Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good, good. Happy January. We all survived partially, maybe a little bit. All right, let me say a prayer for us. Devinly Father, we love you so much. I am so thankful for who you are, what you do, that you call us your own. I pray that tonight you would encourage our heart, strengthen our minds, give us a spirit of love, power and self control in you. I pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:00:25] So I've recently been reading this book. It's called why has Nobody Told Me this before by Dr. Julie Smith. And it is a book about developing the kind of life skills that you need in difficult times. And the point is to kind of have a toolbox ready before the difficult times. Unfortunately, most of us like the difficult times happen and then we're like trying to scramble to find something. But she says it's about kind of understanding how our mind works so we can find guideposts to deal with our emotions in healthy ways as life kind of happens around us. And one of the chapters she talks about how to get the basics right. So bear with me. I'm going to sports analogy. You and my sports. You guys, I sports so hard.
[00:01:09] But she used a sports analogy. So I'm going to.
[00:01:11] So imagine football. Got football in your head? Okay. I'm not going to give you any more details. Football, okay. Now, the best football team in the entire world, like they score touchdowns.
[00:01:26] Goatee. Right. Okay. But imagine for a second the very best football players, the best football team in the world, without a defense, what would happen to that team? Right. If they don't have their defensive line, their defensive sides, you with me so far? Okay.
[00:01:43] The chance of the other team winning goes up.
[00:01:47] So they don't have somebody holding the line, doing the blocking, covering the basics so that the team can win. All right. Did I sport so good?
[00:01:57] Okay, thank you. All right. So when it comes to defense, she says you don't know what you've got until it's gone. And so what happens is in life, the same thing is true. And the basics are the first things that we let slide when we start to not feel so good in life. Here's what she said.
[00:02:17] She said the basics are not glamorous. They don't give us that hit of having thought, something that bought, something that promises to fix everything.
[00:02:25] But they are cash in the health bank. When life starts throwing things at you, those defenses are going to keep you standing and help you back, back up if you fall.
[00:02:36] Understanding what those main defenses are means that we can keep them on the radar, we can check in with them on a regular basis and look for small ways in which we might be able to improve them and strengthen them. And so it's a book about mental health, and she talks about, like, eating right and moving right and sleeping right and your routine and emotional connection. And this time of year, everybody's talking about how to be physically healthy and emotionally healthy and getting back to the basics and having a plan for the year. And every ad is some type of exercise program or diet program. Have you seen everything? Like, January is like, in your face. I don't care what you ate in December, you're gonna lose 20 pounds. Okay.
[00:03:15] But I think for us, we also have to take this time of year and say, what does it take to be spiritually healthy if I wanna start my year right and have a plan and really be who God's calling me to be? What are the basics in my life of faith?
[00:03:33] What are the things that are my defensive line that keep me grounded, that help us get back up when life gets harder, we fall down.
[00:03:42] And what better time than right now to really get a sense of who do I want to be this year?
[00:03:48] Where do I want to grow right, rather than just, like, floating in this in between, Like, I don't know what happened to the last month. I know what happened because I'm here, but. But I feel like a fog. Anybody else? Like Christmas, New Year's, everybody had the flu, Everybody was down for the count. Now it's like, oh, it is the end of January, how that happened. But what if rather than just rolling one more year, one more month, one more week, we took this as an opportunity to evaluate our life, to look at ourselves and say, what can I really do this year?
[00:04:24] What do I want to get done?
[00:04:26] What would happen if I really gave God space in my heart to lead me and guide me? What might he do through me this year?
[00:04:37] So I want to give us some basics, some getting back to if I really want to do life with God. Well, where are some places I can start right now to set myself up for success this year? And we're going to look at this really little verse in first John, chapter three, and it's verses 23.
[00:04:55] And John says, this is his commandment. We must believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Now, I love whenever you read the Bible, sometimes you read parts and you're like, I don't know what that means.
[00:05:09] I don't know why that's in the Bible. I'm a little bit Traumatized that it's in the Bible.
[00:05:14] And then sometimes you read stuff and you're like, yeah, that makes a ton of sense, right? Like, there are all these beautiful nuggets that really, when it comes to the basics of faith, what does God really want for you? What does God want for me?
[00:05:28] What does it look like to follow him? And John gives us, here's what God's commandment is, here's what God tells us to do. Believe in Jesus Christ and love one another.
[00:05:39] Those are two things that we can put into practice this year that can become our basics. That no matter what happens in life, we. We always fall back on these things. We always have these things to go to to hold us up for who we're gonna be. So let's tear those apart. Because sometimes the easiest things that speak easy actually live hard. And so we gotta examine it a little bit. The first one is believe in Jesus Christ. Have you ever asked yourself before, what do I believe?
[00:06:09] Like, not just I go to church, not just I follow these rules. I'm a good person. I. I don't do this. I definitely do this. But, like, when I strip everything away, what are my core beliefs? At the core of who I am, what do I believe to be true about God? Because our starting point of faith and living with God, it really begins with, what do I actually believe?
[00:06:36] John Stott wrote this book. It's really amazing. It's nice little read. It's called Basic Christianity.
[00:06:42] Here's what he says. Before man existed, God acted.
[00:06:46] Before man stirs himself to seek God, God has sought man. The Bible reveals a God who long before it even occurs to us to turn to him, while we are still lost in darkness and sunk in sin, he takes the initiative. He rises from his throne, he lays aside his glory and stoops to seek until he finds us.
[00:07:09] He said the core of basic Christianity is that God has taken the initiative. He's taken it in creation and revelation and salvation. God created, God spoke, God acts. And he said, if God has spoken, his last and greatest word to the world is Jesus Christ. The person and work of Christ are the rock upon which the Christian religion is built.
[00:07:34] When we peel everything away, what we believe about Jesus Christ, it's core to who we are as his followers. When we say, I'm a Christian, what I'm saying is not, there's a set of rules I follow, not even a doctrine, but a person.
[00:07:52] I follow a person, and his name is Jesus Christ.
[00:07:57] And Christ helps us know God in the kind of way we could never know on our own.
[00:08:03] At the core of our belief is this idea that we matter to God.
[00:08:08] We are valued and loved by Him. In fact, he loves us so much he sent Christ into the world to find us, that we might know him, that we might love him, and we might have this new hope for life in Him.
[00:08:27] Our belief about Christ. Christ is fully God, but He came into the world and became fully human. And he wrote Himself into the pages of our story and took our part.
[00:08:38] And in doing so, he exchanged what is best in Himself with what is most broken in us. He takes what's worst in you and I and replaces it with the best of Himself.
[00:08:54] At this core of our belief stands Jesus Christ.
[00:08:58] And we believe that by grace we have been saved by faith, not by anything I've done. Like, I was just such a good Christian girl this week. God said, hey, saved, right? No, it's not my works. It's the works of Jesus Christ.
[00:09:13] It's Christ who makes us whole. It's Christ who makes us right. Christ who forgives us and redeems us and restores us.
[00:09:22] And we know him through faith.
[00:09:26] Faith is a way of knowing we know things in different ways. And faith isn't just I close my eyes and hope for the best. Faith isn't like I'm just going to jump into the unknown and see what happens. Maybe God will catch me along the way. Faith is the more I know about Jesus Christ, the more I want to trust Him.
[00:09:45] The more I know about Christ, the more I want to follow Him.
[00:09:50] Faith is this confident belief in Jesus Christ. And it is the assurance of things hoped for because our hope rests in Him.
[00:10:00] And so at the core of our belief, when I asked myself, what do I believe?
[00:10:05] I believe that Christ came into the world to save you and I.
[00:10:12] And that's the faith that centers our life. That's the faith that we build our life around and who we are. And beyond what I can see, beyond what I control, there is a God at work calling us to trust in him, to trust in what he can do, what he's been doing for all time, in all history, to believe in him and trust in Him.
[00:10:36] But when's the last time you examined your beliefs, what you believe to be true about Jesus Christ?
[00:10:45] Because if we believe this is who God is, that Christ came into the world, then I also have to believe that God is good.
[00:10:53] And some days when you look out at the world, or maybe some days just in your own personal life, you're like, there's no way God could be good and this could happen.
[00:11:02] Or maybe it's not even that. It's like, well, if God was really powerful enough, he would have stopped this from happening. So either he's not good or he's not powerful, because something's wrong here.
[00:11:10] Have you been there before?
[00:11:12] There seems to be this gap between what I think is true and what I'm experiencing in my personal life.
[00:11:22] But if we examine our beliefs about Christ and who he is and what he's done, we have to hold up God's goodness into the equation. Even when the world seems dark, even when life seems hopeless, hard and impossible and miserably ugly. Can I believe that God is still good?
[00:11:43] Can I believe that there is still good he wants to accomplish in the world?
[00:11:49] Even on my hardest day, maybe your hardest day, do I have, in the core of my belief, God isn't done yet?
[00:11:58] This might be miserable, but God isn't done yet.
[00:12:04] In the end, who wins, good or evil?
[00:12:09] If God is really, really good, I have to believe that he will triumph over evil, no matter how loud evil sounds today.
[00:12:21] And if I believe in Christ and I believe in God's goodness, I kind of want to be on his team when he wins. How about you?
[00:12:29] I like being on winning teams.
[00:12:32] And if in my heart I believe that God is good, it shapes who I am and the decisions that I make. We celebrated Martin Luther King this week, so I want to use some of his words. He said, when our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.
[00:13:09] Do you believe that to be true about God?
[00:13:13] Because sometimes we forget or life happens and it's busy and it's crazy, and we're all of a sudden in the whirlwind and we forget that God is still at work and how powerful and how mighty and how good he is, that he's not done yet, and he is at work accomplishing his goodwill.
[00:13:34] When I read these words, I'm reminded of who God is, and I cling to them tightly.
[00:13:41] Because what we believe about Christ, what we believe about the goodness of God, it directs who we want to be.
[00:13:50] It shapes our priorities. It shapes our values. It shapes either. I don't trust that God's good and he's not gonna take care of me. So I have to do it myself, or I say, God, I can't. You can. I surrender to you.
[00:14:03] Either I'm going back and forth with God, why would you do this? Or I'm saying, God, help me be strong enough for this.
[00:14:11] Either I'm questioning why God would do this or do that or this would happen, or I'm saying, God, I don't get it, but I know you do. Help me be yours in the midst of it. Help me follow you in this moment, in this time, right here and right now.
[00:14:27] See, you don't even always have to say out loud what you believe, because it shows up in what you do.
[00:14:32] It shows up in the choices that you make.
[00:14:35] It shows up in the actions that you take and who you are on a daily basis. It's shaped by your beliefs.
[00:14:44] So what better time than right now to just evaluate when's the last time I really thought what I believe?
[00:14:49] Where I questioned myself or I spoke out loud? The questions I have. I want you to hear this. Please. You should ask your questions.
[00:14:58] Please don't ever hear any of us say, like, oh, no, don't bring that question to church.
[00:15:04] Christianity is meant to be thought through. And there are hard ideas that sometimes my mind can't wrap away. It just can't wrap itself around. But then I talk to somebody else and they'll give me a perspective, and I'll be like, I never thought of that way, and. And it changes my understanding for good. But if I don't ever ask the hard question, I don't ever get insight. Or sometimes somebody else will ask a hard question and be like, wow, I didn't even think of that yet. Clearly, they're better Christians than I am. But it helps me think through, ask the hard questions. Because that might just be the place God wants to teach you something new about himself that you've never learned before.
[00:15:44] What if you just took some time this week and said, what do I believe about God?
[00:15:49] What do I believe about Jesus Christ? Maybe I've never said, I believe in Jesus Christ. Maybe the first step I take on this adventure of faith is just saying, I believe in Jesus Christ.
[00:16:02] I believe that he came into the world on my behalf and gave his life that I might live. That's a step of faith right there, just acknowledging that you believe in Jesus Christ.
[00:16:15] Or maybe if you've taken that step, remind yourself this week of who he is.
[00:16:20] Because you might know something, but there's always something new to learn.
[00:16:24] One of the joys of living a life with Jesus Christ is until you Take your last breath. He has something new to teach you about himself.
[00:16:32] It never gets boring.
[00:16:34] It never runs out of new thoughts and new ideas and challenging moments that make me reconsider my priorities and in my values.
[00:16:43] So maybe the step you take this week is go spend some time with God and get to know him a little bit better.
[00:16:52] Where can you spend some time with Christ this week? Well, the first place is always the best place, is the Bible.
[00:16:59] Pick up the Bible this week and just get to know Christ better.
[00:17:02] Start in the Gospels. I know some of you adventurers, you start at Genesis, you plow your way through, gets a little wonky in there, you lose a little steam, but then you try again. You guys, I'm a grown adult woman, and for the first time last year, I got to Exodus, Leviticus. I'm like, I can't.
[00:17:19] I read the Bible every year and I can't. I just need a little bit of Jesus this season of my life. There are some, I'm willing to wrestle with it, and there are others where I'm like, you know what? Matthew has a lot to say about Jesus right now, and I need a little of his goodness. Right? You aren't tied to, to reading the Bible a certain way, a certain order. Start in the Gospels. Get to know Jesus. Hear what he said and what he did and what it was like for the people who followed him. One of the coolest things you see is Jesus responds to people differently. There's not like this cookie cutter version of Christ talking to people the same way every time. It's different interactions with different people because he knows us.
[00:18:03] He knows our unique souls and our hearts and our life experience. And he's going to meet us in the midst of where we are. And it's unique and it's special and it's lovely and wonderful.
[00:18:15] Spend some time with Christ in the scripture this week and see if it doesn't open up your heart to believe something about him that you didn't know before.
[00:18:25] And then use that time with prayer.
[00:18:29] Just talk to God.
[00:18:31] Quiet yourself and let God talk to you. Listen for his direction.
[00:18:36] Sometimes my prayer is really, really simple. Like, God, I want to want to do the right thing.
[00:18:42] Help me, God. I want to hunger for more of you.
[00:18:47] Help me. Like, it doesn't always come naturally. Like sometimes we look at other people in the church, we're like, wow, their prayer life, it's so rich. It's so deep, it's so powerful.
[00:18:56] Wow, they're so spiritual. Sometimes I come to the week of prayer and People pray the house down and I'm just like, Jesus, I love you.
[00:19:05] Life is really hard right now. Could you help? Okay. You don't have to be this elaborate prayer. You just have to have an honest heart with God. Where are you? Pray there, start there.
[00:19:18] And sometimes even just asking God, like, God, help me. Want to do better, to seek the right things. That is as good of a beginning place as any other place.
[00:19:30] So start reading the Bible and get to know Jesus better. Pray with him. Spend a few minutes of just quiet. Is anybody else's life loud? Life can get loud, so loud. And normally I have a real high tolerance for the loud. But then sometimes the noise starts conflicting and it's like overpowering loud. Like, that's it. That's my stress point right there.
[00:19:53] Find a minute of quiet and instead of just rushing through life from this to that, from here to there, make a moment to just be still and quiet and reflect on your life.
[00:20:07] Sometimes it's hard to know what I believe because I've just never stopped to think about it before or I've never been challenged by it before.
[00:20:14] One of the best things I ever did was take a class where you would give an answer and they'd say, okay, why? And I'd be like, oh, I don't know, right? I just, I heard it my whole life. That's not right. I don't know, right? Like, challenge yourself in the quiet moments where you just have space to think.
[00:20:32] Ask yourself, is my heart in a good place?
[00:20:36] Does my soul feel healthy?
[00:20:39] Have I spent any time with God recently?
[00:20:42] If not, why?
[00:20:44] Is there anything I can do differently right now that God can be at work in?
[00:20:50] The more we take just quiet space, the more just we become aware.
[00:20:55] It's so easy to be unaware.
[00:20:58] But just quiet yourself down, slow your life for a minute and spend some quiet time thinking through who you are and where you are right now.
[00:21:09] And then I just want to give you one more way to spend some time with Christ in the company of other people.
[00:21:15] One of the best gifts God gives us is each other.
[00:21:18] See, it turns out the church is his good idea.
[00:21:22] And the church isn't the place that you have to come and impress everybody else. It's not the place where you have to like clean everything up and be like your Sunday perfect or Wednesday perfect self. It's the place where you get to be real and you get to do life with other people and not pretend surface level life, but real nitty gritty life.
[00:21:41] It's the place where you get to ask Hard questions and not feel like you're being judged because you just honestly don't know.
[00:21:47] It's the place where you get to lean on one another and learn from one another and grow with each other.
[00:21:53] Who are you connected to in the church that's challenging you in your life of faith, that's encouraging you as you grow in your belief in Jesus Christ, who's filling in those gaps and praying for you when life gets hard?
[00:22:07] Do you know what a blessing it is for someone just to say, how can I pray for you right now? And then they actually do.
[00:22:14] You grow in getting to know Christ better by doing life with the brothers and sisters he gave you right here to do life with. If you're not connected, please talk to one of us. Let us help you get connected. A group, a ministry, there's so many things going on right now that are a good place to start. But here's the truth.
[00:22:33] None of this happens accidentally. I don't just stumble into, like having a really good faith life, spiritual time with God. I have to plan it, to be intentional about it. I have to look at my week, plan my day and say, what time am I going to spend with Christ this week? So I gave you a bunch of ideas. What if you pick one and just put it somewhere on your phone, your calendar, your alert, your reminders.
[00:23:00] What if you ask somebody else and you can do it together and you can help each other, like accountability, like, let's do this together and see what happens. But really, if you're going to talk about your belief in Jesus Christ, you have to put it on your radar, your calendar, your time, and be intentional and make a plan for it.
[00:23:21] So what does God command us? Believe in Jesus Christ.
[00:23:25] What do you believe? And how are you getting to know Christ better?
[00:23:28] And then the second one he tells us is love one another.
[00:23:33] This command comes up again and again and again and again. Jesus says, here's what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to learn from how I've loved you and now go love other people.
[00:23:47] And sometimes we get a little lost in the word love. Like lovey dovey, emotional, right? Like, this isn't a Hallmark movie.
[00:23:55] This is love as an action. Like, what do you choose to do today?
[00:24:00] How do you choose to treat people right now? It's loving with the kind of love that's noble and generous and sacrificial. It's loving when you don't feel very loving anybody ever, not feel very loving moments in life, right? It's loving when other people aren't actually making it easy for you.
[00:24:21] Cause sometimes we're like, yes, I'm gonna be God's girl, God's guy. I'm gonna do what he tells me to do. I'm gonna love people. And then you're gonna meet the biggest jerk you've ever met in your entire life. And they're gonna be rude, they're gonna be confrontational, they're gonna hurt your feelings. You'll be like, well, I don't have to love you. Right? Clearly that's not what God was talking about because you are terrible. Right? Okay?
[00:24:43] But that happens. That's life. And I can't base how I am and who I am I on how other people act. I have to base who I am and how I am on who Christ has called me to be. Which is why my belief in him matters first. Because it shapes who I am and it shapes how I act.
[00:25:04] If Christ has loved me in radically life changing ways, then my call isn't I'm just going to love as much as they love me. I'm going to be as kind as they're kind, right? No, no, no. But my standard is Christ.
[00:25:18] I'm shaping my life to be who he's called me to be, not anybody else. My identity isn't shaped by the people around me. It's shaped by Jesus Christ first.
[00:25:29] And when I study the life of Christ, I see that even when people abandoned him, he never abandoned them.
[00:25:37] Even when people denied him, he didn't deny them.
[00:25:41] He showed grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. He loved people by serving them, by being kind and compassionate, by seeing them when everybody else had overlooked them.
[00:25:53] He loved us by giving his very life that we might be saved.
[00:25:59] When people were around Him, Christ wasn't put off by differentness, weirdness.
[00:26:07] He didn't stop just when it was easy to be around people he loved. Even in difficult moments. He sought out people who were hurting and broken. He sought out people who were marginalized and ignored and overlooked.
[00:26:23] It's how he loves us today.
[00:26:27] He loves us because it's who he is. With an overwhelming, uncritical, satisfied love.
[00:26:37] He came into the world to serve, not to be served.
[00:26:43] So the way you love that says more about what you believe than what you say.
[00:26:50] The way you treat people who are like you and not like you says way more about your faith in Jesus Christ than the songs that you sing.
[00:27:00] The way you are around other people, that shows more than anything else who you follow the most.
[00:27:09] Because when we take everything else Away, we have to ask, do my actions show the love of Jesus Christ in this conversation, in this relationship, online, in person, in the car, when I think nobody else can hear or see me?
[00:27:27] Am I showing the love of Jesus Christ?
[00:27:32] Did I do anything last week that showed the love of Jesus Christ?
[00:27:38] Is there anything in this year that showed others, man, God is so much better than you've ever seen or heard because they saw something of his loving goodness in me.
[00:27:50] I mean, this isn't a suggestion.
[00:27:54] It's what God commands of us. Believe in Jesus Christ and love one another. And if I'm not loving others, I don't have to make a case for how religious or how good I am. I'm not doing what Christ called me to do.
[00:28:07] If I'm not sharing the grace and the goodness of Jesus Christ, then I'm not being the person that Christ called me to be. And I'm missing out on the life that that Christ has called me to live. See, a lot of people quit church and it wasn't because of God. It was because of people who said they loved God and then were very, very, very unloving.
[00:28:29] A lot of people carry hurt in their life because the people who should have been there for them the most weren't.
[00:28:37] And we can wrap as many religious bows around it as we want, but at the end of the day, this is what Jesus said.
[00:28:44] Here's how the world is going to know that you are mine by how you love one another.
[00:28:51] That's my standard.
[00:28:53] That's who Christ calls me to be.
[00:28:57] I take the love that Christ has shown me. It shapes who I am.
[00:29:03] And then I do my very best to love others well.
[00:29:06] And look, none of us are perfect. You're going to have a bad day. You're going to to say the wrong thing. You're going to let yourself down and let other people down too. That happens. But repair, Go back and say, man, I wish I wouldn't have said that. I'm really trying hard to be a better person.
[00:29:22] Man, I wish I wouldn't have treated you that way. It really. Would you please forgive me, Right? None of us are perfect, but every one of us is capable of repair. We can go back and revisit. Doesn't feel good, but man, does it go a long way in building a healthy relationship?
[00:29:41] What if you started a new standard for yourself? And you ask yourself, how did I do this week in loving other people? Was I forgiving?
[00:29:50] Was I encouraging?
[00:29:52] Was I caring? Did I help restore anybody else or carry anybody's burden? Did I accept somebody in healthy ways? Did I hold somebody up? Was I compassionate and kind?
[00:30:04] Did I not say the thing I wanted to say because it was the healthiest, loving thing I could do?
[00:30:10] As we grow with Christ, we should be growing in loving one another.
[00:30:16] See, here's one of the biggest mistakes that happens in a life of faith. I get to know God better.
[00:30:22] I become more and more of.
[00:30:25] I should say less and less of the person I used to be. But. But rather than that, making me loving towards others, it makes me holier than thou. It makes me righteous. I'm good. I'm not like them.
[00:30:36] I might have made mistakes, but I never did what they do.
[00:30:40] See, instead of withdrawing, it's supposed to make us more initiative in diving into the messy world we live in. Because the world is messy. But guess what? So am I and so are you.
[00:30:52] It's messy.
[00:30:54] But somehow, in the midst of the mess, Christ found me, loved me, and called me his own.
[00:31:00] And somebody else is standing in a mess right now. And they don't know that right where they are. Christ loves them, wants to find them and call them his own.
[00:31:10] But maybe, just maybe, you could be that first step that shows somebody else how loving and good and wonderful it is to know Jesus Christ.
[00:31:21] I love Jen Hatmaker. She said, no one is unlovable. We were literally created by love, with love, and for love, by a God who loves us in his love itself. Its extravagance is almost embarrassing. And this love is not just for one type of person the world finds acceptable. It's for all of us.
[00:31:42] See, it's the very love of Jesus Christ that compels us to love one another.
[00:31:48] We love because he first loved us and every single one of us. Whether I've known God my whole life or I just started, we can all grow in our ability to love others well and love others better.
[00:32:03] See, here's what happens. The more I love God first, the better I am at loving everybody else.
[00:32:10] The more God comes first in my life, in my heart and my soul and my mind, with all my strength, the better I am loving people.
[00:32:18] Start at home. Your spouse, your kids, your parents, your siblings. Love them better this week.
[00:32:26] Take it out with you into the world. Take it to work, take it into school. Take it into your interactions. I don't care if you're grouchy. I don't care if you're tired. I don't care if you feel like you have nothing left. That is the very place that you get to say, God, I can't but you can. Please help me love others well right now, because love is a choice.
[00:32:47] It's so much more than how I feel.
[00:32:50] It's a choice I make on who I'm going to be again and again and again.
[00:32:56] Loving God becomes that foundation of who we are and it drives our values and our priorities and our choices and our actions. And when we spend time with him, we get better at being the men and the women he's created us to be.
[00:33:10] And loving others well.
[00:33:12] So what does God really, really ask of us? What's God's commandment for my life? What does God want me to do this year? He wants me to believe in Jesus Christ and to grow up in him.
[00:33:25] He wants me to trust in his goodness and the incredible loving work of Christ.
[00:33:31] And he wants me to love others better.
[00:33:34] If you and I really got serious about those two ideas, our life will always be better because of it.
[00:33:42] The church will be better because of it.
[00:33:45] Your family will be healthier because of it.
[00:33:50] The world will be better when we take seriously really getting to know Christ better and loving others well.
[00:33:59] Dear Father, I pray that you would help us. I pray that you would give us just an openness of heart to know you better now.
[00:34:07] I pray that you would stir something in us, a hunger, a desire, a longing to spend more time with you. And in that time, Father, I pray that you would call us by name, give us eyes to see and ears to hear who you've created us to be. Give us a vision for what the world might be like when the love of Christ shines brightly in us and through us. I pray, Father, that we would make this the core of who we are and you would grow us up into the champions for good you've called us to be. Help us, I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
