Transcription
Watch this. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. As his divine power has given to us how many things? All things pertaining to life and to godliness through the knowledge of him who called. So all this comes through him, through knowing him. Through seeing him; this is way more than theology. This has to do with heart and intention and purpose. Yeah. Like quoting scripture isn't knowing God.
In him who called us by glory and virtue, by which by which we have been given, oh, this gets so good, exceedingly great and precious promises. He's not talking about full vats and barns and a healthy IRA and protection for all your loved ones till the day you die. I mean, that stuff is great. That's great. And you can just believe God has his hand on your life. I get that. But he's not talking about full vats and barns here. Look, exceedingly more than enough great and precious promises that through these promises you may be partakers of the divine nature.
He has made promises through Christ, through the infilling of the Holy Spirit, that we can follow him, that we can love like him, that we can forgive like him, that we can manifest him. Paul spent countless hours of his life and time like like laboring like a woman in birth till Christ be formed in us, right? He says, "Till every man be presented complete in Christ." That's the goal of Paul. Not pray a prayer to go to heaven, not never get laid off, never get in a car accident, never have any trials or troubles. That's not even scriptural. That's like a self-centered mindset. And the devil's having a field day with that one. Uh-oh. So, they're praying for no troubleshoop. And three troubles later, God, what did I do wrong? What door did I open? Why are you leading the devil? I thought you loved me. You ever hear that in people?
His love isn't challenged by circumstances. His love is settled through the cross. You're rooted and grounded in love because of the cross, not the circumstances of your life. You have to see his first love. If you're going to love him, I'm just telling you, I'm not being rude. Anybody can need him. We all know we do. Needing him is not intimate and awesome. Needing him is the humble reality of where we're at because he made us for his image. We're dependent on him. He He even made the flesh and the spirit to war against one another so we couldn't do what we ought. In other words, we have need of him in that way.
Tower of Babel. He said, "Man, they set their mind on things again in unity. This is amazing. I made these guys pretty awesome. There's nothing they can't accomplish." So he comes and mixes up the language. Why? So they can't achieve anything apart from him because the whole goal is manifesting him. Not needing him, manifesting him. You can go to church your whole life, serve in ministry, have the highest degrees of theology, and if you don't walk in love, you've missed the point of why he came. You've done ministry, but you didn't do him. Are you with me? It's all about the heart. It's all about your motives.
Says if you hate, you're in darkness till now. I don't care if you pray in tongues. You're in darkness. If you hate, you're lusting, you've committed adultery. It's all about the heart. And I promise you, it's not about survival. It's not about needing him. It's about becoming one with him. And that on your darkest day, he saw you the same as he created you to be. And he didn't let your sin change him. So he has the power to change our status. And he washes us in the precious, holy blood of Jesus. And I come out more than powerwashed. Buddy, I am white as snow. Are you with me? And from that day on, I live that way with an unveiled face and can approach him because I believe he loves me that much. And I see his first love and it reciprocates my heart to now I can love the person of God. You get it?
Very important. I know there's a lot of us that say we love him and I think we mean it. We're serious. But we prove that we don't understand what love is. Loving him like love; if you love him you'll do what he says to do, not to prove you love him. Because you love him, you're not in works trying to do what he says to do to say, "See, I love him." When you love him you'll just do what he says to do; it's a diff it's relational; it's a different arena; it's not serving him; it's loving him. Like if you don't get relational with God and put on righteousness and seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, you'll feel indebted because of the story of the cross. You'll feel like he laid down everything. You ought to lay down at least something, and you'll feel indebted to God and you won't have an intimate relationship that's reciprocal. You'll get tricked into serving him and then you'll always weigh yourself to see if you're serving him sufficient. And you'll always feel like you're not doing good enough because it's all about you and works. So you'll be semi-condemned, feel semi-separated, and you'll be in all the right places in this close to him, but yet far away. And in that place, your nature doesn't change, your attitudes don't change, your emotion, expressions don't change, the way you see people don't change. In fact, you become very self-focused in that arena. Am I making sense?