https://vimeo.com/79627383

I'm Wayne Jacobson and this is Engage. On this Engage video I want to talk to you about something that was such an encouragement to me on this journey and I think will help those of you who especially come from religious backgrounds more of standards and expectations and rules to follow and feeling guilty if you don't and wondering what you should do shouldn't do and you keep falling away from the simplicity of listening to God lead you on and instead try to fulfill expectations put on you by others. So in Galatians chapter 5 great book that Paul wrote to the Galatians those who are giving up their freedom in Christ simply believing what the Holy Spirit was showing them and instead trying to fit back into the rules and laws of the past and he wrote them this and he said don't let your freedom don't give it up for anything don't take on any yoke of slavery or burden then he talks a little bit about the law and then he says this the only thing that counts is faith that expresses itself through love. That's a powerful statement if that's the only thing that counts and that gets to wipe out everything else expectations laws principles instead of following those things what he's encouraging us to do is there's something that happens in the human heart when faith or as we talked about it last time trust begins to take hold in us where we trust his love for us we'll find ourselves loving other people around us more freely and we'll find that love will encourage in us all the change that God needs to do. In fact Paul says at the end of Galatians 5 love fulfills the whole law if you get the loving right then everything God wants to come out of your life will happen. So here's how those things have worked out in my life because when I was feeling tempted like maybe I should do something or what if I'm wrong about this journey I kept coming back with this this is the only thing that counts it doesn't count when I'm working hard for God it doesn't count just because I'm doing things that other people expect. So I found the freedom then to live inside what God's saying to me so follow what God's showing you. I think the tendency a lot of us have when God shows us something we want all of our friends and family and everyone else to believe it so we spend more of our time arguing trying to convince others push them into same thing we're seeing instead of simply following it ourselves letting God love us into a place of change instead of trying to push other people to it as well. Secondly, beware of religious people you know the type and if you've grown up in religious environments they may be all the people you know they're still living by old expectations and they want you to as well. They use guilt and fear as tools to try to manipulate you to the conformity they want. When you really discover that the only thing that counts is a growing trust in who God is expressed in our love for people that power of religious folks loses its weight. No longer do you feel compelled to follow that you can turn it off and so not beware of them in terms of push them out of your life and go away just be wary don't be influenced by those things going forward and then you'll learn to care for others. Watch out for other people around you go through your day people at work your neighbors people in your own home your spouse your kids you get to learn how to love them in a different way is that trust in him's growing now I look to care for people around me I don't look to just get my needs met and focus on my day so now you get to love easily but trust carefully and I want to make that very clear I think a lot of people confuse love and trust if I love someone I'll trust them you can love people you don't trust you can even love people you don't respect love is just how I care for them given who they are trust is something as we talked about last week that is earned over time trust is something that works when you know someone will lay down their life for you it seems to me that a lot of Christian folks get to be really gullible they don't realize a lot of people are out to con you a lot of people are out to push you after their agenda so love easily but don't be gullible so trust carefully the next thing it's helped me is watching how my heart has opened to love the least the last and the lost when I needed to be loved by other people because that's what I thought I had to survive you look out for the neat people the people you like the people that are fun to be with when God begins to fill up that space in your heart of love and you're not so busy doing all the things you used to do margins created in your life you're not running to the busyness to hide anymore so now you've got space in your life and when those who need to be loved when those who are broken places emotionally are going through difficult times instead of running from them because we feel like we can't carry that weight now we have the margin and space in our lives to be with those who are broken those who are hurting those who are left out and spend time including inviting loving and enjoying them finally be patient with all I love that phrase from Thessalonians there's not a relationship which a little patience won't go a long way no you don't have to make everybody do what you want and no you can't love everybody in your life but as you're growing trust and father's affection for you frees you to love other people around you you'll know what you need to do you'll know when you're involved and more importantly you'll know when you're not involved no you can't meet every need yes you will exhaust yourself if you try but as this growing trust and father's affection takes care of you you'll find you'll have less need in people and because you have less need for them to do what you want you're able to love them exactly as God wants and that's the freedom that living in faith and love and trust allows you to have