Finding the Trailhead — http://thegodjourney.com/2010/10/28/finding-the-trailhead

It's now time to think outside the box of what we've always known. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the sovereign Lord. I think that's a profound turning point in somebody's relationship with God. And our hope in starting this was that this would become an ever-expanding conversation. Just two real guys talking about life. That's a nice tagline. I'm Wayne Jacobson. And I'm Brad Cummings. And welcome to another edition of The God Journey. The God Journey. The both of you are coming down. How's your leader hosin? I don't know, buddy. Did you back your leader hosin? You did my leader hosin last time I did this trip. And I don't do it. What's it year ago? I don't do leader hosin. You know why? I'm in Germany though at the moment. Because I think the leather is a little hard. The leather? Of leader hosin? I don't know anything about leader hosin. Leather pants, leather shorts. But leather, I'm interested. Leather interests me. Okay. Leathers, man. No, no, no. It's not like cowboy chaps, dude. It is leader hosin. That's not the weather I was thinking of. Let me be honest. Let me be clear on this point. Oh, my God. No, I just, yeah. I just kind of figured like, who ever thought of leader hosin didn't think that through? Doesn't look comfortable. You know, I have no theological point of view on leader hosin. Do you like sauerkraut? And now I'm glad this is going to air very late in my Germany trip. So nobody's going to have time to think about it. All right, all right, all right. Days away from flying home, but actually looking forward to hanging out. Three of my books now are available in German. So. Yavor. One is The Call of the Wild Goose. The Call of the Wild Goose. Which many of you will know. Excuse me, next one. As so you don't want to go to church anymore. He loves me as they're called loved. That's all it's called. It's just loved. And then authentic relationships is available. So people have been reading that stuff. And you know, because the organized church, the reason why they changed the title on, so you don't want to treat me more the guy, the publisher told me, no one goes to church in Germany anyway. So nobody even thinks about not wanting to go. I mean, the whole religious construct in Germany just imploded through all their history. So you miss them with most places in Europe. Nobody even goes other than weddings or funeral. You know, one of the primary reasons there is they don't give, there's not a voluntary tithe. If you declare yourself to be a Protestant, they garnish your wages up front and give it to the state church. Boy, that would do wonders for church growth here in America, wouldn't it? Well, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. I said they're going like, no, it wouldn't. Everyone would be a Buddhist. That's right. That's why we got to do this. If we could pass a law like that, people would stop going on Sunday morning because now it costs too much. Well, I just said they're going like... Because being a pastor, I know most people don't tithe, even who say they do. Well, I just said they're going like, really, this is what the institution, the state-run deal would do. And it's sort of like, you're going to remove the gift aspect and now it's going to be a tax. Yeah, it's a tax given, yeah. And it's like, wow. Which is better than the countries where they tax everybody and give a percentage of it to the church. That happens too. I suppose. I just think all of this. Religion forces what Jesus would have done freely from the heart. Oh, well, we could end the podcast right there. That's enough said. Yeah. Go think about that for about a week and you'll be good. That's the shortest one we've ever had. It is. We should just do it. Stop it. We'll do another. But people who know us well know we're not going to stop talking at that rate. But it's not just the state. It's actually we force on other people. It's the same thing. We just are going to force people to do what we think is best for them. And there's nothing closer to the religious spirit than that. But nothing kills the reality of genuine love more than that. I agree. And I think when you recognize what is God after? Is he after people's behavior? No. Oh, see now people are going to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, he is. He wants us to stop sinning and all that little sin and fun thing people are doing. Stop it, stop it, stop it. He's after their heart. Yeah. And a heart that is simply restrained by fear, by force, by whatever isn't the same thing as a heart freed to find love. That's why. It just isn't. That's why Roger Williams, the first governor of Rhode Island, said when you're trying to motivate somebody to do your ethic that they haven't bought into in their own conscience and heart, they actually rape their soul. Yes. And that's what religion has been doing for, well the Christian religion for 2000 years. And there's nothing, there's nothing helpful about that in terms of converting someone. No, I think that's why people who listen to this podcast or read some of the stuff we've been part of and they get it and say, man, I really want to go on this journey, forgot, can't find the trail head because they've been so trounced by fear and manipulation and do feel offended because they've been forced to act out of their fears and they're guilt by people who are doing it in their best interest, allegedly. And I think all that, that's the real wounding of religion. I've been forced into space. I didn't choose to live in. And now when Jesus invites to get my heart, we don't even know what that looks like. And we're afraid he won't get it. And afraid that our freedom will just be, we'll indulge ourselves in bad things and then we'll go to hell for sinning. And there's all that fear that religion has played. Going on this journey means laying down all of that. Yes, it takes time. Yes, there's a detox process. It may take you two or three years to get free enough from that stuff. But you go to the parable of the amazing father as opposed to just the prodigal son. And you look at the love of that father, it was in his boy's heart to say, I want the stuff. Give it to me now. And the father does. He's like, what? How many of us would go, okay, well, let me empower you here. Here's the car keys too. Yeah, go. Go have it. Enjoy yourself. What wisdom did that? I think the wisdom that did that is the knowledge that trying to restrain that from some other real internal conviction that changes it would never work. Hence the older brother. Yeah. Okay. He kept all the rules, but he had no more fun. No. Just as stuck, just as lost, but just got lost in the house as well as out of the house. Neither of them knew their father. And in the midst of all what's going on, I think at times we're so afraid of people sinning. And I'm going like, you know what? I don't want to empower people to sin, but at the same time, if they're going to, there's one thing that will reveal itself. If it's pleasurable, it's only for a short time. The reality of what it is will reveal itself. It will destroy you. Absolutely. And there's nobody stuck in sin that hasn't that revelation. Oh, the hope for them is that change might be possible. The despair is they don't think it is. Yeah. And it's like, so we're so busy trying to keep people from something that, you know what? You cannot learn for somebody else. If they don't learn for themselves, you know what? There's no future in that. We were talking, you know, one of the podcasts ago, all this discussion about the legalization of pot in California, and here they're discussing it at middle school and all that. And I'm sitting there going, hey boys, talking to my two boys, if someone offers you a joint, what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to do it because, you know, it's not good for you. And I'm like, well, why not? How do you know it's not good for you? Have you ever tried it? I mean, I just- Oh, you're a helpful parent. Well, yeah, they're looking at me like dad. And I'm going like, no, you have to have a deeper reality. There's got to be a reason that makes sense inside you that's going to empower you to be able to say no to whatever external pressures are. And until we recognize the destruction that sin is and how it doesn't have a future for us, I think we'll always be ensnared with the lusts for it, the lies of it. Yeah. As long as sin is just those fun things that God says you can't do. You don't know him and you don't know it. Well, you're going to be captive to it, even if your whole life is lived around abstaining from it and hating those who indulge it. You're still going to be owned by the sin. Yeah. I think the New Testament is God just saying, look, if I don't have your heart, nothing else matters. And nothing else works. And when I have your heart, everything else unfolds the way I need to. So the only thing is about, I'm going to find my way into your heart. And if that's to a very dark place, Sarah and I watch something on TV and I could be heard a guy that I've quoted for years because I love him. It's got this TV show called Intervention. I thought, I'm going to go watch what that show's about just because I really like some of what this guy says. His name is Jeff Van Vonder and he wrote a book called Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. It's on the A&E channel and I didn't like the show so much because it was just a whole lot of this addict and they're going to have this intervention. She's on this black tar caravan or something and she's a 20-year-old gal just in horrible bondage, killing herself. I loved it. She got mad. She didn't like what was going on. She leaves the room. No one restrains her. He doesn't make her sit there. He finally walks out with her and he sits on the sidewalk with her and he says, you know these people love you. You've got a choice. You can go where you're going and no one's going to say, I'm not going to stop you or you have a gift. Do you want to take the gift? I'm almost in tears watching him just try and get to a heart. We're going to make you do the right thing and we're going to lock you into rehab. It's if you want to go back to the street and do drugs, it's your choice. It's your life. People love you. They're offering you a gift to go to a place. Maybe you can get your life turned around. You're 20-years-old. It's just the way you really want to live. I'm really moved by that simple, let's get to the heart of it. The heart of it is not that you're sinning. It's not that you're doing wrong things. The heart of it is that you just don't know God as Father. And you don't know that you're loved. So you're going to do all the stupid things to fill this hole in your heart that doesn't fill the hole in your heart. It makes the hole bigger and it makes you more desperate. So I think that's a lot of what God's saying, you've got to go. I'm still going to be here. The day you come back, I'm still here. I think we've got to actually park ourselves there and drink deeply with some wisdom and understanding of what kind of God is it that allows that to happen. Is that a disinterested God? Is that a dumb God? Is that a... I'm thinking not. Well, yeah, I mean you look at that as like why if that's what he would do with all the wisdom he has, why can't we not follow suit? Why can't we live this life open-handed as opposed to trying to conjure and force and manipulate? You know why I think it is? Because people don't know that love works. What humans call love doesn't work. I can really love someone in a human sense and not let them have my heart. See, but there's a lot of self-love. I'm going to love you so I get the result. Where it's like, I'm not sure there's love at all. No, it's not. But as I was saying, people who don't know what love is, they live that way. And the only chance that that's going to change, first John, love, we know love not because we loved him, but because he loved us. First love is inside of him. Until I engage that love, my whole sense of love is going to be self-possessed. It's not effective. Therefore, I'm going to trust fear or pressure or manipulation more than I trust getting to someone's heart. So unpack that a little bit. In terms of we love because he first loved us, what is that love? Because I think you're hitting on something that, you know what? A lot of people hear the word. I don't know that they know the reality. What is it? When they go like, well, I just don't know that God loves me. It's like, okay. Well, I think, how would you? Well, most of it, in marriage, you love me if you make me happy. If you're not making me happy, then you don't love me. It's so ego-centric. Our definition of human love is self-absorbed. So yeah, most people say, I don't think God loves me. What are they saying? God's not making me happy. God's not fixing the things in my life. I think he should fix. God's not revealing himself to me in a way. I think he should reveal himself to me. God's not making me happy. Therefore, I'm not loved, or he doesn't exist. When you say it that way, it's kind of funny, but it's kind of tragic. It's sad. You just go like, so say it differently. What is it to be loved by God? It's to know someone outside yourself, the creator of the universe, someone beyond you. And you may not even have a name to that yet. You know, may it be, you realize you're not alone, and this presence who draws near you, draws near you with deep affection, cares about you as a person. And in knowing that reality, I'm engaged with a presence who loves me enough to start with me where I am and to lead me to life. I think an important element of that is knowing that love does not equate to just my temporal happiness of the moment of my stuff, my way, my fun. That's human love. You make me happy, you love me. You don't make me happy, you don't love me. That's just not helpful. We did talk about this on a past podcast, but there's that funny little YouTube video where the little kid is going like, I don't love you all the time. You don't always give me cookies. You just go like, sadly, I think that really frames most people's concept of love. I think one of the things that I experienced in terms of an encounter with God is in the midst of something that was absolutely painful. I felt a presence come and stand by me, said nothing, tangibly, I could say, did nothing, but somehow everything changed because my circumstances were not any different. The pain of what was going on didn't change. It just, I wasn't alone. That did something in my soul that I've never recovered from happily, where there's a sense of going like, I don't feel alone. I don't feel abandoned. And I don't interpret pain as if he can't be here. I know the fact that life can be difficult, and that doesn't mean I'm abandoned. Or still not even in God's purpose in the pain, that he's there doing something bigger than me. I don't know that I have words, English words to tag it with, but there was a sense of going, wait a minute, this love is transcending mere temporal happiness. This love is transcending just what it is that I think is best and what I want in this moment. There's something that is bigger than that, that is with me. And I started to, I started, it redefined stuff where I'm just going like, gosh, pain to me was always the absence of God. And it led to a further ache of abandonment because one, I was powerless to change my circumstances most of the time. I didn't know why or what and so it's like, you can't get out of that and in the midst of that you're just like, oh, God's not here and what have I done and it just leads to condemnation and feeling lost. And just his presence showing up taught me so much more in terms of going, wait a minute, something beyond just this moment. I shouldn't look through the not whole of this moment to try to interpret the unfolding of what I don't know yet. Yeah, and if people don't know that, well, I've never had that experience. I've been in times like that, God never come to me. I understand, I think God has. So had I, many, many times in life had those moments where no, I didn't feel him. I may have some of those moments today or you don't feel that whole, you're always at a deeper level than that and when you start on this journey, I think where you have to be one into it, if you don't believe it exists, well, first of all, you talked about this a few weeks ago, you have to suspend your disbelief enough to say, maybe he is and I just haven't recognized it yet or haven't touched it yet. But what Jesus said over and over, you can't seek and not find, you can't knock in the door, not be open to you. He answers the cry of a person who doesn't know you. He longs for it so much more than even our most passionate moment. And he knows the best way to bring you to that moment. And sometimes the moment is I'm withholding the moment not because he doesn't love you or care about you, but because he's untangling something in you that's making you miss that moment. So it's not that God's delaying and I don't care and we'll just wait forever because I think people at desperate moments in the heavens and sit down in this chair and look me in the eyeball, yeah, he could. And if that were the best thing for you, I think he would. Yeah, in Scripture he has. But the appeal to God winning our heart is at such a different level than I'm going to do some and Jesus talked about this a lot in the gospel. Just doing some outward sign that proves who I am to you intellectually doesn't help me get your heart. Yes, and I think when you look at what love is love seems to be in some measure the opposite of my self-focus. So if I'm going to understand love I don't think it's going to be well, oh, you know how's it working for me? There's something other than you when love touches you you are not the focus. It starts to it starts to transcend your myopic view of self, self, self, self, self and I think so oftentimes if we're going to sell you, well, God's not loving me really? Yeah, you're the one exception for the whole deal. And you're kind of all absorbed on you and you know because I just go like the most loving people I know and touched by tend to not be self-absorbed people. Yeah, can you imagine God sitting down with Jesus one night saying, gosh, I was one or down on the planet there today. You know what I found today? It's pretty interesting. What's that? I found someone I really did love. I actually found someone that's so creepy that I don't care about them. I mean it's just absurd. Of course he loves us. I think there's kind of a chicken and egg thing going on here with, you know, what comes first knowing God's love or losing my self-absorption because I I'm sorry, I don't know which is the chicken which is the egg, but they're part of the package. Yeah, it's there's a mix of this reality that comes together. There's a losing I think part of the seeking and you will find is you gotta go looking beyond yourself and your own self-centered kind of world. That's part of it. The other part of it is the more I know God loves me, the more he wins me out of my selfishness and my self-absorption. Yes. So there's this interplay that goes on and it's not enough to say well the only reason, because I don't want people walking away saying well the only reason that my God's not showing himself to me is that I'm too selfish. That's what the guy said on the podcast. No, that's not what we're saying. Once again, that's a little too self-absorbed in its activity. What a black hole is is that it's sucking everything into itself. I think at times, sadly our understanding of love has been so warped and shaped by our culture of self-interest that we don't know what it would be to actually have someone love me to a place where I don't have to be the central character in my own drama. I think the biggest freedom that I find about the presence of God in my life is there's more than just me. I don't enjoy life when it's just me. And that's why love is I hope people are hearing us talk about it is it's not just a theology, a proposition for you to be convinced of. Hopefully it's a proposition that you would contemplate. But love is at its core a reality. You either live in it and grow in it and know it as a reality not just as a intellectual proposition you're trying to wrap your head around. No, it won't work. I love the last one, the last phrase of that first John 4 and I know I referred to it before in that first John 4 passage, John the end of his life, the disciples, allegedly that Jesus loved this beloved disciple, whatever. He's saying, and we have come to know and to rely on the love God has for us. And I love that this is a process. We have come to know. We've come to rely. Just start out there. And rely. Yeah, and now I increasingly John's saying was he 80, 90 years old maybe when he's writing first John and he's saying I'm going to rely now on that. I don't get in a circumstance in my first thought, God hates me, God's against me, God somehow worked God. But I've come to rely on the fact that he does. So now whatever's unfolding in my life is going to unfold in the love of God. And whether it's hurtful or helpful to me doesn't determine whether God loves me or not. That's too opposite to reality. I've got to tell you life so dramatically changes look at the circumstances that befall me and look through the lens of a confidence knowing that God loves me. This does not determine whether he does or not. When I look through that lens it's not a bunch of self-talk and I'm just going to try to convince myself of something. You know what? He loves me. That's not going to change. So let's look at what's going on and maybe I'll have different emotions. Maybe I'll see something different than the pain that I'm feeling because all of a sudden something beyond just me and my comforts is at play here. And I can recognize maybe God isn't as absent as I felt in that moment because something bigger than just me is going on and this is not necessarily contrary to his loving me. But I do think it's a process to get here, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. That's not just a switch you flip. Yeah, you didn't start here. I started questioning God's love a lot. That's why I wrote, He loves me in the tyranny of the favor line and I know you love me if my day's going well and I don't think I'm doing well enough if you don't, so I better try harder. I've lived most of my life in that space. It's only been the last 15 years that I began to live in the space of oh, so love is the constant you begin with. It's not the variable that you get to assign in a circumstance. Love is the constant and his affection, not just God's commitment to me, that's what I hate about what we've done with love, that's why I like the word affection, that God's affection for me is a part of the unfolding realities of this day no matter what pain it is, no matter what I'm dealing with. I've got two really, really good friends, followers of Jesus for a long time both dealing in the last, won the last couple of weeks, won the last couple of months, the death of a spouse they deeply loved at a ridiculously young age after prayers for healing and hoping God would do now living inside the love of God in the face of we didn't get the outcome in that circumstance we hoped for. But God is still who he says he is and not just the mental, like you said, I'm going to convince myself of that, that's the reality of knowing him in that place of my disappointment, in the place of no, this didn't work out the way I wanted, but God's is bigger than that, this world is a chaotic mess of self-indulgent humanity, God's the redeemer in the story, he's not the killer of persons. Him who is love said to us through the scriptures, in this life you will have trouble. I know it hasn't made its way to a lot of refrigerators as the memory verse. But if he who is love says that to us I just want to park and go, okay James says when you experience trials, tribulations, don't consider it a strange thing. Most of us do. And don't consider that God is doing this to tempt you to evil or to test you and say he's not. If we could factor that into the equation of reality that just says you know what stuff happens and it isn't God's one by one I am getting you for this X, Y and Z because it's like you know what stuff happens. God's not absent from my life and he's at work in those moments probably one of the most wonderful things is in that moment to recognize I have a place I can lean on to turn to to get help from in my time of need. But if your equation is this only happens if I've done wrong and therefore it's an expression of his disfavor who do you turn to? You're stuck by yourself and that's far more challenging and far more difficult and not true. And if you don't know that today I don't think the uptake of the podcast is well we're telling you so just be convinced that God's the love. What we're saying is there is a place for you in the Father where you can come to know these realities. How you get there we don't have a three step plan wouldn't sell you one if we'd made one up. I didn't get myself there. This is something God does in a heart that keeps saying God do this in me. I had a great expression from someone this week just in an email. They said finding our way instead of trying to find God's reality out there somewhere we just need to look at home. And being at home in our own heart we're always trying to find the next revival the next author, the next book, the next seminar for my transformation. And really it's closer to home than that. It's not out there somewhere. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you. God is nearer now than you know. And if you don't know him and you don't see him and you don't have clarity about some of the things we're talking about right now, the next step really in your life is just keeping your heart before him. Going on a walk, asking him to make himself known. Watching in your life the way he would nudge you into a new reality. It's not so much earning it. It's not so much trying to just mentally wrap your head around and pretend that God loves me because Brad Wayne said he did. I need to know this. God would you show me. Just let that prayer be seasoned in your heart over time. A daily prayer for the next decade that I think would be real worthwhile is God win my heart to your affections. I think our heart Jeremiah said it's deceitfully wicked. Well the wicked parts really challenging. It's like well that's not helpful. That means it's twisted, broken and messed up. The disturbing part is the deceitful one. Because I'm like wait a minute that's double jeopardy. It's like oops. It's not just messed up but it can fake me out. David said unite my heart to fear your name. To know you. And in the midst of that it's like God I can't make that happen. You've got to do a work a restorative work in me that I might know you. That I might see you as you are. That I might feel the affections that are real that you have for me that I don't know. But you think the heart being deceitfully wicked do you think that's true of the unregenerate heart? You don't think you have that heart now do you? I think the untransformed parts of me. I mean yes I get a new heart but I'll be honest. I think the human being has an incredible capacity for self-deception. Well it does. The old nature certainly does. I'm just getting back to the heart. I think that Old Testament Scripture is really a pre-regeneration Scripture. I like that thought. Now that I have a new heart in Christ. My heart is new. I really embrace the fullness that my heart is not trying to lead me astray, whatever. But the Old Wayne still hanging around. I got something called the Flush. It's not who I am. It is incredibly deceptive for sure. But it's not me. It's not who I am. It's not who God has been. I can buy all of that. I think that's just the challenge of where I'm going like so much of what religion pedals is sort of a self-help deal. Like you can just figure this out. And I'm sitting there like I have only found bankruptcy there. I agree with that. But to think our heart is wicked and working against this will not let us trust what God does. I agree. The flow of water in a life in Christ does change directions where I can start to trust that there. But I think a beginning place is just when that isn't to some degree supernaturally natural and you're going like I don't feel that. And I don't know that he loves me. I don't think that it is found within us. The capacity is like well then I'm just going to figure this out. Well he just does. It's not there. That's not real. That takes a work of God to bring about transformation. And so the reason I point out the deceitfully wicked part is when I haven't been one to that that's not a place for more condemnation. See you just don't get it. It's like I can't get that. He's got to come and produce that. I don't love until he has first loved me all I can hope to do is say hey, Ali all the income free. I'm here. I'm lost. I have no idea how to be found. But would you? And hang out with people who have been found. Hang out with people who get a sense of their love. They're being loved by the Father. Read the Gospel. Read the stories of Jesus. Read the New Testament. Get a sense of no longer want you to have a spirit of fear but a spirit of adoption. Whereby you crowd Abba. Think inside the world where God's love makes itself. No, that's helpful. If the input to my brain every day as long as what a stupid piece of crud I am in all the stupid ways I ruin my life and how much, blah, blah, blah. It's not going to help. You got to hang out around folks who get the love reality. It helps me. It helps me when I was struggling with some of this and I said, why does he get to live love? He's creepier than I am. Apologies to all those I'm saying about. And you go, gosh, you know what isn't my performance. It's not that I'm working harder than them. That doesn't lead me into that reality. But conversations with them and hearing ways they think went, okay, now I've heard stuff like that before in my head, but I didn't think that was Jesus stuff. I thought it was just Wayne stuff. It helps to hang out with people who get some of this Jesus reality. That's why we do this whole podcast. We just talk about this. Not to make people frustrated. Don't get it. But hopefully at some point you're going to say, see, I've heard things like that in my heart and head. But I thought it was just me. I thought it was rebellious people thinking that way. I didn't know that are just, you know, it's the warm fuzzy people who think God is a big warm fuzzy. No, it's not. There's a reality to you being loved by the light of the universe that until that begins to become a reality, that's where the whole journey is. That's the trail head. The trail head is finding, okay, maybe I am. Yeah, I begin to see that. You're not changed overnight by that reality. That's where the trail head gets to start. You know, the really good news is that can be known. It's not just the unknowable. Right. The forever distant God, the so holy other that we have no relationship with. It's like, no. This is a knowable real relationship that he will and does initiate. And you, if you don't know this in your heart yet, somehow get your head wrapped around it. He wants that for you more than you want it for yourself. And that's helpful. God's not the one you have to convince. Or perform for. Yes. He wants this more than you do. So you're not connecting with it. Don't go into the whole self. Blame my fault doing all kinds of garbage stuff. Go ahead and ask him. Yeah, go ahead and sit down in a huff and just say, hey, I don't know that. And unravel in me, God, what needs to be unraveled so I can see this. Help me, save me from my own. There's no way he's not going to answer that. Yeah, for sure. Well, you want to catch up on some mail? Sure. This is old podcast now because we're way, I mean, we've recorded some since I've been running around Germany the last two weeks. Dixie wrote about the God to do something podcast. Enjoy the podcast. Learning still to rest. Don't attend the building. Was wondering what your guy's opinion is regarding where new believers would be taught the word and teens and children. I know the ideals is to come from the home. However, that is the exception rather than rule. Disciplining one on one is good, discipling one on one is good, but that's not usually that many of us willing to do it. So where do you send new believers for growth in him? Could you talk about this? And then before this is on the blog, so Russ responded, Dixie, I think that your question is interesting. The way that you phrase it indicates how conditions we've become, you ask, where do we send the new believer? That's what he's laughing. Yeah, why should we send them anywhere? I think each circumstance determines that. For example, where did Philip send the Ethiopian treasure? He was headed to Ethiopia, I suppose, and there would have not been a church there. But Paul probably sent the Philippian jailer to the Philippian church at Philippi. Well, maybe I'm not sure there was a church yet. Seems to me that God, that when God gives us the privilege of introducing someone to Jesus or knowing someone that is a new believer, that he is sending them to us. If he didn't say that about you, it's like I don't know that we're supposed to downshift this to somebody else. There's relationship. There is. They don't need to all of a sudden, you don't have to do the Holy Spirit's job. Do you somehow think that the Holy Spirit is going to be divorced from the whole discipleship process? We've been taught that. I know. If God, if we won't, God can't. That's the lie of religion. Boy, God can't do any of this stuff. When will I find somebody who will help me? You know, that was true. Then we're God. Oh, gosh, no. Don't even go there. Creation never happened because if we... No, he did that. He did that without us. But he made us. Now he's resting. That's right. He's in the eternal seventh day. And I would rather send a new believer home with a Book of John and a heart that asks God to make himself known than put them in any kind of Bible study curriculum I can think of. Over the last 15 or 20 years, we've said a number of different people to the Lord in different settings. Which even sounds weird, doesn't it? Lead them to the Lord. Yes, that does. I learned that in church. I know me too. We don't lead them. We introduce them. It would be fun. Yes, and the Holy whatever. The reality is it was strange to look back and the people that we brought into church settings really did become more religious. And I don't use that. I do use that a little pejoratively. May become more knowledgeable about scriptures, but more religious in their living. But the people that we just related with and didn't send anywhere. I gotta tell you, they found the supernatural far easier. The idea of God's communicating with them was more natural. The ones that began there, but then found church, it's almost as if the things that came more naturally in terms of relationship and their giftings and God using them. That got educated out of them in terms of their expectancy. And it was just, it's wild to watch of just going like, you know what, people that were not in our little locality. So I was trying to fold them into our fellowship and I had no idea where to send or direct them. But the ones that just centered on the relationship with Jesus to this day are bearing such wonderful fruit, led many, introduced many of their friends to that reality so naturally that you just sit there and go like, golly, the diseases that they picked up at the different institutions, I just have to go like, wow, those are going to take some healing to get rid of. Did they get more information? Is it necessarily bad? No, it's no. There's wonderful things they did pick up. There's other things that they also picked up that aren't so wonderful. And so I just go like, to me it's like, if they're converted to a relationship found in a person and that's affirmed and validated and that's what's given as primary, I kind of like, I think they're going to be fine. And I think part of the passion to send them to something, whether it's our kids or whatever, to send them to go to a fear-based. Well, it's not, I wouldn't say just fear-based, but I think it's missing is this life in Jesus is so much more inherently simple than that. It's really, really complicated. It's like, oh, you want to play golf? You should go to a class and learn about the history of golf. Where did it begin? How are clubs made? You got to be able to design your own clubs. Instead of just, you know, why don't I meet you down at the range? We'll hit a few balls and we'll start learning to play golf. If you care about the history later, great. Learn some history. If you care about the technique of making clubs, then make clubs. But we start with this, even with our kids, we're not intimidated about teaching our children how to love Aunt May. That's no big deal. Aunt May comes over. They spend time with Aunt May. They're going to be cool with Aunt May. We don't, but, you know, teaching them. You don't have a class to take them for loving Aunt May? I don't. But see the whole Jesus thing in our heads, well, they have to know all these scriptures. They have to know all this intricate theology. Why, how much theology did Peter understand, really, when this started? How much did John understand? He even wrote, a lot of what Paul writes is hard to understand. Let's get to Thomas. How much did Thomas understand? I really think this is, we just dial it all back and say, this is about learning to live in his love. And yes, there's all kinds of things you can learn about scripture stories and learning about the life and the history of the church. There's a lot you can learn, but the most important thing you need to learn is that the lover of the universe, God wants to inhabit your week and be part of your life and begin an ongoing conversation with you. And you're going to learn that by, you know, going out and doing it, not by sitting in a class having someone explain it to you. In the unfortunate, perhaps unintentional, fruit that sometimes happens when that is championed as the method is the subtle conclusion that well, I don't know as much as the expert guy. And therefore I'm deficient or I'm not as skilled or as, and you're just going like that is not what makes for the heart of friendship and relationship, which, sadly, knowledge and just Bible verses in memory of those doesn't necessarily lead to that. Knowledge does puff up. I'm all for knowing the truth and the truth setting you free. But that's a person that isn't just a doctrine or a body of information. And I think in our subtle education system and this is true regardless of the subject just because I've read it in a book does not make the same reality of my knowing it for sure and living it for sure. And the first thing God might want you to know when you get to know him is not how does the synoptic Gospels get written. It might be how do I love my wife and children without me being so much the center of my own world. You mean he doesn't have a discipleship program that everyone is industrialized through. They all go through the same steps? To my shame, I wrote one years ago that had 278 steps to becoming a mature believer. Oh, we should publish that. You can't find it today and for good reason. Did you burn it? Oh, it was amazing system. The problem was people who got filled all out 278 things were no different than when they started. Oh, they had more in their head but nothing more in their heart and they didn't know how to love any better. I think the things God really wants us to learn was it frutile? It was futile. It was a life and we help people learn to live their life around Jesus and yeah, you want to add the Bible stories and that's easy. I know people who've just read the Bible, just started to read the Bible. Didn't go to classes, didn't go to anybody having to teach it and began to see realities in God that were more transforming than people that can give you all the theological arguments. There was no one validating it? There was someone validating it but he had a capital S with someone who was validating so yeah, I think that's good and when you know people who are on that journey I meet people on airlines that I get to introduce to Christ I have absolutely no follow up with I trust that God, like the Ethiopian guy God can take you somewhere. Where did Philip send the Ethiopian unit? Nowhere. And then there are people around here that I get to know who are on a bit of a journey and then you know what, come spend some time with me. Yeah, let's get together. I'll help you out, let's meet for lunch, and then you can grow in your hard life. That's a good piece of mail. I'll be back to an airport and fly home, long fly at home, but it's always good to get home. Oh, right now you're in Germany? I am. You seem like you're sitting right across me. It's just so amazing. It is amazing, but I'm days away from flying home. You're already feeling it in the future. Man, you are in that time-dimensional coupling thing. I can't even live in this life. Wow.