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The Truth In Love podcast will present God's timeless truth through the lens of His amazing love. We will do this not only through stories of people who have experienced His peace, love, strength, and wisdom through tough circumstances, but also by endeavoring to give the Bible’s answer to life’s great questions, like: Who is God, what's my purpose, who am I, how can I know God, what is heaven and hell, what is truth, and why is the Bible's truth better than my own version of truth? These are legitimate questions folks ask, and we as Christians should have the answers! God has a magnificent plan for every person. We are thrilled to be part of discovering and sharing what His Word reveals to bring hope, peace and great love into the hearts of all humanity. Join us every Tuesday morning at 5:00 a.m. CST for The Truth in Love podcast, with your host Kimberly Faith
Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mack. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God's timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.
Kimberly Faith:Dad, this is a is a topic that I really, really think is not something I've recognized before in my walk with God. And that is how important the image of God, the fact that we're created in the image of God relates to our deepest desires.
John McLarty:That's a very great subject. Yeah. The idea of being created in the image of God is, very interesting.
Kimberly Faith:Has really
John McLarty:Let's dig into
Kimberly Faith:it. Profound implications. It really does. And think just to kind of give our listeners an idea of where we're going, you know, we're gonna talk about our great desire, our greatest desires for to be loved, to see that the wrongs that we've experienced or that we've seen are someday made right, and the longing we have for purity, for real purity, those those are
John McLarty:Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:We want to validate those. Love,
John McLarty:a sense of justice, purity.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. And and and I think we want to validate those. So the point of this podcast is to help us to see why those are valid desires, and how knowing God in not just salvation, but just walking in the way he created us to walk. Not just validates those, but it really opens the door for us to know exactly who we are, or at least more of who we are in Christ, and to, live a deeply satisfying life.
John McLarty:I'm just gonna stop you right there because I'm just thinking about kind of chasing a little bit of a rabbit here, that evolution versus creation and just mankind and why it's not true that humans are only searching for survival and just survival of the fittest and There dog eat really is this universal desire in humans for love, for justice, and for this sense of purity, what's right. And how could that just come from, you know, a sense that we've evolved from a single cell? Where did emotions come from and those desires for these characteristics of moral characteristics of the soul, so to speak? Yes. Where did it come from?
John McLarty:We're going to delve into that.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And and just taking that example a bit further, you know, we all have we all know people who are agnostics or atheists, but they really do think that at least some of the 10 commandments are a great idea for culture.
John McLarty:Sure. Some moral standard. Yeah. Where did that come from?
Kimberly Faith:Because they don't want people stealing their stuff. Why don't they want people stealing their stuff? If they're just a purposeless cell, why does it matter? You know, an evolved bunch of cells, why would it matter? They really do want to feel like they belong, like they're loved.
John McLarty:Loved, accepted.
Kimberly Faith:We have no purpose beyond this existence, this physical existence, then why does love matter so much? You know? So that's an I know that's a different topic, but
John McLarty:it's But the fact is humans across the whole planet do have these deep desires for for love. Absolutely. To to to be loved and to love. Yeah. And for justice and for a sense of right and wrong.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's let's start with
John McLarty:Very good.
Kimberly Faith:The the big idea on this podcast, which is that we are created in God's image. And I'd really like for you to just launch into this because I think that talking about the, you know, we can start with Jeremiah chapter nine verses 24 that, you know, just about who God is. And that verse says, but he but let him who boast boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. In these things I delight, declares the Lord. You know, the idea God says I delight in those things.
Kimberly Faith:Whatever our nature is, is what we delight in. Right. Whatever we love is what we delight in. Well, you know, God is love. And he, as love, delights in these things.
Kimberly Faith:And so let's kinda start with who is God? And, you know, and talk about let's just extrapolate on those a little bit.
John McLarty:So God's nature, yes, is this tells us, this is a great verse, Jeremiah nine twenty four. He practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness. And this isn't a whole study on the nature of God, that we're made into his image. But these ideas that God is love, I mean, that's right out of the Bible. God is love.
Kimberly Faith:Right, all through the Bible.
John McLarty:And God is righteous and God is just. I'm just telling the listeners, this isn't some verse pulled out of context.
Kimberly Faith:Exactly.
John McLarty:This verse sums up this massive amount of biblical knowledge that God's nature is love, he's just, and he's righteous.
Kimberly Faith:And can you can you just give, I mean, we talk about this like old hat in a lot of our podcasts, but I think it'd be worthwhile to explain the difference between just a basic description of, okay, this is God's nature, loving, justice, righteous, but that's different from his attributes.
John McLarty:His attributes are his omniscience. He knows all things. He's omnipresent. And he's Omnipotent. Omnipotent, all powerful.
John McLarty:He's spirit. He's spiritual and he's infinite. So he has these attributes. And it's kind of like, to put it in human perspective, somebody might have some attributes that he's like could be a wrestler. Like somebody's just built to destroy you know, could just slam you to the floor.
John McLarty:So he has the attributes. But then if he walks into a room, you're like hoping, I hope this is a loving person. Yes. Yes. And not somebody that's going to
Kimberly Faith:Just wrestle me to the floor.
John McLarty:Wrestle to me to the floor and steal my wallet and
Kimberly Faith:run it off. Right.
John McLarty:So that's his nature. So what a person does with their attributes is their nature. So God has these attributes, but we're focused and kind of in on his nature. It's what motivates him to do the things he does.
Kimberly Faith:Right. Because we don't have the attributes of God. Right. Have human attributes, but we were born with the desires for a very important reason that to have the nature of God in us, for a very important reason, that the Bible tells us in Genesis one twenty six that God made us in his image.
John McLarty:Yeah, let me just kinda, you know, again back up to that. God made us in his image. But when you think about God, I wanted to use a verse here out of John four twenty four, God's a spirit. And those that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. So this idea that the image of God, that humans looked like that God looks like humans, like a man, is just totally silly.
John McLarty:God's a spirit. So we're made in his image to reflect his spiritual qualities. And that's just this justice, loving, and a sense of right and wrong.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. I appreciate you
John McLarty:saying That's very, very interesting.
Kimberly Faith:I appreciate you that because we spent the whole last podcast talking about Jesus being incarnate. So Jesus came to earth and showed us what the heart of God looks like when lived out in human form. You know? And so it's not like some spirit saying be like me and then not giving us any idea of what that looks like all through because Jesus is the word. All through the written word, we're told I mean, the 10 commandments is a great example.
Kimberly Faith:You know? Mhmm. The the fruit of the spirit, a great example of what God looks like. But then Jesus came, and we have the four gospels that tell us exactly how love reacts, how what justice looks like, what righteousness looks like.
John McLarty:Right. So it's just the moral characteristics.
Kimberly Faith:Yes.
John McLarty:So Adam and Eve being created in the image of God are to reflect spiritual qualities.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. That's excellent point. Something that helped me also understand the nature of God, because I think if you understand God's righteousness, justice, and love, and I'm a little bit off topic here, but I just wanna hammer this home, is when we understand that God cannot operate outside of his nature or he is no longer God. One of the examples, just a super simple example. If I say, dad, this is ice, and I hand you a bag of ice, you're going to expect certain things about that, what that bag is going to feel like, and it's not gonna be hot, right?
Kimberly Faith:If it's hot, it's no longer ice. Because the nature of ice is to be cold.
John McLarty:So
Kimberly Faith:that would apply to boiling water, to steam, you know. But that's just a very simplistic example that God's nature of righteousness, justice and love is something that is his nature, that is basics. And that when we understand that, we understand so many more answers to so many more questions like, why can't he just let me have come into heaven if I only commit one sin? Right? I mean, those are that's foundational.
Kimberly Faith:But we're that I diverge off the topic a little bit, but I think it's worth pointing out.
John McLarty:It's been said everything is the way it is because God is the way he is.
Kimberly Faith:I like that.
John McLarty:And one of the keys to these nature qualities is he's infinitely righteous. He's infinitely just and infinitely loving, which means he can't be unloving. He can't be unjust and he can't be unrighteous. He's limited by his He's God's, you you might say God's interaction with humans.
Kimberly Faith:It doesn't. And what's interesting, you said we he's limited by his nature, but that doesn't that that doesn't ding his sovereignty. No. It just defines who he is.
John McLarty:Yeah. Right.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And any more than it would it would be insulting for, you know, hot water to be called ice, because it's just not. Exactly. You know? So to kinda tie this in to our image, if we were created in God's image, then we as people, to to reflect his spiritual characteristics.
John McLarty:Mhmm.
Kimberly Faith:That would make sense that we carry this deep built in desire and we have since the beginning of time to experience love, experience what's right and pure and experience justice.
John McLarty:And I like where we're going with this because not only do we reflect God's image, like a mirror reflects our image, but he made us have those characteristics. It's like we want to experience love and give love because we have that inside of us. We're not just making it up. It's not an act. It's coming from deep within us.
John McLarty:God designed us that way.
Kimberly Faith:He designed us that way. And and, you know, you think about just an obvious example. You know, if a if if a cat decided it wanted to be a bird and was constantly jumping off, you know, 40 foot buildings to try to be a bird, cat would never ever be a bird and would be miserable and banged up and probably dead in its birdness, you know, and acting like a bird. That's a really silly example, but
John McLarty:it's it's just true. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:It's just true. You know? And and for anybody listening to this podcast, look, you know, this is the human struggle. We ache for these things. We ache for the experience of true, unconditional, absolute, all encompassing love.
Kimberly Faith:The burning anger that you feel when a child is abused, When people are trafficked, when people are enslaved, and abused, and killed, and just mutilated, all those horrible things that go on. That's because a you nature that is supposed to be operating like God's nature, you know? And that's because he put that in you.
John McLarty:That's a great way. Yeah. He designed us that way. Right. Put that in us, those characteristics.
Kimberly Faith:And we want to validate that, you know, ability to to love, you know, virtue and purity, those things, those are those are valid. Those are valid experiences. And when I was studying this topic, and it connects it's always interesting how God just reveals little at a time for me because I'm not real fast. I have a slow class kind of it's like he keeps bringing me back to this. Like the other day, I was listening to a podcast and the lady was describing how she was, as a child in Britain, she was sold into a slavery ring owned by some men from a different country and, basically abused her entire childhood until she was able to escape that.
Kimberly Faith:And I just felt this ick rising in me that just wanted to, you know, put a hammer to the head of every person who'd done that to her.
John McLarty:You use the term, it just makes our blood boil
Kimberly Faith:to hear
John McLarty:of people being treated like that.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. Absolutely. Yes. So I say that not to put bad images in people's mind, but just to say, look, there's a valid reason for that. Just to take that example a little bit further, as I was driving down the road thinking about that, the first thing I could feel that just rising, that anger rising in me.
Kimberly Faith:And I just asked God, can how can you you just watch all this? How can you even know all this stuff? And the answer is my mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. He loves that those icky people just as much as he loves me, because I am one of those icky people, you know? It goes back to and that that that mercy, we have to learn to view people through the myriad of God's character, his I mean, his nature.
Kimberly Faith:Does that make sense?
John McLarty:It does. And then you just think about God is God is love. He's also just in this whole tension between justice and love. Right. And that of course the result is the cross.
John McLarty:Right. Is that God satisfied, he loved us, but had to satisfy justice on the cross. Yeah. So in our human experience, that's good that you kinda sorted that out.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Well, it's because of this
John McLarty:Righteous anger.
Kimberly Faith:Yes, it's from God.
John McLarty:Is from God, but then also there's that loving that even the sinner, as we were and are, is still loved by God and can be redeemed.
Kimberly Faith:You know, it was interesting because the end result of that whole little micro conversation with God was, this is just so mind blowing to me. He kind of just reminded me, he said, do you think the people that did those horrible things are any less deserving of my grace than you are? And why don't you pray for them? Boy, that was a I mean, but that's who he is.
John McLarty:Said forgive them for they know not what they do, because he was being crucified.
Kimberly Faith:And you know what that did? What that did was it took the boiling anger and dissolved it, and I had peace because I did. He's right. And so, Lord, these people that that the prayer was Lord, these people who are torturing children all over the world, break their hearts, bring them to you, you know. And of course, I always I always pray for these people that are being tortured, but I'm just saying, I didn't I was released to that anger because God intervened with his mercy.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:And that's again, this is just a little micro example of what learning, what God's teaching me and you through this study is doing practically in my life.
John McLarty:Right. And of course, that's not to say that these actions need to be that justice needs to prevail. Somebody gets caught and those people should be protected. Right. But ultimately, the eternal soul of those people doing that are just as worthy of redemption as anybody else.
Kimberly Faith:And we don't like to think of it that way.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:We just don't. And because our sense of righteousness, what should be right, what should be done, is violated, and that's okay. You know, we don't I obviously am not in a position to, you know, bring to justice the people in The UK who have done this. Right? I'm not but what I can do and I, I'm gonna tell you something else the Lord's been doing.
Kimberly Faith:You know, we have such a thing, they say, well, we can't really fix it, so we we just need to pray about it. I have decided I'm not gonna use that word just to modify pray anymore. That's a diminution of the value and the power of prayer. It's like, no, I get to get out the big weapon. I get to pray.
John McLarty:Yeah. I've found myself really limiting thinking about why would I say just? Not just in terms of justice, but, you know, like
Kimberly Faith:Just pray about it.
John McLarty:Just pray about
Kimberly Faith:it.
John McLarty:Yeah. Like That's all you can do.
Kimberly Faith:We can't. That's all you can do. There's not much. Yeah. It's such a diminution of the value of prayer.
John McLarty:Just get over it.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Alright. So let's go back back on topic. So let's we're gonna break down God's, God's nature a little more, and then also just, you know, kind of drive it home with how we're created and how our response should be and can be. So let's talk about first God.
Kimberly Faith:God is love. And we'll start with first John four eight. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. That's that's an indictment. I mean, if you think about it.
Kimberly Faith:It's not meant to be meant to be an encouragement. But you think about even just the the example I just brought up.
John McLarty:Whoever does not love does not know God. Because God is love. And
Kimberly Faith:what we've talked about this a lot, but what is the the essence of love? And I don't remember which podcast we talked about this, and we talked about the definition of love in first Corinthians 13. You know, love is kind and suffers long, and all these things. Right?
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:And you think about the essence the other night when I was teaching the Bible Foundations study, I was I asked I always ask I always re ask this question. Okay. What is love? And and, you know, everybody kinda looks at me like, this is a trick question. It's like, what's the opposite of love?
Kimberly Faith:And almost inevitably, everybody says hate. Right?
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:But that's if you compare what how the Bible defines love, that's not the opposite of love.
John McLarty:It's selfishness. Selfishness.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah.
John McLarty:Exactly.
Kimberly Faith:Selfishness is sin, which is a violation of God's love. And so that would make love selflessness.
John McLarty:Selflessness. Yep. So
Kimberly Faith:when it talks when the bible says whoever does not love, whoever's not selfless does not know God because God is. I mean, Jesus was a complete emptying of self.
John McLarty:Right. Caring for others more than we care for ourselves.
Kimberly Faith:Are the
John McLarty:first Setting self aside.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. And it is and and really in practice, there's only one way we can really do that. Because and Jesus said it in the two great commandments, you have to love God first, which means you have to selflessly submit to him. Because he can't we can't generate the fruit of the spirit on our own. The spirit has to generate those within us, which means we have to get rid of ourselves.
Kimberly Faith:And that's the only way we can then selflessly love others without any expectation of reciprocation, right? So, I'm sorry, I just kind of went off on that.
John McLarty:That's good. That's good clarification.
Kimberly Faith:So when we talk about the first nature part of God's nature being love, how do you think that relates to our desire? Like, how does that validate our desire?
John McLarty:I think it goes you know, God created us in his image and it's these spiritual characteristics and God is love. So we have that love within us. For sin, one, just to point this out, sin has corrupted all this, but it's still in us. It's like through a glass darkly. It's still there.
John McLarty:It's still part of us, but it's imperfect. But it still drives us because it's still how God created us. So, I don't know, I think of maybe somebody that used to be a great athlete but they got into whatever, alcohol or drugs and now they've lost that prime. But it's still recognizable. Oh, that person had these great attributes, these great characteristics, could be a great, know
Kimberly Faith:That's a great example. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great example.
John McLarty:It's still recognizable.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe a Hollywood actress who used to be beautiful but now is a drug addict.
John McLarty:And you know, a lot of times those yes. And those people like that that have fallen, just like all of us are fallen Right. We still can view ourselves as that former self.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm.
John McLarty:And that's that's how I kind of view humans. We have fallen, but there's this there's this image of God within us that we know is there.
Kimberly Faith:That's right.
John McLarty:It's just been kinda corrupted and covered up and
Jacob Paul:And
Kimberly Faith:grunged I love that you use that example because love is, when we think about love, we often think about it in terms of being loved, not giving love. We all want to be loved. And but the way that God's love works is different than human love. We experience the love of God, it's almost like we're a stream. We're in a stream.
Kimberly Faith:Right? So God's love flows in us when we love him with all of our heart, soul, and mind. His love flows in us, and it must necessarily flow out of us. It doesn't we don't get to just keep if it's truly God's love, we can't just keep it to ourselves If it to truly experience it. Because if it's selflessness, then it has we have to be a we have to be a stream.
Kimberly Faith:We can't be the Dead Sea. Does that make sense?
John McLarty:It does make sense. We see this, you know, humans even in our fallen condition, you still see this amazing, the love of a mother. Yeah. You know, that mama bear, I'm gonna, you know, go into a raging gunfight,
Kimberly Faith:save my baby. Right.
John McLarty:Men have those characteristics too. They'll go jump on a grenade to save their buddies. So as imperfect as sin has brought us into a condition of imperfection, those innate qualities are still there.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Yeah. And like you mentioned seeing through a glass darkly. I like to view, and I think we were talking about this earlier today when we were kind of talking about doing this podcast. If we're looking in a mirror, right, and, we know that we have capability to look really good, right, a lot better than what we're seeing, because there's dirt smeared all over the mirror, We wanna clean the mirror off.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:So we can really see who we are supposed to be, not what we're actually seeing. And the dirt is sin, right? And you know, so just to clarify, we're not talking about people who have not yet been born again. Their mirror is black. You can't see anything, right?
Kimberly Faith:But for people who've been born again, and we have allowed sin to splatter our mirror, that is we're seeing darkly what we could be. And I'll tell you, you know, I was talking to a lady the other day and she just kept saying, just hate who I am. I just hate who I am. And I just asked her, well, what do you think you would need to know or do or experience to love who you are? She just kinda her jaw dropped.
Kimberly Faith:She goes, I have no idea. I said, well, do you think therapy is gonna do it? Do you think, you know, the right man's going to do it? The right job? What's going to make you love who you are?
Kimberly Faith:She's like, I don't know. And I said, well, can I just share with you why I absolutely love who I am today? And she says, yes. I said, because I've been where you're at, and I tried to stuff all these things in there to make my image better. Right.
Kimberly Faith:And I all I did was make myself less liked by myself. I said, the more I got to know who God is, because I was willing to give up my own way in favor of his ways, the more he showed me who I was intended to be. It was like God has this image of you that he created you to be. The Bible says he's created you for wonderful things. He's planned wonderful things for you before the foundation of the world.
Kimberly Faith:Amen. And the more you scrape away the crust of your own will and your own way and your own selfish desires, the more you see in that mirror clearly exactly who God made you to be. And I promise you, you will love that person because that's who God made you.
John McLarty:And that's so fascinating that God we're made in God's image with these characteristics and he wants that fully revealed in us. But we're not all these little vanilla cookie cutter souls. Right. And it it is God's infinite variety, like no snowflake is exactly the same. But we've talked about that before, exploring who we are in Christ.
John McLarty:Yes. And letting that you know, cleaning that mirror up.
Kimberly Faith:Well, David said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Right knows my soul.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:And how does if his soul's born again, who's showing him how fearfully and wonderfully made he is? It's Jesus Christ.
John McLarty:So how did that lady respond?
Kimberly Faith:She was just floored. She's like, I've never heard anything like this before in my life. And I'm like, well, it's right out of the Bible. I said, you know and, of course, when I meet people in different situations, you know, I, of course, always say, look, you can learn more about this on our website, but if you ever wanna get together and talk Right. Because that's what Jesus did.
Kimberly Faith:You know? He discipled people in the streets. And that's also been you know, talking about love and giving up things. Right? One of the big shifts in in my own life in experiencing God's love and growing in that aspect of my life has been giving of my time.
Kimberly Faith:Being willing to say, okay, I'm gonna forego the workout to meet with this person who wants to know more about Christ. And that's an that's not like a one off. That's a daily challenge. It happens every day. I've got a plan, then God sends some person, and I have to weigh.
Kimberly Faith:Is my to do list more important than this person?
John McLarty:And then I know you because we all experience that. But when you do that, you're actually fulfilled by letting God's love take over.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. It totally And
John McLarty:if he loses his life, he'll gain it or Yes. Save
Kimberly Faith:Yes. And so you think about I just wanna shift for a minute and talk about what we as humans are willing to do to experience love. Because I think that if you look over the I mean, all the great quote love stories of history, right? You know, we we all the the Shakespeare, you know, Cleopatra and Anthony, and Mark Antony. I mean, all these great love stories in the history that really, what was the point?
Kimberly Faith:I mean, Antony and Cleopatra both killed themselves basically because they thought each other was dead. They left their children's orphans. Is that really love? Is that really a great love story? You know?
John McLarty:Not so much.
Kimberly Faith:Not so much. It was kind of a selfish thing. So I don't want to confuse this desire for romantic love Yeah. To what God offers us, which is infinitely better. Because like we said in the last podcast, the only currency we take with us is the souls of people.
Kimberly Faith:Right? And so, you know, you mentioned soldiers throwing themselves on a grenade for brother I mean, that's a great act of selflessness. And I do not want to diminish that. It's 100% worthy of praise and thankfulness. But what Jesus did for us, it extends beyond any barrier or, I guess, outward edge of love that we can even conceive.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah,
John McLarty:it'd be more like a soldier throwing himself on that grenade to save an enemy combatant that had been killing his fellow soldiers. That's the difference between God's love and the human form of love, which reflects God's love, but it's not God's love. But God wants us, we can be being born again. We can have God's true love.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. And I and
John McLarty:Human as fallen humans still reflect these distorted images of of God's love.
Kimberly Faith:A 100%. Yeah. And and I think that we we've talked a we've talked a lot about the lies that Satan told Eve in the garden and is still telling today. And one of the one of the most deceptive, destructive lies is that God's love is conditional. That somehow, if we don't be this or do this, that he'll stop loving us.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:It's it's not that God ever stops loving us. It's that we walk out on his love. It's that when we choose to sin and we choose to live our own way, then we
John McLarty:love him. He's not leaving us.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. We divorce ourselves from the presence of his love. And, we have to remake our image, the image of God in our own minds and replace the thwarted image that the enemy wants us to have. You know, I was talking to a young man and he said, just you know, my life is too messy. It's too complicated.
Kimberly Faith:It's too inconsistent. You know, God will never really want to clean up this mess. And this particular person has a three year old child. I I said, do you feel that way about your child who who, you know, you have to wipe her butt and you have to you know, she throws up or she makes a big mess in her room? Do you feel that way about her?
Kimberly Faith:That you just are gonna give up on her and you don't like her because her face is covered in spaghetti sauce? And he looked at me and he said, of course. And I said, is your love greater than God's love? Because he died for you when you were his enemy. And it was like one of those moments he just kinda went, wow, I never thought about God that way.
Kimberly Faith:But, know, again, this is when when we think about our desire to experience this thing called love, which is think about if you had, you know, well, I mean, the relationship you and mom have. You guys have a great relationship. You both serve each other. You you you anticipate. You know, like, if if mom's upset, she shouldn't have to say it.
Kimberly Faith:You know that. And you try to you try to like, earlier, she was trying to pin me down on podcast time and because she had things to do. And I was oblivious. And you stopped me and like, so let's talk about the schedule. Right.
Kimberly Faith:And I was like, oh, dad's picked up oh, mom's okay, mom needs to have she needs to be taken care of. And I wasn't getting it, But you live with her. And your selflessness in not just running over that need that she has is a good demonstration of what grows in us when our
John McLarty:It grows. Exactly. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:Didn't start out that way, But it grows. And this is what we can have in God. When we grow closer to him, our capacity to satisfy our need for love, it is
John McLarty:Yeah. That's so perfect. That's Christian growth and growing closer to God, and we know more of a sense of what he wants.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. Yes. And then even when we experience love that is very conditional, it doesn't crush us because we have all love we need in God.
John McLarty:Amen.
Kimberly Faith:You know? I I remember a time in my life when I was trying to help somebody, and I was really afraid to commit because I knew that person would probably flake out on me. And so I was I was kinda debating, do I even help this person knowing that they're probably gonna be a flake, I'm probably gonna waste this time, waste this money. And the Lord just it was like a boom from heaven. Gosh, I'm glad I don't feel that way about you because you wasted a lot of my time and money and get out there and do what I've told you to do.
John McLarty:God has his way of showing us his perspective.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. Yes.
John McLarty:Changing our perspective.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. So let's it's just to reiterate about, you know, God created us in his image with this nature of love and us feeling the desire to not only be loved, but more to experience love, which is a better way to put it. In other words, experience the love of God flowing into us, but loving him back, and then that flowing out to others, that's completely a valid experience. But we can't let that be distorted by the, quote, love definitions
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:Of the world.
John McLarty:Yeah. Probably, that's love.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. So let's talk about the the second nature of element nature of God. God is just. How would you describe God's justice, dad?
John McLarty:Well, I'll read a verse first. Psalm nine sixteen, The Lord is known by the justice he has brought about, the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. Justice is kind of hardcore. Justice a crime will be punished. Justice is, you know, even shown in the physical world, justice of two, you know, you've tried to violate the law of two masses, can't enter the same space.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:You have a collision.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:So equal to the power that you're trying to overwhelm that law. Yeah. Justice is just the idea that sin or crimes will be punished.
Kimberly Faith:I think about I think that's that's good. And I think about when we teach the law of sin and death, You know, it's we don't have any beef about the law of gravity being
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:Constant law. We anybody who has learned about the law of gravity knows that if you jump off a 50 foot building, you're not going to fly.
John McLarty:Know? Right.
Kimberly Faith:And nobody has how could the law of gravity be so unjust? No. It's a law. And so that totally ties into that God's justice in the spiritual sense. The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Kimberly Faith:That's okay. That's just like the law of gravity. It's a spiritual law. And I really like Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses seventeen and eighteen. It says, for the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lord, the great, the mighty and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe.
Kimberly Faith:He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. You know, this is not some abstract thing. This is God's keeping he's keeping score. Okay? But if we let Jesus, he settles the score, you know?
John McLarty:When I read this verse, I just thought about this. What if God was just but not loving?
Kimberly Faith:It
John McLarty:would be a pretty harsh situation for Right. You know, we're sinners and that's, you know, we're violating God's righteousness, you know. And if there's only justice and not loving. But I love this verse, it says, he executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner So giving him food and God combines justice with loving, loving kindness. And your example you gave to hearing about some horrible things, we need to do that
Kimberly Faith:also. Yes.
John McLarty:Combine our sense of justice with love. Not to wink or overlook or, you know, do everything we can to stop human trafficking.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:It's Understanding.
Kimberly Faith:To make it personal too, you know, There's such a rage in the world right now over violation of, know, of basically rights. You know, my rights have been violated, and therefore I can assassinate you. Or I'm justified in destroying your property because you have this and I don't or whatever, you know, because of the color of your skin, your race, your national status, whatever it is, okay? Therefore, my rage is justified. You know?
Kimberly Faith:Look, that is not just people who have gone out there and done violent things. That's all of us. We all have felt violated on some level. I remember when somebody broke into my house, and somebody broke into my car, and stole and destroyed. And I felt so violated.
Kimberly Faith:But if and and that's that is we were created to feel violated and want justice.
John McLarty:Exactly.
Kimberly Faith:You know, that is part of how God made us. But what do we do with that? Well, the Bible has an answer. The Lord says, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
Kimberly Faith:He frees us from our own sense of having to enforce justice in a spiritual sense. Right? So that we are free then to exercise the same love that Jesus Christ exercised.
John McLarty:Example. Yeah. There ultimately, you for, you you must say human traffickers, there ultimately will be justice. Right. Know, eternal separation from God.
John McLarty:And then if we have the love of Christ, we want them to be redeemed.
Kimberly Faith:That's right.
John McLarty:We want them to stop what they're doing.
Kimberly Faith:That's right.
John McLarty:But we want them to experience the love of Jesus and salvation like we've experienced.
Kimberly Faith:And that's not to
John McLarty:know, we're all sinners saved by grace.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And that's not to say that, you know, we're saying, oh, you know, we shouldn't stop the oppression of evil. I mean, you know, the things that there are some, you know, groups of people that have enslaved and tortured and, you know, made women into objects of, you know, just childbearing. I mean, just all these things that we've seen and are still seeing throughout history. That doesn't mean that I mean, our government should reflect God.
John McLarty:Right. It's like Hitler had to be stopped.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. Yeah. That's right.
John McLarty:We get just like, well,
Kimberly Faith:that's We'll just pray for Hitler.
John McLarty:Take care of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:No. There's and that's
John McLarty:where stop.
Kimberly Faith:That's where the Holy Spirit, you know, gives us discernment. Right? I mean, the American Revolution, I'm glad that it happened. You know, I'm glad that we have a First Amendment, that we have a constitution. The people in Britain don't even have that.
Kimberly Faith:And, you know, I I was just listening to a podcast the other day and talking about how they're they don't have a First Amendment, so the government can put them in jail for a tweet. You know? And it's like, there's a lot of them that are recognizing the the value of what The USA has in the First Amendment. That it takes a lot of free speech, to really say this is dangerous, and therefore, we're going to the government's gonna step in.
John McLarty:Right. Right.
Kimberly Faith:So and I'm not trying to talk politics. I'm just that's an example.
John McLarty:Well, but think about this just here. We are the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America. We like to say we're a nation of laws. So where does that come from? We're not a nation of just a free for all Right.
John McLarty:Hedonistic, everybody just do your own thing, rob, steal. We're a nation of laws. Where does that come from? Our sense of justice given to us by our creator that we want a just kind of governed society where crimes will be punished. I can't just go rob my neighbor and
Kimberly Faith:kill or whatever. Remarkably enough, our government talks about our rights coming from God, not the government. It's just so it was just that there was so much foresight that went into that. But the the point is that we as humans, our sense of justice, that we want justice, not just for offenses against ourselves, but globally, you know, generally. Mhmm.
Kimberly Faith:We know that, you know I mean, even like, for example, after World War two, Nazi hunters hunted down. They spent their whole lives hunting down war criminals.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:Not because they wanted money or they wanted that career, because of their sense of justice.
John McLarty:They wanted justice.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And, so, you know, and then of course, I need to we were talking about this earlier, but the counterfeit, we have to be careful because Satan always wants to he always wants to make up a counterfeit. Right? And the counterfeit I see that's happening that's raging across many countries right now is bitterness and rage.
John McLarty:Bitterness. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:And and those are that's taking justice and then turning it into something that perverts justice. Right? Because if it let's say if if rage and bitterness were the rule of law. Well, if somebody, you know, cuts me off in traffic, let me just shoot them. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:I mean, that's that's where you end up. And that's kind of where we're going, and we have to rein that in. I mean, we talked about this in the podcast, about how to how to preserve our nation for another two fifty years. You know? Gotta go back to the basics, you know, our relationship with God.
Kimberly Faith:Our country is going to be changed one person at a time, not from the top down. It's gotta start with us.
John McLarty:It's interesting, we instituted governments or groupings of human culture to help institute justice. So it's not just vigilantism. Right. We have the sense of justice but then this, really The United States is a good example of
Kimberly Faith:that.
John McLarty:Ruled by laws and kind of different levels from the county sheriff to the federal marshals. And so it can be done right and proper. And that comes from humans wanting this sense of justice. But in a reasonable and fairly administrative, straighted way.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah, the best, It's an imperfect system. Nobody's saying that our system of government's perfect because it's run by imperfect people. But the point is that when we substitute bitterness and rage before, because justice maybe has been delayed. Maybe we're not getting the immediate justice we think we deserve.
John McLarty:But that doesn't mean I can go rob the convenience store.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. That's right. I mean
John McLarty:Because I'm broke.
Kimberly Faith:Exactly. Yeah. And so it's very effective. I mean, isn't a lie of the enemy because what it does by substituting bitterness, rage, all these things for actual justice, we, we basically are saying God doesn't care. If he did, he would have stopped it.
Kimberly Faith:Know, but the proof of our suffering isn't proof that God is indifferent. It's proof that he created us in his image and that our reaction needs to also be in his image. Because he promises he's going to make all things right. I mean, Romans chapter 12 verse 19 says Paul writes, dearly beloved, avenge not yourself, but rather give place unto wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
Kimberly Faith:You know? Yep. God is keeping score. And this brings us back to the great white throne judgment. You know, we we did a a podcast on the difference between the great white throne judgment and the judgment seat of Christ.
Kimberly Faith:At the great white throne judgment, you are gonna be weighed in the balance if you're not written in the book of life. You know, the lamb's book of life is the only thing. If your name is written there because you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, then you are safe. Because Jesus has made all of your wrongs right. He has covered you.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:The price for your sin is paid. But those who are not in the Lamb's book of life, is God saying, okay, I've been keeping score. And even though just one sin could have condemned you forever because I'm righteous, there's a big, big long list here. Like Hitler, and there's probably a pretty hot place in hell for you. I mean, Hitler you know what's interesting about Hitler is that he used he was like he had Satan's playbook.
Kimberly Faith:He used Christianity to justify what he did to the Jews.
John McLarty:He did.
Kimberly Faith:You know? That's
John McLarty:doubly evil.
Kimberly Faith:Doubly evil. And so, you know, it's look, we God tells us I love Micah chapter six verse eight, where the Bible says, he has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
John McLarty:And just think about how that combines the thought we had of if you just have justice with no love, what a harsh world it would be. Right. But here, God tells us what is required of man to do justly, to love but to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. That's perfect.
Kimberly Faith:It's kinda like the title of our podcast, Truth and Love. We we chose that title. I believe the Holy Spirit inspired that because truth without love is cruel. Love without truth is is cruel. Mhmm.
Kimberly Faith:You gotta have them both.
John McLarty:Gotta have
Kimberly Faith:them both. And you only have them both if you walk humbly with God. You know? You know, the the bottom line is no one has no one suffered more apocalyptic personal injustice than Jesus. No one.
Kimberly Faith:And he was the only truly innocent person who lived. And when I start thinking about, you know, like I'm in a situation where someone has been unfair to me, or I think in in has treated me wrong, all I gotta do is think about Jesus and think he was falsely convicted. He was publicly humiliated, brutally tortured, executed. He bore the sins of every person in the world that wronged him. And he did this.
Kimberly Faith:He chose to do that before the foundation of the world. I mean, you know, I I don't and and then the night before his crucifixion, he says, you know, these things I have spoken to you that in me you might have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.
John McLarty:Amen.
Kimberly Faith:You know? So it's you know, if you're listening to this and you feel like you're oppressed or you've been wronged or you are trying to enforce your own rights, man, you gotta give that to God. You gotta give it to God. He'll show you what to do.
John McLarty:Yeah. Love we quoted already Romans twelve nineteen, but dearly beloved, avenge not yourself, but rather give place under wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith
Kimberly Faith:the Lord. Mhmm. Yeah. We can
John McLarty:Again, not that we don't have some role, you know, to go stop the Hitlers Right. You know, and and, you know, have have sheriffs and Right. Policemen and Right. You know, law enforcement. But ultimately, it's it's the Lord's got justice taken care of.
Kimberly Faith:He does. And that's a promise we
John McLarty:Even though we have a role in it. Gives it gives It's
Kimberly Faith:big governments. It gives me such peace knowing I don't have to fix everything. You know? It's like, wait a minute. I can't fix this, but I can pray.
Kimberly Faith:I can pray that justice will roll down. Like, was that is it Jose or something? Old Testament? Yeah.
John McLarty:Roll down from the
Kimberly Faith:It will roll down like a river or Yeah. And and I and I don't mean I'm gonna pray for the person who offends me and says, hope your brakes go out. Right? It's no, let me pray that God gives me my part and I do my part, and I let him take care of the rest.
John McLarty:Not let it ruin your life. Exactly. Not let an injustice ruin the rest of your life.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Yeah.
John McLarty:That's key because that can happen to us.
Kimberly Faith:It's happened all around us. It's happening all around us. These young kids who are trying to assassinate, trying to pillage, they've ruined their lives.
John McLarty:They've ruined their lives.
Kimberly Faith:For what? You know? And some of them, you know, don't even know why they're doing it. They're just, you know, they're just they're just trapped in a delusion. But we can all be there.
Kimberly Faith:And I've been there. I I remember being trapped in a in a relationship where I was just like, why am I so why am I so depressed and angry right now? Oh, because I've allowed myself to be mad at this person for not treating me right. Mhmm. I don't have to be that way.
Kimberly Faith:I was trapped. I allowed myself to trust.
John McLarty:Give it to the Lord.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. So finally, the last part that God is righteous and why? You want to read Psalms 71 and Sure.
John McLarty:Love this. And again, he pointed out in Jeremiah that God is just and righteous, loves righteousness, this idea is just the Bible's permeated with this idea. But here's another example, Psalm 7one 19. Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?
John McLarty:So God is righteous, but he's made us in his image. So we have that sense of And righteousness, has become confused with this idea of self righteousness, which is a horrible thing. But righteousness is just wanting what's right.
Kimberly Faith:Self righteousness is a counterfeit.
John McLarty:Self righteousness is a counterfeit.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. It's counterfeit that deceives so many of us. I mean, I've been deceived. Was talking to one of my team members yesterday, and I don't remember what we were talking about. And she said, I just I just gotta get off my judgmental self right now.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. You know? And it's true. We have this we think we're the judge, but it's God's righteousness.
John McLarty:Just wanting to do it's wanting to do what's right.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. It's interesting. You know, God doesn't follow a moral code that is above himself.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:He defines the moral code because he is righteous. He's not, you know, like, we we follow the the laws in the state of Arkansas or Missouri, the laws of the federal government, right, that were made by people that we don't even know. God is the law. Mhmm. He makes the law.
Kimberly Faith:And his standard what's in what's amazing about his righteousness, again, going back to what we long for. I I really like to think about using the physical examples like Jesus did to explain our desire for righteousness. We long
John McLarty:Jesus was the master of that. He's in the physical world that speaks spiritual truths.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. And we long just some examples of how we long for purity. You know, water. Who wants to drink muddy water? Who wants to drink muddy water?
Kimberly Faith:I don't wanna drink who wants to drink sewer water? You know, just to get gross.
John McLarty:How about, yeah, how about water that you just saw a cow pee in? Right.
Kimberly Faith:Well, and, you know, I mean, I don't even like to drink city water. Right. You know, I want my water purified. I want it from the well. And
John McLarty:Our whole hippie life was guided by finding pure water coming right out of the ground.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. And think about what we'll do for clean water. Yeah. You know, we'll pay premium price. We'll hike for miles in to find that clear stream.
Kimberly Faith:But that is an indication of something spiritual in us. We long for purity.
John McLarty:Purity. And the big thing today is the food we
Kimberly Faith:eat. Organic.
John McLarty:Pure food.
Kimberly Faith:Right. I mean, the air that we breathe,
John McLarty:go
Kimberly Faith:to a city that is smoggy and you can't breathe or you I mean, you walk into I'll never forget, I was driving my daughter up to Minnesota to she was moving to Minnesota, and, it was November. We had to drive through Iowa. Well, I didn't know this about Iowa. So I'm driving the box van. She's driving the car.
Kimberly Faith:The box van doesn't have a recirculation button on it. Okay? It has to be the air from the outside.
John McLarty:Oh, no.
Kimberly Faith:They had just laid down the pig.
John McLarty:I'm sensing where the story's going.
Kimberly Faith:The pig doo doo had just been put on all the fields, and I had never smelled it before. And I am gagging driving across the whole state of Iowa. Imagine. I wanted to smell anything other than that. I was longing for puree.
Kimberly Faith:And
John McLarty:smell goes right up into almost the center of your brain.
Kimberly Faith:Could taste Think
John McLarty:about it.
Kimberly Faith:Food I mean, think about the cosmetic industry. How much money is spent in in across the world in just having the pure skin that babies are born with. Right. You know? And and none of this is a coincidence.
Kimberly Faith:I mean, every single one of these instincts that they draw us to how we were created in God, in the image of God, his righteousness, it is his righteousness is pure. It is incapable of corruption, incapable of contamination. Because like we talk about, if he is unrighteous, then he's not who he says he is and he's not God, right? I also like to think about, you know, this is a silly little example, but I think about how people are so drawn to babies.
John McLarty:Children.
Kimberly Faith:Children.
John McLarty:Kind of the innocence.
Kimberly Faith:The innocence, right? They're just who they are. They're very much, you know, we long to be in that. We long to be in that wonder. You know, they they see a grasshopper and they just you know, I'll never forget my daughter, Sarah.
Kimberly Faith:She loved little critters and she's probably two or three and she came in the house crying one day and she goes, I said, what's wrong, honey? And she said, mommy, I petted the wasp and it bit me. And, you know, and your heart just, oh, you poor thing. You know, she's just innocent, right?
John McLarty:And
Kimberly Faith:what's remarkable is that Jesus, he knew this. And he said, truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. What do you think he meant by that?
John McLarty:Just the innocence of children. I think simple faith. We talked about even in people getting saved that they think they've got to have just the right kind of faith and it's real hard. I just think about a child just falls down and says, mommy, pick me up. There's no hesitation.
John McLarty:They're not having, well, will mommy really pick me up? Do I have to ask just right? It's just a child that's in a proper setting that has been picked up. Well, just like mommy picked me up. And that's faith, the faith of a child.
John McLarty:Think that's Adolescent faith.
Kimberly Faith:I think that's why it's so easy Believing. For children to get saved. I know
John McLarty:that Absolutely. You
Kimberly Faith:you and mom have talked about Tanya's salvation, my sister.
John McLarty:Mhmm.
Kimberly Faith:And, you know, she and I you have to correct me, but I think if I remember correctly, she just went from being an innocent child to receiving Jesus.
John McLarty:She did.
Kimberly Faith:I mean, she just knew it was time
John McLarty:because The spirit of God just tapped on her.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And and she went from experiencing the spirit of God as an innocent child to losing that and immediately saying, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And she knew she knew the gospel. So she knew what she had to do.
John McLarty:She knew what she needed
Kimberly Faith:to do. And and that's man, as a parent, that has gotta be the goal, you know? Mhmm. We see our children's innocence and we just say, I wanna make sure that when that's lost, the moment that's lost, it's so recognizable by that child that they want to get it back. But dad, this is so this is what's so amazing about this whole idea that we're talking about.
Kimberly Faith:When we are living in the presence of God, because we are yielding to the Holy Spirit, we're living in his purity, it's it's such a tangible thing that we we get our wonder back. Amen. We get our our passion back. Children are passionate. Sometimes about the most ridiculous things.
Kimberly Faith:Right? Mom, you made a pie. Oh my gosh. I can't wait to eat it. That's the passion that we wanna we wanna develop about our relationship with God.
John McLarty:Right. To let to let loose.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. Yes.
John McLarty:And you know, then as Christians and you go, you know, to to culture and to nurture, to bring that out. Yeah. To be like little children.
Kimberly Faith:And we we you can't fake that.
John McLarty:No.
Kimberly Faith:Can't. Don't fake. No. They're not hypocrites. I think that's why hypocrisy really bothers us.
John McLarty:Mhmm.
Kimberly Faith:You know, I was the model hypocrite, if such a thing, for so many years. I claimed to be a Christian. I did all the right things, but I was a rotten sepulcher inside. I mean, I just was I was angry, I was ungrateful, I was unhappy, I was dissatisfied, and I had my side gig sins. What a miserable place to be.
John McLarty:I was gonna say, and that brings unhappiness.
Kimberly Faith:Misery. Yep. Misery. Yep. Absolute misery.
Kimberly Faith:And and now that I've been set free to enjoy and experience the presence of God, hypocrisy of others doesn't even really have that effect on me anymore. I just feel sorry for people Mhmm. Because I've been there. It's like, oh my gosh. You don't even know what you're missing.
Kimberly Faith:Why would you just pretend when you can have the real thing? Because that's what Satan wants. He wants you to always have the counterfeit.
John McLarty:Yeah. Right so that's a good example. Righteousness should not be self righteousness. It That's
Kimberly Faith:should be simple.
John McLarty:That's right. As little child's enthusiasm, just doing what's right. Yes. Some kids do what's wrong. But that sense of innocence and that excitement.
John McLarty:Yeah. And Jesus used to make a good example. Yes. You know, they can be little stinkers because they have that human nature.
Kimberly Faith:Oh, yeah. They have they they saw the Adamic nature. And it's know, but But they
John McLarty:it's still yeah. It's still undeveloped.
Kimberly Faith:Right. It hasn't made a moral choice.
John McLarty:Yeah. Hasn't made a moral choice.
Kimberly Faith:To violate righteousness, basically. But I just wanna you know, I like the fact that you bring up the self righteousness thing because I think that's really important. I think when we learn to live in the righteousness of God's nature, that God's nature that he's given to us, which we go back to. What is that loving God with all of our we put our self aside. Okay?
Kimberly Faith:Then that displaces self righteousness as almost an abhorrent thing. Like, already know. We are here by God's mercy and his grace. And again, it makes us I have a real compassion when I'm walking with God in sync with him. For when I see the misery of hypocrisy, the misery of self righteousness self righteousness has caused a lot of problems in in our world throughout history.
Kimberly Faith:You you think about the persecutions in the name of even the
John McLarty:church. Right. Self righteousness. Exactly.
Kimberly Faith:I mean, you think about the murders and the wars that have been fought over our religion is better than your religion. Or if you don't conform and be like this. If you don't baptize your babies, we're gonna kill you. You know, all those types of things.
John McLarty:Well, here's you know, Jesus said, they shall know you're my disciples by your love, not by your righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:I love that. I never thought about that.
John McLarty:Not by your righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:That's really good, dad. I mean, yeah, that's really good.
John McLarty:That's a great point. Yeah. Self righteousness is such a wrong representation of Jesus. Yes. And you just used all those examples of all the religions that just slaughtered each other over righteousness.
John McLarty:Just throughout this conversation, picture, this story has come to my mind of righteousness. There's this old guy in our church, his name was Dallas, Dallas Taylor. And he was just an old, you know, from Farmington. He was telling us how the culture used to be in Northwest Arkansas. He said if you were driving or walking someplace and you found a pair of pliers, you would not think, oh, I just got a pair of pliers.
John McLarty:Like somebody had dropped, you know, a tool or he said, you would take those pliers and what you do is you take it to the farmer's co op and you turn it into a box that's the lost and found. He says, because they weren't yours. Interesting. He says, that to me, that's righteousness. Yeah.
John McLarty:It's not self righteousness. Right. It's just they were doing what's right. And he said somebody worked and paid for those pliers. Right.
John McLarty:So the rightful owner needs their pliers back. Yeah. My job's like you found a $20 bill at the parking lot. Right. You're just like, oh, great.
John McLarty:I found a $20 bill. Like, oh, somebody lost their $20 bill.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Or their credit card. Yeah. The right thing to do is bring it into the store.
Kimberly Faith:And that ties back to love.
John McLarty:Conscious righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:That ties
John McLarty:Self righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:Well, and think about it. That ties back to love because that is selflessness. Yeah. Selflessness is righteousness Yeah. Because it is love.
Kimberly Faith:That's Yeah. I never thought about that just tying right back into love.
John McLarty:Into love. Mhmm. Love and righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:Well, and you think about the when it talks about the the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, what's the last phrase? Against such, there is no
John McLarty:law. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith:Satisfies the law. That satisfies the righteousness of God.
John McLarty:I'm so glad you brought up the self righteousness, which is such an evil plot of Satan to ruin the idea of simple childlike Christian and godly righteousness. It's so different than self righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. It is. And it's such a different experience. You know, if you're and just as we're wrapping up here, you know, what what we want you to walk away with is the same thing we've been kind of just ruminating on and trying to build into our experience of our walk with God. And that is to I don't know how to say it better than this, but to fall in love with God.
Kimberly Faith:Because when we fall in love with God, that means he's first. He's first. He's the center of every compartment of our life. Every room, he's the center of it. And what that does is that puts us into the flow of who we were designed to be.
John McLarty:Perfect. Yeah. That image of God that he created in us. And then, you know, I just look at a verse here. Second Corinthians five twenty one says, for our sake he made him, Jesus, who God the father made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
John McLarty:That's good. So in our soul, when we're born again, we have that righteousness. Right. And it's kind of like we used the idea of the mirror that's all cloudy. It can be obscured by our flesh.
John McLarty:But the the goal is to let that image of God just shine out. Yes. And you know Let others see Jesus in us.
Kimberly Faith:And we aren't powerless to do that. Second Peter one three says, his divine power has given us how many things? Everything. Everything we need
John McLarty:Amen.
Kimberly Faith:For a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. I mean, that's like a mic drop verse, you know? He doesn't give us just a few things. He gives us everything we need.
John McLarty:Everything we need.
Kimberly Faith:All the love you ever longed for, you can have it. All the justice that you want to see done, you can give that to God. You can experience the peace of that knowing that he is who he says he is. He is keeping score. And even more remarkably, he has erased all of your score.
Kimberly Faith:You know? He has made the balance clean before God the father. And the purity that you long for to experience, that version of yourself that is what your your greatest self is found by losing yourself in Christ and becoming everything he made us to be in him. Not because we earned it, but because he gave it to us. Amen.
Kimberly Faith:And, you know, I just I just wanna encourage everyone listening because this is what encouraged me. This is what inspired us to do this podcast. The desires that you have, all the desires that you have to be involved and engaged in love, experience justice, feel like your life is pure and created for a greater purpose than you are currently experiencing. Don't give up on that. Dig deeper with God.
Kimberly Faith:Don't give up on it because this is who God made you to be. He created us in his image, and he is working to transform us if we let him, if we yield to him. And man, what a great promise.
John McLarty:We can do that in him.
Kimberly Faith:That's right.
John McLarty:And that's becoming first his children, his born again children.
Kimberly Faith:That's right.
John McLarty:But then through growth, just like we used the example of the baby grows and maybe goes through some rough times.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:But then, you know, and become all the that God wants them to be.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. I mean, Michael Phelps started as a baby. Right. And he's an Olympic swimmer, you know, winning gold medals. Right?
Kimberly Faith:He's won gold he's not anymore, but he's won gold medals. He didn't start that way. But he had to be born for that to happen.
John McLarty:Exactly.
Kimberly Faith:And if you've never been born again, you've never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to begin the greatest journey of your lifetime, and it's gonna last through eternity. And it's marvelous. It's simply marvelous.
John McLarty:And then for for that born again Christian to, just through God's grace to let those things develop.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm.
John McLarty:And so your life reflects God's love, his sense of justice, and his righteousness.
Kimberly Faith:Not a better way to live,
John McLarty:dad. If
Kimberly Faith:today's episode stirred your heart, we want to invite you to go even deeper. At gofaithstrong.com, you'll find a growing library of faith based resources designed to encourage, equip, and strengthen your walk with God every single day. Whether you're searching for meaningful devotionals, real life testimonies, Christ centered blog posts, or soul stirring music, it's all there, created to meet you where you are and lead you closer to where God is calling you to be. We believe that walking in faith doesn't just happen on Sundays. It's a daily pursuit.
Kimberly Faith:That's why everything we do at Go Faith Strong is focused on helping you live boldly for Jesus Christ. Our podcast is just one piece of the journey. There's so much more waiting for you, resources to inspire your prayer life, deepen your understanding of the scripture, and help you share the gospel with others. So visit us at gofaithstrong.com and explore, read, listen, worship, and be encouraged. Your life matters.
Kimberly Faith:Visit us at gofaithstrong.com. Hallelujah. He rescued me.