The Way Up: Abide in God's Love

Nothing wrong with a good new container system, I'm going to say. But we cannot organize our way out of the chaos. It's not possible. Jesus doesn't offer us escape from any of this, does he? But he does offer us a different way of living in it, a way grounded in something deeper than performance or productivity or pressure. [00:46:17] (27 seconds)  #LiveBeyondPerformance

I was a little confused because Jesus changed that game. Jesus changed those rules. Jesus changed that reality. He wasn't going to be dwelling in a building. He was always gonna dwell in the church. But what's the church? That's us. We are the church. We are the temple. He changed the plan, and by his spirit, he is here in us. [00:55:09] (33 seconds)  #SpiritLivesInUs

Doing is wonderful. But Jesus reminds us that we cannot do our way to fruitfulness. We can't do our way to god's good books. We can't perform our way to fruit. We can't strive our way to spiritual growth. Doing is not wrong. Doing is great. If you do, keep doing. It's wonderful. James talks about the importance of doing, how it's reflective of what's happening internally. But doing to gain favor, doing to earn love, doing to fend off god's disapproval of us, that is misguided and unnecessary. [00:56:20] (44 seconds)  #AbideNotPerform

I had the image of a god sitting opposite me in another one of these fabric green tub chairs in my little local library. And in that moment, I had this sense that God was sitting opposite me, looking at me, smiling at me, pleased with me, rejoicing over me, happy with who I am just as I am right now. [01:02:31] (35 seconds)  #GodSmilesAtYou

And I want to suggest that when god says I'm not gonna dwell in stone and glass and brick anymore, but in people, to know that I am the house of god and you are the house of god is wonderful news. But so too is knowing that we have a God who who deeply loves us, who rejoices in us, who is pleased with us. That's a god I can abide with. [01:04:26] (35 seconds)  #GodDwellsInUs

And so because we are loved, we can abide, we can dwell, we can live with Jesus. We can read this knowing that this is a story of God's love for creation and his love for you. We can pray to him knowing that he's smiling at us, that he rejoices over us. We can obey and look for his guidance in our life with freedom, not with this ominous sense of, oh, when's the backhanded slap going to come? It's not. It's not. [01:05:11] (44 seconds)  #AbideInLoveNotFear

``Jesus dwells in us, remains in us, abides with us. And because of that, he says, remain in me. Remain in my love. Don't try and earn my love. Don't try and prove yourself worthy of my love. Remain in it. Abide. Don't strive. No need to look for god's special presence in any building on the planet. You are the temple of God. He chooses to dwell in you, remain in you, and he says very simply, you remain with me too. [01:05:56] (43 seconds)  #RemainInHisLove

I will say that if you're here this morning and you're not sure what you believe about Jesus yet, you don't consider yourself a Jesus follower, you're kind of on the edges of what this faith thing looks like, I would say this one thing, following Jesus is not about appeasing an angry god. It's about accepting that Jesus has done all of that work. The invitation is not to perform. It's to come and to dwell. [01:11:39] (33 seconds)  #ComeAndDwell