April 10, 2024 • 48 mins
When my brother Mike Q Daniel recounted the spiritual awakening he felt during an eclipse, it reminded me of the sheer magnitude of God's design. Our latest conversation takes you through an exploration of living a life that's not just driven by human effort, but one that blooms from an authentic, grace-based relationship with Christ. We weave through the truths of Ephesians 2:10 and the compelling insights from Phelim Doherty's 'The Father We Never Knew,' unpacking the dynamic nature of Christianity and the power of embracing our identities in Christ.
Transitioning from a life measured by achievements to resting in God's grace wasn't an overnight change for me, and it's a challenge I know many of you relate to. Mike and I open up about the struggles and triumphs of understanding God's love as a constant, not something we earn with our deeds. We share personal stories that highlight the shift from seeing ourselves through a lens of performance to recognizing our worth independent of our merits – a transformation that invites an intimate and freeing relationship with God.
In the grand tapestry of our spiritual journey, dependence on God's grace is the thread that holds everything together. I share a pivotal moment inspired by Bill Loveless and John Best's discipleship conference that revolutionized my faith, steering me away from a transactional faith towards a life richly dependent on Christ. We round off our talk by celebrating the inception of the Grace Tribe Podcast and our commitment to nurturing leader development within a grace-based church structure. Embrace the invitation to revel in the beauty of God's infinite nature with us, as we each reflect His divine image in our unique ways.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome everyone to the Simple Grace Podcast again.
My name is Pastor Sean.
I'm here every time with youand I'm so excited today to be
able to bring in my brother,mike Q Daniel, mike is an
amazing pastor and grace teacher.
You're down in Texas, right?
Yeah, yeah, just north of SanAntonio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay, so did you see the eclipse just yesterday I did
.
Actually we had a huge clan ofmy wife's family that came in.
We all ran the half marathon.
They had a big half marathonevent for the eclipse and so we
ran that and then laid aroundwatching the the eclipse it was
pretty cloudy but you couldstill see some.
It was incredible went dark inthe middle of the afternoon.
(00:43):
I thought of the biblicalreference of you know, he, the
whole world went dark and thenhe gave up his spirit.
It was like that's what struckme.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's incredible.
So just really funny story.
So yesterday I had threemeetings back to back at this
coffee shop.
The third meeting was arrangedwith a guy.
It was from a pastor who I'dmet before and he introduced me
to this guy from India who livesreally close to me and his name
was Sonny.
So I'll always remember that Imet Sonny on the day of the
(01:14):
eclipse.
I just think that's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
That's awesome, all right.
Well, I'm just going to startus out by reading a verse.
Ephesians 2.10 says we are Hisworkmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which Godprepared beforehand that we
should walk in them.
And I love that verse becauseso many people think that good
(01:39):
works produce a spiritual life,but God actually teaches us it's
the other way around.
A spiritual life and arelationship with God is what
produces good works, and goodworks are the plan.
I mean God wants us to do goodworks, but it's through an
abiding relationship with Christthat his fruit is born in our
(02:01):
life.
I was also reading this bookyesterday.
Have you read this book?
It's called the Father we NeverKnew by.
Phil, by Phil.
What's his name?
He's from Ireland, anyway, ohgosh, it's so, so, so good.
(02:22):
Oh gosh, uh, it's so, so, sogood.
Um, philum doherty and uh, whatamazing book about.
About god, uh, about the newcovenant of grace, and um, I
forgot what I was bringing it upfor.
But hey, everyone, that's mybook recommendation.
I just started a new segment ofour podcast book recommendation
of the week, and that is thefather we never knew, by Phil
(02:44):
him.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Philum Doherty.
Yeah, and Philum Doherty iswell-known grace-based uh
teacher.
I have not read that book but,um, you know, I think I think
Philum Timms to focus a lot on,uh, what I focus on in in part,
which is sort of the relationalparadigm of our walk in Christ,
and John Lynch and I weretalking this morning about how
(03:12):
we often mistake Christianityfor theology, when really it's
relationship.
The fabric of our life is nottheological and it's not
behavioral, it's relational, andso that's what our life is,
it's the construct, it's whatour life is actually made of, is
relationship.
And so if our relationship isinformed by the sufficiency of
(03:35):
Christ, by his finished work, byour identity from him, by who
we are and what we have, thenwe're not striving for things
that we've already got.
We're not trying to be thecause or fix of anything.
We're instead walking in arelationship with Christ, in
availability instead of agendafor whatever he wants to do in
and through us.
(03:55):
So the works to the verse thatyou were talking about, the
works that we're walking in withhim, right, he prepared from
the foundation of the world thatwe would walk in them, those
works, well, he's created us towalk in those, to know Christ in
them and as we know himuniquely, we can make him known
in a way that, frankly, no oneelse can know him apart from us.
(04:15):
So you, sean, can make Godknown in a way no one else can
know him except through you.
That's the works he's preparedfor you to do.
They're unique to you becauseyou are a unique expression of
Christ's life in you.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, and that relationship.
I just actually taught lastnight for several hours this
group in India that I'm teachingthese 20 pastors in India and
the topic we were teaching wasrelationship, that the new
covenant is all aboutrelationship.
So I literally just said theverse I read was from my kind of
(04:50):
lesson.
And then I have all these otherverses just like flowing
through my head right now of therelational covenant that we're
given with God and the highlight, I think, for me, what the
spirit kind of brought outyesterday, was that that
relationship is so based on love, it's so much love.
(05:12):
God's love is the foundation ofthis relationship.
His love for us and ourexperience of that love and the
revelation of that love in ourhearts is what starts to smell
to the world Like when I believethat I'm loved.
The aroma of Christ in mebecomes just a witness to the
(05:35):
world.
It changes everything when Ibelieve that I'm loved and it
changes what good works are,what good works look like.
Because one of the questionsthat the pastors asked me was
okay, well, how do I, how do Ido good works, how do I love my
enemies?
(05:55):
Because it seems like I have totry hard to love them, and I
just pointed out to him.
I said if you're trying to love, it's not love.
Yet Jesus doesn't try to loveyou.
He just is love because it'shis identity.
And so the more we ask thequestion what do I do?
We're off track of what hasChrist done to me and what
(06:21):
identity has he given me thathas you know?
His love for me is now myidentity.
Right, I am loved and so I willlove because I am loved, right.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, there's kind of a misnomer when we talk about
good works that we do.
The works that God does arealways good, right, everything
that God does is good.
Every good and perfect gift,james says, comes down from the
Father of light.
So I would say that everythingfrom God is good, and everything
that's good is, in fact, fromGod.
There's no good apart from him,and so the works that he's
(06:55):
prepared for us to do aren'treally things that are good.
We're not out there trying todo good things.
He's doing what only he can,and we're getting to participate
with him.
So it may or may not feel good,what it is is righteous because
it's from God.
What it is is loving becauseit's from God.
What it is is fruitful of therelationship that we have by
(07:18):
grace with the Father, and sohe's producing life through us,
and the result is his characterlived out by us.
And so you're absolutely right,we're not trying to be good.
What we are wanting to do is bewilling to be available, and
that's where people stumble.
(07:39):
They're like what are the goodthings I need to do?
Jesus said well, the good worksthat God requires to believe me
, believe in me, believe, putyour hope in believe upon me.
That's the work that the Fatherhas for you.
So, out of John, six, so we getto participate with him and the
(07:59):
only the choice of faith is notwhat I do for God.
The choice of faith is my beingavailable for what he wants to
do through me, and sometimesthat's going to feel good or
look good, and sometimes it'snot going to feel good and
sometimes it's not going to lookvery good.
But that's not our goal.
We're not trying to be anything.
We're believing what he hasmade us and who we are in him
(08:23):
and available because of that.
What he has made us and who weare in him, and available
because of that, thatneedlessness, by grace.
Instead of living out of whatwe need, our agenda for the
circumstance or therelationships or the things
around us, we're living out ofthe fullness of Christ for
whatever he wants to do throughus, and it changes the very
economy of our life.
Love is the natural result andit changes the very economy of
(08:45):
our life.
Love is the natural result.
Kindness is the natural resultof operating in a grace economy.
Grace isn't what God gives us.
Grace is how we live with him,as we depend upon him by faith
to do what only he can throughus.
I think we often think faith iswhat God's going to do for us,
or what we're going to do forGod, for what we want from him,
and faith is just ouravailability to him out of our
(09:07):
trust of him.
So there's a willingness factor, but if we're willing, he's
able.
We're never meant to be the onethat's able.
We can never be the one who'sthe cause or fix of the
Christian life.
We get to be dependent bychoice on him, who is sufficient
through us.
We're never trying to getbetter at the Christian life,
we're just knowing Jesus, who islife.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Amen, just like I would say.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Of course, of course.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
All right.
Well, I want to kind of dive ina little bit to you and who you
are and how you became who youare.
A little bit to you and who youare and how you became who you
are.
And so would you just take uson the story of where you came
from and what that looked like,what, maybe what your view of
God was as you were young andeveryone, I think, transitions
(10:00):
from a legalistic view of God toa more grace-centered view of
God.
Or maybe you just were bornfull of grace.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Who knows, let's see.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Why don't you tell me the story and I'll stop making
assumptions?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Sure, yeah.
Well, I don't know how muchtime you have, but I was born to
a very strong Christian familybut in a very performance driven
, uh culture, and so the churchtradition that I was a part of
and the family perspective thatI was raised in was extremely
(10:35):
performance driven, like, okay,yeah, you did good but you could
have done better and you couldhave done better sooner.
So we're not gonna we're notgonna, you know, lavish much
praise on you because then youmight not try as hard, you know
you might not do as well if youget the approval and you get,
you know, any kudos from us.
And so it was very performancedriven and and very accomplished
(11:00):
.
You know, people in my familywere all extremely successful in
pretty much everything in life,and so I was the youngest of
three boys and so I had a lot tolive up to with my older
siblings, and that just carriedright over into the religious
paradigm of do more, be more, dogood, be good.
(11:23):
Uh, it was very our performance, our behavior was very much our
identity and uh, yeah, yeah.
So I grew up as a burgeoningPharisee and thinking if I do.
This was the paradigm Irealized much later I grew up
with.
If I do everything well enoughthat God requires, then he will
(11:47):
bless what I want in my lifethat isn't contradictory to his
will for me.
In other words, I'm checkingall of his boxes so that he'll
bless all of my agenda in life,my very Christian, business,
performance-driven, pharisaicallife.
And you know, god is really notinterested in my idols.
(12:08):
God is not wanting me to bemore sovereign, more in control,
more the cause of glory andsort of producing the Christian
life for myself to earnsomething from him.
In fact, the old covenant isbased on merit and the only
(12:30):
reason it was given was to provethat we can merit nothing.
So the flesh profits scripturesays profits nothing.
So it was given not to give usa way of meriting anything from
God, but prove that we can't.
And the economy that we live byis grace and grace alone.
In other words, the life that Iget to enjoy with Christ is
merited and not by me.
(12:51):
It just has to be received byme.
And while there's nothing inhistory, in our makeup, in the
world, in the cosmos, in allcreation that is more true than
we were made to be loved,there's also nothing harder,
because if I don't earn it.
I have no control over it.
Adam and Eve were terrifiedthat they could not control the
(13:15):
righteousness of God.
Like, I want to be godly but Iwant to be the cause of the
godliness, then I'm notdependent on anyone else's love
of me.
What if God changes his mind?
What if he doesn't like what Ido today?
I would rather be godly onmerit, and then I'm not
dependent on anyone.
We want to be independent, wewant to be self sovereign, in
(13:37):
other words, we want to be incontrol, and all of our anxiety
and all of our attemptedjustifications and all of our
striving is based on our tryingto be God in our own little
corner of creation.
I want to control outcomes sothat I can earn and merit and
justify what I want from mycircumstances, and so we think
(13:59):
the Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Do you think that if someone has been had their trust
violated many, many, many times, that they will have a harder
time trusting that God wouldalways be faithful to them?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I certainly think it's true that someone who has
had trust violated many timeshas a hard time.
It's trauma, and I think whatyou're doing is defining the
trigger of that lack of trust.
But I think someone who hasn'tthen is operating under the
misjudged, the misguidedperspective that they're the
(14:41):
cause of the favor they'vereceived.
So I know kids that have grownup in a grace-based home,
teaching new covenant identityin Christ and the finished work
in union and in dwelling life,teaching what we teach Well, in
fact, families of pastors I'msorry, yeah, families of
churches that I've pastored.
And yet when that kid grows upand as a teenager, maybe a young
(15:06):
college kid, realizes how muchthey've blown it, they still
feel like they've lost God'sfavor, like they no longer
deserve the intimacy thatthey've enjoyed with God.
Well, they never deserved it.
They just hadn't everthreatened it with their
behavior.
They never felt like it hadbeen undermined.
So I think everybody has tolearn the love and intimacy of
(15:30):
God by grace, that we getsomething that only Christ can
merit on our behalf, thateverything true of Sean Renssel,
everything that's true of Jesusby merit has been given to Sean
.
It's now true of Sean.
Jesus is no more loving thanSean.
(15:50):
It's just not merited by Sean.
Jesus is no more accepted byGod than Sean.
It's just not merited by Sean.
That's the hardest thing in theworld for us to believe that
what is true of Jesus by meritis true of you by grace, because
if I didn't cause it and Ihaven't earned it, then it
(16:12):
doesn't seem right.
But listen, what we're saying,if we say that that's not right,
is that God is wrong.
And if you and God disagree onanything, only one of you is
wrong.
If you say you're unrighteousbecause you've behaved badly and
God says you're righteousbecause Christ has behaved
perfectly on your behalf, thenone of you is wrong.
(16:35):
Guess which one?
I'll give you a hint it's notGod.
God is not wrong about who youare and he's not pretending or
lying about who you are.
So I think our fears orinsecurities are pretty
universal.
But I think we can track someof those learned experiences as
the triggers of thoseinsecurities and can kind of
(17:00):
tackle those lying beliefs whenwe know where we learned them.
But if we haven't learned,haven't discovered or unwrapped
where we learned those lyingbeliefs, they're still pretty
universal.
I can't be loved because I don'tdeserve it, or someone else has
proved to me that I'm unlovable.
And yet all I could ever do,whether I knew it or not, was
(17:24):
receive what I don't deserve.
Receive the love of God basedon his character and his
sacrifice, because that's whatglorifies him.
If I earned anything, then allthat could possibly do is
glorify me.
And, again, god's not reallyinterested in making my idols
work.
He's not really interested inmy behavior, speaking of what a
great Christian I am.
(17:45):
So, anyway, I grew up just as aburgeoning Pharisee and had
plans for my life that I fullyexpected God to bless, and he
had other plans.
So when I was on musicscholarship, going headed to
Texas Tech on a musicscholarship it's a long story I
(18:07):
won't go into a lot of detailsin, but I was in a horrible car
accident and, yeah, friend ofmine died, I broke, literally
severed my neck in a couple ofplaces and had a really bad uh
brain injury and uh, couldn'twalk, couldn't talk, couldn't
see, um, couldn't rememberanything.
(18:29):
And so, you know, someone wouldtell me something and I
wouldn't remember it fiveminutes later, and so I had to
relearn how to do everything,how to remember, how to encode
information, how to walk, how to.
A lot of the speaking wasphysical, and so, as
inflammation went down and I had, uh, you know, physical therapy
(18:51):
type stuff, most of that cameback.
Uh, but, but it made everythingfeel very artificial.
I'm now having to rememberthings in a way that seems
unnatural to me.
I'm having to walk in a waythat seems unnatural to me.
I had to use different parts ofmy brain To learn how to do
things, and so it was a crazydynamic that I had all of these
(19:18):
plans for my life and I wasgoing to be this great warrior
for God, and then he would blessmy life Because I'm doing
everything he desires.
He would do what I desired,this transactional paradigm.
But the Christian life isn'ttransactional.
The Christian life is onlyrelational.
A lot of people would say, yeah, the Christian life's
(19:39):
relational, but they wouldn't goso far as to say it's only
relational.
They would say it's alsorelational, right.
So I mean, if they're honest.
So I realized that my winningover God's favor didn't work,
and then all of the things Iwanted to do for God I couldn't
do, and the identity that I hadis this performance driven
(20:04):
success monster was just notgoing to happen.
There was just no way.
I looked like the elephant man.
I had all kinds of weirdproblems with my appearance and
how I walked and how I talked.
I lost my music scholarship.
I couldn't compete at thatanymore.
And for me to not be able tocompete, I was going to walk on
(20:29):
and play tennis.
I was a big tennis player, atennis tournament guy, and
couldn't do that.
So so all of the things that myidentity was based on wasn't
what God had done for me.
It's what I had and what Iplanned to do for God, and all
of that was taken from me and itand it seems strange I don't
think God is the author of eviland all of my own life.
(20:51):
If that merits nothing, then thebest thing in the world for me
(21:17):
is for my idolatry to not work,for my idolatry to fail.
And as painful as it is andstill is today, I'm in pain
every single day of my life.
As painful as that is, I wouldrather struggle in the flesh and
know real life, which is Jesus.
(21:37):
He's not just the giver of life, he's the life that he gives,
and so to know him as life bygrace and grace alone is worth
infinitely more than can ever becost of me or anyone else in
the flesh.
And so, in a very strange way,I've gained so much more than I
lost.
(21:57):
Now I still suffer from that,and I am not saying God wants us
to suffer.
I'm saying God loves us toomuch to not leverage that
suffering for our good.
So he's never going to callcancer good and he's never going
to cause pain that I sufferevery day Good, and he, he's
totally healed me.
I just haven't experienced thatyet.
So whether that's going to be,you know, one day in heaven with
(22:18):
a new body and, by the way, wedo need a new body he's not
going to make this body perfect.
So whether that's how thatcomes about, or I just get to,
you know, wake up one day in thenext week and all the pain is
forever gone, fabulous.
I've never known a singleperson whose body didn't fail
them.
So the wholeness that we havein Christ is not physical
(22:41):
perfection.
That just does not happen inthis temporal life.
God loves us too much to leaveus in these temporal bodies for
very long.
This is just the preamble tothe big event, and so we have
eternal life in these fallingapart bodies.
So for him to hasten that ormake that a little bit harder.
It's just the opening act.
(23:02):
It's just the opening number.
I'm going to get a whole newbody.
I'm eternally whole, bothphysically and spiritually, but
in this interim, this littlecurtain opening segue to eternal
life.
We've got the life, but we'relearning to depend upon him for
it, and the best way to do thatis for any other hope, any other
(23:23):
hope, to be proven worthless,proven worthless.
And so the enemy causes allkinds of evil and God uses the
enemy like a pawn for the goodof his children.
Isn't that fantastic.
It'd be like I know my kid isgoing to be scared if he does
(23:45):
something that's really notgoing to ultimately be bad for
him.
So I encourage that kid to dowhat he doesn't want to go
through because of the good hewill gain from it.
Maybe he's going to stand onthe precipice of a mountain, or
he's going to learn to hike upthat mountain, or he's going to
learn to eat food he doesn'tlike or whatever, because the
(24:09):
good that comes out of thehardship of getting up that
mountain is worth the mountain.
And then he never and hedoesn't have to do it ever again
he's he'll.
He will have that experienceforever.
He will know what he's capableof forever.
His life will be changedforever.
Well, all God's doing isgetting us experientially up the
mountain where he's alreadyplaced us completely and fully
(24:31):
at rest in the finished work ofJesus Christ.
So I went through a decadealready knowing Jesus is savior,
but my 20s were really markedby my going.
Theology sucks like everything'sa lie, everything, this whole
God.
I believe God is true.
I've experienced him in my life.
I can't deny what I know, buteverything I think of God is
(24:54):
wrong.
He, if he loves me, then thislife is not what I think and I
can't look at the cross and denythat he loves me.
As a good Pharisee, I knew a lotof scripture.
I mean, if you were going toargue with me, I was going to
beat you in Greek.
I mean, even if I was wrong, Iwas going to win.
I knew a lot of scripture, butif I thought I knew anything, I
(25:17):
thought I'm wrong.
Now I'm just wrong abouteverything.
I know everything and I'm wrongabout all of it.
That's where I landed, and so Ispent about a decade as a going
, a fervent, pharisaical,do-everything-right believer, to
realizing that God was notdependent upon me for what he
(25:39):
wanted in my life because Iwasn't capable of anything.
I lost my identity in everypossible way, every possible way
.
I lost my hope for me and formy life in every single way,
which just goes to prove, now,looking back, that my hope was
(26:00):
in all the wrong places and whatI came to were a few very basic
ideas between me and God.
I became a business consultantso I did lots of corporate
training and leadershipdevelopment, executive level
coaching.
It's kind of what I built abusiness throughout my 20s doing
and I was pretty good at it.
(26:22):
But there was no fulfillment init.
Not really.
It was just me overcompensatingfor my broken ego from this
injury and all of theramifications of it.
So I was relatively successfulin the flesh and none of it
meant anything, because I hadlearned that I just don't get to
be the cause of my own life orwhat I want from God for my life
(26:46):
.
I just don't get to be thecause either in the flesh or in
religious flesh, either causingit for myself and my
circumstances or earning it fromGod and religion.
I just have no say.
And so I came up with kind ofan idea that I said over and
over and over.
And when I became a pastorabout the age of 30, which
(27:08):
there's a transition there I'lltell you in a minute but when I
started teaching I just went.
Well, let me tell you what Iknow Whatever God wants God's
going to have to be, he's goingto have to do it.
Whatever he wants, it's goingto be one about your
relationship with him, not abouthow good you do.
It's going to be about yourrelationship with him and
whatever it is, he's going tohave to do it.
What he wants, you're not goingto do.
(27:30):
Only he can do what he wantsdone, and so you're either
available and operatingrelationally with him or or it's
you know he's going to do itwithout you.
But whatever God wants to do,he's going to have to do.
You're not going to do it.
And two, he might be able touse you to do it, but you're not
(27:51):
going to be the cause of it.
And two, I don't get todetermine what that is.
And three, the reason he wantsit because he's already okay,
right, he's not hungry, he's notlacking any glory that I'm
going to cause.
He wants me to participate forme, and so the only reason he
includes me in his work is notbecause he can't get his work
done without me.
Oh no, that person can never besaved.
Because Mike you, because Mikedidn't drink enough water the
(28:13):
night before and didn't sleepwell and no, a bad slice of
pizza that I had the nightbefore, so I wake up grumpy is
not going to ruin the plan ofGod for all eternity for someone
.
We are participants in hisdivine work if we're available,
and his divine work is notcontingent on my faithfulness,
(28:34):
it's contingent on hisfaithfulness.
He's not wrong about what he'sdoing in my life.
So, anyway, I had startedvolunteering at a very large
local church.
I was traveling so much that Ifinally said the next church, I
(28:56):
see if they open the Bible inthe pulpit.
I'm just going to camp thereevery Sunday.
I'm going to clear my scheduleso I can show up every weekend
because I've now got a prettydeep, abiding relationship with
God, who is not just throughChrist, lord of my life, because
(29:17):
I've given up being in control,but he's, you know he's.
He's not just saved me, he'snot just directing my life, but
he's got to be the cause of it.
So my, my job is just to engagewith him, just to be available
with him, just to trust him andwhat he does he's just going to
do.
(29:37):
And as a business guy, I startedto see that just in my
day-to-day life If a car brokedown or if a talk went a certain
way where I was doing atraining, or if an opportunity
opened up to me, I just saidokay, god, what are you?
That's not what I would havedone.
What are you doing?
I want to participate inwhatever it is you're doing.
If it costs me, it costs me.
You've got to write that check,you know you've got to.
(29:59):
You've got to make it work.
You've got to supply what thatdemands.
I just want to be available towhatever you're doing, because I
can't determine what it what itis.
You're not looking for mydirection and you're working on
my trust of you.
That's it.
That's the bottom line of whyI'm here.
It's the only reason I wasn'traptured.
The moment I accepted Christ ateight years old, um, it gave me
(30:20):
a little thumbs up.
I don't understand.
Anyway, uh, so that's what Iwent to church doing.
I I found I was invited to it.
I told lots of people my planthat I was just looking for a
church that teaches scripture,because I don't know that I
believe any of them.
Everything I had ever heard inchurch has turned out kind of to
be wrong, but I believe inscripture.
(30:42):
I love god.
God loves me.
He's proven so faithful throughthis crisis over the last
decade with me.
So I just want someone who'sopening a Bible and I can find
some community.
And so I plugged in to thischurch and, you know, still knew
I can't.
I can't memorize a verse ofscripture.
I can barely read straight atthis point.
But I knew a lot of scriptureas a young person and that just
(31:08):
came out of me all the time andso when I went to this church I
would sit in on classes and goto Bible studies and meet with
leaders and just his word cameout and listen.
Scripture can come out of peoplein a way that is false.
I can use an awful lot ofscripture to condemn people, and
there's no truth in that.
(31:28):
And I can use an awful lot ofscripture to justify myself, and
there's no truth in that.
So you can use scripture in away that's false, but you can
also use scripture in a waythat's true.
And what I did is without agendawas available and God used all
the stuff he had taught me as aPharisee.
It just came flooding out of me, and so I could talk about the
(31:49):
Greek, I could talk about theconnection and timeline of
scripture.
I could talk about the lifethat was born in or created in
Adam and lost at the fall andunrestorable by the law.
Completely purchased at thecross and delivered again and
new by Christ, breathed on thedisciples in the upper room and
(32:10):
delivered at Pentecost.
That life is the Zoe, life ofthe spirit of God living in the
human being.
That's what we're wired for.
So I could speak that language,but I had no agenda.
Like I wasn't in church work, Ithought nothing of myself
spiritually, like I didn't thinkI knew anything anymore.
Everything I knew was wrong.
So he just took all of thatresource and he brought it to
(32:32):
these leaders in churches and Istarted just being available and
loving on people and correctinga little error here and there
and eventually, a couple ofyears in, they were like Mike,
we've got these ministries thatneed some help, you've got this
organizational development andleadership development
perspective and you've got allthis wisdom and spiritual
(32:55):
perspective.
It was just truth.
It's not that much wisdom.
It's not that much perspective,it's just truth.
It's the truth that comes fromrelationship without agenda, and
God living through you looks alot like wisdom.
I love 1 Corinthians 1.30, whereit says God made him Jesus to
be for us.
Redemption I don't cause it.
(33:17):
Wisdom I don't cause it.
And righteousness I don't causeit.
Those are things he's madeChrist to be to us, and so if
we're operating without agendaand available to him, we're
going to look pretty wise, we'regoing to sound pretty good,
we're going to walk in an awfullot of righteousness without
(33:39):
trying to.
I'm not trying to not killanybody today.
I just want to participate withJesus, and Jesus probably isn't
going to have me kill anybodytoday.
I just want to participate withJesus and Jesus probably isn't
going to have me kill anybodytoday.
He's probably not wanting todeceive a lot of people today.
We're not trying to accomplishthe law.
You realize the law is anegative right.
It's all the stuff you don't do, and there's lots of people
that aren't righteous, whoaren't killing anyone today, who
(34:00):
aren't lying to anyone today.
They may not even talk toanyone today.
Does that make them righteous?
I've not spoken once.
I must be righteous.
That doesn't make anybodyrighteous.
It's a negative.
Not doing it is not the causeof anything.
It might avoid some problems.
Most of us should shut up alittle bit more me especially.
But the bottom line is, if we'reavailable to him, what he's
(34:23):
going to do is what scripturesays in Romans 8, he's going to
lead us in all, all is a bigword, in all righteousness.
There is no righteousnessexcept what Christ is leading us
in.
So, anyway, I went through anordination process there, at
this huge church, that wasteaching self-help most of the
time and, uh, you know, was justteaching life without knowing
(34:47):
it was life and you know, fromanything else.
But as I'm teaching and growingin this relational, not
transactional, paradigm ofdependence and sufficiency, and
experiencing this union thathe's revealing to me, this
relational from the innermostbeing, if I'm operating without
(35:07):
agenda, then what I experienceis Christ through me, process
and and beginning to define thatwith greater and greater
clarity through scripture.
Um, god sent a group of peopleto my church that, uh, did a
discipleship conference fromexchange life ministries.
Yeah, now, keep in mind, thiswas almost 30 years ago now, um,
(35:30):
and I guess it was 25 years ago.
And the first person that spoke, he came to meet with us as the
pastoral team before theconference, and it was Bill
Loveless, whom you and I weretalking about just a little bit
ago, and this was again 20, someodd years ago.
But he showed up and there wasbill loveless, whom you and I
were talking about just a littlebit ago and this was again 20,
some odd years ago.
But he showed up and there wasonly a handful of us there with
(35:54):
him and he was just sharing histestimony and he talked about
how he was an elder of a churchwho was pretty much done with
christianity.
He thought is all a farce.
And, uh, you know, he was sofrustrated and so angry and so
convinced that you know if it'strue, if Christianity is real,
it's not real to him that he'sdone and God put on his heart
the guy that's going to bespeaking at this event that
(36:16):
you're walking into, he's herefor you.
You know, he's the guy I wantyou to hear.
He's like I don't even know whyI'm here.
It was just on my calendar, Ihad to be here today.
So he wanders in and Major IanThomas goes up on the stage and,
you know, bill unwraps thestory.
You should have him on, if youcan, one of these days.
(36:37):
He'll tell the story betterthan I do.
But Bill is telling this storyto us, a handful of pastors in
this huge church in San Antonio,texas, and he quotes Ian Thomas
is saying it's going to chokeme up, just to say it.
He says God never intended foryou to live the life that only
(36:57):
Jesus Christ can live in andthrough you.
So here's Bill Loveless,quoting Ian Thomas, speaking
everything I've been teaching tome.
And so we're sitting there inthis little room and he says God
never intended quotes ThomasGod never intended for you to
live the life that only JesusChrist can live in and through
you.
And I just stood up for noreason, I just went.
(37:20):
I just stood up right there inthe middle of the room for no
reason whatsoever and everybodykind of looks at me and I went
say that again, it's a bill, hegoes, god never.
He said it again.
I thought that sums up so muchof what I've been trying to say
for the last, you know, twoyears I've been on staff here
and what I've experienced thelast 12 years walking through
(37:42):
this process of just learningdependence.
It's the most basic thing inthe world, but the truth that's
revealed as we depend upon Godpaints a clearer picture of the
whole of scripture.
And so, anyway, bill came anddid that conference with a
gentleman by the name of JohnBest who is a seminary professor
(38:05):
but was an Exchange Life guyfrom Dallas, and Exchange Life
Ministries became Network 220.
And I was a board member.
So fast forward a decade.
I was a board member forNetwork 220 for about seven
years.
I just stepped down and JohnLynch and a couple of other guys
(38:25):
stepped into that role withNetwork 220.
We actually have a hugeconvention coming up in May.
If anyone's available, there'sstill spots available in Dallas
May I think it's 4th and 5th,and if you're a member of the
ministry, there's ministriesthat are members of this
association.
(38:45):
But anyway, I was the trainingdirector and a board member for
a bunch of years there but theycouldn't keep renewing my board
membership.
We're about to fudge the bylawstoo much.
It's like, okay, I got to stepdown, but anyway, what a gift
that I found this group ofpeople through Bill and John and
(39:06):
the conference they came anddid, and then the entire
Exchange Life Ministries Networkwe changed the name to Network
220, all of these ministriesnationally that are teaching
life in Christ.
They're teaching the finishedwork of Christ.
So as a young pastor praise God, I got plugged into all of
(39:27):
these ministries but none ofthem were pastoring.
They were all counselingoffices and a few seminary
counseling guys, but I mean theonly pastor, the only pastor I
knew nationally that wasteaching this message was Frank
Friedman.
I met him when I went to thisevent.
We had him come to my church.
I was pastoring and he did abunch of events.
(39:50):
But anyway, frank pulled measide and said everyone here
needs to understand how churchworks from your perspective.
You've got to join theassociation and start serving.
I said why would I join?
I'm not a counselor, why wouldI join?
And he goes no, we need pastorsand you need to join.
I'm going to sponsor.
Like, why would I join?
And he goes no, you they.
We need pastors and we don't.
You need to join, I'm going tosponsor you, you're going to
(40:11):
join.
So he really didn't ask me, hejust said I'm going to sponsor
you, you're going to join, we'regoing to get more pastors.
And so I did.
And for a long time it was kindof Frank and I that were the
pastors in the Exchange LifeMinistries, now Network 220
Association.
Now there's a bunch, you knowthere's scores of them, but at
the time they were allcounselors but they were
(40:32):
teaching and discipling ExchangeLife Ministries and doing some
conferences.
So anyway, that's fast forwardnow.
I've pastored and churchplanted for a bunch of years and
for the last 15 years, I guess,I have been in full-time
ministry, pouring into leaders,leading conferences, doing
mission work, much like you'redoing, which is wonderful.
(40:54):
And yeah, now the next seasonof my life is going to be
pouring into other leaders thatare doing more of what I've done
, but in a more specialized way.
So raising up worship leadersthat are helping people worship
and lead worship from a Christas life grid.
Pouring into demographicleaders, whether that's men's or
women's or youth or children'sministry.
(41:16):
Pouring into leadershipdevelopment guys, strategy and
vision so that they can walk outalongside other leaders in
their area of expertise.
The truth of Christ, as is lifeas it applies to ministries
we're doing in our day and age.
We've projected this thing thatwe call church life, which is
(41:36):
really a corporation.
This corporate structure weprojected onto body life, and
body life really is more likethe church, really is more like
a tribe.
It's more familial by natureand it's not wrong that we have
a corporate structure.
That's the society that we livein.
But we've kind of forced thisstructure.
That's not contra-biblicalright, it's not against
(42:00):
scripture, but it's extrabiblical, it's beyond what's in
scripture and that causes someproblems.
But we've got to work that out,because that's what people
think of as church.
So, anyway, we're takingleadership development from a
crisis life grid to the localchurch and because that's where
all the Christians are, I don'thave great faith in the
(42:21):
structure of local church, but,you know, through our
fallibility, god's grace isgoing to be made known.
So, anyway, that's what we'redoing now and that's where I've
come from.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Wonderful man.
Thank you so much for sharingall of that.
And tell me, like I know thatyou do a podcast, that's like
kind of a really active thingevery week.
Tell me about that, Becauseit's kind of like the public
facing kind of what you're doingand how people can kind of get
a taste for the ministry thatyou're doing that God is using
(42:56):
you for.
So tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, increasingly as I work with leaders and kind of
behind the scenes with churchesI had not been doing,
especially through COVIDoutbreak seasons, was not doing
as many conferences, was notpreaching for as many churches,
because that just wasn'thappening anyway.
So I began working more andmore with church leaders and
(43:20):
launched an online mostly onlineministry called Mike Q Daniel
Ministries, where we we havesome missionaries.
We have some missionaries insome very persecuted parts of
the world that are translatingscripture and ministering to the
down and out in thosecommunities, in those cultures.
I can't give a lot of detailsabout them, but that's one
(43:42):
aspect of what we do, and theother one is that I do this
broadcast.
We right now are doing it threedays a week Tuesday, thursday
and Sunday at 8 am Central Time.
It's kind of a coffee chat hourand every Tuesday I have a hero
of grace, someone who ischampioning ministry from a
(44:05):
grace perspective.
You have been on that broadcast.
I had John Lynch on thatbroadcast today.
If y'all don't know who JohnLynch is you should.
You need to go find him onlineat John Lynch Speaks.
I've had Bill Loveless on thebroadcast.
In fact, he's walking throughcurriculum once a month on
Tuesdays.
We call it Triber Tuesday.
We invite someone to join uswho's at some level a
(44:28):
participant in the broadcast, anattender getting fed from the
ministry, but who are alsoleading ministry in their own
right.
We invite them to get on camerain front of everybody else in
the broadcast.
And so, yeah, we do that everyTuesday.
On Thursday, we have adiscipleship-based chat with our
audience, so it's prettyinteractive.
(44:48):
We answer questions on the fly,which is always interesting,
and so Tuesdays we haveinterviews, thursdays we have
discipleship conversations, andSundays I usually have a
prepared message, and that's all.
Three of those are at 8 amCentral or Texas time.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Wow, that's incredible.
I really love that, becausepeople can still be involved in
their local church and still bea voice for grace and champion
for grace, no matter wherethey're being used by God and
serving God, but they can be fed.
And I've listened to many ofyour discipleship discipleship
(45:28):
times and, uh, I think you havea real gift, uh for uh working
out practically how grace worksin people's lives, especially
with I.
One comes to mind uh, right now, which is when you were talking
about boundaries, andboundaries was something that
you know.
There was a very popular bookthat came out and it was very
(45:50):
psychological in its, in itsperspective, and I just thought
you did a remarkable job ofapplying the new covenant and
the truth of the gospel, evenwhen it was maybe uncomfortable
or went against the grain ofwhat would be maybe
psychologically acceptable.
(46:12):
But you stood your ground andyou were like this is what it
means, this is what the gospelsays and this is why that may be
uncomfortable and it may bereally difficult for you to
process.
But you can't just make a ruleand say I'm allowed to set
boundaries and do this and thatum, because some person told me
(46:32):
I am um.
But it was much moresurrendered, it was much more
humble and it was much morefaith directed towards Christ
and his, his Lordship in ourlives.
Uh, so I highly recommend, uh,the the grace grace tribe.
I got my grace coffee cup thatoh yeah, I don't have one here.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
I've not been in my office for a few days.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, we have grace tribe mugs yeah, I use it
regularly and and, uh, I thinkit's a bright, shining light in
the uh body of christ here inamerica.
So, uh, I recommend everyone totake a look at that.
So, on Facebook, you're Mike QDaniel.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, so the way to find me everywhere is just
include that Q it's Mike QDaniel, the letter Q it's my
middle initial, so Mike Q Daniel.
You can find my YouTube page.
You can find our Facebook pagewhere we do our broadcast, one
of the places we do it.
You can also find the websitemikeqdanielcom Q is for Quest,
(47:31):
so it's Michael Quest, daniel,but mikeqdanielcom, and you can
find links to all of that.
And we have a podcast.
So for your podcast listeners,we take our broadcast and we put
it on the podcast every week.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Okay Well, there you go.
Awesome, well, thank you soAwesome.
Well, thank you so much foryour time and your wisdom.
Um, you know, maybe everyoneshould just kind of listen to
your podcast, cause it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Uh, you know right, you're a unique fingerprint of
of the expression of God.
Here's the thing God isinfinite, so for us to know him
more, I'm very finite, right, Ihad a specific beginning and
I'll be leaving this earth,probably very soon.
So for us to know him, we haveto know him through each other,
and so you are a uniquefingerprint of God in this world
(48:17):
, and so we all we need to knowhim where we are, so that we can
make him known as only he canthrough each one of us.
So I'm so glad you're here anddoing what you're doing, my
friend.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Thanks, you're really fun and um, thanks, uh for
being so bold, uh to trust inthe scriptures and uh to just
believe what they say.
So I think you're you're achampion when it comes to that.
So, uh, thank you so much.
We're going to wrap it up here,so again, check out
mikeqdanielcom.
(48:48):
Mike, hang on one second whilethings upload.
When we're done and everyoneelse, we'll see you later.
Welcome everyone to the Simple Grace Podcast again.
My name is Pastor Sean.
I'm here every time with youand I'm so excited today to be
able to bring in my brother,mike Q Daniel, mike is an
amazing pastor and grace teacher.
You're down in Texas, right?
Yeah, yeah, just north of SanAntonio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay, so did you see the eclipse just yesterday I did
.
Actually we had a huge clan ofmy wife's family that came in.
We all ran the half marathon.
They had a big half marathonevent for the eclipse and so we
ran that and then laid aroundwatching the the eclipse it was
pretty cloudy but you couldstill see some.
It was incredible went dark inthe middle of the afternoon.
(00:43):
I thought of the biblicalreference of you know, he, the
whole world went dark and thenhe gave up his spirit.
It was like that's what struckme.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's incredible.
So just really funny story.
So yesterday I had threemeetings back to back at this
coffee shop.
The third meeting was arrangedwith a guy.
It was from a pastor who I'dmet before and he introduced me
to this guy from India who livesreally close to me and his name
was Sonny.
So I'll always remember that Imet Sonny on the day of the
(01:14):
eclipse.
I just think that's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
That's awesome, all right.
Well, I'm just going to startus out by reading a verse.
Ephesians 2.10 says we are Hisworkmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which Godprepared beforehand that we
should walk in them.
And I love that verse becauseso many people think that good
(01:39):
works produce a spiritual life,but God actually teaches us it's
the other way around.
A spiritual life and arelationship with God is what
produces good works, and goodworks are the plan.
I mean God wants us to do goodworks, but it's through an
abiding relationship with Christthat his fruit is born in our
(02:01):
life.
I was also reading this bookyesterday.
Have you read this book?
It's called the Father we NeverKnew by.
Phil, by Phil.
What's his name?
He's from Ireland, anyway, ohgosh, it's so, so, so good.
(02:22):
Oh gosh, uh, it's so, so, sogood.
Um, philum doherty and uh, whatamazing book about.
About god, uh, about the newcovenant of grace, and um, I
forgot what I was bringing it upfor.
But hey, everyone, that's mybook recommendation.
I just started a new segment ofour podcast book recommendation
of the week, and that is thefather we never knew, by Phil
(02:44):
him.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Philum Doherty.
Yeah, and Philum Doherty iswell-known grace-based uh
teacher.
I have not read that book but,um, you know, I think I think
Philum Timms to focus a lot on,uh, what I focus on in in part,
which is sort of the relationalparadigm of our walk in Christ,
and John Lynch and I weretalking this morning about how
(03:12):
we often mistake Christianityfor theology, when really it's
relationship.
The fabric of our life is nottheological and it's not
behavioral, it's relational, andso that's what our life is,
it's the construct, it's whatour life is actually made of, is
relationship.
And so if our relationship isinformed by the sufficiency of
(03:35):
Christ, by his finished work, byour identity from him, by who
we are and what we have, thenwe're not striving for things
that we've already got.
We're not trying to be thecause or fix of anything.
We're instead walking in arelationship with Christ, in
availability instead of agendafor whatever he wants to do in
and through us.
(03:55):
So the works to the verse thatyou were talking about, the
works that we're walking in withhim, right, he prepared from
the foundation of the world thatwe would walk in them, those
works, well, he's created us towalk in those, to know Christ in
them and as we know himuniquely, we can make him known
in a way that, frankly, no oneelse can know him apart from us.
(04:15):
So you, sean, can make Godknown in a way no one else can
know him except through you.
That's the works he's preparedfor you to do.
They're unique to you becauseyou are a unique expression of
Christ's life in you.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, and that relationship.
I just actually taught lastnight for several hours this
group in India that I'm teachingthese 20 pastors in India and
the topic we were teaching wasrelationship, that the new
covenant is all aboutrelationship.
So I literally just said theverse I read was from my kind of
(04:50):
lesson.
And then I have all these otherverses just like flowing
through my head right now of therelational covenant that we're
given with God and the highlight, I think, for me, what the
spirit kind of brought outyesterday, was that that
relationship is so based on love, it's so much love.
(05:12):
God's love is the foundation ofthis relationship.
His love for us and ourexperience of that love and the
revelation of that love in ourhearts is what starts to smell
to the world Like when I believethat I'm loved.
The aroma of Christ in mebecomes just a witness to the
(05:35):
world.
It changes everything when Ibelieve that I'm loved and it
changes what good works are,what good works look like.
Because one of the questionsthat the pastors asked me was
okay, well, how do I, how do Ido good works, how do I love my
enemies?
(05:55):
Because it seems like I have totry hard to love them, and I
just pointed out to him.
I said if you're trying to love, it's not love.
Yet Jesus doesn't try to loveyou.
He just is love because it'shis identity.
And so the more we ask thequestion what do I do?
We're off track of what hasChrist done to me and what
(06:21):
identity has he given me thathas you know?
His love for me is now myidentity.
Right, I am loved and so I willlove because I am loved, right.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, there's kind of a misnomer when we talk about
good works that we do.
The works that God does arealways good, right, everything
that God does is good.
Every good and perfect gift,james says, comes down from the
Father of light.
So I would say that everythingfrom God is good, and everything
that's good is, in fact, fromGod.
There's no good apart from him,and so the works that he's
(06:55):
prepared for us to do aren'treally things that are good.
We're not out there trying todo good things.
He's doing what only he can,and we're getting to participate
with him.
So it may or may not feel good,what it is is righteous because
it's from God.
What it is is loving becauseit's from God.
What it is is fruitful of therelationship that we have by
(07:18):
grace with the Father, and sohe's producing life through us,
and the result is his characterlived out by us.
And so you're absolutely right,we're not trying to be good.
What we are wanting to do is bewilling to be available, and
that's where people stumble.
(07:39):
They're like what are the goodthings I need to do?
Jesus said well, the good worksthat God requires to believe me
, believe in me, believe, putyour hope in believe upon me.
That's the work that the Fatherhas for you.
So, out of John, six, so we getto participate with him and the
(07:59):
only the choice of faith is notwhat I do for God.
The choice of faith is my beingavailable for what he wants to
do through me, and sometimesthat's going to feel good or
look good, and sometimes it'snot going to feel good and
sometimes it's not going to lookvery good.
But that's not our goal.
We're not trying to be anything.
We're believing what he hasmade us and who we are in him
(08:23):
and available because of that.
What he has made us and who weare in him, and available
because of that, thatneedlessness, by grace.
Instead of living out of whatwe need, our agenda for the
circumstance or therelationships or the things
around us, we're living out ofthe fullness of Christ for
whatever he wants to do throughus, and it changes the very
economy of our life.
Love is the natural result andit changes the very economy of
(08:45):
our life.
Love is the natural result.
Kindness is the natural resultof operating in a grace economy.
Grace isn't what God gives us.
Grace is how we live with him,as we depend upon him by faith
to do what only he can throughus.
I think we often think faith iswhat God's going to do for us,
or what we're going to do forGod, for what we want from him,
and faith is just ouravailability to him out of our
(09:07):
trust of him.
So there's a willingness factor, but if we're willing, he's
able.
We're never meant to be the onethat's able.
We can never be the one who'sthe cause or fix of the
Christian life.
We get to be dependent bychoice on him, who is sufficient
through us.
We're never trying to getbetter at the Christian life,
we're just knowing Jesus, who islife.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Amen, just like I would say.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Of course, of course.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
All right.
Well, I want to kind of dive ina little bit to you and who you
are and how you became who youare.
A little bit to you and who youare and how you became who you
are.
And so would you just take uson the story of where you came
from and what that looked like,what, maybe what your view of
God was as you were young andeveryone, I think, transitions
(10:00):
from a legalistic view of God toa more grace-centered view of
God.
Or maybe you just were bornfull of grace.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Who knows, let's see.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Why don't you tell me the story and I'll stop making
assumptions?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Sure, yeah.
Well, I don't know how muchtime you have, but I was born to
a very strong Christian familybut in a very performance driven
, uh culture, and so the churchtradition that I was a part of
and the family perspective thatI was raised in was extremely
(10:35):
performance driven, like, okay,yeah, you did good but you could
have done better and you couldhave done better sooner.
So we're not gonna we're notgonna, you know, lavish much
praise on you because then youmight not try as hard, you know
you might not do as well if youget the approval and you get,
you know, any kudos from us.
And so it was very performancedriven and and very accomplished
(11:00):
.
You know, people in my familywere all extremely successful in
pretty much everything in life,and so I was the youngest of
three boys and so I had a lot tolive up to with my older
siblings, and that just carriedright over into the religious
paradigm of do more, be more, dogood, be good.
(11:23):
Uh, it was very our performance, our behavior was very much our
identity and uh, yeah, yeah.
So I grew up as a burgeoningPharisee and thinking if I do.
This was the paradigm Irealized much later I grew up
with.
If I do everything well enoughthat God requires, then he will
(11:47):
bless what I want in my lifethat isn't contradictory to his
will for me.
In other words, I'm checkingall of his boxes so that he'll
bless all of my agenda in life,my very Christian, business,
performance-driven, pharisaicallife.
And you know, god is really notinterested in my idols.
(12:08):
God is not wanting me to bemore sovereign, more in control,
more the cause of glory andsort of producing the Christian
life for myself to earnsomething from him.
In fact, the old covenant isbased on merit and the only
(12:30):
reason it was given was to provethat we can merit nothing.
So the flesh profits scripturesays profits nothing.
So it was given not to give usa way of meriting anything from
God, but prove that we can't.
And the economy that we live byis grace and grace alone.
In other words, the life that Iget to enjoy with Christ is
merited and not by me.
(12:51):
It just has to be received byme.
And while there's nothing inhistory, in our makeup, in the
world, in the cosmos, in allcreation that is more true than
we were made to be loved,there's also nothing harder,
because if I don't earn it.
I have no control over it.
Adam and Eve were terrifiedthat they could not control the
(13:15):
righteousness of God.
Like, I want to be godly but Iwant to be the cause of the
godliness, then I'm notdependent on anyone else's love
of me.
What if God changes his mind?
What if he doesn't like what Ido today?
I would rather be godly onmerit, and then I'm not
dependent on anyone.
We want to be independent, wewant to be self sovereign, in
(13:37):
other words, we want to be incontrol, and all of our anxiety
and all of our attemptedjustifications and all of our
striving is based on our tryingto be God in our own little
corner of creation.
I want to control outcomes sothat I can earn and merit and
justify what I want from mycircumstances, and so we think
(13:59):
the Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Do you think that if someone has been had their trust
violated many, many, many times, that they will have a harder
time trusting that God wouldalways be faithful to them?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I certainly think it's true that someone who has
had trust violated many timeshas a hard time.
It's trauma, and I think whatyou're doing is defining the
trigger of that lack of trust.
But I think someone who hasn'tthen is operating under the
misjudged, the misguidedperspective that they're the
(14:41):
cause of the favor they'vereceived.
So I know kids that have grownup in a grace-based home,
teaching new covenant identityin Christ and the finished work
in union and in dwelling life,teaching what we teach Well, in
fact, families of pastors I'msorry, yeah, families of
churches that I've pastored.
And yet when that kid grows upand as a teenager, maybe a young
(15:06):
college kid, realizes how muchthey've blown it, they still
feel like they've lost God'sfavor, like they no longer
deserve the intimacy thatthey've enjoyed with God.
Well, they never deserved it.
They just hadn't everthreatened it with their
behavior.
They never felt like it hadbeen undermined.
So I think everybody has tolearn the love and intimacy of
(15:30):
God by grace, that we getsomething that only Christ can
merit on our behalf, thateverything true of Sean Renssel,
everything that's true of Jesusby merit has been given to Sean
.
It's now true of Sean.
Jesus is no more loving thanSean.
(15:50):
It's just not merited by Sean.
Jesus is no more accepted byGod than Sean.
It's just not merited by Sean.
That's the hardest thing in theworld for us to believe that
what is true of Jesus by meritis true of you by grace, because
if I didn't cause it and Ihaven't earned it, then it
(16:12):
doesn't seem right.
But listen, what we're saying,if we say that that's not right,
is that God is wrong.
And if you and God disagree onanything, only one of you is
wrong.
If you say you're unrighteousbecause you've behaved badly and
God says you're righteousbecause Christ has behaved
perfectly on your behalf, thenone of you is wrong.
(16:35):
Guess which one?
I'll give you a hint it's notGod.
God is not wrong about who youare and he's not pretending or
lying about who you are.
So I think our fears orinsecurities are pretty
universal.
But I think we can track someof those learned experiences as
the triggers of thoseinsecurities and can kind of
(17:00):
tackle those lying beliefs whenwe know where we learned them.
But if we haven't learned,haven't discovered or unwrapped
where we learned those lyingbeliefs, they're still pretty
universal.
I can't be loved because I don'tdeserve it, or someone else has
proved to me that I'm unlovable.
And yet all I could ever do,whether I knew it or not, was
(17:24):
receive what I don't deserve.
Receive the love of God basedon his character and his
sacrifice, because that's whatglorifies him.
If I earned anything, then allthat could possibly do is
glorify me.
And, again, god's not reallyinterested in making my idols
work.
He's not really interested inmy behavior, speaking of what a
great Christian I am.
(17:45):
So, anyway, I grew up just as aburgeoning Pharisee and had
plans for my life that I fullyexpected God to bless, and he
had other plans.
So when I was on musicscholarship, going headed to
Texas Tech on a musicscholarship it's a long story I
(18:07):
won't go into a lot of detailsin, but I was in a horrible car
accident and, yeah, friend ofmine died, I broke, literally
severed my neck in a couple ofplaces and had a really bad uh
brain injury and uh, couldn'twalk, couldn't talk, couldn't
see, um, couldn't rememberanything.
(18:29):
And so, you know, someone wouldtell me something and I
wouldn't remember it fiveminutes later, and so I had to
relearn how to do everything,how to remember, how to encode
information, how to walk, how to.
A lot of the speaking wasphysical, and so, as
inflammation went down and I had, uh, you know, physical therapy
(18:51):
type stuff, most of that cameback.
Uh, but, but it made everythingfeel very artificial.
I'm now having to rememberthings in a way that seems
unnatural to me.
I'm having to walk in a waythat seems unnatural to me.
I had to use different parts ofmy brain To learn how to do
things, and so it was a crazydynamic that I had all of these
(19:18):
plans for my life and I wasgoing to be this great warrior
for God, and then he would blessmy life Because I'm doing
everything he desires.
He would do what I desired,this transactional paradigm.
But the Christian life isn'ttransactional.
The Christian life is onlyrelational.
A lot of people would say, yeah, the Christian life's
(19:39):
relational, but they wouldn't goso far as to say it's only
relational.
They would say it's alsorelational, right.
So I mean, if they're honest.
So I realized that my winningover God's favor didn't work,
and then all of the things Iwanted to do for God I couldn't
do, and the identity that I hadis this performance driven
(20:04):
success monster was just notgoing to happen.
There was just no way.
I looked like the elephant man.
I had all kinds of weirdproblems with my appearance and
how I walked and how I talked.
I lost my music scholarship.
I couldn't compete at thatanymore.
And for me to not be able tocompete, I was going to walk on
(20:29):
and play tennis.
I was a big tennis player, atennis tournament guy, and
couldn't do that.
So so all of the things that myidentity was based on wasn't
what God had done for me.
It's what I had and what Iplanned to do for God, and all
of that was taken from me and itand it seems strange I don't
think God is the author of eviland all of my own life.
(20:51):
If that merits nothing, then thebest thing in the world for me
(21:17):
is for my idolatry to not work,for my idolatry to fail.
And as painful as it is andstill is today, I'm in pain
every single day of my life.
As painful as that is, I wouldrather struggle in the flesh and
know real life, which is Jesus.
(21:37):
He's not just the giver of life, he's the life that he gives,
and so to know him as life bygrace and grace alone is worth
infinitely more than can ever becost of me or anyone else in
the flesh.
And so, in a very strange way,I've gained so much more than I
lost.
(21:57):
Now I still suffer from that,and I am not saying God wants us
to suffer.
I'm saying God loves us toomuch to not leverage that
suffering for our good.
So he's never going to callcancer good and he's never going
to cause pain that I sufferevery day Good, and he, he's
totally healed me.
I just haven't experienced thatyet.
So whether that's going to be,you know, one day in heaven with
(22:18):
a new body and, by the way, wedo need a new body he's not
going to make this body perfect.
So whether that's how thatcomes about, or I just get to,
you know, wake up one day in thenext week and all the pain is
forever gone, fabulous.
I've never known a singleperson whose body didn't fail
them.
So the wholeness that we havein Christ is not physical
(22:41):
perfection.
That just does not happen inthis temporal life.
God loves us too much to leaveus in these temporal bodies for
very long.
This is just the preamble tothe big event, and so we have
eternal life in these fallingapart bodies.
So for him to hasten that ormake that a little bit harder.
It's just the opening act.
(23:02):
It's just the opening number.
I'm going to get a whole newbody.
I'm eternally whole, bothphysically and spiritually, but
in this interim, this littlecurtain opening segue to eternal
life.
We've got the life, but we'relearning to depend upon him for
it, and the best way to do thatis for any other hope, any other
(23:23):
hope, to be proven worthless,proven worthless.
And so the enemy causes allkinds of evil and God uses the
enemy like a pawn for the goodof his children.
Isn't that fantastic.
It'd be like I know my kid isgoing to be scared if he does
(23:45):
something that's really notgoing to ultimately be bad for
him.
So I encourage that kid to dowhat he doesn't want to go
through because of the good hewill gain from it.
Maybe he's going to stand onthe precipice of a mountain, or
he's going to learn to hike upthat mountain, or he's going to
learn to eat food he doesn'tlike or whatever, because the
(24:09):
good that comes out of thehardship of getting up that
mountain is worth the mountain.
And then he never and hedoesn't have to do it ever again
he's he'll.
He will have that experienceforever.
He will know what he's capableof forever.
His life will be changedforever.
Well, all God's doing isgetting us experientially up the
mountain where he's alreadyplaced us completely and fully
(24:31):
at rest in the finished work ofJesus Christ.
So I went through a decadealready knowing Jesus is savior,
but my 20s were really markedby my going.
Theology sucks like everything'sa lie, everything, this whole
God.
I believe God is true.
I've experienced him in my life.
I can't deny what I know, buteverything I think of God is
(24:54):
wrong.
He, if he loves me, then thislife is not what I think and I
can't look at the cross and denythat he loves me.
As a good Pharisee, I knew a lotof scripture.
I mean, if you were going toargue with me, I was going to
beat you in Greek.
I mean, even if I was wrong, Iwas going to win.
I knew a lot of scripture, butif I thought I knew anything, I
(25:17):
thought I'm wrong.
Now I'm just wrong abouteverything.
I know everything and I'm wrongabout all of it.
That's where I landed, and so Ispent about a decade as a going
, a fervent, pharisaical,do-everything-right believer, to
realizing that God was notdependent upon me for what he
(25:39):
wanted in my life because Iwasn't capable of anything.
I lost my identity in everypossible way, every possible way
.
I lost my hope for me and formy life in every single way,
which just goes to prove, now,looking back, that my hope was
(26:00):
in all the wrong places and whatI came to were a few very basic
ideas between me and God.
I became a business consultantso I did lots of corporate
training and leadershipdevelopment, executive level
coaching.
It's kind of what I built abusiness throughout my 20s doing
and I was pretty good at it.
(26:22):
But there was no fulfillment init.
Not really.
It was just me overcompensatingfor my broken ego from this
injury and all of theramifications of it.
So I was relatively successfulin the flesh and none of it
meant anything, because I hadlearned that I just don't get to
be the cause of my own life orwhat I want from God for my life
(26:46):
.
I just don't get to be thecause either in the flesh or in
religious flesh, either causingit for myself and my
circumstances or earning it fromGod and religion.
I just have no say.
And so I came up with kind ofan idea that I said over and
over and over.
And when I became a pastorabout the age of 30, which
(27:08):
there's a transition there I'lltell you in a minute but when I
started teaching I just went.
Well, let me tell you what Iknow Whatever God wants God's
going to have to be, he's goingto have to do it.
Whatever he wants, it's goingto be one about your
relationship with him, not abouthow good you do.
It's going to be about yourrelationship with him and
whatever it is, he's going tohave to do it.
What he wants, you're not goingto do.
(27:30):
Only he can do what he wantsdone, and so you're either
available and operatingrelationally with him or or it's
you know he's going to do itwithout you.
But whatever God wants to do,he's going to have to do.
You're not going to do it.
And two, he might be able touse you to do it, but you're not
(27:51):
going to be the cause of it.
And two, I don't get todetermine what that is.
And three, the reason he wantsit because he's already okay,
right, he's not hungry, he's notlacking any glory that I'm
going to cause.
He wants me to participate forme, and so the only reason he
includes me in his work is notbecause he can't get his work
done without me.
Oh no, that person can never besaved.
Because Mike you, because Mikedidn't drink enough water the
(28:13):
night before and didn't sleepwell and no, a bad slice of
pizza that I had the nightbefore, so I wake up grumpy is
not going to ruin the plan ofGod for all eternity for someone
.
We are participants in hisdivine work if we're available,
and his divine work is notcontingent on my faithfulness,
(28:34):
it's contingent on hisfaithfulness.
He's not wrong about what he'sdoing in my life.
So, anyway, I had startedvolunteering at a very large
local church.
I was traveling so much that Ifinally said the next church, I
(28:56):
see if they open the Bible inthe pulpit.
I'm just going to camp thereevery Sunday.
I'm going to clear my scheduleso I can show up every weekend
because I've now got a prettydeep, abiding relationship with
God, who is not just throughChrist, lord of my life, because
(29:17):
I've given up being in control,but he's, you know he's.
He's not just saved me, he'snot just directing my life, but
he's got to be the cause of it.
So my, my job is just to engagewith him, just to be available
with him, just to trust him andwhat he does he's just going to
do.
(29:37):
And as a business guy, I startedto see that just in my
day-to-day life If a car brokedown or if a talk went a certain
way where I was doing atraining, or if an opportunity
opened up to me, I just saidokay, god, what are you?
That's not what I would havedone.
What are you doing?
I want to participate inwhatever it is you're doing.
If it costs me, it costs me.
You've got to write that check,you know you've got to.
(29:59):
You've got to make it work.
You've got to supply what thatdemands.
I just want to be available towhatever you're doing, because I
can't determine what it what itis.
You're not looking for mydirection and you're working on
my trust of you.
That's it.
That's the bottom line of whyI'm here.
It's the only reason I wasn'traptured.
The moment I accepted Christ ateight years old, um, it gave me
(30:20):
a little thumbs up.
I don't understand.
Anyway, uh, so that's what Iwent to church doing.
I I found I was invited to it.
I told lots of people my planthat I was just looking for a
church that teaches scripture,because I don't know that I
believe any of them.
Everything I had ever heard inchurch has turned out kind of to
be wrong, but I believe inscripture.
(30:42):
I love god.
God loves me.
He's proven so faithful throughthis crisis over the last
decade with me.
So I just want someone who'sopening a Bible and I can find
some community.
And so I plugged in to thischurch and, you know, still knew
I can't.
I can't memorize a verse ofscripture.
I can barely read straight atthis point.
But I knew a lot of scriptureas a young person and that just
(31:08):
came out of me all the time andso when I went to this church I
would sit in on classes and goto Bible studies and meet with
leaders and just his word cameout and listen.
Scripture can come out of peoplein a way that is false.
I can use an awful lot ofscripture to condemn people, and
there's no truth in that.
(31:28):
And I can use an awful lot ofscripture to justify myself, and
there's no truth in that.
So you can use scripture in away that's false, but you can
also use scripture in a waythat's true.
And what I did is without agendawas available and God used all
the stuff he had taught me as aPharisee.
It just came flooding out of me, and so I could talk about the
(31:49):
Greek, I could talk about theconnection and timeline of
scripture.
I could talk about the lifethat was born in or created in
Adam and lost at the fall andunrestorable by the law.
Completely purchased at thecross and delivered again and
new by Christ, breathed on thedisciples in the upper room and
(32:10):
delivered at Pentecost.
That life is the Zoe, life ofthe spirit of God living in the
human being.
That's what we're wired for.
So I could speak that language,but I had no agenda.
Like I wasn't in church work, Ithought nothing of myself
spiritually, like I didn't thinkI knew anything anymore.
Everything I knew was wrong.
So he just took all of thatresource and he brought it to
(32:32):
these leaders in churches and Istarted just being available and
loving on people and correctinga little error here and there
and eventually, a couple ofyears in, they were like Mike,
we've got these ministries thatneed some help, you've got this
organizational development andleadership development
perspective and you've got allthis wisdom and spiritual
(32:55):
perspective.
It was just truth.
It's not that much wisdom.
It's not that much perspective,it's just truth.
It's the truth that comes fromrelationship without agenda, and
God living through you looks alot like wisdom.
I love 1 Corinthians 1.30, whereit says God made him Jesus to
be for us.
Redemption I don't cause it.
(33:17):
Wisdom I don't cause it.
And righteousness I don't causeit.
Those are things he's madeChrist to be to us, and so if
we're operating without agendaand available to him, we're
going to look pretty wise, we'regoing to sound pretty good,
we're going to walk in an awfullot of righteousness without
(33:39):
trying to.
I'm not trying to not killanybody today.
I just want to participate withJesus, and Jesus probably isn't
going to have me kill anybodytoday.
I just want to participate withJesus and Jesus probably isn't
going to have me kill anybodytoday.
He's probably not wanting todeceive a lot of people today.
We're not trying to accomplishthe law.
You realize the law is anegative right.
It's all the stuff you don't do, and there's lots of people
that aren't righteous, whoaren't killing anyone today, who
(34:00):
aren't lying to anyone today.
They may not even talk toanyone today.
Does that make them righteous?
I've not spoken once.
I must be righteous.
That doesn't make anybodyrighteous.
It's a negative.
Not doing it is not the causeof anything.
It might avoid some problems.
Most of us should shut up alittle bit more me especially.
But the bottom line is, if we'reavailable to him, what he's
(34:23):
going to do is what scripturesays in Romans 8, he's going to
lead us in all, all is a bigword, in all righteousness.
There is no righteousnessexcept what Christ is leading us
in.
So, anyway, I went through anordination process there, at
this huge church, that wasteaching self-help most of the
time and, uh, you know, was justteaching life without knowing
(34:47):
it was life and you know, fromanything else.
But as I'm teaching and growingin this relational, not
transactional, paradigm ofdependence and sufficiency, and
experiencing this union thathe's revealing to me, this
relational from the innermostbeing, if I'm operating without
(35:07):
agenda, then what I experienceis Christ through me, process
and and beginning to define thatwith greater and greater
clarity through scripture.
Um, god sent a group of peopleto my church that, uh, did a
discipleship conference fromexchange life ministries.
Yeah, now, keep in mind, thiswas almost 30 years ago now, um,
(35:30):
and I guess it was 25 years ago.
And the first person that spoke, he came to meet with us as the
pastoral team before theconference, and it was Bill
Loveless, whom you and I weretalking about just a little bit
ago, and this was again 20, someodd years ago.
But he showed up and there wasbill loveless, whom you and I
were talking about just a littlebit ago and this was again 20,
some odd years ago.
But he showed up and there wasonly a handful of us there with
(35:54):
him and he was just sharing histestimony and he talked about
how he was an elder of a churchwho was pretty much done with
christianity.
He thought is all a farce.
And, uh, you know, he was sofrustrated and so angry and so
convinced that you know if it'strue, if Christianity is real,
it's not real to him that he'sdone and God put on his heart
the guy that's going to bespeaking at this event that
(36:16):
you're walking into, he's herefor you.
You know, he's the guy I wantyou to hear.
He's like I don't even know whyI'm here.
It was just on my calendar, Ihad to be here today.
So he wanders in and Major IanThomas goes up on the stage and,
you know, bill unwraps thestory.
You should have him on, if youcan, one of these days.
(36:37):
He'll tell the story betterthan I do.
But Bill is telling this storyto us, a handful of pastors in
this huge church in San Antonio,texas, and he quotes Ian Thomas
is saying it's going to chokeme up, just to say it.
He says God never intended foryou to live the life that only
(36:57):
Jesus Christ can live in andthrough you.
So here's Bill Loveless,quoting Ian Thomas, speaking
everything I've been teaching tome.
And so we're sitting there inthis little room and he says God
never intended quotes ThomasGod never intended for you to
live the life that only JesusChrist can live in and through
you.
And I just stood up for noreason, I just went.
(37:20):
I just stood up right there inthe middle of the room for no
reason whatsoever and everybodykind of looks at me and I went
say that again, it's a bill, hegoes, god never.
He said it again.
I thought that sums up so muchof what I've been trying to say
for the last, you know, twoyears I've been on staff here
and what I've experienced thelast 12 years walking through
(37:42):
this process of just learningdependence.
It's the most basic thing inthe world, but the truth that's
revealed as we depend upon Godpaints a clearer picture of the
whole of scripture.
And so, anyway, bill came anddid that conference with a
gentleman by the name of JohnBest who is a seminary professor
(38:05):
but was an Exchange Life guyfrom Dallas, and Exchange Life
Ministries became Network 220.
And I was a board member.
So fast forward a decade.
I was a board member forNetwork 220 for about seven
years.
I just stepped down and JohnLynch and a couple of other guys
(38:25):
stepped into that role withNetwork 220.
We actually have a hugeconvention coming up in May.
If anyone's available, there'sstill spots available in Dallas
May I think it's 4th and 5th,and if you're a member of the
ministry, there's ministriesthat are members of this
association.
(38:45):
But anyway, I was the trainingdirector and a board member for
a bunch of years there but theycouldn't keep renewing my board
membership.
We're about to fudge the bylawstoo much.
It's like, okay, I got to stepdown, but anyway, what a gift
that I found this group ofpeople through Bill and John and
(39:06):
the conference they came anddid, and then the entire
Exchange Life Ministries Networkwe changed the name to Network
220, all of these ministriesnationally that are teaching
life in Christ.
They're teaching the finishedwork of Christ.
So as a young pastor praise God, I got plugged into all of
(39:27):
these ministries but none ofthem were pastoring.
They were all counselingoffices and a few seminary
counseling guys, but I mean theonly pastor, the only pastor I
knew nationally that wasteaching this message was Frank
Friedman.
I met him when I went to thisevent.
We had him come to my church.
I was pastoring and he did abunch of events.
(39:50):
But anyway, frank pulled measide and said everyone here
needs to understand how churchworks from your perspective.
You've got to join theassociation and start serving.
I said why would I join?
I'm not a counselor, why wouldI join?
And he goes no, we need pastorsand you need to join.
I'm going to sponsor.
Like, why would I join?
And he goes no, you they.
We need pastors and we don't.
You need to join, I'm going tosponsor you, you're going to
(40:11):
join.
So he really didn't ask me, hejust said I'm going to sponsor
you, you're going to join, we'regoing to get more pastors.
And so I did.
And for a long time it was kindof Frank and I that were the
pastors in the Exchange LifeMinistries, now Network 220
Association.
Now there's a bunch, you knowthere's scores of them, but at
the time they were allcounselors but they were
(40:32):
teaching and discipling ExchangeLife Ministries and doing some
conferences.
So anyway, that's fast forwardnow.
I've pastored and churchplanted for a bunch of years and
for the last 15 years, I guess,I have been in full-time
ministry, pouring into leaders,leading conferences, doing
mission work, much like you'redoing, which is wonderful.
(40:54):
And yeah, now the next seasonof my life is going to be
pouring into other leaders thatare doing more of what I've done
, but in a more specialized way.
So raising up worship leadersthat are helping people worship
and lead worship from a Christas life grid.
Pouring into demographicleaders, whether that's men's or
women's or youth or children'sministry.
(41:16):
Pouring into leadershipdevelopment guys, strategy and
vision so that they can walk outalongside other leaders in
their area of expertise.
The truth of Christ, as is lifeas it applies to ministries
we're doing in our day and age.
We've projected this thing thatwe call church life, which is
(41:36):
really a corporation.
This corporate structure weprojected onto body life, and
body life really is more likethe church, really is more like
a tribe.
It's more familial by natureand it's not wrong that we have
a corporate structure.
That's the society that we livein.
But we've kind of forced thisstructure.
That's not contra-biblicalright, it's not against
(42:00):
scripture, but it's extrabiblical, it's beyond what's in
scripture and that causes someproblems.
But we've got to work that out,because that's what people
think of as church.
So, anyway, we're takingleadership development from a
crisis life grid to the localchurch and because that's where
all the Christians are, I don'thave great faith in the
(42:21):
structure of local church, but,you know, through our
fallibility, god's grace isgoing to be made known.
So, anyway, that's what we'redoing now and that's where I've
come from.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Wonderful man.
Thank you so much for sharingall of that.
And tell me, like I know thatyou do a podcast, that's like
kind of a really active thingevery week.
Tell me about that, Becauseit's kind of like the public
facing kind of what you're doingand how people can kind of get
a taste for the ministry thatyou're doing that God is using
(42:56):
you for.
So tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, increasingly as I work with leaders and kind of
behind the scenes with churchesI had not been doing,
especially through COVIDoutbreak seasons, was not doing
as many conferences, was notpreaching for as many churches,
because that just wasn'thappening anyway.
So I began working more andmore with church leaders and
(43:20):
launched an online mostly onlineministry called Mike Q Daniel
Ministries, where we we havesome missionaries.
We have some missionaries insome very persecuted parts of
the world that are translatingscripture and ministering to the
down and out in thosecommunities, in those cultures.
I can't give a lot of detailsabout them, but that's one
(43:42):
aspect of what we do, and theother one is that I do this
broadcast.
We right now are doing it threedays a week Tuesday, thursday
and Sunday at 8 am Central Time.
It's kind of a coffee chat hourand every Tuesday I have a hero
of grace, someone who ischampioning ministry from a
(44:05):
grace perspective.
You have been on that broadcast.
I had John Lynch on thatbroadcast today.
If y'all don't know who JohnLynch is you should.
You need to go find him onlineat John Lynch Speaks.
I've had Bill Loveless on thebroadcast.
In fact, he's walking throughcurriculum once a month on
Tuesdays.
We call it Triber Tuesday.
We invite someone to join uswho's at some level a
(44:28):
participant in the broadcast, anattender getting fed from the
ministry, but who are alsoleading ministry in their own
right.
We invite them to get on camerain front of everybody else in
the broadcast.
And so, yeah, we do that everyTuesday.
On Thursday, we have adiscipleship-based chat with our
audience, so it's prettyinteractive.
(44:48):
We answer questions on the fly,which is always interesting,
and so Tuesdays we haveinterviews, thursdays we have
discipleship conversations, andSundays I usually have a
prepared message, and that's all.
Three of those are at 8 amCentral or Texas time.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Wow, that's incredible.
I really love that, becausepeople can still be involved in
their local church and still bea voice for grace and champion
for grace, no matter wherethey're being used by God and
serving God, but they can be fed.
And I've listened to many ofyour discipleship discipleship
(45:28):
times and, uh, I think you havea real gift, uh for uh working
out practically how grace worksin people's lives, especially
with I.
One comes to mind uh, right now, which is when you were talking
about boundaries, andboundaries was something that
you know.
There was a very popular bookthat came out and it was very
(45:50):
psychological in its, in itsperspective, and I just thought
you did a remarkable job ofapplying the new covenant and
the truth of the gospel, evenwhen it was maybe uncomfortable
or went against the grain ofwhat would be maybe
psychologically acceptable.
(46:12):
But you stood your ground andyou were like this is what it
means, this is what the gospelsays and this is why that may be
uncomfortable and it may bereally difficult for you to
process.
But you can't just make a ruleand say I'm allowed to set
boundaries and do this and thatum, because some person told me
(46:32):
I am um.
But it was much moresurrendered, it was much more
humble and it was much morefaith directed towards Christ
and his, his Lordship in ourlives.
Uh, so I highly recommend, uh,the the grace grace tribe.
I got my grace coffee cup thatoh yeah, I don't have one here.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
I've not been in my office for a few days.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, we have grace tribe mugs yeah, I use it
regularly and and, uh, I thinkit's a bright, shining light in
the uh body of christ here inamerica.
So, uh, I recommend everyone totake a look at that.
So, on Facebook, you're Mike QDaniel.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, so the way to find me everywhere is just
include that Q it's Mike QDaniel, the letter Q it's my
middle initial, so Mike Q Daniel.
You can find my YouTube page.
You can find our Facebook pagewhere we do our broadcast, one
of the places we do it.
You can also find the websitemikeqdanielcom Q is for Quest,
(47:31):
so it's Michael Quest, daniel,but mikeqdanielcom, and you can
find links to all of that.
And we have a podcast.
So for your podcast listeners,we take our broadcast and we put
it on the podcast every week.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Okay Well, there you go.
Awesome, well, thank you soAwesome.
Well, thank you so much foryour time and your wisdom.
Um, you know, maybe everyoneshould just kind of listen to
your podcast, cause it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Uh, you know right, you're a unique fingerprint of
of the expression of God.
Here's the thing God isinfinite, so for us to know him
more, I'm very finite, right, Ihad a specific beginning and
I'll be leaving this earth,probably very soon.
So for us to know him, we haveto know him through each other,
and so you are a uniquefingerprint of God in this world
(48:17):
, and so we all we need to knowhim where we are, so that we can
make him known as only he canthrough each one of us.
So I'm so glad you're here anddoing what you're doing, my
friend.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Thanks, you're really fun and um, thanks, uh for
being so bold, uh to trust inthe scriptures and uh to just
believe what they say.
So I think you're you're achampion when it comes to that.
So, uh, thank you so much.
We're going to wrap it up here,so again, check out
mikeqdanielcom.
(48:48):
Mike, hang on one second whilethings upload.
When we're done and everyoneelse, we'll see you later.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Come hang with Amy Poehler. Each week on her podcast, she'll welcome celebrities and fun people to her studio. They'll share stories about their careers, mutual friends, shared enthusiasms, and most importantly, what's been making them laugh. This podcast is not about trying to make you better or giving advice. Amy just wants to have a good time.