Today we are going to take a posture of peace by letting God love us.
Posture is a short audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.
Together we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
In Romans chapter 8 verse 1 it says,
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Bouncing down to verse 34,
It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus is the one who died.
More than that, who was raised.
Who is at the right hand of God.
Who indeed is interceding for us.
As it is written,
For your sake we are being killed all day long.
We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
No, in all these things.
We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I love Romans 8.
If you have been a part of this community for any length of time you know that I love Romans 8.
In Christ there is no condemnation and no separation.
It's where Romans 8 starts and where Romans 8 ends.
There is no condemnation and there is no separation.
Do not let anyone or anything convince you otherwise.
The accusation of condemnation and the lie of separation
try to attach themselves to our head and our hearts probably a thousand times a day.
And they have many of us right now spinning on the wheel of works,
trying so hard to matter, working so hard to be lovable,
striving so hard to figure out God so we can crack his code and be better already.
But Jesus didn't come to live in our efforts.
He came to live in us.
Now at the risk of sounding totally ridiculous,
I want to share a very personal example of this because I think it might help some of you.
A few weekends ago, I was supposed to speak virtually, you know,
through a screen at a conference that was being hosted in Malaysia.
And I was so excited and very honored to be a part of this conference.
I worked really hard.
I prepared the message.
I spoke with the conference organizers.
They were awesome.
But the morning I was scheduled to speak, I woke up very sick and I just could not rally.
I could not get out of bed.
I couldn't make it happen.
So I had to cancel.
I had to cancel very last minute.
And the event organizers, they were very gracious about it.
But I was so disappointed.
I was pretty embarrassed that I had to cancel, especially so last minute.
And I was just utterly discouraged by the whole thing.
And as I'm laying there in bed, I sense the Holy Spirit nudging me with this question.
Lindsay, why does it matter to you so much?
Why does it matter to you so much?
And, you know, as I laid there trying to answer that question,
I just couldn't stop thinking about how I had let everyone down,
all the preparation I felt that had been wasted in that moment.
You know, I even thought I should have been more prepared.
I should have recorded my teaching ahead of time and sent that off to the conference
organizers just in case something like this happened.
I should have seen this coming.
And I was just heaping one condemnation after one condemnation over myself.
And again, the Holy Spirit asked, Lindsay, why does it matter to you so much?
And I thought, because I thought it mattered to you.
I feel like I've let you down, Lord.
I feel like you've given me this opportunity and I just blew it.
You know, even though getting sick wasn't in my control.
It wasn't something I could control.
I could have prayed harder, I could have had more faith, and I'd just been healed and
been able to rally and been able to just go for it, and I couldn't make it happen.
And God interrupted that tidal wave of shame and condemnation, and He said,
Lindsay, just let me love you.
Just let me love you.
And I realized that this one moment represented so many other moments in my life.
I've spent so much of my life trying so hard to love God, often by trying to love other
people, to show up for other people, and to serve and minister and sacrifice and bless
others because I love God, and I want Him to know that I love Him, and I want others
to know that I love Him, and I want to make Him proud.
And it's not wrong.
Love people.
Love God.
It's not wrong.
It's just not the gospel.
The gospel is God loves you.
No condemnation, no separation.
It's fresh love that we get to receive every single day.
Are you receiving it?
Or do you find yourself beating yourself up about mistakes and regrets and missed opportunities,
conversations you wish you could have, memories you wish you could redo?
Do you find yourself at the end of the day feeling completely spent but still not feeling
like it was enough, like you're not enough?
Just let Him love you.
Do you find yourself striving to do more, to be more, to have more day after day?
Just let Him love you.
Maybe you're wondering, well, how do I do that?
I've lived this way for so long.
How do I just let Him love me?
By letting go of condemnation and rejecting the lie that says there is any separation
between you and God.
You let Him love you by believing Him, believing what He said, believing He is who He says
He is, and He said He's love.
He said He's not leaving you nor forsaking you.
We should take Him at His word.
We should do that instead of letting our circumstances try to talk ourselves out of it.
And what about the fruit?
What about the loving God and the loving people part?
I want to tell you more about that, but I'm actually going to talk about that in another
episode because I know that if I talked about that now, many of you would just cling to
the fruit part, cling to that producing part, and you wouldn't just let Him love you.
And the point of this episode, all I want you to focus on this week, is just letting
Him love you.
The lifestyle of letting God love you, this believing and receiving Him, is abiding.
And it will bear much fruit.
But first, let Him love you.
Turn off the angry people on the internet.
Turn off the negative self-talk.
Let go of all the trying and the striving, and today, let God love you.