May 16th 6PM Eph 6:14 The Belt of Truth (Love the Truth)

One of the things I found in my life is this, that what I tolerate today, I'll be comfortable with tomorrow. And what I'm comfortable with tomorrow destroys me in the future. What I tolerate today in my life, the sin that I look at and and wink at or squint at or pretend like it's not there, what I allow to hang out in my life, I eventually become comfortable with. It stays long enough that it's set up shop in my heart. [00:48:43] (34 seconds)  #StopToleratingSin

It's not just the competing love of reputation that we all struggle with. There's also the competing love of comfort. And let me just raise my hand as the guy at the front row of this train. The competing love of comfort is really difficult for us. When we love ease more than transformation. When we just want things to go well because we get tired of it not going well. When we love ease and comfort more than holiness. This is the competing love of comfort. It becomes an idol. [00:45:48] (35 seconds)  #ComfortIsAnIdol

There are so many Christians who were stuck in their pain and stuck in their brokenness. They're stuck in their wounds. They're stuck in their hurt. And they're so afraid to cry out like Bartimaeus and say, Lord Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. They've been sitting beside the road in that spot for a long time. They're comfortable with it. People know them as blind Bartimaeus. Who will I be if I'm no longer blind? Who will I be if I'm not holding on to the pain of the things that have come into my life? Who am I going to be? [00:58:18] (43 seconds)  #NotDefinedByMyPain

The more time we spend beholding Christ through scripture, through prayer, and worship, the more our hearts grow warm toward Jesus. Listen, we're not gonna fight the lies of the enemy by simply grinning and bearing it. We're not going to bootstrap our way into loving Jesus more. We have to put on the new life as Paul tells us, which means we participate in this transformation project that god is doing in our lives by his spirit as we spend time cultivating love for Jesus, doing the very things he's given us to do. [01:08:10] (42 seconds)  #BeholdChristDaily

Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commands. So, loving Jesus finds its expression in our obedience. Loving Jesus works itself out in the fruit of our obedience. Jesus says, if you love me, you'll do what I say. When we love Jesus, we love his ways. We love to do things his way. We love to obey him. We love to put a smile on his face when we do what he tells us to do. [00:37:12] (33 seconds)  #LoveShowsInObedience

The love of being in control. You know, most of us who are in Christ don't reject Jesus or his commands altogether, but what we find is that we often negotiate. We accept his commands selectively. On our terms, we want Jesus as savior, but we still wanna reserve the right to live and hold on to these things over here and have our own autonomy over them. We want the right to decide where his lordship applies. [00:50:47] (37 seconds)  #NoSelectiveSavior

and and making those good things come alive in our heart in such a way that those good things become ruling things. They become lording things over us. And when those good things become ruling things, the bible says the word for that is that they are an idol. They become idols in our lives. When a good thing becomes a ruling thing, it becomes a competing affection with Jesus. The only one who is our good lord and who lords over us perfectly. [00:40:34] (35 seconds)  #WhenGoodBecomesAnIdol

Sometimes, we protect sin because we love it. Sometimes, we protect sin because we've become victims. We've allowed the brokenness to become our identity. We're afraid of what healing would require. I think of the story of Bartimaeus, the blind man, who's sitting on the side of the road. He can't see, but he hears a crowd. He probably hears them chanting and yelling the name of Jesus. He's probably asking who's coming, who is it, and Jesus is on the way. [00:57:04] (46 seconds)  #IdentityBeyondWounds