September 19, 2023 • 42 mins
In this episode, Leanne and special guest Pastor Kevin Queen explore how to "try on" a new story to meet you where you are on your own journey. As Leanne shares the practical path she needed to take to meet her in her own skepticism, doubt, and curiosity, Kevin shares his own insights and wisdom on how we can all take steps to meet ourselves where we are.
The 4 Steps they shared specifically were:
Step 1: Discovering Jesus The Man - A Historical Perspective
First, how to suspend disbelief and dive into the historical accounts of Jesus as a man from Nazareth. Learn what history books say about Jesus as a foundational starting point.
Step 2: Unveiling Jesus' Character and Teachings
Explore the heart, soul, and character of Jesus, focusing on his interactions and teachings. Discover how Jesus treated the marginalized and his perspectives on old and new laws.
Step 3: The Trade-off and Promises of Following Jesus
Delve into the concept of following Jesus, considering what you give up and what you gain. Explore the promises and blessings that come with this choice.
Step 4: Investing in Transformation
Embrace the idea of investing your time, energy, heart, and soul in reevaluating various aspects of your life through Jesus' teachings. The invitation strictly being: Just try on this new story and new possibility.
Regardless of your familiarity with Jesus, Leanne and Kevin offer a fresh perspective on his life and teachings, encouraging personal growth and transformation. You're simply invited to "Get To Know This Guy Called Jesus", and open your hearts and minds to the possibilities that await when you embrace this new perspective.
HOST: @LeanneEllington
GUEST: Pastor Kevin Queen @crosspoint.tv or https://crosspoint.tv/
To learn more about Leanne, head over to www.LeanneEllington.com, and to share your to share your thoughts, questions, feedback, or guest suggestions instantly, head on over to www.WhatsGodGotToDoWithIt.com.
What's God Got to Do With It is an iHeartRadio podcast on the Amy Brown Podcast network. It's written and hosted by Leanne Ellington, Executive Produced by Elizabeth Fazio, Post Production and Editing by Houston Tilley, and Original music written by Cheryl Stark & produced by Adam Stark.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
If you want to go on a journey, if you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now here to preach. I want to keep
it clean and talk to me and recall where faith
needs stops nature and get in touch with your creator
with a bacon, love and jo She even speaks Hebrew.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
What's that?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
As well? Station should talking transformation?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's that got to do?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Hello, and welcome back to what's God got to do
with it? I am so grateful to be sitting here
with the pastor Kevin Queen, head of the Cross Point
Church here in Nashville. You guys are well acquainted with
him from the episode before this episode, but you know,
really this conversation and this topic deserves its own conversation.
(01:06):
So you know, we talked a little bit last week
about how I dipped my toes into Christianity, as I
called it, and really it was this.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It was a trying on.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Everything I did was just trying something on see how
it resonated. And I couldn't deny what it was doing
in my head, my heart, my brain, my soul. And
that's really what kept me going. And now I know
that was just God doing what he does.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So we're gonna.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Talk about, you know, I jokingly say getting to know
this guy called Jesus, because that's literally what it felt
like to me starting a new relationship. When you're when
you meet anyone new in your life, you've got to
get to know them, right. So there's the practical side
of it, and then there's this spiritual side of it,
the part that is hard to describe. And then obviously
I wasn't on my own.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I was being guided. I was being led.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I was being pastored or as I like to call Kevin,
he's my rabbi. And we're gonna dive into that intersection
really where you know, the logic and the reason meets
the spiritual meets the soul. So let's just dive on in. Yeah,
so we will pick back up where we met, which
is at that Tuesday And what do you remember about
(02:14):
that Tuesday prayer?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Do you do you remember our first meeting.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I remember I remember us meeting, and I just I
think it's wild that we met at Tuesday prayer. So
when when Ree and I when our family moved up
to pastor at cross Point, one of the first things
we did was we created a Tuesday prayer time for
the staff and for some people in the church, and
so for you to walk through the doors at a
Tuesday prayer, like you were jumping in that like you
(02:37):
were jumping in the deep end. You know, you're like
I dipped my toes and no, you jumped. You jumped
straight up in the in the deep end of the pool.
And so so I was I was intrigued, and I
just think, how how interesting of God to lead you
to that place, to have that experience as one of
the first things.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
That you know, Yeah, I had no idea that it
was a I mean, I just I heard about the
Tuesday prayer and I was like, Okay, I'm going to
go to that, And I had no idea that it
was this very intimate space. And I'm so glad that.
I mean, that was a God thing just leading me
to walk through those doors.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And that was That's really the heart behind that Tuesday
prayer is to pray for you. We pray for renewal
and that people experience we know people experienced the life
of God, revival, for people to have a sense of awakening,
and I'm like your story is as a poster for
the kind of things we were praying for in the city,
and so we talk a lot about for the one
and that God would do you know when Jesus talks
(03:34):
a lot, Actually, Jesus talks a lot about, you know,
doing things for the for the one, because we can
go overwhelmed with the needs of the world. Yeah, but
then we go by doing doing for one what you'd
want to do for everyone. And I just I find
it interesting that the thing we were praying for, this
this renewal, this like sense of revival, this awakening that
we're praying for, Like you were the one you know
(03:55):
that he he worked in and there have been other
people as well, but it was just so clear that
he was just at work in your life, drawing you
to himself and revealing's love to you. You know. Oh,
it's just fun to watch.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Really, thank you so much for saying that and being
a part of it. And it's interesting because that first Tuesday.
It was about a year later that I ended up
giving my life over to the Lord and then ended
up in you know that scene in your office with
the five hundred dollars. And the cool thing is is
that what we're going to be talking about today. It
kind of unfolded in real time. You know, I had
to dip my toes in, I had to try on
(04:29):
kind of one concept at a time. And what happened
in those Tuesday prayers is, you know, you got to
kind of have a picture of what I was dealing
with or or in you know, conversations afterwards. I you know,
you asked me for updates, and part of it was that,
and maybe you didn't even know specifically what I needed,
but it always got it. I remember coming back from
those Tuesdays and just being like, Wow, I got exactly
(04:51):
what I needed, even though again sometimes at the beginning
I would just sit and kind of cry and surrender.
But what I'd love to do, and you're so gifted
at at this because it's it's really what kept me
going and really picking up what you were throwing down,
so to speak, on in Tuesdays and Sundays. But practically,
you know, some people might be thinking, Okay, I want
to either enter into a new relationship with God, start over,
(05:14):
maybe recreate an existing one, renew my.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Mind wherever they are right.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I had my practical steps, so but I'd love for
you to walk alongside these steps and kind of share
what it looks like through your eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And so the first.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Step was when I again I jokingly call it dipping
my toes in because that's what I felt like I
was doing.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And now we know it was a deep end dive.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
But the first step was first I had to try
on this story that there was a man Jesus, right,
that there was this man from Nazareth. And you know,
because I didn't believe, and I had all that skepticism
in the way, I had to just suspend my disbelief
about any of the faith spiritual, higher power side of it, right,
and just come and meet my brain in the logic
(05:54):
and reason of like, Okay, there's this guy named Jesus,
and if I have a hunger for history and learning,
let's learn about him. So first I learned about Jesus.
So can you just kind of meet us there and
share for anybody dipping their toes in in that side
of it?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, I think I think I would even want to
back it out a little further than that. I was
henry now and said that that nature is God's first language,
you know, And so I think there comes a moment
where you look around or where you look up at
the night sky, you know. I was out in Wyoming
and you know, hiking up a mountain a couple of
weeks ago. It's just like you have those moments where
(06:30):
you realize this is so much bigger than me. And
we all have those moments in a in a different way.
But I think you know this this awareness of the
vastness of creation, and so when you think about the cosmos,
then all the way down to the cellular level of
our you know, bodies, in the way that we're put together,
to realize like life is a miracle. You know, Scripture
(06:53):
talks about that we're made in the image of God,
and so when you look at the way that we've
been you know, crafted and created, I think it really
begins at that place where our hearts are longing to
know more. There comes a time where we're like, there's
got to be more to this than just what I
can what I can see. And so I would say
(07:14):
like that that spiritual hunger, it begins at that place
of long ado work, and that can send people in
a lot of different a lot of different directions. Right
the spirituality. I think if you ask a lot of people,
you say, you know, are you a are you a
spiritual person? I think a lot of people would say yes,
but I think there's the acknowledgement that I answer it
because God has made us mind, body, soul, spirit. And
(07:36):
so when we begin this journey toward Jesus, who is
you know, who we would say is the God Man
is fully fully god fully human one of the words
Jesus or his son of Adam, you know, and the
son of Man and the son of God. Which to
hear that to be new to the faith journey or
(07:57):
even new to new to Christ can sound like this
really far out there, you know idea. But I think
when you begin to go back and historically like who
is this this person Jesus? So we go back to
our calendar, we're like, okay, our calendar is split by
the life of a man named Jesus. And I think
(08:20):
then going back to go if if the calendar is
split by his life, who was he? Who did he
claim to be? What were the claims that he made?
What's been the impact of his life? When we go
back and we go historically, what can we know about
his life? And so I think, beginning in that historical place,
and I remember we talked earlier on and you were like,
(08:40):
you know what I've I thought of Jesus as the
Easter Body, and it's like, well, let's look at the
differences between Jesus and the Easter Body, and that's that's
that's the like that was the honest place, that's where
you were at. And so beginning to walk back and go,
what can we know? You know, I have so much
respect for for Judaism and for you know, Jewish faith
(09:01):
and for Jewish I mean, Jesus was a Jew, and
so I've had this hunger to know more about Judaism,
says I would say probably back in two thousand and
probably about two thousand and five, you know where I
really started to study and pick up books and pick
up the Mishnah, you know, and I was just wanted
to know, wanted to know, war wanted to discover how
(09:23):
all of these things connect with the life of Jesus.
And I just wonder if maybe God didn't put some
of those things in place, like for you, you know, if
that was because I think he's a four to one
kind of guy. And so we met in that baseline
of going who is Jesus historically and what does his life?
What does his life mean? And really I think to
encounter him in what we would call the Gospels. Matthew Mark,
(09:44):
Luke John. So these are eyewitness accounts of jesus life,
historical accounts. One of them is written by a historian, Luke,
who was giving a historical perspective. He also wrote the
book called Acts, So it's Matthew Mark Luke John Acts,
Acts of the Apostles. It's a historical account of the
early Church. So for somebody who's wanting to dip their
(10:05):
toes in, you know, I think to meet Jesus in
the Gospels, which would be those four historical accounts, and
looking through and looking at the way that he interacted
with people. What's interesting is almost half of each one
of those books tells the story of the death, burial,
and the resurrection. So what was so important about that
(10:28):
that each one of those authors spent so much time
going kind of take hold, you know, And Paul talks
about there have been five hundred eye witnesses of the
resurrect in Jesus, and so there are these There's something
that happened, you know, in those in those three days
that changed these people's lives, and that has changed history,
(10:48):
changed our calendar, right, So so I think letting that
historical the historical reality of Jesus draw you into that
place of like, okay, I want to know more. Christianity
is not turning off for a logic brain, Like it's
not turning off logic, it's our hearts becoming awakened to
truth and to seeking truth out. And that's what I
(11:09):
saw on your store.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, it's so good what you just said.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
And you know, I think too, one of the things
that helped me really solidify and we use this distinction
of the Easter bunny versus Jesus, or not versus, but
in relation too. And it's no disrespect, it's just you know,
when you hear something and you put in a category
of like this fantasy or this you know, I don't know,
a symbol or something, it's it's hard to come back
from that without again meeting your logic a reason brain.
(11:34):
And I remember one of the things I did is
I watched the movie and I know it was a
book first, but a case for Christ. And one of
the things that I really lean from that movie is
that all the historians and even the atheists, there was
no discrepancy.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Jesus was a man. I mean, that is the data,
you know.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
So again we're just that's one of the first steps
I had to take was just start there.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And then that's what led me to the second.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Step was I started learning about his character, right, the
heart and soul and the spirit of this man called Jesus,
you know. And I learned you know, through the Gospels,
through the stories of the Bible, and just you know,
people that follow Jesus hearing their their depiction of these stories, right.
But the you know, who did he hang out with,
Who was he discipling, Who did he not just disciple,
(12:23):
but who did he outright seek out, you know, to
find and you know, and help and pour into. And
I learned about how he treated people, and what really
stuck out to me was how he treated you know,
the air quotes broken, the outcast, the people that were
you know, from society as standpoint, you know, meant to
be a recluse or whatever, shamed any labels that were
(12:46):
given in olden times. But I learned about how he
treated especially those people.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
It was one of those things where I tried it
on and I was like, wow, Like, if that's how
he treated the people that have done X, Y and
z then and not that it's a compared game of like, oh,
my shame isn't as bad as somebody else's shame. But
we as humans we do that, you know, we categorize
and maybe put our shame on a hierarchy of is
it redeemable, is it forgivable? Is it worthy of being
(13:13):
seen and loved and known in all of these things?
And maybe we don't even know that we're doing it.
The flip side of being self aware and all of
the you know, the personal development work I had done,
I did have a heightened awareness of my shame. So
this second step for me was probably the most important part.
And again I was just getting to know this guy
called Jesus. And one of the things I remember is
I was like, I've never met anybody like this. I
(13:34):
still to this day haven't met anybody.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
As amazing as Jesus. So can we walk through that?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
And one of the things I remember is I was like,
I've never met anybody like this. I still to this
day haven't met anybody as amazing as Jesus?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So can we walk through that?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah? So when you talk about when you talk about character,
you talk about like the ways of being you know
and you look at Jesus life. Let's just take Let's
take Matthew for example. So Matthew, who wrote the first
gospel account that we have in the New Covenant. We
read into into Matthew and he tells us it's interesting.
We start reading the book and it starts with a genealogy,
(14:21):
and then it tells the story of his birth, and
then it moves to Jesus ministry begins and Matthew writes
himself into the story about him when he met Jesus. Now,
Matthew was a tax collector, which in that day would
have been like a like a crime boss. He was
a shady character. And in that day, tax collectors were
lumped in with swindlers, with thieves, with murders, and that
(14:43):
they couldn't worship at the temple. They could they were
barred from the synagogue. And it says that Jesus is
walking along, He's got a couple of other disciples. So
he's got he's got Peter. He's already called Andrew Peter
James and John Peter was a zealot. So the reason
that Matthew, the reason that he was hated in that
day is because he had sided up with the Romans
with their tax their heavy tastes. So Israel was an
(15:06):
occupied state Rome heavy taxation. They wanted to take as
much as they could out of Israel. They tax them
for everything. Well, a tax collector would basically with the
enforcement of the Roman army, they would be able to
tax their brothers and sisters, they would be able to
tax their fellow Jews, and they would add on top
of that. And so they were hated because they had
(15:27):
tied in and coluded with in me. So Jesus goes
to He's got Peter, Andrew, James John, and he goes
to the Matthew and he says, come follow me. So
this man who is despised and hated in that culture,
he says, I want you to be one of myne talmaden.
I want you to be one of my disciples. I
want you to be my inner circle. Now in that day,
(15:49):
for a rabbi to ask the way to follow is
essentially saying, I believe that you can be like me. Right,
So he's like he's called Peter, who was a zealot
who basically wanted to take up a sword and fight
the Romans. He's taken this zealot and he's pulled him
in the group with this one, the one who has
(16:10):
sighted up with the Romans. And this is I mean,
if you're trying to build a team like this doesn't
seem like a very wise thing to do, but this is,
this is Jesus heart end that it's only through Jesus
that through his love. He's like, I'm gonna teach you guys,
I love. I'm gonna teach you guys how to be together.
I'm gonna teach you what unity looks like. And he
(16:31):
invites them into this small group and he brings twelve
into the small group, and we just see the character
of Jesus and he loves them. I mean, these guys
were knuckleheads, you know, just like us. They made bonehead moves,
you know, and he loved them and told them the
truth even when it hurts, and he took them, He
stretched them outside of their comfort zone, led them into
places that they into Samaria, and just you know, these
(16:53):
interactions and when you read through the Gospels, you just
see you see the characteristic of Jesus's love. In First Corinthius,
which is another book, so it's an epistle that the
Apostle Paul, who is a leader in the early Church,
that he wrote to a church at Corinth and the
apostle Paul's talking about love. And maybe you've heard this
at like a wedding or before, but he taught he
(17:14):
talks about love, love is patient, love is kind, and
talks about and all those things that we read are
true of Jesus. In fact, later on it talks about
the fruit of the spirit. Paul in another letter he
says the fruit of spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, shollness, faithfulness,
and self control. When you talk about the character of Jesus,
we see the love of God on display. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, sentleness, faithfulness,
(17:39):
self control. I think about my life, so we think
of Paul those but I know that that that is
the kind of character that I want, and I think
that's what he's forming in me. But those words are
the character character of Jesus, and we see those in
the high definition as we read through the story. And
(18:00):
that you know, as we moved to the cross, Jesus
said one time he said, greater love has nobody than this.
Then he would lay down his life for his friends
and so Jesus reveals sacrificial love. He shows what it
means to sacrifice, which is the ultimate right to give
your life for somebody else. So it's like all the
(18:22):
other chapters lead up to this chapter. He say, I'm
about to show you truly what love looks like to
lay down your life, and doesn't stop there. He you know,
continues with the resurrection. But that is the that is
the gospel, is the sacrificial of that's the good news
when we say gospel. That's what that war means good news.
I guess good news that that we are love that
(18:44):
much like we are love that much that Bolton, my son,
my youngest son, he used to have this it's a lion,
and he can took it with us where and we
would go, if we would go out of town. Sometimes
he would leave, like leave it at the hotel or
the people we're staying with. And I mean it was
it smelled, it was raggedy, it was falling apart. But
(19:06):
if he left it somewhere, we would turn around the
car and drop back. The value of lion it wasn't
in how lion looked. It wasn't in how what we
can get from Lyon on the black market, right. The
value of Lion was the love that was given to
Lion from Bolton. The value that we have doesn't come
(19:28):
from our performance, doesn't come from how good we look,
doesn't come from how well we have it together. It's
loved into us. And the Cross is the picture of
how much we're loved. That's why we call it gospel.
That's why we call it good news. That's the character
of God that we see towards Jesus so good.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, And I think you know, for me, this was
that unconditional love, that love even in the places where
I didn't think I deserve it, or that kind of
love that you're like, yeah, I'm lovable, except if only
they knew that, or they would see how broken I
I really was, or how much toxic shame is there,
or how unworthy I am, or what if they find
me out then they really won't love me.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And it's like no, Yes, even those.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Places, especially those places, that's the love that's available. And
to me, what I remember thinking about this is because
again I was meeting myself where I was in the
work that I do. With the women that I work with,
we talk about, you know, self image and identity, and
one of the things that we build is their innercompass,
and really it's this aspirational thing. It's almost like breadcrumbs
to lead them back to who they want to be
(20:30):
when they feel like they're falling short. And one of
the things I always say to them, I'm like, it's
not this new gauge of perfectionism. It's not one of
those things where you look at your inner compass and
you're like, oh great, I'm not being that so great.
There's another thing I fail that. It's this aspirational thing
that that you choose who you want to be, really
in the essence of who you are, stripped of all
the roles, stripped of all of you know who like
(20:51):
not you as a mom, not you as a wife,
you as a as a woman, the soul, the essence
of who you are, and so you have breadcrumbs to
come back to who you want to be. And when
I started learning about the character, like you said, you're
like all of these things. You know, when I'm human
ing in my day to day life, I'm not all
of those things. But that's why we have this picture
of Jesus, because it's this aspirational thing to not think concepts,
(21:13):
ways of being, elements of our identity of character that
oftentimes we don't actively choose, and so unconsciously or subconsciously,
we are not showing up with all of these fruits
of the spirit. And that's where the shame lives because
we know that we're not showing up is it? But
we can't put our finger on it? And what I
(21:33):
loved about, you know, especially in the Gospels, and when
you hear about this picture of Jesus, it gives you language,
It gives you a picture, It gives you a man
to show you what this looks like, walks like, acts like,
talks like. And to me that was everything.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, I think when we see it's it's aspirational. It
calls us to more. Yeah, but even more than that,
Like the beauty of the Gospel is is Who? And
I've watched this in your life and is is you
becoming who you already are in Christ? So when you
receive the truth of Christ, when you receive Who, when
(22:12):
you put your trust in him, he says in the
scripture talks about if anyone's in Christ, they're a new creation.
The old is gone, that new has come. So we've
received this new, this new identity, and I've watched you
live into that, into that new identity. And so the transformation,
because what religion is, religion is it's behavior modification from
(22:32):
the outside in. And what true authentic spirituality in Christ,
what being a follower of Jesus is we receive his
like his spirit at work in our in our lives,
in our hearts, and it's a change from the inside
inside out. Yeah, it's a miracle. My values change, my
(22:54):
attitudes change. Understand each like there is this, it's it's
a transparation. That word, it's like a metamorphosis, like the
Greek word goes back, like it is this it's this
shaping for the ansset. But it's it's slowly, it's a process,
you know, it takes place over over time. But it's beautiful,
the beautiful to see.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah, I you touched on something really important because I
think a lot of times faith and spirituality and even
Christianity gets batched in with that, you know, kind of
religion talk. And one of the things that when you
learn about Jesus' character and he talks about the new
laws and the old laws, the Old Testament, the New Testament,
and I remember I came up to you one of
(23:34):
the times I met you.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
At first.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
You were like, yeah, if you ever have conversations you
know about the Old Testament New Testament. And I was like, honestly,
I don't really know much about the Old Testament. And
I think it's because growing up I was so like
kind of turned off. And now obviously I read the
Old Testament, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's so much
wisdom there. But in a way it's like incomplete right
without hearing about the picture of Jesus and what is
(23:55):
what's possible for us without these laws?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So can you share a.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Little bit distinct because I know for a fact because
it was there for me, there's people that are listening
there like no religion off limits.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Because it has that stigma.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
So in one of the things I always say is like,
I'm not religious, I'm spiritual, I'm faith based that I'm
a Christian. There is that kind of gray area where
people don't understand that. Can you share a little bit
about your thoughts between like religion and spirituality. Can you
(24:30):
share a little bit about your thoughts between religion and spirituality?
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, so I think you know one of the ways
that I've heard it explained is that it's not about
a religion, it's about a relationship. So I think that's
a helpful distinction, is that it really is a relationship,
a personal relationship with a living God, not with a
man made system. Now some would think of religion this way,
(24:54):
like that it's a ladder that I have to try
to climb up to get to God. Where we look
at what happened in Christ through the incarnation. Through with incarnation,
what that means is God sending his son, the Father,
sending his son Jesus, God becoming man living among us.
That's what I'm sorry like that, but that term, But
(25:15):
that's a helpful idea to take it to go. That
is God coming to us, you know, and not us
trying to earn our way to God is impossible because
he's a He's a holy, perfect God. There's a story
that Donald Miller told, and it's about a Navy seal
who was going overseas to try to rescue some hostages.
(25:36):
And the hostages have been in a difficult situation and
they were so traumatized that when the Navy seals came
in and went into the room in the middle of
the night. They tried to get them out. They wouldn't leave.
They were hold over in the corner. And one of
the one of the soldiers, they were trying to, you know,
get them out with sense of urgency, and they again,
they were just they were traumatized. They were stuck in
the corner. And one of the soldiers had an idea.
(26:00):
He went over and he went and he sat next
to one of the prisoners and he went and he
got like in a fetal position kind of hold up
right next to him, and he whispered to him, We're
here to rescue you. We're Americans, We're here to rescue you.
He just waited. He said it again, he waited, he
said it again, just whispered to him, and pretty said
(26:23):
they believed, yeah, and they were like, let's go, and
they rescued the And I think when when you look
at the life of Christ, you look at Jesus, he's
come to a traumatized you know, maybe we're traumatized for
a lot of different reasons. We live in a broken,
tragic world filled with uncertainty. But God wants us to
be certain of his love. Summer City that he sent
(26:44):
his son to come in and what we see in
Life of Guard, he made himself vulnerable. He came alongside us.
And sometimes religion can lead us traumatized. Sometimes religion is
used to controut out of control people because we're afraid. Yeah,
all right, and so sometimes religious you sometimes religion is
you to try to manipulate. Sometimes religion is used. Now,
sometimes religion comes from a place of just authentic we
(27:06):
want to be, you know, we live moral lives.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
So when you look at the Ten Commandments, like ten
commandments are wonderful, they're a gift from God. But none
of us ken I mean, who listening has never lied
like we can't fulfill. And Jesus said, I didn't come
to do away with the commandments. I came to fulfill them.
Jesus is the only one we needed somebody to fulfill them.
You see, I can come to them to abolish the law.
(27:30):
What the law does is it reveals to us that
we are in need of arrestue there's no way we
could do it on our own. And so when you
look at like the Old Testament, when you look with
the scriptures at Torah, it reveals our need for Christ.
And then Jesus came to fulfill that, to live it perfectly,
and to lay his life down as a sacrifice for
(27:51):
us who couldn't get there on our own, who couldn't
climb the ladder, who couldn't who couldn't do it. So,
you know, I think when I just draw that to thinction,
it's not about religion. It's about a relationship. And oftentimes
religion is trying to climb our way to God, our
own airfor perfectionism, and realizing there's no way we can
get there on our own. You know that He's come
(28:13):
for us.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
And I think the version that you just shared here
that spoke to me back in the day when I
first came to the Lord, was this love and this
you know, relationship that I have right now that I
don't have to earn.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I don't have to hustle for.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
I don't have to lose weight, I don't have to
earn more money, I don't have to be in a relationship.
It's just meets me where I am. He comes to me, and.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I have to meet him too.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, you know, but it's not this, It's not I
don't have to earn it, hustle for it, or you know,
be forgiven in terms of like he's mad at me
and I have to do a certain thing to earn
my way back. Not like that, it just it's here,
it's now, and yeah, we need we need that rescuing
because we are human and we are not perfect. And
(28:56):
that's the kind of relationship I want is with a
God who's like, you're not perfect, and I love you
in all of your imperfections.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know, so beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
And then you know, the big thing that kind of
rounded this out for me that I want to walk
through is this.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You know, these are my words, not God's.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
But there was this kind of trade off that I
was experiencing or that kind of revealed itself to me
as I was exploring this idea of following him right,
because first again, tryed on this idea that there was
a man named Jesus Okay, cool check right, the character
of him, wow, Like fell in love with this man
named Jesus check. But following him giving my life over
to him, that was a process. My heart needed to
(29:35):
be worked on a little bit, you know, it needed
to process, it needed to try these things on.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But the big part of it was.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
That try on was kind of a series of actions
and a leap of faith. And it came in the
form of this last part, which is trying on this
idea of like, okay, there is a payoff or like
a trade off, so to speak. Right, So, if I'm
giving up something, what am I getting in return? And
when I say giving up, I'm like giving up my shame,
giving up my need control, giving up my desires for perfectionism,
(30:03):
giving up trying to hustle for my worthiness. Like that's
what I mean by giving things up. But then this
idea of like, no, what you're giving up, you'll be
It'll be redeemed, restored. You will be redeemed, you will
be restored.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I remember hearing.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
The term of like coming back in double portion. You know,
all of these things, and it was also new to me,
but it felt like in an action step more than
just a being with it, actively releasing surrendering, like surrender
not just as a noun but as a verb. Right, So,
can you talk to us a little What does what
does the Bible say about this what I'm calling like
(30:35):
a trade off?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
You know, it's interesting. One time Jesus was having a
conversation with the Pharisees who were like the religious leaders
of the day. They were like the experts in the law,
and they were the ones who were trying to find
people sitting, you know, they were who were policing other
people's behaviors. It was in a religious system, and Jesus
is with the tax collectors and the sinners and the
(31:00):
Pharisees are watching what's going on. And he tells this
beautiful sequence of stories. The first one, he tells a
story about a shepherd who leaves ninety nine sheep and
goes for the one he tells a story about a
woman who who is missing a coin which would have
been a part of her dowry, which would have been
worn in a headdress. And so it's like it's like
somebody having an engagement ring and like scrambling trying to find,
(31:23):
you know, the rock that fell out. And then he
tells a story about a father who has two sons,
and the youngest son comes to his father and says
a neimin inheritance, which would have been like telling his
dad back in that day, you know, I wish you
were dead. And the father does the unthinkable, and he
gives the inheritance to the son, and the son goes
and he takes it, and he squanders it, and he
spends it all. It says, he's spent it on wild living. Well,
(31:45):
there was a famine that came in, and Jesus is
telling the story. He said, there was a famine that
came in, and because of the famine, the son had nothing.
He ended up eating the pods of a pig pant,
which you know, for a Jewish boy like hanging out
with the pigs. That's just how love. He was not kosher,
not come sure my bacon. He didn't like bacon, right,
(32:09):
And so he ends up going back home. And when
he goes back home to the father's house, says the
father sees the son, which means he was looking born.
He was a long way off. And the father runs
to his son, which in that day for a father
to run was it was undignified. But what's Jesus telling
us about the father's love But God's love for us.
(32:29):
And the father runs for a son. He wraps him up.
He says, my son, who is dead, is now alive.
He was lost, is now found. He said, kill the
fat athletis have a barbecue, he said, put a new
ring on his finger and new sandals on his feet,
a new robe for his back, and he said, my son,
who was dead, is now alive. And then it says
there was another son and an older son who was
(32:50):
still at the house, and he's the older son doesn't
go into the party. The older son said, what about me?
Like I've been here the whole time and I didn't
get a party, And so we don't know how the
story ends. That's all Jesus gives us. But when I
think about, like, what are we giving up or we're
giving up life away from home? What did that younger son,
(33:12):
what was he really given on? He's giving up pig pods,
He's trying to figure out, trying to do life apart
from the father, control, addiction, manipulation, independence from the front,
Like God wants us to live in a place of handets, right.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
M yeah, which is so counterintuitive.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Culturally we hear about like, oh, being an independent woman
or and it's this hyper independence and it becomes this
stronghold over you where and then you're chasing idols like
money and fame and recognition and a certain body type
or whatever it is, and you're so far away from
your spirit.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
But it's it's.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Coming from this place of that hyper independence and this
I can't do it or I need to do it.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
On my own.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
I should be able to do it on my own,
and it becomes part of your ego or you feel
weak or broken if you need help. Whereas you know,
as I've learned, it's like that's a strength of saying no,
I can't do this on my own.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
I don't want to do this on my own.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
But again it gets so flip flopped.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, and I think that what you said so true.
Like those idol you talk like idols, Like back in
the day people would worship, they'd worship idols. I mean,
we're here in Nashville. We've got the Parthenon, and at
the Parthenon there's there's a statue to a the You know,
we don't we don't think about idolatry much, but like
there are idols at the at the mall. We drive idols,
(34:35):
you know. And idol is anything that we go to
to try to find our sense of worth and value
and significance. Fitness can be an idol, right, Technology can
be an idol. Work can be an idol. Anything truly
can be can be that. And so God came to addiction.
I mean, really, that's what addiction is. It's going to
substances and going to things to try to find our
(34:56):
deepest needs met. And the Bible has a word called
for penance and gets a bad rap I think probably
because of TV preachers that have abused it. But what
repentance truly means just come on back home. They just
come on back home to who you were made to be,
so you can be who you were made to be,
so you can do what you were made to do.
But just come back home, you know. And it's and
(35:18):
maybe for some who are listening, that word home needs
to be re imaged, yeah, because of the context of
the home. But that's what we're all like. We all
longed for that unconditional love. We all longed for that
place of being known and loved. You talked about that
that earlier, like the longing that we have. Tim Keller
(35:40):
talks about this way. He says, everybody longs to be
known and to be loved. He said, to be known
and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be
loved and not known not superficial, but to be truly
loved and truly known. Well that's a lot like what
God does, and that's that place of being at home.
And so if I had to describe just journey, that
(36:00):
like what are we given up? We're given up life
on our own. We're giving up life trying to trying
to manipulate and control and find our love, joy and
peace and other things and other people and circumstances. And
we're going back to that place of complete dependency on
you know, on that where we surrender, because really that's
(36:23):
the way back home. It's just surrendered, and.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That is faith.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I mean, it is scary, you're leaving a place of
certainty for something unknown. But if there's anything that I've
discovered from those leaps, what comes back in its place?
And it's not in a manipulative way. It's not like,
oh God, if I, you know, turn this over to you,
will you promise to pay me back.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
It's not like that.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It's not you're not keeping score or keeping tally. What
I've just discovered is that anything that I've given up,
what's been restored or just created, because things can be
created that I didn't even know I was looking for.
I can't even tell you the fruits that have been
you know, redeemed from that. But part of it again
is it takes faith. To have that faith, you've got
to practice it. And that's why I said it's that
(37:05):
surrender as a verb, not just a noun, because sitting
you know, in my house, talking about this idea of
surrender and this idea of giving my life over to
God was really easy compared to actually doing it right.
And we'll talk about different things on this podcast, so
you know the specificity of that. But when you talk
about this idea of coming home, it's like the picture
of God that I have that really pleases me is
(37:28):
God's like.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I don't care what you've done. I don't care where
you've been.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Like, it's not like a conditional come home, it's a
come home period.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And go to the picture that Jesus gives us in
Luke fifteen, Like the picture is the father running to
the son who squandered his inheritance, like he squandered it all.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Like he runs to it reresponsibility.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yes, he squandered everything, And the father just goes and
wraps him up and he's like, and that that is
the heart of God, no matter where we've been or
what we've done. What you know our circumstances and our
situation and life has led us to be maybe even
the decisions of other people, that we would just know
God runs to us, that he pursues us, and that
(38:13):
even as we maybe feel like we're kind of turning,
all it took was one step back home and now
and every person listening like your one prayer away from
beginning that journey to come back.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Home, absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Well yeah, and really, you know, wherever you are, all
we're doing is inviting you to try this story on.
And you know, when I took those three steps for
me personally, you know, first trying on that there was
a man named Jesus, like in real life, in real time,
you know, Then learning about his character, his heart, who
he had a heart for. And then this you know,
what I'm calling the trade off of what you give
up but what you get back in return that really
(38:50):
is immeasurable. Right when I tried on those ideas and
I just invested that kind of thought process or that
kind of paradigm and put my time and my energy
and my heart and my soul using those goggles, but
revisiting things like my shame and self image and my
body and my finances and my life's work and how
(39:11):
I pour into other women because of course we're talking
about this identity self self, you know, acceptance conversation, which
has a whole new meaning when you know and are
fully seen and known all of it. When you look
at life through those paradigms, everything can shift. And so
all we're doing is really inviting you to try on
a new story.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Because if the story.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
That you have right now isn't serving you or isn't
making you feel loved, known, seen, there is another story
available for you.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So would you just speak.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
To that before we wind down this episode?
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you you started talking about
putting on another another story and you start talking about
trying things on and I had never heard anybody use that,
you know, use that phrase. So you talk about like
learning Christian you know phrases. Yeah, I'd never heard that phrase.
But I think to be able to watch what that,
(40:01):
you know, what that looks like. And to be honest,
I was a little scared of that term because I
never I'd never heard it before. I was like, you
know what to come from? Where you came from in
your show? I was like, Oh, it makes so much sense.
So I would just encourage you know, I would encourage it.
When we talk about trying it on, I'll go back
to that story where the son came home and the
(40:22):
father put a rope, put that robe on him, put
that ring on him, Like, just try out and see
if it, see if it fits, and see if it fits,
and let that new identity and who God says you
are in him, Like, just take that next just continue
taking that next step and see if it fits. Son.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
So beautiful. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Well.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
If you love this conversation, buckle up because we have
another conversation coming at you next week. I know, for me,
the believing side of it, there was all of these
beliefs that were like, Okay, this all sounds great in theory,
but am I too broken?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Am I too far?
Speaker 4 (41:00):
No, you don't understand. My shame is worse off than
the other people's shame. Whatever it was fill in the blank.
There's so many beliefs that keep us from either having
or starting a relationship with God, and we are going
to talk about those head on. Kevin is going to
be back next week as well, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And this is Leanne signing off.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
For another episode of What's God Got to Do With It?
We'll be back with more What's God Got to Do
with It?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
But in the meantime, I would.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Love to hear from you, so tell me about where
you are in your story and what questions you have.
You know, where do you feel you need clarity or
wisdom in your own journey. I definitely want to hear
from you, So head on over to What's God Got
to Do with It? Dot com and scroll down to
the form to share your thoughts, questions, or feedback instantly.
That's What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com?
(41:48):
And if you like this podcast and want to hear more,
follow like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts to
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while you're there, be sure to rate and review to
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Got to Do With It? Is an iHeartRadio podcast on
(42:10):
the Amy Brown Podcast Network. It's written and hosted by
me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, post production
and editing by Houston Tilley, and original music written by
Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam Stark.
If you want to go on a journey, if you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now here to preach. I want to keep
it clean and talk to me and recall where faith
needs stops nature and get in touch with your creator
with a bacon, love and jo She even speaks Hebrew.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
What's that?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
As well? Station should talking transformation?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's that got to do?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Hello, and welcome back to what's God got to do
with it? I am so grateful to be sitting here
with the pastor Kevin Queen, head of the Cross Point
Church here in Nashville. You guys are well acquainted with
him from the episode before this episode, but you know,
really this conversation and this topic deserves its own conversation.
(01:06):
So you know, we talked a little bit last week
about how I dipped my toes into Christianity, as I
called it, and really it was this.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It was a trying on.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Everything I did was just trying something on see how
it resonated. And I couldn't deny what it was doing
in my head, my heart, my brain, my soul. And
that's really what kept me going. And now I know
that was just God doing what he does.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So we're gonna.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Talk about, you know, I jokingly say getting to know
this guy called Jesus, because that's literally what it felt
like to me starting a new relationship. When you're when
you meet anyone new in your life, you've got to
get to know them, right. So there's the practical side
of it, and then there's this spiritual side of it,
the part that is hard to describe. And then obviously
I wasn't on my own.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I was being guided. I was being led.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I was being pastored or as I like to call Kevin,
he's my rabbi. And we're gonna dive into that intersection
really where you know, the logic and the reason meets
the spiritual meets the soul. So let's just dive on in. Yeah,
so we will pick back up where we met, which
is at that Tuesday And what do you remember about
(02:14):
that Tuesday prayer?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Do you do you remember our first meeting.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I remember I remember us meeting, and I just I
think it's wild that we met at Tuesday prayer. So
when when Ree and I when our family moved up
to pastor at cross Point, one of the first things
we did was we created a Tuesday prayer time for
the staff and for some people in the church, and
so for you to walk through the doors at a
Tuesday prayer, like you were jumping in that like you
(02:37):
were jumping in the deep end. You know, you're like
I dipped my toes and no, you jumped. You jumped
straight up in the in the deep end of the pool.
And so so I was I was intrigued, and I
just think, how how interesting of God to lead you
to that place, to have that experience as one of
the first things.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
That you know, Yeah, I had no idea that it
was a I mean, I just I heard about the
Tuesday prayer and I was like, Okay, I'm going to
go to that, And I had no idea that it
was this very intimate space. And I'm so glad that.
I mean, that was a God thing just leading me
to walk through those doors.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And that was That's really the heart behind that Tuesday
prayer is to pray for you. We pray for renewal
and that people experience we know people experienced the life
of God, revival, for people to have a sense of awakening,
and I'm like your story is as a poster for
the kind of things we were praying for in the city,
and so we talk a lot about for the one
and that God would do you know when Jesus talks
(03:34):
a lot, Actually, Jesus talks a lot about, you know,
doing things for the for the one, because we can
go overwhelmed with the needs of the world. Yeah, but
then we go by doing doing for one what you'd
want to do for everyone. And I just I find
it interesting that the thing we were praying for, this
this renewal, this like sense of revival, this awakening that
we're praying for, Like you were the one you know
(03:55):
that he he worked in and there have been other
people as well, but it was just so clear that
he was just at work in your life, drawing you
to himself and revealing's love to you. You know. Oh,
it's just fun to watch.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Really, thank you so much for saying that and being
a part of it. And it's interesting because that first Tuesday.
It was about a year later that I ended up
giving my life over to the Lord and then ended
up in you know that scene in your office with
the five hundred dollars. And the cool thing is is
that what we're going to be talking about today. It
kind of unfolded in real time. You know, I had
to dip my toes in, I had to try on
(04:29):
kind of one concept at a time. And what happened
in those Tuesday prayers is, you know, you got to
kind of have a picture of what I was dealing
with or or in you know, conversations afterwards. I you know,
you asked me for updates, and part of it was that,
and maybe you didn't even know specifically what I needed,
but it always got it. I remember coming back from
those Tuesdays and just being like, Wow, I got exactly
(04:51):
what I needed, even though again sometimes at the beginning
I would just sit and kind of cry and surrender.
But what I'd love to do, and you're so gifted
at at this because it's it's really what kept me
going and really picking up what you were throwing down,
so to speak, on in Tuesdays and Sundays. But practically,
you know, some people might be thinking, Okay, I want
to either enter into a new relationship with God, start over,
(05:14):
maybe recreate an existing one, renew my.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Mind wherever they are right.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I had my practical steps, so but I'd love for
you to walk alongside these steps and kind of share
what it looks like through your eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And so the first.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Step was when I again I jokingly call it dipping
my toes in because that's what I felt like I
was doing.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And now we know it was a deep end dive.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
But the first step was first I had to try
on this story that there was a man Jesus, right,
that there was this man from Nazareth. And you know,
because I didn't believe, and I had all that skepticism
in the way, I had to just suspend my disbelief
about any of the faith spiritual, higher power side of it, right,
and just come and meet my brain in the logic
(05:54):
and reason of like, Okay, there's this guy named Jesus,
and if I have a hunger for history and learning,
let's learn about him. So first I learned about Jesus.
So can you just kind of meet us there and
share for anybody dipping their toes in in that side
of it?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, I think I think I would even want to
back it out a little further than that. I was
henry now and said that that nature is God's first language,
you know, And so I think there comes a moment
where you look around or where you look up at
the night sky, you know. I was out in Wyoming
and you know, hiking up a mountain a couple of
weeks ago. It's just like you have those moments where
(06:30):
you realize this is so much bigger than me. And
we all have those moments in a in a different way.
But I think you know this this awareness of the
vastness of creation, and so when you think about the cosmos,
then all the way down to the cellular level of
our you know, bodies, in the way that we're put together,
to realize like life is a miracle. You know, Scripture
(06:53):
talks about that we're made in the image of God,
and so when you look at the way that we've
been you know, crafted and created, I think it really
begins at that place where our hearts are longing to
know more. There comes a time where we're like, there's
got to be more to this than just what I
can what I can see. And so I would say
(07:14):
like that that spiritual hunger, it begins at that place
of long ado work, and that can send people in
a lot of different a lot of different directions. Right
the spirituality. I think if you ask a lot of people,
you say, you know, are you a are you a
spiritual person? I think a lot of people would say yes,
but I think there's the acknowledgement that I answer it
because God has made us mind, body, soul, spirit. And
(07:36):
so when we begin this journey toward Jesus, who is
you know, who we would say is the God Man
is fully fully god fully human one of the words
Jesus or his son of Adam, you know, and the
son of Man and the son of God. Which to
hear that to be new to the faith journey or
(07:57):
even new to new to Christ can sound like this
really far out there, you know idea. But I think
when you begin to go back and historically like who
is this this person Jesus? So we go back to
our calendar, we're like, okay, our calendar is split by
the life of a man named Jesus. And I think
(08:20):
then going back to go if if the calendar is
split by his life, who was he? Who did he
claim to be? What were the claims that he made?
What's been the impact of his life? When we go
back and we go historically, what can we know about
his life? And so I think, beginning in that historical place,
and I remember we talked earlier on and you were like,
(08:40):
you know what I've I thought of Jesus as the
Easter Body, and it's like, well, let's look at the
differences between Jesus and the Easter Body, and that's that's
that's the like that was the honest place, that's where
you were at. And so beginning to walk back and go,
what can we know? You know, I have so much
respect for for Judaism and for you know, Jewish faith
(09:01):
and for Jewish I mean, Jesus was a Jew, and
so I've had this hunger to know more about Judaism,
says I would say probably back in two thousand and
probably about two thousand and five, you know where I
really started to study and pick up books and pick
up the Mishnah, you know, and I was just wanted
to know, wanted to know, war wanted to discover how
(09:23):
all of these things connect with the life of Jesus.
And I just wonder if maybe God didn't put some
of those things in place, like for you, you know, if
that was because I think he's a four to one
kind of guy. And so we met in that baseline
of going who is Jesus historically and what does his life?
What does his life mean? And really I think to
encounter him in what we would call the Gospels. Matthew Mark,
(09:44):
Luke John. So these are eyewitness accounts of jesus life,
historical accounts. One of them is written by a historian, Luke,
who was giving a historical perspective. He also wrote the
book called Acts, So it's Matthew Mark Luke John Acts,
Acts of the Apostles. It's a historical account of the
early Church. So for somebody who's wanting to dip their
(10:05):
toes in, you know, I think to meet Jesus in
the Gospels, which would be those four historical accounts, and
looking through and looking at the way that he interacted
with people. What's interesting is almost half of each one
of those books tells the story of the death, burial,
and the resurrection. So what was so important about that
(10:28):
that each one of those authors spent so much time
going kind of take hold, you know, And Paul talks
about there have been five hundred eye witnesses of the
resurrect in Jesus, and so there are these There's something
that happened, you know, in those in those three days
that changed these people's lives, and that has changed history,
(10:48):
changed our calendar, right, So so I think letting that
historical the historical reality of Jesus draw you into that
place of like, okay, I want to know more. Christianity
is not turning off for a logic brain, Like it's
not turning off logic, it's our hearts becoming awakened to
truth and to seeking truth out. And that's what I
(11:09):
saw on your store.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, it's so good what you just said.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
And you know, I think too, one of the things
that helped me really solidify and we use this distinction
of the Easter bunny versus Jesus, or not versus, but
in relation too. And it's no disrespect, it's just you know,
when you hear something and you put in a category
of like this fantasy or this you know, I don't know,
a symbol or something, it's it's hard to come back
from that without again meeting your logic a reason brain.
(11:34):
And I remember one of the things I did is
I watched the movie and I know it was a
book first, but a case for Christ. And one of
the things that I really lean from that movie is
that all the historians and even the atheists, there was
no discrepancy.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Jesus was a man. I mean, that is the data,
you know.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
So again we're just that's one of the first steps
I had to take was just start there.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And then that's what led me to the second.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Step was I started learning about his character, right, the
heart and soul and the spirit of this man called Jesus,
you know. And I learned you know, through the Gospels,
through the stories of the Bible, and just you know,
people that follow Jesus hearing their their depiction of these stories, right.
But the you know, who did he hang out with,
Who was he discipling, Who did he not just disciple,
(12:23):
but who did he outright seek out, you know, to
find and you know, and help and pour into. And
I learned about how he treated people, and what really
stuck out to me was how he treated you know,
the air quotes broken, the outcast, the people that were
you know, from society as standpoint, you know, meant to
be a recluse or whatever, shamed any labels that were
(12:46):
given in olden times. But I learned about how he
treated especially those people.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
It was one of those things where I tried it
on and I was like, wow, Like, if that's how
he treated the people that have done X, Y and
z then and not that it's a compared game of like, oh,
my shame isn't as bad as somebody else's shame. But
we as humans we do that, you know, we categorize
and maybe put our shame on a hierarchy of is
it redeemable, is it forgivable? Is it worthy of being
(13:13):
seen and loved and known in all of these things?
And maybe we don't even know that we're doing it.
The flip side of being self aware and all of
the you know, the personal development work I had done,
I did have a heightened awareness of my shame. So
this second step for me was probably the most important part.
And again I was just getting to know this guy
called Jesus. And one of the things I remember is
I was like, I've never met anybody like this. I
(13:34):
still to this day haven't met anybody.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
As amazing as Jesus. So can we walk through that?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
And one of the things I remember is I was like,
I've never met anybody like this. I still to this
day haven't met anybody as amazing as Jesus?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So can we walk through that?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah? So when you talk about when you talk about character,
you talk about like the ways of being you know
and you look at Jesus life. Let's just take Let's
take Matthew for example. So Matthew, who wrote the first
gospel account that we have in the New Covenant. We
read into into Matthew and he tells us it's interesting.
We start reading the book and it starts with a genealogy,
(14:21):
and then it tells the story of his birth, and
then it moves to Jesus ministry begins and Matthew writes
himself into the story about him when he met Jesus. Now,
Matthew was a tax collector, which in that day would
have been like a like a crime boss. He was
a shady character. And in that day, tax collectors were
lumped in with swindlers, with thieves, with murders, and that
(14:43):
they couldn't worship at the temple. They could they were
barred from the synagogue. And it says that Jesus is
walking along, He's got a couple of other disciples. So
he's got he's got Peter. He's already called Andrew Peter
James and John Peter was a zealot. So the reason
that Matthew, the reason that he was hated in that
day is because he had sided up with the Romans
with their tax their heavy tastes. So Israel was an
(15:06):
occupied state Rome heavy taxation. They wanted to take as
much as they could out of Israel. They tax them
for everything. Well, a tax collector would basically with the
enforcement of the Roman army, they would be able to
tax their brothers and sisters, they would be able to
tax their fellow Jews, and they would add on top
of that. And so they were hated because they had
(15:27):
tied in and coluded with in me. So Jesus goes
to He's got Peter, Andrew, James John, and he goes
to the Matthew and he says, come follow me. So
this man who is despised and hated in that culture,
he says, I want you to be one of myne talmaden.
I want you to be one of my disciples. I
want you to be my inner circle. Now in that day,
(15:49):
for a rabbi to ask the way to follow is
essentially saying, I believe that you can be like me. Right,
So he's like he's called Peter, who was a zealot
who basically wanted to take up a sword and fight
the Romans. He's taken this zealot and he's pulled him
in the group with this one, the one who has
(16:10):
sighted up with the Romans. And this is I mean,
if you're trying to build a team like this doesn't
seem like a very wise thing to do, but this is,
this is Jesus heart end that it's only through Jesus
that through his love. He's like, I'm gonna teach you guys,
I love. I'm gonna teach you guys how to be together.
I'm gonna teach you what unity looks like. And he
(16:31):
invites them into this small group and he brings twelve
into the small group, and we just see the character
of Jesus and he loves them. I mean, these guys
were knuckleheads, you know, just like us. They made bonehead moves,
you know, and he loved them and told them the
truth even when it hurts, and he took them, He
stretched them outside of their comfort zone, led them into
places that they into Samaria, and just you know, these
(16:53):
interactions and when you read through the Gospels, you just
see you see the characteristic of Jesus's love. In First Corinthius,
which is another book, so it's an epistle that the
Apostle Paul, who is a leader in the early Church,
that he wrote to a church at Corinth and the
apostle Paul's talking about love. And maybe you've heard this
at like a wedding or before, but he taught he
(17:14):
talks about love, love is patient, love is kind, and
talks about and all those things that we read are
true of Jesus. In fact, later on it talks about
the fruit of the spirit. Paul in another letter he
says the fruit of spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, shollness, faithfulness,
and self control. When you talk about the character of Jesus,
we see the love of God on display. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, sentleness, faithfulness,
(17:39):
self control. I think about my life, so we think
of Paul those but I know that that that is
the kind of character that I want, and I think
that's what he's forming in me. But those words are
the character character of Jesus, and we see those in
the high definition as we read through the story. And
(18:00):
that you know, as we moved to the cross, Jesus
said one time he said, greater love has nobody than this.
Then he would lay down his life for his friends
and so Jesus reveals sacrificial love. He shows what it
means to sacrifice, which is the ultimate right to give
your life for somebody else. So it's like all the
(18:22):
other chapters lead up to this chapter. He say, I'm
about to show you truly what love looks like to
lay down your life, and doesn't stop there. He you know,
continues with the resurrection. But that is the that is
the gospel, is the sacrificial of that's the good news
when we say gospel. That's what that war means good news.
I guess good news that that we are love that
(18:44):
much like we are love that much that Bolton, my son,
my youngest son, he used to have this it's a lion,
and he can took it with us where and we
would go, if we would go out of town. Sometimes
he would leave, like leave it at the hotel or
the people we're staying with. And I mean it was
it smelled, it was raggedy, it was falling apart. But
(19:06):
if he left it somewhere, we would turn around the
car and drop back. The value of lion it wasn't
in how lion looked. It wasn't in how what we
can get from Lyon on the black market, right. The
value of Lion was the love that was given to
Lion from Bolton. The value that we have doesn't come
(19:28):
from our performance, doesn't come from how good we look,
doesn't come from how well we have it together. It's
loved into us. And the Cross is the picture of
how much we're loved. That's why we call it gospel.
That's why we call it good news. That's the character
of God that we see towards Jesus so good.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, And I think you know, for me, this was
that unconditional love, that love even in the places where
I didn't think I deserve it, or that kind of
love that you're like, yeah, I'm lovable, except if only
they knew that, or they would see how broken I
I really was, or how much toxic shame is there,
or how unworthy I am, or what if they find
me out then they really won't love me.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And it's like no, Yes, even those.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Places, especially those places, that's the love that's available. And
to me, what I remember thinking about this is because
again I was meeting myself where I was in the
work that I do. With the women that I work with,
we talk about, you know, self image and identity, and
one of the things that we build is their innercompass,
and really it's this aspirational thing. It's almost like breadcrumbs
to lead them back to who they want to be
(20:30):
when they feel like they're falling short. And one of
the things I always say to them, I'm like, it's
not this new gauge of perfectionism. It's not one of
those things where you look at your inner compass and
you're like, oh great, I'm not being that so great.
There's another thing I fail that. It's this aspirational thing
that that you choose who you want to be, really
in the essence of who you are, stripped of all
the roles, stripped of all of you know who like
(20:51):
not you as a mom, not you as a wife,
you as a as a woman, the soul, the essence
of who you are, and so you have breadcrumbs to
come back to who you want to be. And when
I started learning about the character, like you said, you're
like all of these things. You know, when I'm human
ing in my day to day life, I'm not all
of those things. But that's why we have this picture
of Jesus, because it's this aspirational thing to not think concepts,
(21:13):
ways of being, elements of our identity of character that
oftentimes we don't actively choose, and so unconsciously or subconsciously,
we are not showing up with all of these fruits
of the spirit. And that's where the shame lives because
we know that we're not showing up is it? But
we can't put our finger on it? And what I
(21:33):
loved about, you know, especially in the Gospels, and when
you hear about this picture of Jesus, it gives you language,
It gives you a picture, It gives you a man
to show you what this looks like, walks like, acts like,
talks like. And to me that was everything.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, I think when we see it's it's aspirational. It
calls us to more. Yeah, but even more than that,
Like the beauty of the Gospel is is Who? And
I've watched this in your life and is is you
becoming who you already are in Christ? So when you
receive the truth of Christ, when you receive Who, when
(22:12):
you put your trust in him, he says in the
scripture talks about if anyone's in Christ, they're a new creation.
The old is gone, that new has come. So we've
received this new, this new identity, and I've watched you
live into that, into that new identity. And so the transformation,
because what religion is, religion is it's behavior modification from
(22:32):
the outside in. And what true authentic spirituality in Christ,
what being a follower of Jesus is we receive his
like his spirit at work in our in our lives,
in our hearts, and it's a change from the inside
inside out. Yeah, it's a miracle. My values change, my
(22:54):
attitudes change. Understand each like there is this, it's it's
a transparation. That word, it's like a metamorphosis, like the
Greek word goes back, like it is this it's this
shaping for the ansset. But it's it's slowly, it's a process,
you know, it takes place over over time. But it's beautiful,
the beautiful to see.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah, I you touched on something really important because I
think a lot of times faith and spirituality and even
Christianity gets batched in with that, you know, kind of
religion talk. And one of the things that when you
learn about Jesus' character and he talks about the new
laws and the old laws, the Old Testament, the New Testament,
and I remember I came up to you one of
(23:34):
the times I met you.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
At first.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
You were like, yeah, if you ever have conversations you
know about the Old Testament New Testament. And I was like, honestly,
I don't really know much about the Old Testament. And
I think it's because growing up I was so like
kind of turned off. And now obviously I read the
Old Testament, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's so much
wisdom there. But in a way it's like incomplete right
without hearing about the picture of Jesus and what is
(23:55):
what's possible for us without these laws?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So can you share a.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Little bit distinct because I know for a fact because
it was there for me, there's people that are listening
there like no religion off limits.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Because it has that stigma.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
So in one of the things I always say is like,
I'm not religious, I'm spiritual, I'm faith based that I'm
a Christian. There is that kind of gray area where
people don't understand that. Can you share a little bit
about your thoughts between like religion and spirituality. Can you
(24:30):
share a little bit about your thoughts between religion and spirituality?
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, so I think you know one of the ways
that I've heard it explained is that it's not about
a religion, it's about a relationship. So I think that's
a helpful distinction, is that it really is a relationship,
a personal relationship with a living God, not with a
man made system. Now some would think of religion this way,
(24:54):
like that it's a ladder that I have to try
to climb up to get to God. Where we look
at what happened in Christ through the incarnation. Through with incarnation,
what that means is God sending his son, the Father,
sending his son Jesus, God becoming man living among us.
That's what I'm sorry like that, but that term, But
(25:15):
that's a helpful idea to take it to go. That
is God coming to us, you know, and not us
trying to earn our way to God is impossible because
he's a He's a holy, perfect God. There's a story
that Donald Miller told, and it's about a Navy seal
who was going overseas to try to rescue some hostages.
(25:36):
And the hostages have been in a difficult situation and
they were so traumatized that when the Navy seals came
in and went into the room in the middle of
the night. They tried to get them out. They wouldn't leave.
They were hold over in the corner. And one of
the one of the soldiers, they were trying to, you know,
get them out with sense of urgency, and they again,
they were just they were traumatized. They were stuck in
the corner. And one of the soldiers had an idea.
(26:00):
He went over and he went and he sat next
to one of the prisoners and he went and he
got like in a fetal position kind of hold up
right next to him, and he whispered to him, We're
here to rescue you. We're Americans, We're here to rescue you.
He just waited. He said it again, he waited, he
said it again, just whispered to him, and pretty said
(26:23):
they believed, yeah, and they were like, let's go, and
they rescued the And I think when when you look
at the life of Christ, you look at Jesus, he's
come to a traumatized you know, maybe we're traumatized for
a lot of different reasons. We live in a broken,
tragic world filled with uncertainty. But God wants us to
be certain of his love. Summer City that he sent
(26:44):
his son to come in and what we see in
Life of Guard, he made himself vulnerable. He came alongside us.
And sometimes religion can lead us traumatized. Sometimes religion is
used to controut out of control people because we're afraid. Yeah,
all right, and so sometimes religious you sometimes religion is
you to try to manipulate. Sometimes religion is used. Now,
sometimes religion comes from a place of just authentic we
(27:06):
want to be, you know, we live moral lives.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
So when you look at the Ten Commandments, like ten
commandments are wonderful, they're a gift from God. But none
of us ken I mean, who listening has never lied
like we can't fulfill. And Jesus said, I didn't come
to do away with the commandments. I came to fulfill them.
Jesus is the only one we needed somebody to fulfill them.
You see, I can come to them to abolish the law.
(27:30):
What the law does is it reveals to us that
we are in need of arrestue there's no way we
could do it on our own. And so when you
look at like the Old Testament, when you look with
the scriptures at Torah, it reveals our need for Christ.
And then Jesus came to fulfill that, to live it perfectly,
and to lay his life down as a sacrifice for
(27:51):
us who couldn't get there on our own, who couldn't
climb the ladder, who couldn't who couldn't do it. So,
you know, I think when I just draw that to thinction,
it's not about religion. It's about a relationship. And oftentimes
religion is trying to climb our way to God, our
own airfor perfectionism, and realizing there's no way we can
get there on our own. You know that He's come
(28:13):
for us.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
And I think the version that you just shared here
that spoke to me back in the day when I
first came to the Lord, was this love and this
you know, relationship that I have right now that I
don't have to earn.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I don't have to hustle for.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
I don't have to lose weight, I don't have to
earn more money, I don't have to be in a relationship.
It's just meets me where I am. He comes to me, and.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I have to meet him too.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, you know, but it's not this, It's not I
don't have to earn it, hustle for it, or you know,
be forgiven in terms of like he's mad at me
and I have to do a certain thing to earn
my way back. Not like that, it just it's here,
it's now, and yeah, we need we need that rescuing
because we are human and we are not perfect. And
(28:56):
that's the kind of relationship I want is with a
God who's like, you're not perfect, and I love you
in all of your imperfections.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know, so beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
And then you know, the big thing that kind of
rounded this out for me that I want to walk
through is this.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You know, these are my words, not God's.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
But there was this kind of trade off that I
was experiencing or that kind of revealed itself to me
as I was exploring this idea of following him right,
because first again, tryed on this idea that there was
a man named Jesus Okay, cool check right, the character
of him, wow, Like fell in love with this man
named Jesus check. But following him giving my life over
to him, that was a process. My heart needed to
(29:35):
be worked on a little bit, you know, it needed
to process, it needed to try these things on.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But the big part of it was.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
That try on was kind of a series of actions
and a leap of faith. And it came in the
form of this last part, which is trying on this
idea of like, okay, there is a payoff or like
a trade off, so to speak. Right, So, if I'm
giving up something, what am I getting in return? And
when I say giving up, I'm like giving up my shame,
giving up my need control, giving up my desires for perfectionism,
(30:03):
giving up trying to hustle for my worthiness. Like that's
what I mean by giving things up. But then this
idea of like, no, what you're giving up, you'll be
It'll be redeemed, restored. You will be redeemed, you will
be restored.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
I remember hearing.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
The term of like coming back in double portion. You know,
all of these things, and it was also new to me,
but it felt like in an action step more than
just a being with it, actively releasing surrendering, like surrender
not just as a noun but as a verb. Right, So,
can you talk to us a little What does what
does the Bible say about this what I'm calling like
(30:35):
a trade off?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
You know, it's interesting. One time Jesus was having a
conversation with the Pharisees who were like the religious leaders
of the day. They were like the experts in the law,
and they were the ones who were trying to find
people sitting, you know, they were who were policing other
people's behaviors. It was in a religious system, and Jesus
is with the tax collectors and the sinners and the
(31:00):
Pharisees are watching what's going on. And he tells this
beautiful sequence of stories. The first one, he tells a
story about a shepherd who leaves ninety nine sheep and
goes for the one he tells a story about a
woman who who is missing a coin which would have
been a part of her dowry, which would have been
worn in a headdress. And so it's like it's like
somebody having an engagement ring and like scrambling trying to find,
(31:23):
you know, the rock that fell out. And then he
tells a story about a father who has two sons,
and the youngest son comes to his father and says
a neimin inheritance, which would have been like telling his
dad back in that day, you know, I wish you
were dead. And the father does the unthinkable, and he
gives the inheritance to the son, and the son goes
and he takes it, and he squanders it, and he
spends it all. It says, he's spent it on wild living. Well,
(31:45):
there was a famine that came in, and Jesus is
telling the story. He said, there was a famine that
came in, and because of the famine, the son had nothing.
He ended up eating the pods of a pig pant,
which you know, for a Jewish boy like hanging out
with the pigs. That's just how love. He was not kosher,
not come sure my bacon. He didn't like bacon, right,
(32:09):
And so he ends up going back home. And when
he goes back home to the father's house, says the
father sees the son, which means he was looking born.
He was a long way off. And the father runs
to his son, which in that day for a father
to run was it was undignified. But what's Jesus telling
us about the father's love But God's love for us.
(32:29):
And the father runs for a son. He wraps him up.
He says, my son, who is dead, is now alive.
He was lost, is now found. He said, kill the
fat athletis have a barbecue, he said, put a new
ring on his finger and new sandals on his feet,
a new robe for his back, and he said, my son,
who was dead, is now alive. And then it says
there was another son and an older son who was
(32:50):
still at the house, and he's the older son doesn't
go into the party. The older son said, what about me?
Like I've been here the whole time and I didn't
get a party, And so we don't know how the
story ends. That's all Jesus gives us. But when I
think about, like, what are we giving up or we're
giving up life away from home? What did that younger son,
(33:12):
what was he really given on? He's giving up pig pods,
He's trying to figure out, trying to do life apart
from the father, control, addiction, manipulation, independence from the front,
Like God wants us to live in a place of handets, right.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
M yeah, which is so counterintuitive.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Culturally we hear about like, oh, being an independent woman
or and it's this hyper independence and it becomes this
stronghold over you where and then you're chasing idols like
money and fame and recognition and a certain body type
or whatever it is, and you're so far away from
your spirit.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
But it's it's.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Coming from this place of that hyper independence and this
I can't do it or I need to do it.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
On my own.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
I should be able to do it on my own,
and it becomes part of your ego or you feel
weak or broken if you need help. Whereas you know,
as I've learned, it's like that's a strength of saying no,
I can't do this on my own.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
I don't want to do this on my own.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
But again it gets so flip flopped.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, and I think that what you said so true.
Like those idol you talk like idols, Like back in
the day people would worship, they'd worship idols. I mean,
we're here in Nashville. We've got the Parthenon, and at
the Parthenon there's there's a statue to a the You know,
we don't we don't think about idolatry much, but like
there are idols at the at the mall. We drive idols,
(34:35):
you know. And idol is anything that we go to
to try to find our sense of worth and value
and significance. Fitness can be an idol, right, Technology can
be an idol. Work can be an idol. Anything truly
can be can be that. And so God came to addiction.
I mean, really, that's what addiction is. It's going to
substances and going to things to try to find our
(34:56):
deepest needs met. And the Bible has a word called
for penance and gets a bad rap I think probably
because of TV preachers that have abused it. But what
repentance truly means just come on back home. They just
come on back home to who you were made to be,
so you can be who you were made to be,
so you can do what you were made to do.
But just come back home, you know. And it's and
(35:18):
maybe for some who are listening, that word home needs
to be re imaged, yeah, because of the context of
the home. But that's what we're all like. We all
longed for that unconditional love. We all longed for that
place of being known and loved. You talked about that
that earlier, like the longing that we have. Tim Keller
(35:40):
talks about this way. He says, everybody longs to be
known and to be loved. He said, to be known
and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be
loved and not known not superficial, but to be truly
loved and truly known. Well that's a lot like what
God does, and that's that place of being at home.
And so if I had to describe just journey, that
(36:00):
like what are we given up? We're given up life
on our own. We're giving up life trying to trying
to manipulate and control and find our love, joy and
peace and other things and other people and circumstances. And
we're going back to that place of complete dependency on
you know, on that where we surrender, because really that's
(36:23):
the way back home. It's just surrendered, and.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That is faith.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I mean, it is scary, you're leaving a place of
certainty for something unknown. But if there's anything that I've
discovered from those leaps, what comes back in its place?
And it's not in a manipulative way. It's not like,
oh God, if I, you know, turn this over to you,
will you promise to pay me back.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
It's not like that.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
It's not you're not keeping score or keeping tally. What
I've just discovered is that anything that I've given up,
what's been restored or just created, because things can be
created that I didn't even know I was looking for.
I can't even tell you the fruits that have been
you know, redeemed from that. But part of it again
is it takes faith. To have that faith, you've got
to practice it. And that's why I said it's that
(37:05):
surrender as a verb, not just a noun, because sitting
you know, in my house, talking about this idea of
surrender and this idea of giving my life over to
God was really easy compared to actually doing it right.
And we'll talk about different things on this podcast, so
you know the specificity of that. But when you talk
about this idea of coming home, it's like the picture
of God that I have that really pleases me is
(37:28):
God's like.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I don't care what you've done. I don't care where
you've been.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Like, it's not like a conditional come home, it's a
come home period.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And go to the picture that Jesus gives us in
Luke fifteen, Like the picture is the father running to
the son who squandered his inheritance, like he squandered it all.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Like he runs to it reresponsibility.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yes, he squandered everything, And the father just goes and
wraps him up and he's like, and that that is
the heart of God, no matter where we've been or
what we've done. What you know our circumstances and our
situation and life has led us to be maybe even
the decisions of other people, that we would just know
God runs to us, that he pursues us, and that
(38:13):
even as we maybe feel like we're kind of turning,
all it took was one step back home and now
and every person listening like your one prayer away from
beginning that journey to come back.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Home, absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Well yeah, and really, you know, wherever you are, all
we're doing is inviting you to try this story on.
And you know, when I took those three steps for
me personally, you know, first trying on that there was
a man named Jesus, like in real life, in real time,
you know, Then learning about his character, his heart, who
he had a heart for. And then this you know,
what I'm calling the trade off of what you give
up but what you get back in return that really
(38:50):
is immeasurable. Right when I tried on those ideas and
I just invested that kind of thought process or that
kind of paradigm and put my time and my energy
and my heart and my soul using those goggles, but
revisiting things like my shame and self image and my
body and my finances and my life's work and how
(39:11):
I pour into other women because of course we're talking
about this identity self self, you know, acceptance conversation, which
has a whole new meaning when you know and are
fully seen and known all of it. When you look
at life through those paradigms, everything can shift. And so
all we're doing is really inviting you to try on
a new story.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Because if the story.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
That you have right now isn't serving you or isn't
making you feel loved, known, seen, there is another story
available for you.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So would you just speak.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
To that before we wind down this episode?
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you you started talking about
putting on another another story and you start talking about
trying things on and I had never heard anybody use that,
you know, use that phrase. So you talk about like
learning Christian you know phrases. Yeah, I'd never heard that phrase.
But I think to be able to watch what that,
(40:01):
you know, what that looks like. And to be honest,
I was a little scared of that term because I
never I'd never heard it before. I was like, you
know what to come from? Where you came from in
your show? I was like, Oh, it makes so much sense.
So I would just encourage you know, I would encourage it.
When we talk about trying it on, I'll go back
to that story where the son came home and the
(40:22):
father put a rope, put that robe on him, put
that ring on him, Like, just try out and see
if it, see if it fits, and see if it fits,
and let that new identity and who God says you
are in him, Like, just take that next just continue
taking that next step and see if it fits. Son.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
So beautiful. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Well.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
If you love this conversation, buckle up because we have
another conversation coming at you next week. I know, for me,
the believing side of it, there was all of these
beliefs that were like, Okay, this all sounds great in theory,
but am I too broken?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Am I too far?
Speaker 4 (41:00):
No, you don't understand. My shame is worse off than
the other people's shame. Whatever it was fill in the blank.
There's so many beliefs that keep us from either having
or starting a relationship with God, and we are going
to talk about those head on. Kevin is going to
be back next week as well, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And this is Leanne signing off.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
For another episode of What's God Got to Do With It?
We'll be back with more What's God Got to Do
with It?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
But in the meantime, I would.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Love to hear from you, so tell me about where
you are in your story and what questions you have.
You know, where do you feel you need clarity or
wisdom in your own journey. I definitely want to hear
from you, So head on over to What's God Got
to Do with It? Dot com and scroll down to
the form to share your thoughts, questions, or feedback instantly.
That's What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com?
(41:48):
And if you like this podcast and want to hear more,
follow like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts to
get your weekly dose of What's God Got to Do
with It? New episodes drop every sing on Tuesday, and
while you're there, be sure to rate and review to
show your support. It really means so much. What's God
Got to Do With It? Is an iHeartRadio podcast on
(42:10):
the Amy Brown Podcast Network. It's written and hosted by
me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, post production
and editing by Houston Tilley, and original music written by
Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam Stark.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
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Amy Brown
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