Bug-Killing Zappers — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2008/10/24/bug-killing-zappers/

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. Well I found your Wisconsin mosquitoes. Oh you did? Cool. They're Michigan. They're Michigan. Oh my. Well they migrated. Evidently I guess global warming maybe has pushed them. Oh. It's not really south. That's actually east. That's the east. East. I'm not sure why. The north boys. The northeaster. I spent about two hours outside in Michigan on a Monday night. And gosh it must have been 80 to 100 people just show up at this place. But it's called dinner for the muskets. Oh. It's out on this farm. I'm telling you what I was landed on fairly quickly, twice lifted out of my chair. Doing blood testing. Before I got them to let go. And then they brought on this mosquito repellent stuff. Supposed to be great stuff. I got bit five more times after I sprayed up. I think it's mosquito attractant. I thought it was, yeah, let's let them bite the visitor from California. So we're going to slick him up with sugar water. There you go. I think that's what happened. But boy I got bit. I had. Wow. Yeah, I knew. They were there. They just migrated. They've all moved to Michigan. They migrated. They're no longer badgers. Now they're wolverines. We got invited to go horseback riding in Minnesota. We you and I are you and Kelly. No, we you and I. You and me. I don't do horses. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't. Oh, that's right. Oh, you can. I'll die allergic. I don't mind riding a cat because I can crush them. And then I don't mind. You don't ride a cat. I've never kicked a cat. Never punted. You're going to have all the cat people writing nasty letters. No. You've thought about how to torture a cat. I know you have. By the way, is that Thunder chicken or what do you name? That's a great name for not a cat, but that's under chicken. What's it? More on turbo. There. I couldn't figure it out. Man, you're not getting invited to our house, pal. Hey, I was there. I was there. I know. Two weeks ago. You were. Walked out and I was sick as a dog. And I only petted the dog who happens to sleep with the cat. They wrestle. They're great buddies. It is so. We got this cat turbo drinking out of the toilet, too. Like a good dog. I mean, it's perfect. A good dog? My dogs never drink out of the toilet. Oh, well, they do something else, dude. I've seen your dogs. No. I don't know what you're saying. No. I just root. I have no idea what you're saying. Your dog's a drug addict, dude. Well, my dog's had a little drug problem. I think we hopefully got it underwrapped. Now is what we're hoping. Hey, I heard from our Oregon atheist. Remember her? Not. You know what? It slipped my mind. We've talked about several atheists, but I didn't know we had an Oregon atheist. Oh, the gal that wrote me and I wrote her back. And she wrote back again. Was she right? So I very much appreciate your note and want to thank you for your honesty, your integrity and your intelligence. Oh, I must say I was not expecting a nice note back. And so goes assumptions. As I follow the cosmos, the energy in the universe, I wish you all the best in your quest and in your belief in someone with quotes. Be well, Wayne. Not bad. That's not bad. Not bad. How do you follow the cosmos and all its energy? I'm not localized someplace. I'm not trying. That's right. You're into that. I'm into the someone. And then Mark wrote this about this little exchange says, I love atheists. This is Mark from Georgia for a number of reasons. The love of the king and me compels me to love them. But for another reason too, atheists by nature are always thinking about God. Whether they realize it or not, they do. For example, let's say I'm a more rabid anti-smoker. I'm consumed with smoking. People who smoke designated smoking areas on and on. Or let's say I'm an avid environmentalist. I look at acid rain, litter along the highway, smokestacks, big industry with passion. The very thing I'm against is what I spend my waking hours fixated on. The atheist at his core is actually very God conscious, which is very cool. He or she may even think about God more than many religious folks do. I love the verse in Ecclesiastes 311 that God has placed eternity in the heart of man. So I love them. And I can tell you and Brad do too. Yeah, baby. That's a good way to look at it. You end up being fixated on the thing that you're against. Boy, does that count for a lot of things? That's true of a lot of people. Yes, it's very true. So the thing you're against, you're more open to and what a deal. Vicki in Minnesota writes this, a thousand thanks for the podcast since discovering you and Brad through the shack book. We've thoroughly enjoyed listening in my husband. I have followed quite a journey for the last 28 years together where to date he has been pastoring for the past 10. My husband has ever and always been about extravagant grace, though I've been a bit slower to respond. It was hard for me to give up my membership in the young Pharisee Club. However, it's been so difficult to resist this life of grace and mercy in him. And it certainly has triumphed over my prior pension for judgment. However, as my husband and I continue to travel this journey of grace, we are finding resistance from many within the board and the congregation. The dogged desire seems to be managing sin and potential sin and keeping people on short leashes so they don't make messes, disturb the status quo or think of themselves more highly than they ought to think. Not long ago, one of the elders was accused of giving way too much grace. That's a good accusation. Yeah. How dare you? What would be the level of grace that's appropriate to give? This would be an important discussion, wouldn't it? Eyedropperful. Eyedropper, maybe a cup? No, that's going no far. Is that going far, Grace? Depending on what sin they've been in. So the gallon thing is out entirely? Yeah, that's entirely too much. Yeah, somewhere between an eyedropperful and a cup. Yeah, stingy on the realm of grace is pretty wonderfully stuck in religion. And she said, these brothers and sisters of mine do love God, but they've settled for the sterile, judgmental life of Pharisees, thinking they have found it when from my perspective they're bumping around in the dark. So instead of being in a church where the leadership is resistant, we know that for sure. We are called to love, encourage and challenge a group of people, many of whom are having more difficulty in just giving away to others what papa in Jesus has freely given to them. Oh, that's kind of a flip on the whole deal, isn't it? It is. You know, I think I learned this a while back, what we behold, you know, what we worship, we become. And I do think that, you know, a lot of people's image, what they have inherited is a sort of a God of perfection that demands holiness. And the way that gets filtered down into their little system is, well, you know, if I'm going to be like him, unfortunately, I've got to be the policeman. Yeah, it was interesting to be pulling those two letters together about the atheist being fixated on God, even though it's the anti-God kind of fixation. You've got the same thing going on the religious sphere. You've got people who are so fixated on sin and people being in sin and trying to fix in that the religious folks, as she's describing here, are much more fixated on sin than they are on him, on the God who loves it. Yeah, the God of grace and mercy. So it's the same problem. We actually are more fixated on what we're against than what we're trying to embrace in our hearts. Yeah, and when you look at the whole concept of managing our sin, you know, shame management, it just, there's nothing hope filled in my mind because there's nothing that ever gets that thing away from me. If all I'm doing is managing its presence in my life, where is the deliverance? I mean, where is that moment? It says, well, for those who are in Christ Jesus, therefore now, no condemnation. And shame management, sure, there's a ton of condemnation. All the time. I mean, you look at it as a good thing. It's just to the right of my doing better, trying harder. And I think so much of how people do approach this, it's like, there isn't that place of security and peace and that sense of freedom from, hey, that's true. That was, that's part of my life. But Christ has entered and something's radically different now. And don't you think most people interpret Romans 8.1, particularly the religious? Because I think I did when I was in all that stuff. Interpret Romans 8.1, there's therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you're not perfectly in Christ Jesus at this moment, We will condemn you. You're getting what you deserve. If you're feeling condemned, hey, you should feel condemned. Condemnation is a good thing. Condemnation will draw you back to Jesus, make you change your life and make you try harder for him. Why even, I haven't used the whole concept at times where it's like, you know, if you're, if you're living under guilt, well, guilt's there because it's the presence of real sin that you need to transact. And it's like, there might be some truth to that, but there's not a whole lot of freedom. If that's what I'm always focused on. You know, try, don't, don't think of a green elephant, Wayne. Don't, don't think of a green elephant. I mean, the whole idea of the way our brains work is in order to not do something, I've got to put that something there. And then it's pretty tough to not do it. And when scripture says there's therefore now no condemnation, I don't think it means well, just if you're perfect, because when would you ever qualify for that? I don't think I would. I don't think yet. Unless you've got that, you know, that 10th of a second between asking for forgiveness for everything you could have possibly ever done. I think that moment right when I am asleep and I'm about to wake up. For that moment, it's perfect. Yeah. I haven't done anything. No condemnation. I'm good. Yeah. But I think what we get underscored in the New Testament, maybe this is the difference between conviction, which I think conviction is a drawing of my heart back to God from where I get stuck. And condemnation is a focus on Wayne, and you're not trying hard enough, you need to do better. It's pretty overarching. And yeah, I'm not even sure there's value in condemnation for unregenerate humanity. No, it tends to lead to despair. If the Son of God didn't come to condemn the world, but that's the verse right after John 3.16. You know, I think all those sandwich board people need to read that. Really? What? If he didn't come to do it, why? What I've got to. Why do we think it's our deal? I get to because there are some people that deserve condemnation, and there are some people who don't. Make sure you're one of those who don't deserve it. But I know for religious folks, I know working in it. I know when I was there, the number one disease of believers in a religious environment is persistent condemnation for where they don't measure up. There's never a place in Christ where they can say condemnation-free. And when I see it coming, I know it's not mine. I know it's a lie from the enemy. Because we try and shape it into, no, this is something we could use. This is, this is good. Let's use all the tools of shame management. Exactly. And you look at the whole, I mean, that verse you twisted around Romans 8.1. It's a beautiful promise. Oh, I didn't twist that. No, no, no, I'm talking about it in a good way. It's a promise that, look, for the things that are about Christ, guess what? Condemnation-free zone. And how do you know you're in religion? Well, if the condemnation is still following you, and it's still active and working and all that stuff, guess what? That's the place that's called not in Christ. And it's not like performed so as to get free from the condemnation. It's the fact that the presence of Christ displaces that. It's not, it's not here anymore. Nor to perform to get back in Christ. Exactly. Yeah, take a deep breath. I can't leave that high anyways. Lean back into him and saying, God, obviously I've gotten focused on me. Obviously the whole condemnation thing is, I'm not smart enough. I'm not doing enough. I'm not committed enough. I'm not trying enough. All back to the whole focus is here. And the in Christ part of it is, I'm not ever going to be enough. I'm not ever going to do enough. I can't earn this. Lean back into the work that Jesus has accomplished for me and dance in that reality with him. And then there is truly no condemnation. None. It just not helpful. Condemnation. This is why I love to just grab people by the throat. Condemnation won't help you be like him. It is not your friend on its best day. It's not your friend. It's going to pull you away, focus you on the wrong thing. Leave you, like you said, empty and in despair. Yep. I am no longer a member of the nation of the condemned. I know more. I'm just no more. I'm gone. You're not in that? No. Not part of that nation. Not a civilian or citizen. Not a participant. Not brokering it for other people. No. That's one of the really huge wonderful things when this starts to really take a hold in your heart. I don't have to do all that policing of others. That used to take up so much of my time, whether I was in their presence or not, you're just being bothered by other people and what they're doing. And it's like they're not doing it right. And it's like, you know what? It's not my job. I resigned. Again, focusing on the wrong thing. I'm going to focus. I'm going to be a God guy, but I'm going to focus on sin and who's sinning and get them to stop sinning or who's not condemned enough to act better. So I'm going to lay them the gold guilt trip on them. And I'm still living the opposite of the thing I say I'm passionate for. That's why I love it when I was, you know, if anything is pure, righteous and holy, you know, think on these things. It's such a far better pursuit than trying to not do a whole bunch of those things. Absolutely. And then we got this from George. George, I have a little angst. I'll read a little further about this later on, but he says this interesting observation. He said the word religion is a word he's done some research on. Though there are some different opinions, most linguistic scholars indicate that it comes from the Latin re legar. This is an emphatic. Re is an emphatic. Legar means to bind. Hence literally religion is to bind tightly. Most Christian religionists are indeed bound tightly to a set of doctrines, to a set of actions. Do these things get blessed? Do these things go to hell? A set of beliefs, a set of heavenly habits. Many are even in bondage to the Bible and to scripture. Whoa, very tightly. To bind tightly is the essence of religion. And it becomes another conformity based expression. It's not about transforming people through the love of God to bind tightly is to somehow put people into an environment where they're pressed to act differently, pressed to pretend to be what they're not, and that that somehow would ever be a helpful environment. That's where Romans 12.1 was, it's just don't be conformed, that idea of being pressed into the mold of. Don't be conformed to the image of this world, but rather be transformed. That's like, guess what? I'm not just better, I'm completely different. Something has radically changed at my core. That's what transformation is about. Really? You're not the same, and I'm not just improved. I'm entirely different. Some things happen on the inside that make the way I think and process life very, very different. Isn't it kind of wild that the super Pharisee, you know, the apostle Paul, super Pharisee of all these, if anyone was doing it well and trying real hard and succeeding at that religious performance game, he was the best. At the top. And therefore he decries that as all of that wisdom is foolishness. It's dung. And he, as opposed to being the greatest of performers, feels as if he is the chief of sinners. You're just going like, wait a minute. This guy had a radical altering of how he viewed his former achievement. It wasn't she, I was well-meaning. It was, I was way wrong. And now it's a whole different gospel. This is that gospel of grace guy. You know, we're sin abounds, grace, much more abounds. You're just going like, gosh, for the super Pharisee, you've really kind of blurred the whole rule thing. Didn't blur it at all. It brought it to show up. Yeah. Because what you've got is greatest performer equals chiefest of sinner. And that just is true. That there's not even, it wasn't just true for Paul. True. It's just true forever. You're spot on there, Jacobson. When you are the greatest performer, when you're trying to pretend to be what you're not, when you're trying to act in condemnation and guilt and performance, when you've really perfected that whole school, you've become the cheapest of sinners. Because what you've left out is God and people. And what Paul could do to people as a performer was use them. Use them, even if I got to kill you to protect my deal, I get to kill you. Now I get to do it. I get to do it feeling like it's my best thing to do. And I find- It's part of my performance. So much of the religion. I got a little exchange going on with a guy, my email right now, did an interview with Paul in the shack. And it was an ambush interview. It was just horrible. And I was with Paul last week. So I talked to him a little bit about it. I said, man, I had to be horrible. And he said, yeah, a guy let him on, false pretenses. And so some guy, and I just wrote him back. And I said, hey, here's what I understand you did. And blah, blah, blah. And oh my goodness. Turned his guns on you. Yeah. Which is, you're going to come on my podcast? Not in your life, dude. Not even interested at all. Well, you are already. I'm taping it. Tell him about his email. He can read it if he wants. But I am amazed over and over again how the people who seem to me, and this goes right to Revelation, the church at Ephesus, the people most passionate about doctrinal purity are the least able to love people wherever they happen to be in the journey. It was with that. I find that true. Yeah, that's totally true. I find that true in our own God Journey Forum. The people that are most engaged in doggone, I want to conform you to the way I think. True. And if you don't, you're less than me. They're all their conversation is. Combative. It's combative. I'd say even more that it's condescending. That's just a great word. And they, even when you say that, God sounds a little condescending. It's, I'm right, dead gummit. When I'm right, it doesn't matter. I find that, and I'm a believer, and I would mostly agree with their theological position. But I can't tell you how turned off I am to that line of thinking. When you're going to be that performer who's got your little doctrinal ducks all quacking in a row, that you're going to treat everybody else around you who doesn't measure up to your level of intellect, their ability to express it or whatever. And you're going to belittle them and you're going to talk down to them. And you're going to set yourself. I mean, it's just, you're not throwing rocks at them like Paul was, but you're crushing people on the inside in the name of quote unquote truth. And if truth is a person, not just a set of doctrinal propositions, then you've missed what truth really is, even if you've got the facts right, because you're willing to crush people for what you think is important to you. And I find that horrible. Which is not an embodiment of the truth. Not even close. Even if you got your facts right, it's like the whole manner in which you've expressed them seems to do the whole contradiction of it. Absolutely. And that's where it's like, I don't think you're meant to, you don't sacrifice truth on the altar of love and you don't sacrifice love on the altar of truth. Real truth is going to be harmonized as it expresses both. Yeah. And you can't just use facts against people. It's interesting. I had a guy years ago, I think his name was Dudley Holland. He talked about the two trees kind of in the garden. And he talked about, get the tree of life, and then you got the Dudabee tree. And I just, what do you mean? The Dudabee tree. Dudabee tree. What? He said so much of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the whole approach of religion is, I need to do this in order to be that. And so you're getting on. And so he just summarized it as the Dudabee tree. It's just a great way to remember it. Because they're like, I mean, that's the tree. The gospel is completely different. Jesus says, I declare that you are. Therefore you will be different. It's not that I'm going to do something so that I can be. It's the you are. It's the be so that you may do. And it's like, Paul, it's great performer. He's the same guy that kind of says, you know what, it's no longer me who's doing this. I want to live by the life of Christ and the faith of the very Son of God. He's talking about something that isn't what he did before. He knows all of his performance. He knows his energy, the effort, the discipline, the everything that he gave to be per. And then it's like, whoa, whoa, I was way wrong. And then he's talking about living according to a different power source on the inside of him. That's where his hope was. That's where transformation came from. It's grace that allowed that to happen so that he didn't have to be stuck in what he was doing or didn't want to do. Yeah. And then he didn't have to use people for what he needed for them. Now he was able to lay his life down for people. I even think of the whole getting beat up in the jail was at Philippi when he could have gotten out of it from the very start. He was Roman citizen. He could have said, look, you can't do this to me, but Silas is going through it. So you know what? He decides to go through it with Silas. And you look at, here's a guy who was stoning people now being stoned. Here was a guy who was making trouble. Now he's getting trouble. And yet at each, that's how different it was from the inside. That's the difference between the whole religious approach to stuff and simply learning to live in the reality of who God is. I think it makes you a better lover of people. And like you said, you don't compromise truth for that. Don Francisco's Pharisee, I just test. I think one of the things he said on that was, Pharisees think truth is more important than love and people who follow Jesus, I forget exactly how he said this, but realize that love is the most important part of truth. I think that's just a great way to say it. That's very, very clear. Because I think most people when they hear love, they think, well, you just be nice to people. Love is about being nice. And I don't think you ever separate love from truth. There's no way to separate love from truth. It's not loving to do so. If you love somebody, yeah, you're gonna be real with them and you're gonna, but there is seems to be a very easy way to separate truth from love. Unfortunately, yes. Yeah, it seems very easy to say, you're not, this is about truth. And I'm doing this well. And if you're just telling you the truth. That's right, I can teach you however I want to. That's right. That's interesting. And of the two, God says he's love. God is love. So whatever, if you go back to what is God's intrinsic nature, the very base of his character is that he's loving. Now he always speaks the truth. And God, no falsehood in God, doesn't gonna lie to anybody to make him feel good. Not even a little white lies? Not even a little white lies. God's gonna be totally true and real in every exchange. But he is never gonna sacrifice love to do that. He doesn't have to. Loves at the heart of the truth that he is. And I tell you, people who get caught up in religion, they miss that and so many other things. Well, it's an incredibly good litmus test just to apply to your own heart. It's like, if I feel like I can drive the bus over somebody in the name of, well, what's right? And it's loving to drive the bus over you because you really need a bus driven over you. So that you can get it. I'm not so sure they do. But, I know people who believe they do. No, I know. And it's like, gosh, how, when Jesus said, you know, the world's gonna know that this is true. I mean, this is like the proof text for the best kinds of evangelism. How are you gonna convince people? The world will know that all of this is true. Well, how, how do you do that? When's that? Gospel, John, when you have love, one for another. It didn't say when you go out and perform and do all these things. It's just saying, the world will know that I am the truth. And that this whole thing about me is true. When they look at you guys and they see you loving each other. That it's, it's that darn simple. Not doctrinally conforming each other. There's no verses there. There's no, there's no sense of not ritualistically conforming each other. No systematic theology in it. And I'm saying, look, I'm a theology guy. I actually like that stuff. Yep. I could, I could talk it for hours. I, I think it's fun. But I'm also pretty sure it doesn't convince anybody that he's real and this is true. But I've, I've countless times when I've just gotten lost in the being, the body of Christ with a handful of people. Where you just go like, I'm not even thinking about it. We're just living that out. And other people look in and they see genuine love. Not outreach programs, not feeding the homeless, not doing all the, not, not all our performance digs. But they just go, there's genuine love there. That has the ring of authenticity for everybody. Yeah. And it seems to me that in an environment of love where people genuinely care about each other, or you generally care about the people you're talking to, truth never has problem getting in there. I, you know, some of the bridge builder work I've done, I've been with people who are absolutely politically opposed to what I'm about and what I would believe in politically. And they know it. And yet we can discuss just about anything in an environment of love and respect. And what I know about just being a truth guy, ramming it down people's throat, is that nobody wants to talk to you. You lose every battle. Even the people who agree with you want to kind of like, excuse me, and I've seen so many small group environments get hijacked by that same spirit of doctrinal perfection that's just got to take control of a room. And everybody in the room is looking at each other, rolling their eyes going, where did this come from? And the only one who doesn't know it is the Pharisee on his little pedestal who thinks his knowledge of the Bible exceeds everyone else's in the room. And that he's actually being a blessing in that context, he's the only one that doesn't know he's not. And he's tripping over the one proof text of that reality. If you say you love God, but you don't love your brother, you're a liar. And here's what I want to people to understand. Get this, cramming truth down someone's throat is not loving them. That's what just got to be known. The loving comes apart from the truth. And I hope that's going to be misinterpreted because I don't mean you're going to ignore the truth, but whether or not you genuinely care about someone is a reality apart from what it is that you're trying to tell them. And if you're trying to tell them truth and don't care about them as people, willing to crush them, willing to damage that bruised reader, snuff out that smoldering wick, if you're willing to do that, then man, it doesn't matter how much truth you've got to dump on somebody, it is not love that does it. It's your desire to be some kind of hero, guru guy and make everybody think you've got the best doctoral knowledge in the room. And I don't know, to be honest, I don't know of anything more damaging to fellowship in the family than those kind of people. I see them closed down groups all the time. And even when I'm traveling around, people are asking questions. And I'm all for people exploring. I'm all for people disagreeing with me, saying they're always in that line after the message. What do you think about that? I don't worry about them in the line after the message because I don't mind taking it. What I hate to see is when a room is opening up and people are starting to be real about something in their lives. And then the doctrinal guy comes in, you know, those new flyswatter things that, you know, electric charge up, I've got one of those. I love it. I go wet flies. I can't, I used to hate flies being in my house. I actually enjoy seeing a fly in my house. It's like playing tennis with flies. It's perfect. But when somebody pulls out their racket in a room where lives that are just taking a tender moment to look at something inside them, and they may not even have expressed it in the most theologically accurate way, it's like the doctrine bashers that got that little paddle. They're just going to whack it down right there. Doesn't even, this little life start. Done. And I just sit there and go, why would you do that? Why? Why do you consider yourself a valuable gift to the body of Christ if you've got to use your little whack-back stick? Don't get it. Got to tell you. Don't get it. I don't understand it either. I just go like, in this moment, looking at that, it's like, gosh, that's not exact. I mean, all you got to do is read the Gospels and look at how Jesus dealt with... Well, read the Gospels. He's talking about... The Bible? Like the Bible? Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm coming back to that. No, I think it's fabulous. But I just, the doctrinal people would be well-served to read the Gospels. Just read the Gospels. Just read the Gospels. And you look at how did Jesus deal with the dirty rotten sinners that everyone else kind of pointed out? And just a cursory reading of the scriptures, you could end up with the sense of, my gosh, that guy took care of some of the wounded, broken misfits that everyone else discarded. The stories he told, the people that he defended, the ones that he hung out with. He took it on the chin for hanging out with him. He had his own reputation destroyed. How could you be real? You're hanging out with these people. And it's like, the funnest thing for me is to actually find someone that didn't grow up in a religious environment and that just encouraged him to read the Gospels and the exhilaration, because they're not reading it to get the star on their chart. They're kind of like, I didn't know. I'm just curious. And they look at it, they end up with the person that they fall in love with. There's a really attractive Jesus right there that they're just like, I get that guy. I like that. And at the same time, he's doing a little bit of a dance to kind of make sure the religious folks are offended enough not to hang around that environment, isn't it? You see intention out of there, do you, Wade? I wonder. The whole parables. And the reason he talked in parables so that people would not really get it who are not ready to get it. The idea of the 5,000 eagles and fishes chasing around the park and the next day on the other side of the lake, he's talking about eating my flesh, drinking my blood, they go home. I see something very... Not the crowd grower. I see something very... See, I don't mind meeting a Nicodemus at night. You're a Pharisee and you want to go to lunch with me and we won't have these theological tirades. I don't mind... I'm not going to tirade with you, but I don't mind bearing that with you. I don't mind loving you in that. What I don't want you to do is show up at a meeting where some life is just giving vent to some new spiritual dynamic and whack it with your fly-killing stick. That's what I don't want you doing. So I really don't even mind those people being a bit offended. I don't think Jesus minded them being... He loved them. He loved them to death. It didn't seem like... He actually took out his fly-swatter for them. A couple of times. Yeah. The woe-to-you-fly... Yeah. He said, I... I... I... The bloody-changing moment. I don't think that looked like that. No? No, I think he did it, sir. But I think he did it in a way that was pretty tender and pretty loving. The kids wanted to hang out with them afterward. That's got to tell you something. You go clear a shop with your little... Indiana Jones whip. Yeah, he'll whip and flare nostrils and all that stuff. And see, how many kids want to hang out with you afterwards? I think that had to look... He was very honest with these guys. But I think also when they're... When they've got this little woman who's washing his feet with her hair and drying it... Drying it with her hair, washing with her tears. And it's in Simon's house, the Pharisee. And he's all upset. What a... Notice how Jesus rises to her defense. Oh, God, this is not about you. And you're... She's been loved much. She's been forgiven much. She's done a good thing. And I think we need to give more of that. That the pressure is always... This is from Monica in Norway. I didn't get the other part of George's deal. I don't know if we will hear it and run out of time, but... Monica wrote this. As I wrote you my first email, I wrote that I came out of a very abusive church situation. But I can't seem to read the Bible right. I only hear what I heard with the institution. Here the other day, a woman from the unhealthy institution called me and said it was not God's will for me injured and not been able... And I've not been able to work and not have money. She told me that he would like all his children to prosper and bless us so that we could be wealthy. And then she quoted Scripture and I did not know what to say. I was wondering if you could make a podcast for us abused that had been under a lot of unhealthy prosperity teaching and maybe take a look at the Scriptures these people are using to support their beliefs and why it is wrong and why it is getting so unhealthy. I'm thinking about issues like wealth and money and healing and tithing and authority and so on because of my losses of health and money and coming out of organized religion, but also a prosperity faith formula way of thinking. I'm struggling so hard to find my way back to what is really biblical and what is not, but I am stuck. When I try to read the Bible, I get more depressed than ever. All I hear is the Scriptures that the old doctrine is telling me how to read. I have been using these two years to recover, listen to podcasts, read and relax and feel safe in Father's arms again without performing. But I thought I was ready now to pick up my Bible and do some studying of what the Word of God really teaches. But every time I try, I end up a mess and worse off than before. That's the damage to me of that whole religious kind of thinking because you can take Scriptures. The Scriptures talk about the abundance of Christ's life flowing in us. Yes. Is that abundance based on temporal circumstances? I don't think so. I think Scripture demonstrates over and over again. It's not, but when people tie that and then here's the deal. I'm going to come to you who are in need, whatever, saying your need just proves you're not good enough to work this the way God told you to work it. Zip, zip them again. Wish I'd had that. Next time I go to Michigan, I'm going to take that paddle. Some of those skitters. What's that crazy God dirty guy waving his wand forward? Hey, outside Michigan I could have generated enough sparks to light the whole backyard. I'm convinced of it. That's where all the Wisconsin mosquitoes have gone. But my heart goes out to Monica. You've heard these Scriptures interpreted in one way all your life. Two years trying to now. How do I rethink? And she's still not finding it. She's getting there. And it's still coming away from reading Scripture depressed that my life doesn't measure up. It's hard to say to people you can't come to Scripture focused on your performance because you're still going to come away condemned. You just are. Yeah. I mean, I look at Jesus's rebuke of the Pharisees when he talks about, you know, you put all these loads upon people. You weigh them down and you make them, you know, twice the son of hell that you are. You're like, wow, that's pretty sharp words. And it's like the whole idea that I used to think, oh my gosh, those awful people way back then. Just go low and behold. Low and behold. They're back. And you look at people's approach to the, you know, here's your evidence. Your life is going to have these things. We just go like, I'm pretty sure that stuff doesn't confirm the life of God because I've been in my own life without stuff. And at times I had in more simplicity, more of the sense of the life of God than ever I did with the managing of stuff. Yeah. And just going like, wait a minute. People get so twisted up thinking it's like, they're preyed upon with this desire that they do want to do right. That's wonderful. Absolutely. That's been God breathed as a desire, but it doesn't end up on a treadmill exhausted. It's like, God, the simplicity of being able to say, you know what, I do know what I do and I know how tired that gets. I also know that when I stop in that little sort of bankrupt moment and I just like, oh God help, life does become fresh and easy in those moments. My problems don't just evaporate, but there's a sense of going, I can't do this on my own. And whenever I think I can, that typically is what I've gotten into the mess. Somehow we've grown up. I think our generation, well, my generation started it. Yeah. But we've had such a overall easy existence. Medical science can do an awful lot. Prosperity in our culture, live in America. All that's been true the last 50, 60 years. Everybody's kind of grown up with God blessed people, have everything going for you. And when you have a sickness that God doesn't heal, when you go through a financial time that stretches you, well, obviously you're outside God's blessing or you wouldn't be going through it. And the very act of thinking that way puts me outside the presence of God at the moment I most need him to be with me. I think what scripture teaches, what history teaches, what I know about God is this. It's not that God is going to fix every circumstances for his beloved. That if you are his beloved, you're never going to be sick. You're never going to hear the C-word, cancer. You're never going to have an unemployment thing. That somehow what we've gotten the idea that God is this fairy godmother who's just going to wave their little magic wand and turn all your rats into horses. And I think what scripture teaches is there's not a pain you're going through. There's not a disappointment. We got a letter from a gal in the UK, four years in a darkened room, some viral thing ran through her body and just destroyed her. Trying to find God in the midst of that, feeling somehow punished or at least abandoned by the physical need she has. If you start there, how does God ever get in that room with you? How do you ever know him to be present with you? I think what scripture teaches is there's nothing this world dishes out that God can't crawl into it with you. And if you can get your eyes off of yourself and your own performance and how do I fix this? Or how do I get God to fix this? But just begin to embrace the relationship right where you are. Watch what he does. And it won't always be fix everything, but it will give you an abundance of life even in the middle of the most desperate circumstances. And if the gospel doesn't do that, then it's just a gospel for the wealthy. And the people have easy circumstances. And I don't believe that for a minute. Well, it's not even good news because, I mean, the hardest pain, I think, is that sense of religious abandonment. Because I didn't measure up. Therefore, I'm going to be cast off. Or have been cast off. And now I can't know God right where I am because I deserve this. Yeah. And you just look at, you know, does God dwell in the high and the lofty places? He dwells with the broken and the contrite of spirit. And you just go like, well, those tend to be the cast offs. So, I mean, let the religion do what it wants, but God still hangs out with those he loves. And I think that's all of us.