Origin
Origin
Disarming Deception, Pt 2 Love is a Rose Garden
Gather around the table of Origin and help us unpack the fact that love is not just the fun, the feel-good, the happy, the on-top-of-the-world. It might be a rose garden but that garden has thorns. What does the Bible have to say about the grit of love? What is the truth about love?
Welcome back to the Table of Origin. We are disarming deception. And this is part two of The Great Seduction. Today, we're disarming...wait for it...this thought that Love is a Rose Garden. So I have at the table with me my friends Kyli Rose and Jina McAfee. Welcome to the table, ladies. We've been having some fun talking about our teams, who are playing in the playoffs or not playing in the playoffs, but we want to talk to you about Love is a Rose Garden. Kyli, you have some initial observations about this subject of love. So share those with us.
Kyli Rose:We've been given quite the task, to tackle the subject of love. As I was studying and researching, I found that we are not the first people to consider this particular subject. In 2012, it was actually the number one question on Google. And this question makes the Top 10 List year after year after year. What is love? What is it? There was an article I read from Allure magazine. And a lot of you might be familiar with it. If not, it is not some obscure magazine. This magazine actually boasts 9 million monthly subscribers. Their target audience is between the ages of 25 and 35 years old. This is what they wrote in this article on love. They said,"Hallmark, Hollywood, and Nashville have all tried to define love, but the reality is that we each have our own definition of this shape-shifting concept." So what is it? You get to determine it. It shape shifts.
ReGina Johnston:So what I think it is today is probably not what I think it is tomorrow.
Kyli Rose:Yes. It's fluid.
ReGina Johnston:I know when I feel it.
Kyli Rose:Yeah. Or when I don't?
ReGina Johnston:Or when I feel something like I think it should feel.
Kyli Rose:So they posed this question to this magazine audience, and the responses were quite hilarious. They asked their subscribers, "What is love? Tell us what this shape-shifting concept means to you." These were some of the
responses:Somebody said that love is temporary. It's gorgeous while you have it, and then it's gut wrenchingly sad when it leaves. Somebody said,"Love is when I press myself into your back at night, and I feel our future." There's been many a time I've gotten in bed with my husband and we were trying to stay far away from one another, right? Don't even think about crossing that invisible line, right? Other responses:"Love is sharing food. Love is a feeling of comfort. Love is when someone starts to take up space in your mind. Love is a feeling of lightness and security." And this one is my favorite, "Love is when my man enthusiastically answers my many, many questions[She said "many" twice] with an unexpected level of depth. He takes care of me when I'm sick. He indulges my need for spontaneity. He makes my mundane chore seem manageable. And he truly sees my light." There's a lot of me's and a lot of my's. So to sum up all these statements, really what these listeners, what these subscribers responded with is,"Love is good when it's good for me."
ReGina Johnston:We really don't want to say we think that, but we do think that.
Jina McAfee:We do. We go to that naturally.
Kyli Rose:Yeah, love is good when it's good for me. But what we want to put on the table today is the tension: "What happens when those gorgeous feelings go away? What happens if instead of feeling the future when I see you, I actually feel distanced and disillusioned? What happens if you don't share with me? If they don't share with you? What happens if at some point we feel uncomfortable in that relationship?" A lot of us have really bought into this kind of gilded, shape-shifting, rom-com definition of love. But I think what we're seeing is that over time the paint begins to scratch on the surface. And then we're just left thinking,"I don't think I love you anymore." And then we're gone. Right?
ReGina Johnston:People tell their counselors, "I never did love her. Or, I never did love him."
Kyli Rose:I fell out of love with them. I loved them at first, but those feelings are gone, and I don't think I love them anymore. It might even sound like this: That church really isn't feeding me anymore, I'm out. Or maybe they're not serving me the way that I want to be served. Maybe I don't feel the future anymore whenever our backs touch. I mean, maybe the mental space that they were occupying was idealistic, but it's not anymore. It's hard, and it's full of conflict. Or maybe they're not serving me the way I want to be served. That conversation is hard, so I'm going to talk about them instead of to them. I don't think I love you anymore, and so I'm out. And maybe we don't even announce that we're gone anymore. Maybe we just ghost people. Maybe we just ghost that organization that we committed to. And you'll figure it out. And I think a lot of us, we don't know it, but we have these unspoken terms and conditions. And we call it love. And as soon as someone doesn't live up to their terms and conditions, they don't sign the box at the bottom of the page, we're out. And so we have what we see in society where we're constantly going to the next place, we're going to the next church, we're going to the next person, we're in and out of relationships. And really, we live our lives on these roller coasters, up and down, and in and out, because we are desperately trying to just stay in this place of euphoric love, this love that we chalk up to a feeling, this really surface level definition of love. It's an issue, right? We have statistics that support it, we see it, we've experienced it. And so we see Jesus, the author of love, in 1 John 4 challenge this. He actually wore a crown of thorns for us. But I prefer, no, actually some Instagram therapist tells me, that I deserve a rose garden even though Jesus Christ wore a crown of thorns. He's the One who defined love, but I think that I get to redefine it, and I get to make it in my own terms. And if I get pricked, then I'm out. So that's where we're at. We have bought in, the church has bought in, to the shape-shifting idea that love is fluid, and as long as it's serving me, it's good. Whenever it's not, I'm gone.
ReGina Johnston:I mean, culturally, we're bombarded with messages like that. So we really have to disarm that, to battle against it, not to actually take on what our culture thinks love is. Just like you said, "Culture says that love is a shape-shifting concept." But Jesus said in Matthew 7:27-29,"A foundation based on God produces faith and a life that will stand no matter what happens." In other words, biblical love, is rock solid. If we build our lives on Him, that biblical love is rock solid. Now, I'm not talking about what we feel. I'm talking about something much deeper than that. In reality, we may not see it this way, but that's total freedom. We're free to receive His love and then become love. So there's this interaction with God and interaction with one another, regardless of any other variables. So Jina, give us some scriptural foundation for this deception and how we battle it.
Jina McAfee:So when I hear this, I think shapeshifting on one hand, and as far as you can get to the other side, rock solid. They're opposites, polar opposites. So here's the Scripture. Jesus who is our foundation says, "This is My command. Love one another the way I have loved you." So how did He love us?
Kyli Rose:Completely. He laid Himself down for us, sacrificially.
Jina McAfee:He gave His life for us.
ReGina Johnston:It wasn't me, me, my, my, me, me. It was you, you you,
Jina McAfee:Yes. He modeled it completely. The Scripture goes
ReGina Johnston:When everything is rosy. on, "This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are My friends when you do the things I command you" (Jn 15:12-13 MSG). He's asking us to
Jina McAfee:It's a command so that means it's a choice. So live the same way, to put our lives on the line for others, and to do what He commands. And He says this, in John 15:16-17 MSG, "You didn't choose Me. I chose you, and put you into the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bears, whatever you ask the Father in relation to Me, He gives you.
But remember the root command:Love one another." So what is He saying? He's telling us what our purpose is. What is our purpose? when He says, "This is My command," this tells me that if To love. To bear that fruit. He's telling us that biblical love is not a feeling. So that's the difference, right? That shapeshifting is a feeling. That's how you feel today. At nine o'clock today. Jesus is commanding me to love like He loves, then He's going to provide what I need to do it. I get to choose what I allow to drive my life. Am I going to have Christ's enabling in me to drive my life? Or am I going to let my feelings drive my life?
Kyli Rose:Like the actions of others? When we're talking about total freedom, why is it total freedom? Because my day, my life, my feelings, are not in the hands of what other people do or do not do for me.
Jina McAfee:,Because they're just as fickle as we are.
Kyli Rose:I can freely give myself regardless of what you do. I can freely serve you, regardless of what you give back. There are no strings attached. That is freedom.
Jina McAfee:That is freedom. So that's what we're saying. If we love like culture loves, then we're going to be enslaved. We're going to be a slave to our feelings, our moods, our fickle hearts, along with everyone else's.
ReGina Johnston:And we leave behind us all this brokenness. Honestly. We don't think about that when we're in the moment. But we leave behind us so much that not only we have to try to climb over later, but all of those that were associated with, in some deep way, in some committed way, and even those that we're not associated with, have to try to climb over a bunch of emotional baggage, when we're done following our feelings.
Jina McAfee:It's like you're sowing that. You're sowing that seed, and you're going get it back. That's how you're going to have a mess. We make our own mess. We are good at it. So what is love? We're going look at what love is.
Kyli Rose:Because we know what it's not, right.
ReGina Johnston:We've made that clear, hopefully.
Jina McAfee: 1 John 4:7-16 says this, "God is love." He is love. It's who He is. And everything is built on that foundation. He doesn't feel love. He doesn't behave lovingly. It's not just one of His attributes. He is love. He defines it. He's the source of it. And everything He is flows out of the fact that He is love. We were born into sin because of what Adam and Eve chose in the garden. They didn't obey God. They believed a lie. They stepped into sin, and that corrupt nature is now part of us. It's part of us now, and we have to choose not to live in that. We begin with that as little babies, and we have to choose not to live in that. When sin came in, God says, "Where are you?" They were hiding and blaming, all those things that define what it means to be in slavery instead of freedom. But He wants so much more for us.
ReGina Johnston:We see Him there in the garden, that example of love. When Adam and Eve had done exactly what He told them not to do, and they're hiding, He's going, "Adam. Adam. Adam. [And I can almost hear it with pain in His voice.] Where are you?" He knew where Adam was. He's God. It's almost like He's saying it, so Adam assesses, "Where am I? What have I sunk to? What in the world has happened?" We see other examples of God pursuing out throughout the Word. He pursued and loved by preserving a remnant after the flood. His feelings were,"Destroy them all!" But instead, He preserved a remnant. He pursued and loved by sending judges to call His people to repent and to be restored. This is Old Testament. God pursued and loved us by sending His prophets to try and woo the hearts of His kids back to Him. And then we step into the New Testament, and He pursued and loved us when He sent His only Son, and love...God is love...Love laid down His life for you and for me. But Kyli, what does culture say?
Kyli Rose:Culture is the complete opposite. I'll meet you in the middle if you meet me. I'll pursue you if you're pursuing me. So we see Jesus, we see the Lord, recklessly pursuing us from start to finish. We see this contrast, right? Like culture says, "Pick it up, pick up your rights, pick up your privileges, your terms, your feelings." But every day, we are awakened with the challenge that Jesus gives us in
1 John 3:16. He says, "Lay it down, lay those things down. And when you lay it down, because I know it feels like you're exercising your freedom to be able to set those terms and conditions, but really, He says that if you'll lay it down, that's when you'll truly start living, really knowing life. So He made a way for us to be free from our corrupt self. We established that, right? Jina was telling us how we were born into these corrupt bodies. We were actually in enmity. The Lord says that we were enemies of God. But then we see that in
2 Corinthians 5:17, it says, "We get a heart transplant." We've talked about how He's commanded us to love like He loves, which is a tall, tall order, a supernatural thing. You and I don't actually possess what is needed to do that in and of ourselves. So He commands us to do it, but then He gives us what we need to do it. He gives us the Holy Spirit. So we become transformed. We're transformed into our created self. The Word also says that we are His image bearers. We are the imago dei, the image of God.
Jina McAfee:That's origin, right?
Kyli Rose:Yes. We're called to look like Him. We are made in His image. So whenever we ask Him, and we're being transformed into looking more like Him, as we do that, we're actually becoming love like Him. And that's a big deal. It's one thing to behave in a certain way. There's a short shelf life. I can maybe scare my kids into doing what I want them to do for a short amount of time, but give it 30 minutes and they're going to be doing what they were doing before, what they just got in trouble for doing. There's not necessarily a heart change, there's not repentance. I just scared them into behavior modification. What God is calling us into is something deeper. He doesn't want us to be like really well behaved men and women, white knuckling our way through life, trying to be kind, trying to love, being thrown around every emotional wind and wrong that comes our way. He actually wants us to be transformed into His image. That is a wrestling process. And it is not easy, but He's given us what we need to do it. He's given us the Holy Spirit. He wants so much more for us. We can be really gifted saints who have offended hearts. We see the talents, but the heart underneath is bitter and offended. We can have prophetic words, we can pray really eloquent prayers that sound great, but we can also be believers with really sharp tongues. We want to see that transformation process. Love is the foundation piece for all of it. We're going to be talking about four more deceptions. All of them trace back to this question: Do I really believe that God loves me? And am I being transformed by that image. Culture says, "Pick it up," but Christ models for us over and over and over, love is laying it down again and again and again.
Jina McAfee:I loved hearing this truth years ago: Jesus never reacted to what someone else was doing, He acted. Sometimes I react, and I don't want to do that. So He's working that into me. He's doing that. I want to look at what God's love
is. One thing:it's not caused, and it's not merited. You didn't merit it, you didn't cause it, right? Ephesians 1:4 says this,"Long before He laid down earth's foundations, He had us in mind, had settled on as, as the focus of His love, to be made whole and holy." That's His plan. And you know what? He can make it come forth. If we will just submit to Him, He can do it. He chose you because he wanted to. He wanted to. You did not earn it. And I love this, you cannot lose it. But listen to this, the degree to which you accept His love, and surrender to His plan for you, will be the degree to which you are able to become it. You receive it, right? Like you say "Okay, I'm just going to live in it, I'm just going to believe it." You love me. I didn't do anything to earn it. I didn't do anything. You love me no matter what. But, also, and this is the part you need to listen to, you surrender to His plan for you. In other words, you've got to lay down your life for the life He's made for you. And that will be the degree to which you can become what He wants you to be, which is like Christ. He wants us to be like Him. And it's also the degree to which you are free. Another point, God's love is unending. It's eternal. God is love; therefore His love for you will never end. He doesn't change. God doesn't change. You might believe that you've pushed love beyond its borders. Like somehow you've lost it along the way, because of your own sinful choices or actions. You might believe that, but He wants you to know, you can't. He may not love your action, but He loves you, and He will walk with you to restore you.
ReGina Johnston:That concept of being transformed, is like, you can clench your fist and shut your eyes and try all you want to be totally different from the inside out, but that's not how it happens. We were made in His nature, originally, in His image. We were created that way. And if we yield to that, which is a choice, that changes my nature right back to its original plan.I've been transformed by love so then I can become love. So it creates no limits to who I can love. Who are we supposed to love? I'm free to love the people who love me, which is easy. The Bible says that's the easy part. It's loving your enemies and the people you don't know. Like, I love the people on the other side of the world that I don't know. I love people.
Jina McAfee:Even if you don't understand them.
ReGina Johnston:Right. I love myself.
Jina McAfee:That's hard to do, really.
ReGina Johnston:I can look in the mirror and say, "I love you." I'm struggling just thinking about it. I love you, except I don't really like the pointy nose and the fact that you know your face is changing over time. But God just looks at me and smiles and says, "I love you. I love you just the way you are." I want you to grow. I want us to do it together. But, girl, I love you. And I can love everyone because He first loved me. So how do we know or how can we say He loved us first? I mean, this might seem basic, but basic is where we need to go.
Kyli Rose:Scripture tells us over and over, in multiple places, that He gave His life for us. It says that He pursued us when we were still His enemies. It says that He chose us when we didn't choose Him. That's a big deal. I can't imagine being in a relationship with somebody knowing they don't want to be in a relationship with me. So I'm going to just keep pursuing them and keep loving them and keep pursuing them and keep loving them. They don't acknowledge me, they don't like me. In fact, they might even be at odds with me. Like, I openly don't want to be Kyli's friend, but Kyli is going to keep pursuing me. That's not normal. It's supernatural to have Him chasing us over and over and over. And, the Bible tells us that He is in perfect community in and of Himself. He was not created. He is the Creator. There is really no beginning for Him, and there is no end. He has perfect communion, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is incredible to know that there is a God who is pursuing me. He doesn't need me. He simply wants me. And then He invites me to come and do this thing with Him. He says, "You didn't choose Me, I chose you." And then we see the fruit of the Spirit. What's interesting is the fruit of the Spirit is singular, because it's actually all wrapped into this one concept of love. 1 John 4:10 says, "This is real love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us. And then He sent His son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." We were only in perfect communion with the Lord for three chapters of the Bible. From chapter four to the very last chapter in Revelation, all of Scripture is about this God who is pursuing His people, who is giving us opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to love Him back. And at no point do you ever see that love withdrawn. He's not dangling it. He is freely loving, continually pursuing, and He has had this rescue plan in place from Genesis four. And He will, until this thing is wrapped up.
Jina McAfee:When I was a little girl and even into my twenties, I wondered why Christ had to die on the cross. You can never get that visual out of your mind. Not only did He lay down His life for me, He suffered greater than anyone has suffered...for me. And when I see that visual, I think, okay, He loves me.
Kyli Rose:In our human experience, we may have had parents that we've pushed beyond the borders, and they've cut us off, or people who were supposed to be there for us, weren't, or they're supposed to keep us safe and didn't. Oftentimes, we transfer these experiences onto God. Through this podcast, I believe He's extending the invitation: "I will not hurt you. I will not leave you. You can push Me away, and you can run and you can run and you can run, but I am not going anywhere. I love you. I'm just saying it again. And again." He will continue to pursue us.
ReGina Johnston:Psychology tells us that we can behave our way into a feeling. We can form different habits of thinking that can cause our behavior to change. Or we can feel our way into a behavior. But what we're talking about is deeper than that. It's like an inward transformation to where there's something flowing from us, in the form of this love that we're talking about, that is genuine. It's real. It's not that I came up with some sort of button-pushing plan to behave differently. It's deeper than that. So how do I go from behaving to becoming?
Jina McAfee:I think people struggle too because they still see that they still sin. I still do the wrong thing sometimes, but in my heart, it bothers me because I have changed inside. And so the way we go from behaving to becoming is in Christ, in God. We abide in Him. We live in him. So what does that even mean? What does it mean to abide? 1 John 4:16-17 NLT says this, "We know how much God loves us. In fact, we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love, live in God. [So if we live in love, we live in God.] And God lives in them. And, as we live in God, our love grows more perfect...[It grows and grows and grows.] and we will live like Jesus here in this world." To understand what it means to abide in Christ, think about a picture of a baby inside of its mother. The baby is inside of mom for nine months for a normal delivery. So here's a question. Is the baby still, like completely still inside of that mom? Or is the baby moving?
Kyli Rose:He's moving?
Jina McAfee:As moms, we know what that's like. So abide is an active word. The baby is inside mom, but the baby is active, and the baby is growing. I love that too. So it's a verb. When we abide in God, we come into union with Him. Just like that baby, we get nourished by Him. We get everything we need from Him. To abide in Him is to give Him our attention, to be one with Him, to stay present with Him, to live intentionally with Him, through Him. It's all about Him. We stay connected and united with Him. Like, He's your lifeline, right? For that baby literally, that umbilical cord is a lifeline. He is literally our lifeline.
Kyli Rose:We get frustrated, because so many of us are trying to do the thing He commanded us to do without the abiding. And I think many of us are living in that tension, in that frustration of trying to behave and look and become like Christ without actually spending time with Him. And we will live in a frustrated state.
Jina McAfee:It's like you're a fake because it's not from inside. We're trying to make it happen.
ReGina Johnston:In many ways we're just striving. I don't even like the sound of that. Striving is a harsh word.
Jina McAfee:It is harsh, and it's hard. So let's look at John
15:4-5. Jesus says, "I am the vine, and my Father is the farmer. We are the branches." So we're attached to the vine. We're attached to Him. That's how we get nourishment. If we get cut off, we're going to die. It says we get everything we need from Him. We get our very life from Him. The Message version says, "Live in Me. Make your home in Me just as I do in you." He lives in us just like He wants us to live in Him. That is a mystery, really. A branch cannot produce fruit, cannot bear love, when it's severed from the vine. Without Him, we cannot produce fruit. We cannot produce love. If we are abiding in Him, and if He is abiding in us, we live in love and love is what comes from us in all occasions, in all circumstances. Don't you love that? That's what we want. Culture minimizes God's love because we cannot produce it on our own. Culture cannot produce God's love. Only God can produce God's love. What is the opposite of love? Selfishness. The idea that "Love is good when it is good for me!" is selfish, right? But real love, God's love, cannot coexist with selfishness. There's nothing of self in God's love, nothing. Remember, as we live in God, our love grows. It grows more perfect. And we will live like Jesus here in this world. It really is a mystery, ladies. But we've got to have Him. We can't do it on our own. I love that He sent Holy Spirit to live in us.
ReGina Johnston:So how do we go from behaving to becoming? We abide in Him instead of trying to do the things that God commands us to do, the things that we know we're supposed to do, things we need to do to make it in this world, things that mama and daddy taught us was right, or the things that we know we have to do to keep our job or whatever. Instead of trying to do all those things in our own minds, we could just concentrate on abiding in Him. But we get antsy, and sometimes we get bored. We don't stir up the flames in oursevles like Paul encouraged Timothy. We don't stay connected to people and to the Word, the Vine, like we're supposed to. Also, and this goes hand-in-hand with abiding, we have to obey. Once we've stopped obeying, we've stopped abiding. John 15:9-10 says, "I have loved you even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in My love. When you obey My commandments, you remain in My Love...." That shows us again that the commandments of abiding and obedience are woven together as one. And we're truly abiding in Jesus, when we continue to do what His Word says. Now, I don't know about you, but obedience can sometimes be a very intimidating word for most of us. It's because we just don't understand how God's justice and consequences work alongside His perfect love. Like we don't get it. For us, it's like one valve shuts off when the other valve shuts on. But that's not the way it happens with God. He's equal parts, justice, and equal parts, mercy, all wound up in His nature of love. So remember, God's love is uncaused and unending. It's also uncomplicated. We're the ones that complicate it. So you can
read about this in John 15:2 how He cares for His branches, the branches that are connected to Him by picking up the fruitful branches and propping them up, also by pruning the unfruitful branches, which may not feel a lot like love, but He sees the greater harvest of love in us. So obedience is made simple when we abide. It's not that I always want to do exactly what He's saying. Somebody treated me wrong, and I need to forgive them, but if I forgive them, I don't feel like they will experience the consequences of their actions. I think I hold all of that in my hands, like, if I forgive them, then they won't experience the consequences as if that's all for me to control. But if we will just abide in Him, then we're more willing. He makes our spirits more willing to do what He's asking us to do. And He's commanding us to remain in His nature and to remain in His love. Now, we're going to mess up. Peter messed up, right? The apostle Peter denied Christ. I mean, it was a big mess up. He lied. But Peter comes back around, because the Lord pursued him. After resurrection, Jesus pursues Peter, and basically, restores him. Then Peter gives us this encouragement in 2 Peter 1:4: "His divine power has given you everything you need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him....through these He has given us His good and precious promises." Love may not be a rose garden, but love became a man, Jesus Christ, so that you could become love, and so that we could return to our garden status. So God's love is unending and unmerited. God has loved us beyond all borders and beyond all time. His love is uncomplicated, for He's given us everything we need to abide and obey. I love that.
Kyli Rose:There's a story of a woman. Her name is Trula Cronk. She was a missionary in India. She shares this story of an evening where a little girl from the village had come and had spent an extended amount of time at their home. The day went on, it turned into evening, and before you knew it, it was nighttime, and the little girl was scared to go home. The sun had gone down. It was dark. And one of the things that Trula said to this little girl was,"It's okay. God loves you, and He's going to take care of you, even in the dark." And the little girl, Trula recounts looks up at her, and she says, in her native tongue, "God doesn't love little girls. He doesn't love little girls." It was in that moment that Trula made the decision, "I am going to give my entire life and every ounce of who I am to make sure that I can tell as many little girls on this planet that God does indeed love them." And I think so often, we are that little girl in some way. God doesn't love girls. God doesn't love divorcees. God doesn't love me. I have been in. I've been out. I messed up so many times. My own parents don't even love me. Why would He love me? I wasn't chosen by them. He left. God doesn't love me. Maybe I made choices, and they're broken. He doesn't love addicts. And you fill in the blank. We've all filled it in with something. I have filled it in with so many things. He doesn't love hypocrites. Whatever it is. But He loves you. He loves you. And He has given us, the body of Christ, the mission. Our job is very similar to Trula's. I want to make sure that I spend the rest of my life making sure that the people I come into contact with know that God loves them. He loves them. And we cannot do that, we will not be able to fully walk out our mission, our calling, the thing that we have been called to do, if we don't believe that He truly loves us. So what is love? Am I being transformed by it? Am I abiding in love itself and becoming love itself? And then going out into a world who is like that little girl saying, "God doesn't love me. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm called to do." And are we speaking into those places, into those people? It sounds kind of dramatic, but it's true. Life and death actually hang in the balance of this question. I cannot give something that I am not receiving and being transformed by. And so the measure to which I fully surrender to this truth will be the measure to which I know freedom and the measure to which I'm able to extend it to the people around me. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. So I believe that the Lord wants us as the body of Christ to get a really fresh revelation of what love is, so that we can live life so free of the bondage of ours and other people's fickle emotions, that we're not slaves to that anymore. We can be set free to become love, and not just behave lovingly because that's what we're supposed to do. You and I were made for so much more than just white-knuckling behavior modification, just being well behaved men and women. We were not meant to do that. We were designed to be transformed by love Himself and then to become love to every single image bearer that we encounter. God, I just thank You. We start by saying thank
ReGina Johnston:So pray us out. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll see you next time at You for loving us. I say thank You for loving me. You pursued me when I wasn't pursuing You. God, You pulled me out of a pit that I dug for myself. You put me back on my feet, and you set them in a direction toward life. You allow me to get close to You. In fact, You invite me to get close to You. You want me to. You will not push me. You won't force me. But You'll keep inviting me day after day after day after day. So God, I pray that anyone who's listening, that they would realize that the
invitation extends to them:"Get closer. Come sit with Me. Get to know Me. Get to know My heart for you." God, I pray that we would say, "Yes" to the invitation. Not just for us, but for the world around us. The world who's asking, "What is love? Am I worth loving? Can I give love? Is this the best that there is? Being in and out and up and down, tied to other people's actions?" God, I pray that today, that You would just so settle it in the hearts of those people asking those questions that they are so loved, and so precious to You. God, I thank You for loving us, for choosing us and then inviting us into something bigger than ourselves. We love You, and we thank You. In Jesus' name. Amen. the Table of Origin.