Today, we're going to take a posture of peace by completely believing that we are completely loved.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.
Posture is a podcast that serves as a short audible fist bump to remind you that God is in everything.
Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
In 1 John 4 verses 18 and 19, it says,
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment,
and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We love because He first loved us.
I have made my poorest choices, my worst decisions, and for a long time,
I lived with constant anxiety because I got this backwards.
I have often forgotten that I am loved by God and that He loved me first.
He doesn't love me because I love Him, and my love for Him doesn't move Him to love me
any more or less.
His love for you and me is complete.
I mentioned this before, I believe at the root of every anxiety is an accusation.
The main accusation being, I am not completely loved.
For years, I strived for more love from God and to try to maintain His love for me by
trying to be more and trying to do more, you know, volunteer here, work hard over here,
represent Him well here, don't quit, don't give up, don't screw it up,
and I settled with living with a constant low-grade condemnation because I didn't believe
that I was completely, totally, sufficiently loved by God.
What do you think the world would be like if we all completely believed we were completely
loved?
We see the possibilities in Jesus's life.
You know, the Father called Jesus, my beloved Son, in Mark 1 at His baptism and in Mark 9
at the Transfiguration, and Jesus, He carried that complete love with Him through the wilderness,
through the temptation.
He carried the Father's love for Him with Him through every miracle, every impossible
situation He came across.
He carried the Father's love for Him through the praise of the crowd, the insults of the
religious leaders.
He carried it with Him into the quietness of the garden, through the betrayal and the
abandonment of His closest friends, through the injustice of a political and religious
system that wrongly accused Him.
And He carried it to the cross, where He laid it down to carry our sin, our sickness, and
our shame, all the things that once kept us separated from God and His love.
It was broken once and for all on that cross, and there is now nothing you can do to finish
Jesus's finished work.
We talk about that.
I'll link some of those episodes below in case you missed it.
When you believe that you are completely loved, you will live differently.
You live powerfully because you're no longer living in contention with the truth.
You're empowered to step away from striving for perfection because you can now rest secure
in Jesus's perfection, His finished work, His perfect peace.
Today, believe that you are completely loved.
Let me tell you from experience what's going to happen when you walk in that direction.
Accusation is going to try to rise up and talk you out of it because the enemy, who
the Bible says is the accuser of God's people, he's going to try to get you to focus on your
behavior, your past.
And if he can't do that, he may try to get you to just compare yourself with others in
your newsfeed, what they are doing, what they have accomplished, how they seem to have much
more blessing and favor and love in their lives than you might.
He may try to bring up a painful situation or circumstance that has happened to you where
it seemed God was distant or not available to help you, maybe an unanswered prayer, a
grief, or a loss.
And when accusation rises up, the Bible says in James 4, 7, resist the devil and he will
flee from you.
So here's what I did in my deepest valley, when it seemed like everything in my world
was trying to reason away this truth that I was completely loved by the creator of the
universe.
Instead of trying to reason with the accusation, I resisted it. I gave it no mind space. Instead,
I focused completely on receiving this complete love of God. And let me tell you, this love,
sometimes it seems unreasonable, but it is so irresistible. You are so loved by God. Jesus is
your proof. John 3, 16, a familiar scripture, but too often we overly familiarize ourself with it
and we miss the point. God loved you so much that he gave his son for you. Park there this week.
Hold on to this truth. Go no further until you completely believe that you are completely loved.
The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26, 3. And in Hebrew, it is shalom, shalom,
meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus.
Let's declare this together. Today, I am kept in perfect peace. With my whole heart,
I trust the Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole. Remember, friend, you are a living
testimony of Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything you did, but because of what he did
for you. With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's
defeat on replay.