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Today, we're going to take a posture of peace by receiving love.

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Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.

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Posture is a podcast that serves as a short, audible fist bump to remind you that God is

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in everything.

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Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.

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Okay, you know I couldn't spend a whole week talking about God's love without sharing

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the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.

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And today, I'm going to be reading this chapter from the Passion Translation.

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I love this translation because it takes a very familiar chapter for me and opens it

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up once again.

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As I read, try not to just concentrate on the words.

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Feel the words as you listen.

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Receive them as you listen.

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Especially as I read the description of what love is because the Bible says God is love.

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This is who God is.

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And we have His empowering presence in us.

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I spoke about that before in episode 43.

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And the Bible says He never leaves us and He never forsakes us.

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So in other words, this is a love that never withdraws itself.

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This love is here to stay because He is here to stay.

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And because He is in you, you are now empowered to love in this way.

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Our starting point to an empowered life is first receiving this radical love for ourselves.

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So let's take a moment and once again receive His love.

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First Corinthians 13.

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If I were to speak with eloquence in earth's many languages and in the heavenly tongues

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of angels, yet I did not express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow

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sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal.

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And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God's hidden

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secrets and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge and if I had the greatest gift of

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faith that could move mountains but I never learned to love, then I am nothing.

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And if I were to be so generous as to give everything I owned away to feed the poor and

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to offer my body to be burned as a martyr without the pure motive of love, I would gain

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nothing of value.

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Love is large and incredibly patient.

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Love is gentle and consistently kind to all.

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It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else.

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Love does not brag about one's achievements nor inflate its own importance.

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Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect nor selfishly seek its own honor.

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Love is not irritated or quick to take offense.

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Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.

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Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others.

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Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.

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Love never stops loving.

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It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which will eventually fade away.

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It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent.

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Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten.

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Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial, but when love's perfection arrives,

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the partial will fade away.

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When I was a child, I spoke about childish matters, for I saw things like a child and

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I reasoned like a child.

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But the day came when I matured and I set aside my childish ways.

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For now, we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected

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in a mirror, but one day we will see face to face.

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My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as

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everything about me has been fully understood.

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Until then, there are three things that remain.

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Faith, hope, and love.

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Yet love surpasses them all, so above all else, let love.

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be the beautiful prize for which you run.

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Did anything I read today, did you feel it resonate in your spirit? Like,

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I need that. You've got it. And of course

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1 John 4.19 tells us we love

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because He first loved us. Everything

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flows first from His love, not the other way around. We can't

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love Him to get Him to love us. We can't love others to get Him to love us.

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He loves us because He loves us, and because He loves us, we can love.

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This is what makes this love so uncommon because

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unlike the love we experience in the world, which

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often loves for its own advantage,

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the level of God's love is in its own realm.

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So we get to choose which realm do we want to live in. This is a beautiful

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invitation.

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This is a freeing truth. You know, our starting point

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always is receiving from God Himself.

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As we receive His love, His love

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becomes our love for Him, and it also empowers us to bring this love to others.

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So today,

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there's no striving. There's no

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taking offense for the love

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that we so want from others that they're unable to give us.

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There's no stressing out

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about all that we perceive to not have

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when it comes to love. No, no, no, no. We love because He first loved us,

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and He's with us always.

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He's not leaving us. He's not forsaking us.

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So today, there's no striving.

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There's just receiving.

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The promise of perfect peace

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is found in Isaiah 26 3, and in Hebrew

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it is shalom, shalom, meaning

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complete wholeness. Nothing missing,

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nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus.

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Let's declare this together.

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Today, I am kept in perfect peace. With my whole heart,

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I trust the Lord. I am strong, I am victorious,

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I am whole. Remember, friend, you are a living testimony of Jesus'

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ultimate win. Not because anything you did, but because of what He did for you.

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With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus' victory

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on display, and Satan's defeat on replay.