leaning into the stuff we're talking about? I mean, it is a journey. We've talked about this journey that keeps going on. But for me, it's like a self-check to say, okay, how much am I experiencing of this incredible wonder of rest in the radical love of God? Well, I just want to say something that, you know, just like we need food every day, right? We eat food, we digest it, and then the next morning, we wake up, hopefully we're hungry. Sometime during the day, we're hungry. Hopefully it's in the morning, and we eat. We begin the process of eating again. Same thing spiritually, right, that God created us this way to live in a dependent relationship with him because he's the source of life. So he wants us to be in this relationship, so we need to choose to continue on a daily basis to come and sit in his presence and communicate with him, to draw life with him. This is what keeps the relationship fresh. It's just like any other relationship, we have to spend time together. If we don't spend time together, what happens to the relationship? Grows stale, we go further apart, right? And then it just falls apart, right? But trying to keep the relationship fresh requires time, right? Time to spend time together. So we need to remember that, that this experience is kept alive through the rhythm of life, of doing life with God himself. That's right, that's right. And again, I do like that picture of the rhythm of life, just looking at some, I tried to capture this in some words, and we've said so much of this, but maybe it's worth reading. The rhythm of rest in God's love means that we become free to live lives of radical love because we're living against the backdrop of God's unconditional, all-out love for us. So now I'm not spending, we're not spending our days scraping around trying to find something to fill our own deep hunger for love, acceptance, and value. We're resting in the constant overflow of God's love for us. When we embrace this truth of God's love for ourselves, we're then free to give love away because our own hearts are overflowing, perfectly satisfied with his love. You know, the Bible says that love is the fulfilling of the law, right? Because when we think of law, we think of a set of rules, right? Which, you know, there is that portion that obviously like the law of God is written, but this law, the summary of it is a law of love, right? So love flows out from God into his created beings, out to others, and back to God. It's this law of the universe that unselfish love flows out from God and then back, you know? It's like gravity, right? It's like gravity, just like gravity, right. But that's where we find that satisfaction. That's where we find our contention. In that rhythm, that cycle. In that rhythm, in that rhythm, receiving and giving, receiving and giving. Which is the love-shaped life. Which is the love-shaped life. When we step out of that rhythm, we go into our self-centered living, right? Short-circuit it. Short-circuit it, and it becomes an unhealthy life. Hey, just look at the culture we have so profoundly created of disconnection, of off-the-charts loneliness, and you have the outflow of that short-circuited love rhythm. We've built it. We've proven what life looks like when you short-circuit. So keeping the relationship fresh with God is choosing to communicate with God through prayer, time in the Word, time in sharing that love with others, right? Being in that rhythm of life. Yeah. That's what's going to keep it fresh. Yeah. So some words from Johnny Lee. You might recognize the song. Well, I spent a lifetime looking for you. Single bars and good-time lovers were never true. Playing a fool's game, hoping to win, and telling those sweet lies and losing again. I was looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces, searching their eyes, looking for traces of what I'm dreaming of, hoping to find a friend and a lover. I'll bless the day I discover another heart looking for love. Johnny Lee says, hey, I've been looking. And all the wrong places. I haven't found it. All the wrong places. All the wrong places. And for most of us, we're looking for love. To love and be loved is what every heart yearns for, right? So there's a longing, and then we end up thinking we need things to fill it, right? Yeah. But nothing's satisfied. Yeah. But again, back to only God, the source of love, can satisfy us when we're in this right relationship with Him. That's right. So we're in a story of a woman, John 4, Jesus, John records a story of a woman who was also looking in all the wrong places. She was searching for love, searching to be satisfied. Her journey found her in this story, coming to get water, a daily process, daily journey to the well, in the middle, the hottest part of the day, because she was an outcast in her local town. Nobody wanted to hang out with this woman. They were embarrassed to be around her. She was embarrassed to be around them. Her life was a mess. Everybody knew it was a mess. So she came alone when she didn't have to be reminded of the mess she lived. Yeah. And remember, she was a Samaritan woman. She was a Samaritan woman. Jesus was Jewish, so they weren't even supposed to connect together at all because the Jews didn't like the Samaritans. Big time racism. Yeah. Big time racism. Yeah. So they weren't even supposed to connect. So here she is at the well. And who shows up? Jesus goes out of His way to cross paths. We talk about this with us idea in Scripture, how God is always seeking to be with us. Well, here is God in the flesh, going out of His way to sit at a well at the hottest part of the day to meet a woman so He could be with her and she could discover the wonder of being with Him. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's incredible stuff. Yeah. Here in this story is this picture of God seeking, again, to know and be known. Mm-hmm. To know and be known. And He goes after this woman. Yeah. You know, and there's this discussion about the water. Yeah. And Jesus, you know, what He said there in John chapter 4, I believe it is verse 14, or 13, sorry, Jesus answered, everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. By the way, that water was really important water. It was an ancient well that was traceable all the way back to Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Hebrew faith. Mm-hmm. She was pretty proud that the well she was getting water from was this relic of history. Mm-hmm. And so Jesus says of that water, even though you're getting it from this relic of religious history, you're still going to be thirsty tomorrow. Mm-hmm. So continue. Yeah. So Jesus said that whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Mm-hmm. So again, the relationship with God, coming to Him to drink of the water of life, right, we will find rest, deep rest in our hearts and in our journey. This is where God is offering us and wants us to live lives of restfulness, but we tend to live lives of unrestfulness, right? We're worried about tomorrow. We're anxious about tomorrow. It's a fearful world. Yeah, sure. It's a fearful world. Just turn on the news. Exactly. It's the same thing, right? Just one right after the other. Boom, boom, boom. Right, natural disasters. Here, if you're from the United States, you know the mass shootings that go on. There's no sacred area, grocery stores, schools, churches, synagogues, wherever. There's mass shootings that are taking place. It's a fearful world, and the list goes on and on and on. But God, even in the midst of this fearfulness, even in the midst of this turmoil, is inviting us to live lives of restfulness because we're trusting in Him, right? You remember the story of Jesus in the boat with the disciples. They're crossing the lake. It was a pretty big storm. Yeah, it was a big storm, and the storm comes, and the water's coming into the ship, and the lightning and the waves, and the disciples are experienced fishermen. They are. They are. So the tendency, they grab the oars, and they start rowing. Let's get ourselves out of here. Yeah, because that's our tendency. When storms come our way, we try to solve it ourselves. We try to solve our own problems. Isn't that true? Only to increase our stress levels, only to increase our anxiety, right? This is just the world we live in. It's very difficult. It's a sin-cursed world. But God, they finally realize, hey, we can't solve it. God's in the boat. God's in the boat. And they turn to Jesus, and what's He doing? He's sleeping. Resting. Why was He resting? Because of His relationship that He had with His Father was so trustful. He saw God. He saw God. He knew Him. That He wasn't afraid of storms. He wasn't afraid of anything. He could sleep in that boat. That's the experience that I want to have before I leave planet Earth, so to speak, to have that experience that no matter what is coming my way, I'm resting in God so much that I'm not afraid of anything because of God. He's got me. He's got me. And this is where God wants to bring us all. Yeah, that's right. And I love this language, a well of water springing up, welling up to eternal life, this sense of perpetual welling. Then He contrasts it. You know, there's a famous well, like super famous well, tracks all the way back generations. Yeah, that's great. But it's still regular old water. Jesus says, looks at her and says, listen, I'm offering you perpetual deep refreshing. Something totally different. I'm thirsty right now, and I've gone through, I don't know, a glass and a half today. Jesus offers something that's not going to leave us thirsty. It's the kind of thirst that we lean in for more because we've experienced deep satisfaction. That's the rest. That's the rest. He wants to enter into that rest. In fact, in Hebrews, you know that story in Hebrews of 3 and 4, we don't have time to go into detail, but it's contrasting Israel going through the desert and where God was manifesting Himself to them, right? He was living with them. Because they're going from Exodus, the slavery of Exodus, journeying to the rest of this promised land, right? That was the rest. They're like, okay, we're going to stop walking through, walking around this mountain, walking through this desert at some point. We're going to stop, right? And the stopping was this rest. Just like, it's kind of like where we are, right? God has promised to come back in heaven, right? That promised land, so to speak, and we've been delivered from Egypt, right? We're choosing to embrace the freedom that is found in Christ, right? But we're still on this journey of life, and in the journey of life, it can be a desert experience. It was many trials that came their way, and so during their trials and tribulations, they failed to learn to trust and rest in God's love. So they actually didn't get the real thing. They didn't get the real thing, right, right. That's why Hebrews chapter 4, the Bible talks about this rest, again, that God is offering to us in Hebrews chapter 4. I'm just going to read. There's a lot that could get into in that. Yeah, a lot here. A lot that could get into in that. I specifically just want to talk about the rest here that is found in verses 9 and 10. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his own works as God did from his. It was referring back to the creation story, and when God had created the heavens and the earth in six days, and then he created the Sabbath, right? He is referring back to that if you read the story, he's referring back to the rest that God created on the seventh day of the week that he's invited us to enter into, right? But in this context, he says there remains a rest for the people of God, right? This Sabbath rest in the sense of resting in God's love, right? The sense of trusting in God completely. He who has entered into his rest has ceased from his own works. We're surrendering. We're letting go. We're going to live lives resting in the love of God. Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. And you referred to the Sabbath, and there is this sense in the Hebrew story, in the biblical story, where the Sabbath sets this rhythm to remind us that our place of highest flourishing is resting in the radical, wild love of God. Amen. Exactly. Praise God for that. That's it. Yeah. This journey, right? This journey, you know? We have some quote here by Lauren Daigle. One of your favorite songs, right? One of my favorite songs. You say, she said, I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough. Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up. Am I more than just a sum of every high and low, right? Sound familiar in our journeys? High and low. Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know. You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing. You say I'm strong when I think I am weak. And you say I am held when I'm falling short. And when I don't belong, you say I am yours. I believe, I believe what you say of me. Again, you know, on a daily basis, the devil will seek to put voices in our head or even our own unhealthy self-talk to try to pull us away from living a life of restfulness from God. But we need to focus on what God is saying so that God's voice becomes louder than the other voices and we're choosing to embrace that, right? So we can live a life of resting in God because he loves us totally radically as you would call it. So those four principles, C, we're going to take time to see the truth of God's love. We're going to meditate on that. We're going to take it from just being an idea to being something that we are processing, that we're asking the question, how does this look in real life? How does it impact my life? Number three, we're going to accept that. We're going to take deliberate concrete steps to say, okay, here's the lie. Here's what this truth about God's love. Here's what is actually true. That's the Lorne Dagle song, right? I feel like this, but you say, that's the accept step. And then this, I believe, I believe what you say of me, I believe that's the life of rest is to practice the rhythm of resting in this newly defined reality of who I am and the world in which I actually live. Not the one defined by lies, not the one defined by my past, by my failures, by my brokenness, but the world defined by God. Amen. And remember, God is imparting to us that rest. That's right. Right? God is empowering us to live a life of restfulness. That's his desire. That's it. And that's what we have to embrace and choose to embrace it on a daily basis. Not allowing the schedule of the day, the busyness of the day to get us off track from living the life that God intends us to live. That's right. So here at Love Shaped Life, that's what we're all about. Literally it's this, it's creating a space, it's teaching, it's facilitating, it's walking with each other and with anybody else who wants to join us in moving into, journeying into, walking into greater and greater levels of experiencing rest in God's wild love. That's what we're about. Amen. Love Shaped Life. That's the whole reason we exist. Everything we want to do is to facilitate that resting in the radical love of God as the rhythm of life, period. Amen. See, experience, and live. That's it. That's it. So we have a booklet for you, loveshaped.life. You can find the booklet that summarizes these four basic concepts and gives you some worksheets to apply them. We're also inviting you to the journey to oneness cohort where you'll be surrounded with peers who want the same thing, with teaching in an interactive format, and with one-on-one coaching to support your desire to move into this position of resting in and flourishing in the light of God's love. You can sign up at loveshaped.life. You talked about community. Talk to us about that again. The desire that we're working on a community of people who want to live by this rhythm. Sure. You know, we invite you, if you want to, to join that community. You go to loveshaped.life. You can see how to hook up with that community. Our desire is for people to join together in the community who want to live out in this loveshaped life, who want to live out to be able to see and experience and live God's love. This is a journey. We're all on a journey. God is offering us, not just in that digital space, but also in our homes, in our communities, to spread the love of God throughout the world because that's the greatest need in the world today. That's right. And again, a loveshaped life is not sitting in my easy chair saying, hey, I am a Smith Lin. I'm just really special. It's resting in God's love, which transforms me into a person who loves in real tangible ways, like God loves. Why don't you sign us off? Yeah, sure. Until next time, lean into the loveshaped life. That's it. For more information, visit loveshaped.life. www.loveshaped.life
