Freedom from a Punishment-Based Relationship with God

[Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] want to welcome you all to this broadcast. It's a pleasure. It is an honor to be able to speak to your life, into your journey. Mark De Jesus here, looking forward to expressing a very important subject. I believe is necessary in the journey, and it's one I observed in my own life, and it's one that I observe everywhere in the people that I help and work through.

I want to talk about something that, whether you struggle with mental health, emotional struggles, relationship things that are going on, or battles that you're facing, I think I pretty much covered everybody. I find that we tend to focus on the problem. Maybe you've got anxiety, you've got depression, OCD, you've got a marriage struggle, you've got an addiction, you got it. And we tend to wanna like quick fix that problem, go back to life. And I wanna really encourage your heart to sit back and and really listen through what I'm going to share with you today, because the symptoms that we battle are actually a call for us to revisit the foundation. Christianity has been notorious in recent decades, in modern times, for finding three quick steps to, you know, to snip the branches, and then we're very frustrated when that same branch grows back again. We need to get to the root. We need to get to the heart of the matter. But in order to do that, we have to realize that the problem is not the problem.

Now, I noticed this a lot in my OCD struggles and anxiety struggles because I felt like no matter how much I chased a specific anxiety, a phobia, an obsessive issue, it never ever led me anywhere. And it wasn't until then that I actually began to experience some new life because I had to come to the end of myself. And I find that we, we, when we don't come to the end of ourselves, because we're still trying the same things to find life in certain directions. And I came to the end of myself and I realized something very, very powerful. My lens and how I viewed God is needing healing in a tremendous way. Now, for a while, I was like, I need to get counseling. I need somebody to help me. And and I just go from person to person, thing to thing, resource to resource, just trying to help me with this symptom, right? We live in a symptom-chasing society. Chase the symptom, do something to the symptom, and then we never really deal with the root issue.

I had to realize that I had a punishment-based relationship with God. I realized that my relationship with God was not built on the foundation it was meant to be built on. So everything from that stemmed out of this place on how I view God. And so many of you are chasing things in your life, in your battle, but how you view God springboards it. So here's how I viewed God. I'm not telling you what I told people. And this is what I want to cut through. I want to cut through what you can tell me about God. I don't want to hear what you can tell me about God. I want to know what you start grabbing on to when your battles are waging, because that's what brings out what we really see about God. So I'm all about getting real. We gotta get real about this, or we ain't getting anywhere.

And here's what I, because I realized, okay, the way that I approach God, this is not working. The problem is not God. The problem is not like that God is playing games with me. The problem is in between the frequency between how I've been conditioned to view God needs a renovation. And I realized my, the way that I saw God was, first and foremost, he was, um, he was always distant. I always felt the sense of distance. A God is not near. And so that's a lie. Okay. So we start off with a lie, and then we behave based off of a lie. So God is not here, he's far away. And so then I would follow the lie to level two. See, that's what we tend to do. You have a certain grit of God in, in, in your life. And so many people feel God's distance. The number one com, top of the list complaint or struggle that I get back from Christians, I, I feel connected to God, close to God. So we, we feel it, we feel this distance. It's based on a lie. We agree with it. And then what happens is, this is why I talk about the rejection mindset. It leads us into all these parameters. I gotta get things together. I gotta get things straight. I gotta, I gotta make sure that I'm in good standing. Do my devotions enough. Here's the problem with that. You could never ever do that to actually fulfill any true. Those things can never fulfill and bring true connection to God. But they bring a religious little burst. Oh, I feel good because I read my Bible today. I feel good because I said my prayers. I feel good because I served today. I feel good because here's, here's a classic one that I, I would, I would beat down so many times. People get so frustrated with me. They say, well, I don't have any sin in my life. And I would say, liar. [Laughter] And see, we were trained to believe sin in your life means those really rotten sins. But you know, you could have some bitterness, envy, and jealousy. You could have anxiety, fear, and all this stuff just spurning up. Well, that's not, you know, not those things, you know.

So I realized, okay, this whole like goal of like being sinless, this is a trap. And this whole thing about God being far, this is, this is a rejection issue. And I do not, this is what really brought a game changer for me. How is it that I don't know God as a father when the entire New Testament is covered with sharing the heart of the Father? It's all Jesus did when he was teaching us how to relate to God. Like, I got to show you how to relate to your dad, how to relate to your heavenly Father. And we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I got this. So what I had to stop and realize is that number one, I feel that God's far away all the time. I don't feel that's an unconditional love problem. That's not knowing how to experience unconditional love. We can do church, we can do church life, but we don't have a connection to his love. The other thing I realized is, I realized I had a punishment-based relationship with God. So whenever I felt like I wasn't performing well, I felt the displeasure from him in a way that was going to dismiss me and separate me. So then you go to people and say, I feel far from God. And here's what we do as Christians. Okay, you got some sin in your life. We need to do. We never thought to consider, hmm, yeah, he's not far, he's right here. Jesus said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. But we've come under religious conditioning that God's proximity is here, there, like he's constantly moving. So if, if we talk about our Christian life, and let's get real, where you feel distant one day, close another day, just another day somewhat close, another day he's far away. Another day, it's the whole thing is wrapped in a punishment-based relationship. It's, it's, I'm somewhat close to when I do well. And it negates the gospel. The gospel says you have nothing to offer to be righteous, to be close to God. And somehow we were trained that we still gotta, we gotta do something to make this happen. And that's not how unconditional love works. We have to learn to receive that. But when you're trained in performance, and when you're trained in perfectionism, when you're trained in religious legalism, getting free from that and looking towards freedom, it looks like you're going to head right to lawlessness. Freedom actually seems too good to be true. And to many legalists out there, they can think freedom means compromising sin. Not, didn't have to compromise sin at all. But what we've done is we've added to the list of sins, like the Pharisees have done, added to things, put another weight. We have a modern form of religious Phariseeism. And it is performance-based Christianity. It's repackaged law. It's repackaged Phariseeism.

So your battle shows to you, the problem is not the problem. It's how you're relating to God. That's the issue. Do you know how to relate to God as a father? As a God who draws near and remains faithful? Do you know how to relate to a God who absolutely unconditionally loves you right where you are? And it is his love in connection that begins to lead you into freedom. I realized in my mental health battle, I didn't have that connection. Now, some people say, oh man, I'm not even saying that must mean I'm not even saved. No, I, I doubt it. So many people that tune into what I, what I, what I broadcast, you've asked the Lord into your life eight thousand times. You can do it 80,000 times. It's not about you just fixing or trying to go to God better. We have to learn, who am I talking to in the first place? Is he angry? Is he upset with you? Is he irritated? Now, if you read the Bible without mentoring and without relational tutelage, you could get lost in a lot of scriptures because they get twisted, get distorted, and you can go off the deep end because context gets lost.

One of the symptoms of being in a punishment-based relationship is you're always afraid of the hammer to fall. So therefore, you lose context. For example, if I say to my children, for instance, my daughter Abby, I say, "Hey, Abby, can I, can I talk to you for a minute?" If she has a punishment-based relationship with God, she will 100% feel, "Oh, what's going to happen?" Fear grips her heart right now. I know this as a father. That fear will want to poke at our children because they don't want to be punished, or they don't want to be disciplined, or they, or they're scared and shame covers. So I practice this with my kids. This is what I do. I go, "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" And I do not use that only as corrective time. In fact, I don't use that as corrective time. I go, "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" Because I knew when I was a kid, "Principal, come to the principal's office." "Hey, the teacher wants to meet with me afterwards." "Hey, my parents want to talk to me." "Hey, someone wants to talk to me." It was never good news. This is how broken we are. Why don't we call up people and say, "Hey, I want to have a meeting with you," and we just sit and we just bring out, "I want to tell you how much I appreciate you and love you." This is how broken in sin we are because we don't know how to convey that.

So I'll call my daughter over, go, "Hey, Abby, come on over." And she's like, 50/50. She's like, "I think he just wants to hang out with me." But didn't I do so? I just want to tell you, I appreciate how you were patient with Max. And I want to appreciate how you were tender towards him. It means a lot to me as, as your dad. And that's good character. I appreciate that because I know things that get called out, they'll get repeated in a good way. And so, "Hey, I know your, your brother has struggles. Um, our son's on the autism spectrum. He's like, you know, you being kind to him, I appreciate that because you could be impatient, you could be frustrated, and you could act out of that, and you didn't. I appreciate that." Because I want to practice with my children that proximity, calling you near, is not punishment. But my whole life growing up, Mark, I gotta talk to you here. Here we go. Here we go. Because our relationship was based on what we were doing wrong. So your relationship with God is based on what you're doing wrong versus what he did right, and what he's bringing out in you, and the love that he has for you, and the beauty that he sees in who you are in Christ, in him. The beauty of that. Your problem is not your problem. It's the foundation. Who are you talking to when you relate to God?

So it caused me to go on a journey of, I have to, I have to unlearn punishment-based thinking in my life. Because if I'm punishment-based, I, I will avoid God. I'll avoid you. Because we as humans tend to only, we call out the negatives a lot, don't we? "Hey, I gotta sit down and meet with you." When was the last time your boss sat down with you and said, "Hey, I want to meet with you," sat you down and just called out all the wonderful things? It's always, sometimes they'll Oreo cookie it, you know, say a great thing on one end, but then we got to get to the real thing. So you're listening to the compliment and you're going, "When's the hammer going to fall? When's the hammer going to fall? When's the hammer going to fall?" And then they bookend it with another encouragement, but they stick right in the middle of it. You know what they really wanted to say, which was some kind of corrective thing, right? And so we do that with God. So we can't extract the scriptures where God's eternal love and grace is placed there because we're like, "Oh, when's the hammer going to fall? When's the hammer going to fall? When's the hammer going to fall?"

I realized if I'm punishment-based with God, I won't know how to approach him boldly before the throne of grace. Therefore, I won't be able to be stirred up in my faith. Fear and condemnation are gonna win every time. They're gonna be the driving factors. They're gonna be what I'm listening to. That's gonna be the narrative. So no wonder I'm anxious all the time. I am listening to a just horde of fearful, condemning thinking that's pushing me down. So here's what a foundation of punishment-based relationship will do. It will drive you to do things because you don't want God to punish you. Second, it'll drive you to not do things so that God will not punish you. Now, that will never build a long-term healthy relationship ever. Love is the only true foundation that can build a solid, solid, solid framework for everything else to be built on.

Why am I saying this? Stop chasing your symptoms. Get to the root. Mark, why do I have addictions? You have a need to be loved. Mark, why am I OCD? There's a deeper need of love in your life. Mark, why do I have anxiety? There's a deeper need for love in your life. Why do I have this PTSD? Why do I have all this, this panic attack? There's a deeper need for love to have its work. Because love tells you you're safe in relationship. Relationship doesn't just all of a sudden leave you because you made a mistake. In fact, where sin abounds, grace abounds more. God's ability and capacity increases. Just when you think you are at your worst, God's capacity to love you has only just begun. It is increasing ever more. But we can't receive it. So it's hard to interact with God because interac, if I'm going to interact with, with God, I need to know who he is, and I need to receive what he's given to me. Did you catch that? I need to know who he is. I need to receive what he's given to me. So Christians pandemically don't see him as a loving Father, therefore don't know how to receive it. And even if they compre, try to comprehend receiving his love, unworthiness kicks up. They push it back. And and and then they spin and repeat and repeat and repeat the cycles over again.

So a punishment-based relationship, you're always going to struggle with feeling close to God. You're always going to feel like you have to get things together. You'll avoid God throughout your life. You'll avoid relationships. Your performance, performance, performance. You evaluate yourself on how well you're doing. You'll develop a plus-minus equation with God. You know, always doing okay here, doing okay there. God, um, and many of us, because of our lack of love, we develop these black and white perspectives. Now, most people with a punishment-based relationship with God, they, they, they have legalism as a frame of reference. When you don't have an experience of what love is, you look for the rules. Rules are the shortcut to avoid relationship. And this is New Testament, this is Old Testament. This isn't just New Testament.

I'll give you an Old Testament example. Moses goes up to the mountain. He has this encounter with God so intense, it changes the countenance on his face. He's impacted by the glory of God. That physically, his body is impacted by the dude's glowing. How'd you like to walk around just glowing like that, radiating? Like people are like, you walking by and they're wincing. And the people, God said, "I want my people to come to the mountain, to draw near." Moses said, "Yes." To it. Comes down the mountain. The people said, "No, no, no, no, no. Moses, you go give us the commandments and then tell us." It's no different than today. We, we chase teachers and people and people we think we're gurus or people we think they're mature in the faith and tell us, tell us, tell us, not realizing I can go boldly before the throne of grace. But because we've developed these legalistic perspectives, we say, "Give us just, give me the rules." And don't you notice we live in a culture, we love the three steps, the ten steps, the seven things. And I'm not saying it's completely wrong. I do it. Seven ways you can, three things you can do. Sometimes I use it to just kind of organize some thoughts, right? But we have to be careful because that bypasses relationship. Relationship is messy. It causes me to humble myself to go, "I don't know how to get free from OCD, anxiety, and my battles, or whatever it is you're struggling with, your addictions, your lust, your, your anger." I don't know how to do this. So it humbles us before Him. And then it helps us. When you humble yourself, you start to go, "Okay, the problem is not the problem. I need to let God work this root system here. And I need to buckle up for a long journey of learning something I've never learned before, is learning how to be loved and to love others out of what you've received. That unconditional, powerful love that, that, that comes to you."

But many of us are stuck in, "We do things because we don't want to be punished. We don't do things just because we don't want to be punished." That's not the best motive. The greatest is love. The greatest is to do what you do because you love. The greatest is you don't do certain things because you love. I don't do things that hurt my marriage, not because I'm a, because I'm scared of being punished. I do it because I love and treasure my marriage. And I made a leap with God. I'm gonna let go of this punishment-based relationship because all it does is put more perfectionistic pressure on you. So many are drowning in never enough, never enough. And you, you, God bless your church, but you go to churches that feed that performance. You know what your problem is? You need to read your Bible more. No, no, Mark De Jesus would say, "No, stop reading your Bible." Mark, what are you saying? Because how you're viewing God is not taking in what is meant to be said. So you're taking in the letter of the law, not the spirit and heart of it. So why would I tell you to keep reading? We've got to do a reboot. The Bible says the letter kills. And how many of us are under just and a murderous assault over our minds because we feel disconnected from love and grace?

And it took decades of my life to come to a place of realizing, I asked the Lord into my life when I was four years old, but it wasn't until I was a grown adult that I realized, I gotta relearn what this is all about. I gotta relearn what this means. Because otherwise, you'll try, you'll try, you'll try, and and the enemy will condemn you. He is an accuser. Guilt, shame, condemnation will always follow you because your measurement is on how you're doing. You wake up in the morning, "How am I doing?" "Oh, I'm not doing good." And you sink more and more. "God's not happy with you." And all these things. And so love becomes conditional.

Now, here's what I want to tell you. I want to tell you a little secret because I have, I have years and years of pastoral experience. Let me give you a little secret nobody wants to share. Are you ready for the little secret? Punishment-based relationship with God gets quick actions. If I'm a pastor that uses a punishment-based relationship, I can get you to do things and I can control you quick because anxiety is a quick motivator. So things like, you know, "I, you know, keep that hell right in my hand." Used constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly. Now, Jesus talked about hell a lot. He sure did. He did not use it to manipulate people into decision. He did not say, "Follow me or you'll go to hell." He did not use that to manipulate people to change. There's a reality of hell. There's a reality of the lake of fire. And he talked about it a lot. We can control, "Oh, you know, you want a curse to come upon you? You want this to happen to you?" I can, I get you can get more money in an offering like that. For those listening to audio, I'm just snapping my fingers. I get to give more money in the offering. I can get you to attend church and feel bad when you miss it. This is the real, this is the stuff no one, no one is talking about. Because if you know about it, you'll get free. And I want to set the captives free. I don't care how where you come from. I, I, I know God is here to set you free. But freedom from punishment-based, it's a lot of captivity. I want you to begin thinking for yourself, to learn who God is as a Father, and learn to be free. But if I want to go back into the old wine skin, I want to go back into that legalism, go back into that modern-day Phariseeism, I can put a ton of yokes on you. And we're, this is believers walking around like this all day, walking around like this all day. Why? Because our modern systems encourage it. Because we need people in seats, we need money in the bank accounts, we need people to do, do, do, do, do to get going to solve our mission, to get our, our fellowships bigger. This is the honest stuff. This is honest stuff. If it makes you know, if it makes someone upset, maybe that's good. It's the real deal, folks. It's a real deal. I'm not against church. I'm not against our church structures. By man, we are wound up tight to keep people in the performance base because then we lose our patience and we want people to move towards our mission and our thing. And we manipulate them using the fear of punishment, punishment from God, punishment from us. And then if you leave, we will shun you. Ever try leaving a church? Not all, and you're shunned. Hmm. Something's wrong here. Something's wrong here.

And so I found, I found a place of freedom. Let's give over here. Many of you need to dive into experiencing God's love as your Father. This is really, really important subject. You can get that, you can get a download of it today. Let's go to markdejesus.com. But I want to go to this scripture. This is a, this has been a game changer for me in my life because John, John really connected and expressed the heart of what it means to be bathed in love. And there's so much in here. By the way, when you're reading the Bible, you get stuck on something, don't fuss over it. It means it's not for right now. What we do is we read a scripture and we go, "Oh, I see this." Oh, no, no, no. Read and let the word of God add life to you because God is wanting you to connect to who he is. But you've been trained under performance, so everything falls back on you. So name your battle. It all falls back on you. Trying, trying, trying versus going, "I need to learn to receive what, what he's given me."

I realized I did not know how to experience unconditional love. I know how to receive it. I'm not a really give it. So John says this, and I, I don't have time to go through everything, but this is what led me and springboarded me. "Love has been perfected amongst us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment." How many believers, the subject of judgment, all they feel is fear and they run and hide in the bushes, right? John goes, "Now, the love of God is actually going to make you go, I'm okay. I'm safe with him." That's a whole subject in itself because "as he is, so are we in the world." That's a whole subject in itself too. But First John 4:18, "There is no fear in love." Now, part of the mental health battle, see, does the Bible talk about mental health? Yeah. Just we just haven't, we haven't learned to see it. Here it is. You can place in that word, fear, anxiety, OCD. You can place so much in there. "There is no fear in love." So when, when you experience love, fear is not coming along with it. That phobic reality is not coming along with it. Love actually casts out fear.

Some people were asking me in my last broadcast about deliverance and OCD and, you know, what does it look like? And I said, well, we got to get to the root system. It's not like just trying to cast out something called OCD will just make you more OCD. We gotta get to the root system of punishment-based relationship, of rejection, of fear, of condemnation. Because when love enters in, now what does love say? How does love, when, when, how does perfect love cast out fear? I have to say yes to it. And what does love say to me? He loves me in my goofy, broken, all over the place, messed up state. As a believer, Mark, you can say, as a believer, that you're messed up, broken, all of? Yeah, yeah. When were we taught that once you get saved, you should just be blossoming forever and never have any battles? Where did we grab on to that? And then, and then we're accused all day long. That perfect love enters right now because God's number one priority is this. This is why he sent his Son to bring you near, so that the separation would be on him, to take the weight and the punishment of sin upon his shoulders, as brought out in Romans. To take all the weight of that. Now, for religious OCD sufferers, it's too good to be true. You got to take the weight. Nope, the weight's back on me. Weights back on me. It's, it's, it's unworthiness. It's uncond, it's a, a blank of unconditional love. It's the need to learn what love is. So I've got to invite that love. This is actually a power that will cast out. And that casting out is like casting out a demon, an evil spirit. Enter love in, and it just acts as a demonic domino to push back the hordes of hell. Because what you really need, our branch systems go back to, I see God from punishment, I run and hide like Adam did, I blame, I point my fingers, I try to cover up myself with my own methodologies, I try to fix things, I try to go through a bunch of hula hoops, and then I'm still frustrated, still afraid. John says, "We gotta upgrade here. We gotta come into the gospel, and what it really means." The love going to cast out fear because fear involves torment. So that's one translation of that word, torment. You want to know what another translation of that word is? Punishment. Fear has punishment. When fear comes in, "Oh, you're gonna get it. You're gonna get it."

I remember when I was a kid, I've had to do a lot of healing from my journey, my family of origin, but I remember when I was a kid, I was 15, around there, and my dad had a Chevy Blazer. Remember Chevy Blazer? I don't even know if they sell those anymore. There's an old Chevy Blazer. He took care of that thing and fixed it. And I'm not into mechanics with cars. I like, I like doing home repairs, home fix-up, I love that kind of stuff. But cars, I kind of check out. I just, I just wanted to work, you know. But my dad's into cars and he'd do the work and fix it himself. So we had the Chevy Blazer. Well, I was on the verge of learning how to drive. So I made an offer to my mom. I said, "I'm going to go and I'm going to go out and I'm going to wash the car. Can I do that?" Most parents say, "Oh, that's great. Yeah, sure. Wash the car." Oh, Mark's excited. Well, I had a motive. Is I wanted to toy around with backing the car up, going forward, going back. I wanted to get the feel of that, you know, like 14, 15, you know, I'm getting ready for that, like I learned to get my license, all that kind of stuff, right? So the, the Chevy Blazer was parked right in, it was a driveway. We lived in Hartford, Connecticut. And the, the driveway, the driveway, um, came to this fence. And the fence had those, I forget what they're called, but like the post was like, like wooden posts and then there's two beams that go across. I forget what you call them. But anyways, that's what. And then there was a garden beyond that. And so we had this little garden area. And it was parked in the blacktop. So I started, and I don't know what I did, but I thought I put it into reverse, which is one click, right? Put your foot on the brake, start the car, put it one click reverse, next click neutral, next click drive. I don't know. I thought for some reason I had it in reverse and I'm going to go backwards. I hit the gas, which really you should just let go of the brake and just let it move. You get going and then just give it a little bit of gas. I didn't know that. I just really hit the gas. I took that Chevy Blazer and I blasted it between that fence. You know, those beams that are like this thick, and broke through them, and the Blazer went up into the garden. You want to talk about panic. My mom comes out and she is like, "You are going to get it. Go to your room. Just leave it like that. Your father's going to come home." My brother's laughing at me because he's like, "You're going to get in trouble. You're going to get in trouble." I'm sitting there in my room and I'm like, "I have, I have, I have messed it all up." You know, you're in that moment, you're in an immature teenage brain, and you're like, "The world has come to an end. This is it. This is it. This is it. My little short life is over." And so I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting. I hear the car of my dad in the other, the other car they had driving in. He pulls up. And I slowly come out. He gets out of his car. He'll never forget this. Gets out of his car. He walks around and he inspects the broken fence, the mess up. Now, I think it, it went through that fence, and then there was a chain-link fence in the back of the garden, and it went, and it was up against that. So I think that post, it was a mess. And he looks around and he assesses all the damage. And he looks at me and he goes, "All right, let's get the Blazer out. Let's clean up this mess." And I was like, "Wait." I was waiting for, was I waiting for the hammer of hell to be unleashed? I felt so terrible. But I'll never forget that moment. Now, if he grounded me for 10 years and did this and did that, did he have reason to? Sure. But I was shown grace, mercy. What's mercy? Mercy's God's love to you when you're suffering, when you're struggling, when you don't feel you deserve it. That's mercy. One of the most powerful, misunderstood words, mercy. I had mercy in that moment. And you know what I did? That moment of compassion and grace and mercy empowered me to make sure I learn. I use that as learning now of how to treat this vehicle. I've had to walk in it now. I would say, I would venture to say, if it was just punishment alone, I might have repeated it again. That's what happens when it's, we experience. Now, do we have consequences to our actions? Of course, of course there are. Of course. You know, but God is near and wants to walk with you through the healing journey, to redeem, to buy back what's been lost. He has ways of turning stuff around. He, he has a way of taking your biggest mess-ups and turning it into an asset. Did you hear me? He has a way of taking some of your worst things and using it as an asset in your life.

Let me go back to the scripture here. Many of you have that fear. When the anxiety, and usually anxiety and guilt, when you're discon, when you're in a punishment-based relationship with God, your, your main motives are not faith, hope, and love. They are fear and condemnation. Fear and condemnation. Rejection's right at the bottom root system because rejection says, "You're not, you're on your own. God's not here. You don't do things good enough. You're unlovable." All that stuff. And then out of that, fear increases, condemnation increases. So you see, you feel that, that guilt is a form of condemnation. So most Christian believers, in my experience of people I've worked with and talked to, they're not motivated out of love. They're motivated out of guilt. They're not motivated out of love. They're motivated out of fear. And this punishment thing is coming along with it. So he's telling you, this fear is bringing a punishment with us. It's bringing a torment. Steals your peace. This, this lack of peace that we have because the presence of fear is there. Why is the presence of fear there? Because there's an agreement that we see God in this lens. So I had to see this. This is a major problem. And and so John says, "He who fears." And this has to get settled into our hearts. People say, "Mark, why do I have anxiety? Mark, why do I have OCD? Mark, why do I have these mental, emotional health backgrounds, battlegrounds?" The Bible diagnoses you here. You've not been made perfect, made complete in making sure you're saved, right? In making sure you're sinless, and making sure you read the Bible right, making sure you pray right, making sure no. Now, that gets preached all the time. Why don't we call that false doctrine? Why don't we chase those things? Hmm. Why don't we call that out? Why don't we call out performance-driven Christianity as heresy? Hmm. We chase all these other tangents, all these other things. Why aren't we calling out what's killing people? It's the love of God to cast out fear, to cast out anxiety, to cast out punishment. Now, his focus is relationship. But this fear will get in the way.

So I realized, okay, it's not an intelligence problem. It's not because I'm not saved enough, even though I went through all those hula hoops. It's not because, uh, I need to repent more. I had all these things I listed out that I need to repent of and repent of and repent of and repent of or repent or pent up, repent of and repent of and repent of and repent of and repent of and repent of and repent of and repent of. Am I making you feel crazy yet? To realize the goodness of God is what leads me to repentance. But we're trying to follow the rules. "I need to repent." "No, you need the goodness of God in your life." "No, give me the rule. Give me the rule." So we're always, here's love, we're always bypassing it. Why? Because it's messy. Because when I face love, I face my brokenness. I face where I, I try to live by my own merit. I face these sinful areas of struggle. But they're in the light of his love. He doesn't shame us. He draws us near. But the enemy says, "Run, hide. Run, hide." But in that running and hiding, my mental health gets worse. I need to come boldly before Him because what I need is, I need love. What I need is. Now, this goes back to this goes back to our, our journey growing up. You know, I ask people a lot when they bring their battleground to me, I say to them, "Explain to me your faith journey." And the majority of the time, people share the growing up, their relationship basis with God was pretty much just, "Follow the rules. Make sure you follow all the rules." And love, relationship was missing. And Paul says, "When love is missing, it, it's like we're just bashing a a brass cymbal, making a lot of noise." We're making a lot of noise these days, but we're not connecting. Because God wants connection. And how's that happen? It's his love. It's his grace. It's his love. It's his grace. Love is who he is. Grace is how he does it. What you need is love. You're not gonna find it trying to do more stuff. It's acknowledging and learning to be loved. In fact, many of you will have to starve the things you do to make yourself feel better. "I need to fast because if I fast, you know, this is going to help." Oh, I need to. Your spiritual rituals are actually compulsive, performance-based things to make yourself feel better. And it makes you avoid unconditionally learning to be loved in your sinful state. I'm not compromising sin. I'm bringing in what's missing. And what's missing is love. And without love, without grace, good luck. Good luck. And that's what Jesus broke. This is the separation. And what Satan wants to keep in place is that feeling of separation. That's why I talk about the enemy so much. Because yes, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy, to give you thoughts and get you lost in those thoughts and go into la la land and beat yourself up for even having those thoughts and get you lost in the doubts and the what-ifs and all those things and and get you obsessive and get you spinning in yourself. And what you miss out on is what you really need. And what I'm going to direct you to is what you really need.

So as a takeaway in this talk, where do you need to recognize that you have a punishment-based relationship with God? Ask yourself that question. Because when you do, I want you to know it will impact everything. It's not like you just have a little bit of it here. You know, the Bible talks about how a little bit of leaven will infect the whole thing. And one of the leavens that Jesus warned us about was the leaven of the Pharisees. And the leaven of the Pharisees, when you just get a little dabble to you, it will increase and it will want to take over every area. But how do you see it manifesting? What thought patterns? When you listen to them, you discern and you're learning. This would increase because of a punishment-based relationship with God.

So what does it mean? Now, because what I had to do was, I had to let go of all the things I did to try to please God. And I did a glorious reset in my life. And it feels like, you feel like you're going into no man's land. You feel like a drug addict coming off your drug. It's the drug of performance. Because then you swing to the other side, black and white. "Oh, it means I don't care. It means I'm, I'm, I'm lawless. It means I'm, I'm, I'm going to just sin." Now, that's a common. Whenever somebody says to me, "I'm afraid that I'm going to be just fall into sin," it shows you've got a punishment-based relationship with God. And it's infected everything. So we got to get the infection out. In order to get the infection out, the whole system needs to come under the remedy. I got to learn what it means to be unconditionally loved right where I'm at. And let the grace, what is the grace of God? It's, it's his power working in and through my heart. And so he said, "I don't know what his grace is saying right now." Well, I'll tell you what his grace is saying: "You're loved. Be loved right now." Learn what it means to be loved. Now, give out anything that you've learned in this moment, in this day, give it out. Don't let love sit and stagnate because love is a flow. It's a river. It's never meant to just be. Love is not meant to be received and then you just, you just, you know, rub your tummy and and just stay in that. It's meant to be received and flow out of you. Thank you, God. I give it out. And then sometimes you get stuck and you're struck, you as you step out and you give out anyway, and you see that. But then you continually, you don't get into performing. Just keep and just keep, you know, not paying attention to your heart anymore. Now, you just keep receiving. God, I want to just more of that to flow that I can love others effectively. I'm gonna love my wife. I love my two. I'm gonna be present because I'm letting go of the yoke of performance. I'm letting go of the yoke of slavery. And that's so much in Paul's writing to banish us from the yoke of slavery, to write a certificate of freedom that you are now free to live and to move and to have your being. You're free to have liberty. You're free to make decisions. You're free to make mistakes. When I have a punishment-based relationship with God, I cannot make mistakes.

So I'm gonna invite you to stop trying to fix everything to feel better. Lean into the learning of it. We can't look at some of these mistakes, some of these thoughts, because they communicate back to us failure, disappointment. And God is leaving. No, that's probably more like what your parents were like. It's more like what you experienced growing up. It's not His nature. He draws near. He's just when you think your faithfulness has run out. So I began to go, "Okay, God, I don't know you as a Father. I don't know you in your love. That's really all I'm going to focus on. What does it mean to be fully loved by God?" And I put that on my day. "What does it look like if I live from being loved, from being approved, from being accepted?" And I put that upon my day. "What would my day look like?" Okay, I'm gonna act on that whether I feel it or not. That's the best way I can explain it. So look at your day. Look at all the meetings you have. Look at the responsibilities. What would it look like if you walked through that and you were fully unconditionally loved by your Father in heaven, and you were fully aware of it? You, um, you're practicing even what I talk about, Total Unconditional Loving Acceptance, TULA. Total Unconditional Loving Acceptance. I 100% totally and unconditionally lovingly accept myself as God does, right now, right where I'm at. Okay. What does that look like at your board meeting? What does that look like talking to your spouse? What does that look like interacting with your kids? That's your cue. Go and do it. But I don't feel it. You won't for a while because you've got all these filters that have been there for decades of how you relate to God. You're learning to re-relate to Him to bring to your members a new understanding. The perfect love that casts out fear. God doesn't just have love for you. He is love. So if you're encountering Him, you're encountering love. That's one of the ways, in one of the metrics that we know. Now, we could talk about God's holiness and all those things. But if love isn't built as the foundation, holiness will seek to get hijacked by performance, legalism, religiosity, back to the law. And we'll be just like Israel looking at Moses going, "No, no, you go up, you talk to God, and then tell me what He says, because I ain't doing that." Even in the Old Covenant, God was saying, "I want you to draw near." Under a covenant that could not fulfill God. "I see you as a, as always angry and disappointed with me." Who told me that? Because Jesus took the wrath and punishment of what sin required on His shoulders. Why do I keep putting on me the burden and listening to lies?

So I want to pray for you. And Father, I pray in the name of Jesus that You would help us to first and foremost learn that You are a Father. You're an Abba. You're a Dad. And we receive that loving graciousness. We receive that kindness. We receive the goodness of who You are. I say yes to it, even though there are places within me that struggle, that war. I'm setting a new focus. I'm moving towards love because I'm sick of all the fears and all the hassles and things that distract me and pull me away. I want to draw near to You. And I know that all I have to do is just realize You're here. I don't have to go chasing. I don't have to go running. I don't have to go somewhere over the rainbow. I have to go through ten different rounds. I say yes because You're here. And I stand against every lie. God, would You help us to begin a journey of freedom from the fear, the condemnation, the rejection that all lies to us and keeps us in all these patterns that don't lead us into freedom? And I pray that You'd enter us. Help us to see the signals of heaven, of love, to heal our broken hearts because where love is missing, that's where brokenness resides. I've done my best to communicate what I sense Your heart saying. And Father, I pray that the spirit of it would land in people's hearts. Set people free. Set people free. I pray in the name of Jesus. Thank you so much for tuning into this. If you feel the resources are a blessing, you can go to markdejesus.com. You can one-time donate. You can become a regular supporter. We are supported by our listeners and our viewers. Thank you so much for sharing, for getting our resources and materials. One great resource is "Experiencing God's Love as Your Father." I mentioned rejection a number of times, and many people have been so blessed and experienced a lot of life change through exposing the rejection mindset because it'll help you see the root of why you feel these struggles of disconnect with God, which then affects how you see yourself, which then infects how we do relationships. And I believe God's in the business of restoring our relationship grid. And so I pray that's a blessing to your life, to your journey. I pray you're encouraged. And I pray, most of all, that grace would just cover your life. You.