Embracing God's Reality: Love, Kingdom, and Transformation

"Now Psalm 46 isn't talking about that, see Psalm 46 is talking about spiritual reality as if it were an ultimate and irreducible, indeed something from which everything else came. So you see the differences there now and the problem is that in all of our areas of professional and academic competence, spiritual reality does not play a part." [00:02:56]

"We have placed so much emphasis on profession in our religion, often for cultural and historical reasons, we've placed so much emphasis on it that we often can't distinguish between professing something and actually believing it, and that's what we have to help ourselves and our people with, is to bring them to the place to where they really do believe in God." [00:07:26]

"True well-being is found in living within God's kingdom, where our lives align with His action and purposes. This involves seeking His righteousness and trusting in His provision, as emphasized in Luke 6 and Joshua 1:8. Our well-being is a matter of being alive in the kingdom of God, of learning to act in that." [00:10:29]

"A really good person is one who is pervaded by agape love. They're pervaded with it, their body, their soul, their spirit, their character is all organized around agape love. What is that? Well, agape love is simply the intention to do the things that are good for the people who are loved." [00:11:50]

"Becoming a good person involves being a disciple of Jesus, learning to live in God's kingdom and relying on His resources. This transformation releases us from the burdens of self-management and deceit. We have to lay it down and then, but if we don't lay it down, then we have all these other problems." [00:13:18]

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Reminds me of the story of the little girl in Sunday school who's asked what is a lie, and she said it's an abomination to God and a very present help in time of trouble. Well see, that's what a child learns." [00:14:03]

"Paul in Colossians 3, you'll remember, where he's talking about the progression that leads into the fullness of life in Christ. He goes through that passage where he says, don't lie one to another seeing you have laid aside the old person with his deeds. That's a part of what we have to learn." [00:15:55]

"To learn what Jesus has to teach us, and now all of the great teachers of life have to address this. Everything from Rush Limbaugh to the Buddha and you'll find them talking about it. And the reason for that is because these are unavoidable questions. If I get up in the morning, what I have to decide first is what is reality." [00:18:14]

"God's address is the end of your rope, and when you get down there you'll find him so into my rope. As long as I've got a few tricks left, you'll probably let me work him out, but then when I can turn loose and trust the God who is love, who has come to act in human history." [00:23:17]

"God is real and if I surrender to him and live in his way he will bring to pass things that I can't even begin to imagine. That's what the scripture says isn't it, beyond all that we can ask or think, right, when we have learned to live in that reality." [00:24:02]

"Reality is in favor of loving your enemies and if I do that, I am not going to be destroyed. Now of course to love them doesn't mean you do what they want, right, that's desire. To love someone may mean you do what they don't want because you're acting for their good and not simply their desire." [00:22:13]

"Jesus will bring us to the place to where all of those things we live in very comfortably and we live out of strength, and we see the hand of God moving to accomplish things that we can't begin to budge. From my experience as a pastor, our only hope is that God will act." [00:22:48]