Choosing Life: A Relationship-Based Approach to God

1. "How you're doing what you're doing is more important than what you're doing. So your approach to the freedom curriculum is more important than the freedom curriculum itself. Your approach to God, how you're viewing your journey toward God is very important. And the reason why I say that is, is that I really believe that Christianity has a branding problem of sorts. In fact, there are two different ways that people approach God. And by and large, people are approaching God the wrong way, which is why most people don't really enjoy anything about Christianity or God." [01:22] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "Christianity is not about a denomination or a religion or an organization. It's about a relationship with God, knowing him, not all about just being a part of an organization or a religion. And I had her, she was thinking that you could see her really processing these thoughts. And then that drink in her hand, she put it over in my face. I think she actually spilled a little on me, which I had explained when I got home anyway, but, but, but she, she said, well, what do you think your God thinks about this? And to prove my point, I said, I don't think God cares about that at all. I think he cares about you." [06:14] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil says, do more. That's how you get to God. That needs to be your approach. Do more. Now, I actually believed this one growing up. Actually, I had what I call a Wizard of Oz kind of view of God. If you know the Wizard of Oz story, Oz can grant you great things. He's Oz the Great and Powerful, right? And then finally, Dorothy and her three companions get this audience with Oz. And he's just, of course, he's fuming mad, red smoke, green face. And the first thing that he says is, what do you want? He's screaming at her and all that's going on, right? And she says, I just want to go home. I want to get to Kansas. And he says, fine, that can happen if you'll go perform for me, if you'll go get the broom from the Wicked Witch of the West." [13:40] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "The tree of life says, receive the fact that Jesus has already done it. He's done it. The realization of that brings so much life to you that realize that everything that needed to be done to get to God has been done. Can I hear a good amen, Highlands College? I mean, that's just so good for you to realize that you can't do more to get to God. You can't do that." [14:57] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Too many people have the wrong view of God and your view of God will determine what your relationship with God is going to look like. So if you see him as harsh, you're going to approach him as, as a harsh God. That, that, again, the tree of the knowledge, good and evil says is that God is, you know, that we're, that we got to, we got to get God's approval because he's really just, he's just, he's just mad. Well, that's not true. The tree of life says the opposite, receive the fact that he already loves you. He already loves you. And I want to take it one step further. He even loves you on the day where you were, we're the biggest knucklehead in the world. On our worst day, he still loves, loves us." [18:36] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "You can fulfill the commands of the Bible better by falling in love with God rather than trying to obey everything the Bible tells you to do. All right, here's the second thing, all right? I'm gonna give you four little principles to live this out. Second is, is that we're gonna serve God through relationships, not rules. So now we're in love, but now we've gotta live in love. We've gotta live it out, right? So now you're going through your day and you're going through your life and you have to make a conscious decision that the reason you're doing something is out of relationship and not out of rules." [27:34] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "When you're tempted, it really reveals more about your relationship with God than it does your self-control. So next time you have temptation, and we all do, realize that it probably exposes more about how close you are to God rather than how disciplined you are. And that's why I want you to approach God through a relationship. So in those moments where you feel weak and tempted, strengthen your relationship before you try to be more disciplined, all right? We're gonna approach God through relationships, not rules." [29:33] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "When it happens, again, again, you've got a choice of which tree you're gonna be in, okay? And in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when you mess up, you'll feel condemned. That's how you'll know you're in the wrong tree. You'll feel condemned. But in the tree of life, you'll feel convicted. God will still say, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know? But conviction, let me tell you the difference between condemnation and conviction. Condemnation says you messed up and you're a bum. Can't I believe you did that? Conviction says, hey, you messed up and here's the way out. It's just a different approach to the exact same thing." [30:42] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "Grace is, neither do I condemn you. But truth says, go now and leave your life of sin. And that's how we approach ourselves. Listen to me. Because the hyper teaching of this thought is, oh, but then God doesn't care what I do. Oh, yes, he does. He just extends to you grace. And he extends to you no condemnation. But he also extends to you truth that says, hey, hey, hey, let's take some different steps now. And that's how we need to approach Christianity for ourselves. And it's also how we need to treat others as well." [33:58] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "What am I gonna do to find freedom? What am I gonna do to pursue God? What am I gonna do to be godly? What's gonna be my, we're back to the same question. What is gonna be my approach? And here's the answer. In a word is, you have to make a choice. You have to make a choice all the time. So we'll close with this verse out of Deuteronomy chapter 30. This day I call the heavens and the earth as a witness against you, that I have set before you life and death. And by the way, every one of you who are studying this curriculum, I say that same thing to you. We are gonna set before you a journey with two different approaches. One that will produce life and freedom and wonderful results. And one, if you go on down with the wrong tree, will produce death. Blessing. Blessing and curses. And it's your job to make a choice. Now choose life." [35:11] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)