In episode two of season nine of the Loveshaped Life podcast, Nathan and Bob dive into Jesus’ corrective teaching on religious performance and the liberating reality that God is for people rather than against them. Rather than viewing faith as an exhausting checklist of demands to earn divine favor, the hosts explore how Jesus fundamentally reframes God as an approachable, sustaining parent who meets humanity with constant compassion instead of punitive scorekeeping.

The conversation unpacks how underlying fear distorts both our view of God and our daily relationships with fellow human beings, often turning natural human failures into permanent personal shame. By examining practical illustrations from everyday parenting, Nathan and Bob demonstrate why spiritual growth requires shifting away from legalistic control toward genuine trust, warning listeners against the subtle danger of turning grace itself into yet another rigid performance standard.

The hosts offer practical guidance for anyone who feels exhausted by religious pressure, inviting listeners to move beyond passive mental agreement into an active, lived experience of divine affection. Ultimately, the episode encourages individuals to embark on a transformative journey of seeing, experiencing, and extending love in daily interactions, resting fully in the life-changing truth that God remains present, committed, and completely on their side.

For more info: loveshaped.life

We are here at Loveshaped Life believers that God is the is the founder of the universe, the literal crafter of the universe. He spun the galaxies up, he sustains the everything that is. That this being with such astronomical power is interested in personal, intimate relationship, and can be trusted like no human father can be trusted, and yet uses that language to depict the intimacy and and fondness and gentleness and tenderness and kindness and warm hug of a daddy's heart. Welcome to the Loveshaped Life podcast, where we talk about our dream to see, experience, and live in the wonder of God's love. I'm Nathan, and in the studio with me today again is my good friend Bob. Bob, how are you? I'm

doing fantastic. It was a great

episode. Getting back into season nine and episode one, and yeah, I cut you off. What were you saying?

No, it's just again always a pleasure to to just look into the Word of God and look into the beauty of who he is, because as we do that, we our eyes are opened ourselves. Yes, yes.

And this is a really good episode. Actually, this this next piece is that we're going through in today's teaching is from this again. We're going through the sermon or Jesus' inaugural address, sometimes called the Sermon. In fact, often in Christian circles, called the Sermon on the Mount, and we're going through the final third actually in this section of teaching where Jesus is giving just one after the other some direct guidance to his listeners, and we kind of introduced that last episode, so I'm not going to go through that. We did talk about this first in the season, we begin with having a critical attitude, etc. judging others, and today we're getting into this beautiful picture of God's generous heart, and so that's where we're headed. I don't know if if you have it pulled up. Why don't you read it for us? We're Matthew seven. If you're following along in the text of Scripture, Matthew seven, and we're beginning right at verse seven. Which, by the way, we are working on publishing journals of the gospel. There'll be four separate journals, and the journal itself will be laid out in. In fact, by the time this episode comes out, because we're recording in the spring of 25, by the time this season comes out, we'll probably have already launched it. So definitely check our website, LoveShape Life, and go to our resources page. And I'm guessing they'll be published by now. If if not all of them, then one of them. So the journal has on the left-hand side, it has the text of the gospel, no chapters, no verse numbers, so you can get immersed in it just like you would your favorite book. And then on the right side of the page, just blank lines for reflection. So we love being in the text. We'd love for you to get in the text. So if you go to our resource page, you can pick up a journal for yourself and just dive in to the story of Jesus and really soak in the story and experience its transformative power.

Yeah, beautiful.

Yeah. So let's go to the text there, Matthew.

Matthew chapter seven. I'm going to begin with verse seven. Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him. Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets.

Such good stuff. By the way, we're going to go on. But in case you're paying attention, season nine, episode two. I don't think I mentioned that in the beginning. So this is episode two in this final season, on this of this inaugural address, and I love this teaching of Jesus. This ask, seek, knock. This picture of God as a generous Father. What strikes you first as you read through that text? What's like going through your head as you read through those words,

well, I think again, looking at the his inaugural address, right? This sermon that he was sharing for the first time publicly, he was back to. We mentioned it before. The people came looking for an earthly kingdom, looking for a Messiah that would set up an earthly kingdom and destroy it. And Jesus flipped that. Turned it into a spiritual kingdom that was based on love, but he was also changing the religion of the day, right? Because the religion of the day had pointed a picture of God as being somebody who was arbitrary, somebody you had to do things for in order to appease Him, right, or to stay in His favor. They had perceptions of God like if you were if you came down with a disease, it was because you had sinned against God. He was punishing you. If your child was born with handicapped in some form, it was because of your sins, or perhaps you know yeah your sins. And so you know that was what it was, and the child would realize that they were carrying the sins of the parents. This was the picture that they had of God. Right. So He was a distant God. So how to relate with that God would be like, how do you even do that, right?

To go through the rituals and hope you're on His good side.

Yeah, and there's a lot of fear in the whole picture, right? So there's fear, and so Jesus comes along and He starts to teach a different picture of God. When He taught them how to pray? He said, "Address God as your Father, our Father, which art in heaven. That was like mind blowing for this, right? Because to address God as your Father, that turns it into this relationship aspect in a personal relationship, a father-child relationship. So now, where he's at, he's saying, "As you approach God, ask, and it shall be given thee, right? That for them, and again, you're asking what I'm thinking. I'm just thinking about how he was opening a window to see that we could talk to God and actually ask, right? Ask, and and and then he says, "You will receive.

Right.

So so it's painting a picture of God that again is approachable and that wants you to come and speak with him and to to ask freely. That is beautiful. Yeah, it is

beautiful. You know, while you're talking about how they see God, I was thinking that we often treat people based on the image of God we hold in our hearts. And you had mentioned to me a while back. I haven't read this book, but you said there was a book. Was it a book or an article you read about like the was it? Yeah, no, it was a

book. Yeah, it's a book called America's Four Gods.

What was kind of the? I mean, this isn't synopsis, but what what do you think from that book kind of applies to this part of our conversation?

Well, they actually did a bunch of surveys with people in the United States, and they came to the conclusion that as a result of that, the people had four different pictures of God. There was a benevolent God, there was an arbitrary God, there was an authoritarian God, and I can't remember the name of the other one, but it was a God that just kind of sets things in motion and then just kind of disappears, right? So he's not involved in in your life or anybody else's life. So there was these four pictures of God that came about, but they said they could actually trace the way somebody saw God as to how they would vote. So there's actually a

pretty close connection between our politics and how we not just politics, but how we live everyday life, how we our voice shows up in politics, and our the image of God that we hold in our hearts, yeah, the picture of God that we hold.

That saying that we talked about many times: how you see God is how you see yourself, and it's how you see your your fellow human being.

So Jesus' corrective teaching then in this inaugural address is not just because he has fond thoughts about his father, but because it's material, it's impactful in who we become as people. So when he talks about in this, and we'll get it to it more specifically in this episode, when he talks about loving others, it's contingent on the picture of God that we hold, so there's a direct correlation with how I treat others and the way that Jesus treated others and invites me to treat others. There's a direct relationship between that action and my picture of God.

So back to ask,

ask yes, ask, seek,

and knock. Knock. God is inviting us to ask, right? He's inviting us to seek. You know, it's interesting when you look at the storyline of the Bible. Again, the Bible is a story. You look at the storyline of the Bible. You see that the true nature of God, the character of God, He's pursuing after us. He's portrayed in the Scripture as a as a lover seeking after somebody who he loves, right? Yes, he's portrayed in the in the scriptures as a shepherd pursuing after a lost sheep, right? So there's these images that are given of God in Scripture as one who's pursuing after human beings, right? Especially, excuse me, the effect of sin in our life, that and what it's affected, how it's affected the human race. That that there is this picture of God as as the Savior coming after us, so it's it's seeking us. So as God is seeking us, Jesus in turn is saying, "Seek and you shall find. In other words, when you see this picture of God as one pursuing after you, say as a lover and is drawing under. Hard, then you have a decision to make because it's a relationship. Yes, do I choose to engage in the relationship and and find time for God and put energy into seeking God so that this relationship can grow? That's what He's inviting us to do because God is inviting us to live in His presence, right? So seek and you shall find, and and and you know, oftentimes people are thinking, okay, I need to seek and find maybe what I'm asking God for. That may be the case, right? But but really, the big picture and the and the the gem of the picture is God is inviting you into an intimate relationship with Him. That's beautiful. Yeah, the Creator himself,

yeah. So it's interesting. In in my hat as a clinical chaplain, one of the things I've done is is explored spirituality research. And in the spirituality research, the agreed upon definition, at least in the research that I'm familiar with, about what spirituality is, is that spirituality is a dynamic personal relationship with the transcendent. This this is the scientists looking and asking the question: How do we define human spirituality? That is the agreed upon definition. I find it fascinating that that that is Jesus is sort of taking it to a whole new level, but fundamentally that idea of this dynamic relationship. Yes, God seeks us, but I love that idea of Jesus saying, "So ask. That that demonstrates this dynamic of God longing to be with us, but also inviting us to fully engage, to fully enter this relationship, to bring our asks, our seeking, our knocking, which are interesting, because one is one is sort the the asking, you know, can I have a glass of water? Whatever that would be an ask, and seeking implies more of a searching, so there is is this human engagement in the process of relationship and of knowing God, of seeking that that maybe I long for spiritual insight, and sometimes we have in mind that God is a is is like a magician, where it's like I put in my quarter in the in the gumball machine, and I turn it, and I get it, and things just kind of drop into my hands. But the seeking thing implies that that my seeking for insight doesn't necessarily mean that tomorrow the lights or today that the lights instantly going to go off, or that the concept will immediately make sense, but that there's a process in which I engage. So I think that's important to be aware of because sometimes if we have the misguided idea that everything we ask for is immediately given as we ask for it, that we can then say, "Well, God doesn't answer prayer because I prayed for this and I didn't get it. Well, part of the process of relationship with God is this dynamic where I'm involved, where I am engaged in a relationship, and my seeking is responded to, but it's not necessarily responded to instantaneously. It may be a slow unfolding over time as I pour my heart into a subject or pour my heart into a pursuit. It opens to me because God is present in the process, but He's not just going to give me answers to the test per se. If you're thinking of like a math test, God's not going to give me answers to the math test. He may help me process during my study time, help me process during the test taking, but God's not going to circumvent the engagement of my brain and my mind, because that process is itself essential to me becoming a stronger human being, having a stronger mind, understanding things with greater depth. So as we look at this relationship, it's dynamic, and it is something that unfolds over time, not just kind of instantaneous answers. Those do happen, but I don't think we should expect them to be the norm, as in kind of the full instantaneous answer, like an instant, instant whatever instant meal. But that this thing unfolds over time. I don't know what you think about that, but

well, I think you know when we're talking about well, I'm asking God for something, right? Like maybe I'm asking God for another car or whatever the case may be, and there's a process of all of that, right? But I think the bigger picture in the context of where Jesus was laying it out is God's a personal God,

exactly, and

he's inviting us into a relationship with him. So in this relationship, there's communication,

communication, and communication

is not just a one way street. If you want to know somebody, you know, there's listening, there's asking, there's talking, there's engaging. So seeking, that's what he's asking us to do, right? He's inviting us to do. I should say. He's inviting us to engage in the relationship, you know, to to look at the invitation, respond to the invitation, right, and choose to to enter into the experience that God is longing to give us, and it's a beautiful thing, you know. In fact, Jesus later on he he he said in John chapter 17 verse three, he said, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. He described eternal life not as an expansion of time, but as a knowing God Himself. So, so this seeking is is is the greatest privilege that any of us can have to enter into this relationship with God, and He sought after us. So I'm choosing to seek after Him, to to to know Him. So asking isn't necessarily just asking I need something or asking God, tell me more about yourself. Moses asked God. He said to him, He said, "Will you show me your glory? And that word glory means character. That's what he asked him. Show me your character. I mean, what a great question to ask. And God showed it to him. He said, "I'm merciful. I'm gracious. I'm long suffering. I'm abundant in goodness and truth. I keep mercy for 1000s. I forgive iniquity and transgression and sin.

Yeah, He showed it to him. He did so. So the

asking, if you notice, the asking for Moses wasn't just, "Hey, you know, I need a new buggy or need a new horse. Right, right, right. I know that's part of the journey of life, but he was asking intimately that he might know God,

right? I mean,

so accepting invitations. So Jesus is painting that picture, that true picture of God, that He's a personal God and that He wants to be involved in all of our lives,

and that He's generous. And then the the other piece is everyone who asks receives. So it's like the doors are wide open. We talked about the audience on the side of the mountain, how there were people from all walks of life. It wasn't just the religious leaders, like it wasn't the religiously elite. It wasn't just. It was anybody who comes and asks. God was going to respond to. And

I want to address that, everybody who asks receives. Like so, let's talk about the things that everyone can receive from God, like forgiveness of sin. Is that something everybody can receive? Absolutely. The promise of a new heart I'll give you and a new spirit I'll put within you is that something everybody can receive. You see what I'm saying? The promise of all of God's promise. I'll instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou should go. I'll guide thee in mine eye. You know the the

wisdom, wisdom. Yeah, the scripture is

full of of God's promises that all of us can receive.

Right, right.

You see what I'm saying? So ask and ye shall receive. We just have this narrow little window, oftentimes, of asking God. Meaning, I'm asking God for a new car, but I haven't gotten it yet. I'm asking God for for you know whatever I'm asking God for. I haven't gotten it yet. You know what I'm saying? So that's kind of the window that kind of people are are asking God for, and I want us to just to open that window, just just open it up to see there's far more riches out there that God is offering you. He'll take care of those needs as well. Right, but just open it up. He's inviting you.

So, so to get kind of down to one of the questions that comes up for me periodically, and it definitely comes up in conversation, or I hear about it. Someone mentions the idea that I prayed for this, and God did not answer. What do we do with that? How do we how do we take this teaching where Jesus says, "Ask, and then everyone who asks receives? What do we do with that when the thing I ask for doesn't seem to get any response, or doesn't seem to get the response I want. How does Jesus do? What do we do with that as we read this teaching from Jesus?

Well, I think that's a deep subject that could probably go on for a long time. But I want to say this: when you see God for who He really is, like Jesus addressed Him as a Father,

the

Bible tells us like a father pities his children, so the Lord pities, you know, basically us, right? So there is this compassion towards us. So when we really see God being the father that He wants, then we have to say He knows what's best, right? So there is that element of trusting when we see God that He's trustworthy, that He knows what's best, and we have to be willing to say, if my prayer is not answered the way I think, I have to accept the fact that God has something better, or He's making a different decision. Like I know it's very difficult. I've just walked some people through. The husband was dying, and they asked me to walk alongside them in that journey, and of course his desire was that God would heal him, but that healing didn't take place. But when we looked at the big storyline of Scripture, you know the Bible says that our life here in this world is only three score and 10, which is really 70 years. If you're above 70 years old, you're you're living every day to get more greater gift. So so if. Make it the three score and 10, right? So life on this world in this world is not guaranteed, right? But what is guaranteed is in Christ. There's another world, right? There's eternal life in Christ. So He did have that promise,

right? Right. You see what

I'm saying? So again, God's not a genie in a bottle, and the big picture, you know, the big picture, he knows what's best for all of us. So, so what would I say to them? I would just say that there's an element of trusting your Father in Heaven, who knows what's best for you. You know, but I'll have to say this: that in all my years of pastoring, I have found that when people come to me with those a lot of those questions about why didn't God do this and why didn't God do that, that if they spend time in His Word and understand Him in His heart and His ways, most of their prayers didn't even need to be asked because they're already answered in the Word of God.

Okay, so maybe so maybe the thing we're asking for is a misguided request.

Well, there's a lot of misguided requests. We have unrealistic expectations of people around us, and that's another trap is having an unrealistic expectation of God.

Right, because I think that's a huge one. We, if we have an unrealistic expectation of God, so maybe you know a simple example from my own family. My a child says, "Dad, I prayed about that test. I prayed for God's help on the test, and I bombed it. So if I can go into that, if I'm expecting that when I pray, God help me on the test. If I believe that that means an automatic A, and I don't get the A, if if that's what I'm setting up for, I'm kind of set putting God in a really difficult spot because it's really not helpful for God to give me the answers, right? No teacher is going to just give the kid the answer sheet, right? Because because that's not the way we learn the principles of math or any other skill. We don't learn it by getting the answers easily. So that's one way we set God up, like you said. False expectations. We have this idea of what it means for God to answer, and then when he doesn't come through based on our idea, we interpret it as a failure. I think.

Sorry, I want to jump. Yeah, go ahead. No, let me interrupt you, but I think it's a trap. Basically, the devil always seeks to create misperceptions of God, and he's setting us up for a trap. I had a friend that was going to school for music, and she had another classmate there, and they were both playing the piano. My friend would practice eight hours a day, but the other person didn't practice hardly at all because they believed that God was going to supply her talent and her gift. Right, right. So, but when it came to performance, she bombed. You know what I'm saying?

Expectedly, and it wasn't a failure on God's part.

Right, it was it was a whole wrong perception of God. But she truly believed in her heart that she didn't really need to practice that God was going to make a difference. But when you look at the scripture, it talks about sowing, reaping, harvesting. You know what I'm saying? Being diligent. So so again, back to the whole

picture. The

whole picture. Understanding the teachings of Scripture give us clarity in regard to how we're approaching God and how we're asking from God. You see what I'm saying? Because if we're not, if we if we don't spend time understanding the ways of God, then we can have unrealistic expectations. Exactly.

Exactly. Yes.

You know, I had a lady once that her husband left her for another woman, and she was claiming this promise in the Bible that I thought was really out of context that she that God was going to bring him home. He never she never came back, so she ended up being totally disappointed with God because somehow she locked in that that God was going to deliver her husband from this woman, right, and and bring her back, bring him back home. You know what I'm saying? So so again, it's it's and a lot of that can be clarified just by spending time looking at Jesus' life, looking at the who God is, and it saves us a lot of headaches. Life is a journey, and at Love Shave Life, we believe it is a journey best taken with God's love as your guide.

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Yes. So in my work as a clinical chaplain, one of the things that I have some difficult conversations. I listen to some difficult stories, and someone who suffered serious abuse, they can say, "Well, I prayed for God to save me from this person. Two things for that. This is a big one. This is one that I think takes a bigger, more attention than we have in this episode. But two things that come to mind first is that God is with us, even through, even in the midst of awful things. That somehow God is with us. The story of Scripture has the Joseph still went to prison. Joseph was in slavery. John the Baptist lost his head. Jesus said no greater prophet had ever come into like had ever come into existence than John the Baptist. And John the Baptist was rotting in a horrible incarceration, horrible circumstances, and John the Baptist lost his head. He was executed. So, the second piece is human agency. Human beings make choices, and those choices on this side of of you know we talk about the future you talked about eternal life the future re inhabiting planet Earth another topic on this side of that future that good future human decisions and divine action are in a complicated interplay and the piece for me that's most important is that God is with us in those dark moments, in those times where I cannot see the light. That God is with us, sustaining

us. And I think these are a little more complicated questions. Like you said, they are. We could spend a lot of time, and perhaps sometime we can take an episode to talk about that from a scriptural standpoint. So we

will at some point, either in the podcast or in our course library, we'll be talking about that big topic. So

the next one he said was knock. Why do you think he said knock?

What thing? I mean, one thing that comes to mind is there are closed doors. That closed doors in life are inevitable, and so knocking is an important piece of that.

In what in what way knocking to?

Well, knocking for an opening. When I think of a closed door, I think of you know a job interview. You've been banking on this job. You've been looking at real estate. You're hoping, and then it just closes. Somebody else gets the job. You thought it was coming to you. You had your follow-up interviews and all this. the The whole thing is moving in the right direction, closing your face, and I think that's one way where God's like knock. There is another way. The one that's in front of you has closed, and you think this is the end. This is like your dream job, and it's crumbled in front of you. Maybe it's not the end as much as it looks like it, so knock.

Oh, that's good. That's good. So sometimes when one door closes, so to speak, another door is opening, right? So that that's a real challenge for us. Is again in trusting God as our Father. That when one door closes, what is not what doesn't appear to be an answer to prayer, there may be another door opening exactly for you. That God is saying, "We're. I really want you to go down this path. This is a better route for you. So continue knocking, right? Yes. Don't don't give up and be like, "Oh, it's over with. Maybe again, ask God. God, what what is it that you're doing? Open my eyes, and I might see that. You know what I'm saying? Allowing God to have His way, right?

And so persistence. I love that idea of persistence. I love again that we're talking about this idea that things don't happen magically. Yes, there's miracles in Scripture. Yes, there are magical moments in Scripture, or magical moments when when people who are paralyzed get up and walk. That happens, and it still happens. God still intervenes and intervenes in extraordinary ways, but his normal, I think, is these everyday mundane ways that, on the surface, don't look miraculous, but are nonetheless his presence being with us. So, help on that math test. The help was God being with you as you learned better study habits, as you learn better sleep habits as you as you connect with a tutor. Finding you know maybe maybe the miraculous there is that the tutor you find in your online tutor platform is a tutor that you really connect with, you really gel with. The way they explain things to you makes more sense than your teacher. That's the miraculous. It's no less homework. It's no less hard work, but it's that one little moment where God aligns things. I think living, and this comes up in the text later, living with an anticipation of God's personal engagement in our lives, even when the pieces don't come as fast or in the way we want. I think that's really the secret here: is living with the sense of God's living presence with us, the company of the supernatural. I think that's the picture that really Jesus wants is the takeaway, and this expectation He wants of His reader, of His listeners, His hearers to say, you know, God is inviting me to come. I don't have to go through a priest. I don't have to go through some theological school. I don't have to have some some special ritual. I can just go to God. I can ask when something's puzzling me. I can just go to God and knock when there's a door that's slammed shut in my face. I can just go to God and seek when I'm trying to sort out this relationship. You know, parenting. Nobody, you don't learn how to be a parent until you parent.

For sure, you throw out all the books,

right? So you're seeking like that's like God. How do I? This is happening right in front of me. I've got two kids going off to college. I've got a kid doing this or a kid doing that. I'm not sure what to do. That's seeking God. God shows up in that process again. Maybe not miraculously, but maybe it's just little tiny pieces. The right song, the right podcast comes on. The neighbor comes over. These little pieces for me-that's the way God shows up in these little orchestrated moments that come together in surprising ways.

So, in other words, what we're saying then, what listening to you by knocking is that doors close, that our prayers aren't answered, perhaps the way we think they they should be. But don't give up, don't quit, knock again to God. He may be opening up another door for you that you hadn't seen before, and that's part of growing in a relationship, isn't it? Yeah, it's part of a relationship. Growing

as a human being, yeah,

and getting to know God, right? And you know that's a beautiful part of the journey. So the next part of what Jesus was talking about, he gives this amazing illustration. It's huge. I'm glad

we're going there because we've sort of touched on this concept without getting there.

Yeah. So he he he then after he talks about ask, seek, knock, he says, "What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will he give him a serpent. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask?

That's amazing to me. Again, that reinforces this idea that what Jesus wants his listeners to take away is this idea that the the the being Who created everything in this universe? I am. We are here at Loveshaped Life believers that God is the is the founder of the universe, the literal crafter of the universe. He spun the galaxies up. He sustains the everything that is. That this being with such astronomical power is interested in personal, intimate relationship and can be trusted like no human father can be trusted, and yet uses that language to depict the intimacy and and fondness and gentleness and tenderness and kindness and warm hug of a daddy's heart. Amen. This is the heart of God Almighty.

Yeah. Again, Jesus was opening the window to call God your Father, and He's opening this window a little wider to say, "Ask that God is is interested in you, and He wants to have a relationship with you, and communicating with Him, and now He He opens the window wider, right, to show that just like you care for your child, right? Because because like like it was like absurd, right? That that the the comparison there, if if one of if your son asks for bread, will you give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will you give him a serpent? It's just like ridiculous. She wouldn't do that because of her love. In fact, last night when we were talking and setting up here, our production manager Elton was telling the story about his two daughters.

Hi, Elton.

Yes, hi, Elton. He's telling the story about his two daughters. I remember the story, right? He went to the store with his daughters. They wanted to buy something. They had a gift card, and he and they they had to scratch off the number on the back. Can we use

this story, by the way?

He he accidentally scratched off the whole number, and they couldn't use the gift card. So his daughter was like, "Hey, Dad, it's okay. We can go, you know, because we don't we we don't have the money to pay for it or whatever, and there was no way he was letting his daughter go out of the store without what they wanted to buy. So he bought it for them, and then he said, you know, my two daughters, right? And he and he used this illustration, and he said, "Have me wrapped, is what he's saying around his finger, right, right, right. So it's the heart of he. Expressing his heart, his love for his kids, and I've known his kids since they were little, and they tend to be on the shy side. But they they look at it with these eyes that just penetrate you, right? They just penetrate. Hopefully, they can't imagine being their dad. Do they listen, Ellen? Do they listen to the family? They just penetrate, right? And so they're just penetrating the dad, and it's melting his heart, right? So he's saying, if that's the way a father loves his children. He said, "How much more you being evil? And he wasn't condemning them by the way of saying, "Well, look, you guys are evil, right? He's just talking about the effect of sin on a human heart, right? On a human heart, he said, "You guys have been affected and tainted by this disease called sin, and yet you still have the ability to love your children that way, but yet your father in heaven,

who's untainted,

who's untainted,

right?

How much more shall he give good things to those who ask him,

right, right,

right? And so he was saying that your father in heaven loves you more, has more love for you than you have for your child,

exponentially more. Yeah,

exponentially more.

I don't think there's any way that we can even. I don't think we can convey it with words or expressions. What Jesus is saying here is is so expansive and magnificent about the bigness of God's heart. I'm just feeling right now that there's literally no way that you and I can even do justice to what Jesus is really trying to communicate to us into His hearers-that

God is for you and He's not against you. That that you know, and again, He He was destroying the religion of the day because the picture that they had of God was one that you had to earn His favor. You had to to go through all of their laws that they had created, they created all these laws that you had to go through in order to stay in favor with God. And he and he and he's wiping that picture out and said, "No, this God who's in heaven, he's your father, and you're his child, and he loves you more than you love your own children.

You already have his favor. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to get it. You already have it. You wake up. You're born into the world having his favor. He didn't

say, "Well, you better go to the temple in order to get into his favor, right? You better do this in order to get into his favor. He said, "No, he is your father right now. That's beautiful. Right now, where you are, you're fully known and you're fully loved by him.

Right?

Wow, blew his mind. In fact, in the in the other gospel writers, Luke, he says when in this same he what what Jesus was saying that like like he said your father will give good gifts. Let me read it correctly. He said, "How much more will your father and who is in heaven good give give good give give good gifts to those who ask him? Luke says, "Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask, and that's a whole nother subject. It is another subject, but the gift of the Holy Spirit from a storyline of the Bible was the greatest gift that could be given to human beings. Right.

Okay. So before we go down that, can we switch gears? Yeah, sure. Because there's actually a huge, huge teaching here. Jesus concludes this little piece. Starts with the ask, and then it ends with this. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets. Here's I think it's very powerful. Jesus, before giving this, treat others the way you would have them to treat you. The golden rule we call the golden rule. It comes up in other religious and philosophical traditions, but Jesus gives this two things. Number one, he says he gives it in the context of God's generosity. God loves you with a heart that's bigger than you can imagine. Loves you with a generosity that's bigger than you can imagine. You can go from go to him for whatever ask, seek, knock. In the light of that, in with that as the background, Jesus says, "So treat others with kindness. So treat others the way you want to be treated, because you're backed up by this generous God. You can afford to be generous toward the people around you. And then the second thing he said is, "That's the whole point of all the law and the prophets. Everything you've heard from the writings of Moses and the writings of the ancient prophets. This is the point to treat others just the way you yourself would wish to be treated. So we had a little interruption with the lawnmower. We're upstairs in Bob's place here, where we do our recording, and his neighbor decided to mow the lawn. So you probably heard a little bit of that just before this break. So we're coming back into it, just talking about Jesus has talked about ask, etc. and then he ends this section with what we call the golden rule that we love others or do to others what we want them to do to

us. Yeah, I just want to comment on that again. Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. You know, put yourself in their shoes, as we would say, right? Put yourself in their feelings. Where where are they coming from? Think about the other. Because we're so quick to judge. Again, we were talking about judging in our last episode. We're so quick to judge people on the surface that we're not thinking about perhaps what they're going through.

Right.

We don't know whether people have maybe received a phone call that their loved one has got cancer, or maybe they're going through a divorce or whatever, we just have no idea what somebody is going through.

So I have a great story on that.

Yeah,

Stephen Covey, famous guy who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, etc. He was on a flight, and on his flight there was this absent-minded father sitting in the chair, sitting in the seat, airplane seat, right next to Stephen, or like across the aisle, two unruly kids. They were just doing all this stuff, and Stephen was getting a little worked up because he couldn't imagine how this dad is on this flight and not paying attention to his kids, who are disrupting the other passengers. And then somehow in a conversation, he finds out that they're just flying back after their mother's passing, his wife's death, and Stephen talks about how that completely changed the dynamics of his interaction when he knew just a little bit of the backstory of what had led to this. Very, it was still disruptive, but knowing the backstory totally changed the dynamics of that interaction. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. What you're talking, correct?

Yeah, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, right, and reflecting upon your own journey, even when you've made mistakes in your life, and perhaps somebody treated you with kindness, how that made you feel. You know, they weren't condemning you. They were trying to help you along the way. You know, it's it's what we label as the golden rule. You know, and it's interesting because the the next verse said that for this is the law and the prophets. The law in the Jewish mind was referring to the first five books of the Bible, right? The Torah, and then the the prophets. So Jesus is saying, look, if you take all those teachings and you sum it up, it really boils down to this, which is love your neighbor as yourself. And he just put it in different words. Whatever you would that a man should do unto you, so do unto them. You know, and and that that contrast again, the contrast you had the religious leaders of the day that had literally taken the the law and the prophets and created hundreds of laws for them to follow. I mean, literally hundreds of laws for them to follow. So, and and they couldn't keep up with them, and they couldn't live up to them. But they were so focused on themselves trying to keep up with it all, that they would just create another law,

right?

You know, because they failed, so they create another law and and just kept going more and more and more and more until they were

buried.

Until they were buried, and Jesus again flips it from from this picture of God that's you know you know you have to get his approval to a picture of God who who's your like your father, who cares for you and loves you, and and loves you from the inside out, so to speak, loves you for who you are, and and so he takes in and says, look, here's the sum of it all. Just love others the way you would want to be loved.

So here's the thing about Jesus' teaching, as as you were talking, that I was thinking about is Jesus. Sometimes we think, at least within religious circles, that the point of Scripture is to make religious people. I mean, sometimes religious people really prioritize the pomp and circumstance of being religious, attending services, saying the right things-if they're, you know, acknowledging belief in the right doctrines or the right teachings-and that if I'm a, if I am a an effective religious practitioner, then somehow I've arrived. Jesus says, in so many words, my goal is not to make you religious. My goal is for your relationship with God to make you a beautiful person, a person who loves well, a person who is thoughtful of where the other person's coming from, a person who stops before speaking and decides to listen first, a person who who is putting themselves another shoe. This is the outcome. Is not for us to become religious people, but beautiful people.

Yeah, that's beautiful. That's the whole point. It's the whole point. It's the whole point. Very simple. Love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your being and your neighbors yourself. It's the very foundation of God's government. Right, it's the very it's it's it's who He is. Right, God is love, and this is who He is, and this is what Jesus came to do to make us like that. Yes, it's about character, changing the character from the inside out. That's

it. So we have we're going to transition to our wrap up. We have. And a weekly email. You can look at the blog anytime on our website. You can subscribe on our web website, loveshaped.life. Just go there and you can subscribe to our weekly email. One of the things we're going to do between the weekly email and the blog is share four principles. I'll list them for you here. We'll expound on these in our in our digital resources, those those four concepts are specific requests in prayer. Number two, being persistent in prayer. Number three, listening attentively that prayer is a two-way interaction with God, and then that it's relationally focused. We'll expound on those in our digital resources, but want you to know that those are some practical ways to apply that. So each episode we wrap up with three questions: What do you see? So as you think about what we covered in this episode, in spite of the lawnmower interruption, what do you see as the takeaway about who God is from this episode?

You know, for me, I'm almost like lost for words on how to describe that, right? Because we're talking about ask, seek, knock, and then that illustration that Jesus gave comparing earthly fathers who, if your child asks you for a stone for a piece of bread, would you give him a stone? Or you know that that type of illustration, and he said, "How much more will your heavenly Father, right? Right, give good gifts to those who ask Him. And he paints this picture of God as being more loving, way more loving than an earthly father, and seeking with the hopes of that penetrating the people, including our own, our hearts, right? That that's who God is. That that you are a value in His eyes. You are like chosen by Him. You are loved by Him. You are adored by Him, and that that might penetrate to us to where we allow Him to to just love us and heal us from the inside out, right? So what do I see? That's the picture of God that we're seeing, right?

Yeah, yeah. The

picture of God that, again, is not an authoritarian God. He's not an arbitrary God where I have to do things to appease him. He he's he is love and he's other centered and he comes after us and pursues after us, inviting us into a relationship with him.

And I would see very similar that the the the nuance I would add is this: God longs to know and be known. He knows me. He longs to be known by me. That for me, very similar, but that would be the kind of the emphasis I would make on the picture I see of God.

Yeah, and and really adding on to that, when you take the storyline of the Bible and you go from the very beginning, first book Genesis, and you look at the Garden of Eden, you see that that's the picture of God, right? And and and you you go through the whole storyline, the big picture, right? That's it. That's it.

So then, see experience. What's the experience piece for you?

Yeah, to me, the experience piece is choosing to accept the fact that, or I should say, choosing to accept this picture that this is the reality of who God is, in spite of wrong ideas and thoughts, or that I might have in my mind about God because of the way I was raised, or whether it's a religious affiliation or no religious affiliation, whatever I have adapted about God, whatever picture that this is the true picture of God, and so the experience is I'm choosing to accept this. I'm choosing to to accept that this is God and who He is, and allow that to shape me. Allow that to to form my reality, and allow that to be the reality that I live in, not an old wrong picture of God. Maybe it's a judgmental or condemning picture of God, but to embrace this picture-that's the experience to me. Is I'm actually choosing to enter into

it. Yeah. So I think I would just go with you on that. The live piece for me is this: what I saw, in a sense, a fresh, freshly in this in as I was working through the text this time, and that is that because if you look at this teaching section, there's a section where Jesus talks about not living with anxiety because God loves you. You can love liberally, and then before that, Jesus talks about how God is good to the people who don't like him to the unthankful, etc. and then this piece that we just looked at about God being this generous Father, and then after that, God inviting us to or or telling us to love others as we want to be loved. That living is I live immersed. The love of God, and then out of being filled up with His love, I can give generously and care liberally for the people around me because I'm fully at rest in this big, great heart of God.

That's beautiful. I don't sure I have anything to add to it other than at the beginning of this Jesus's first public speech here, known as the Sermon on the Mount, he he told the people, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Right, and that's how we become that salt and that light. Like you said, allowing ourselves to be immersed in the love of God, allowing that love to flow through us and out to others. That's how we can make the greatest impact in the world, and that's really what God is calling us to do.

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you, Bob.

Yeah, thank you.

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