Whatever It Takes to Discover Grace - Steve McVey’s Journey AlongTheWay 19

I didn't know what I was going to do. So I said, God, I don't understand this. I've given my whole life to serve you. I've done all I know to do. I said, in fact, if this is ministry, I want out. If this is the Christian life, it's overrated.

Welcome to along the way. I'm john Mater. So your host and fellow traveler, thank you for joining me along my way is that try to become more like Jesus every day. I love what I have the opportunity to talk with fascinating people and learn how God has met them along their way. Everyone has a story, and I believe that we can all learn from each other's journeys. Through my work as a TV producer, I get to interact with some of the most amazing people making an incredible impact for God's kingdom. And this episode of along the way, my journey connects me with author and grace walk TV teacher, Steve McPhee. If you want to know more about God's grace in your life, then you want to hear what Steve has to say. I know from my time with him that I need to learn more about God's grace. Before we get into the interview, I want to let you know that I am grateful for you who have joined me along my way. I hope that you are enjoying this journey as much as I am. I appreciate the great feedback about how my along the way journey is helping you. I'd love to hear from you. You can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram. And you can always email me at John along the way at gmail. com. My social links and web address are in the show notes. I'd love to hear your feedback. And now here's my along the way conversation with Steve McVeigh.

Alright, Steve McVeigh. It's wonderful to have you on along the way. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks,

john. I'm glad to join you today.

We've, we've been enjoying having you in the studio for the last few days working on the grace walk program, which will be airing in the fall in at Cornerstone network. And so people can watch that. But I want to talk with you about your journey and a little bit about who you are and how God has been walking with you. So can you tell me a little bit about your life and how you've come to where we are now?

Well, I was born in a family who were followers of Christ, my mom and my dad. Both grew up in very, very legalistic church backgrounds. And they decided when I was born, they wanted to change denomination. So we didn't attend the same denomination they did, we moved to a different denomination. But I often say it was just a different kind of legalism in some ways. But having said that, I had a good Christian family, my parents, both devout folks, they went to church, every time the doors are open, had a good pastor, good good leaders and team years. And so at a very early age at the age of eight, I'll I'll never forget, listening to my pastor preach about the cross. And I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks. And as a young boy, I was moved by the emotion and the compassion that he felt as he as he shared that message. And I trusted Christ as a child. And it began then. And by the time I was 10 years old, I knew that I wanted to be in, in ministry. And of course, there's a sense of which we're all in ministry, but right. I mean, at 10 years old, I went to my pastor and I said, I want to be a pastor. To his credit, he didn't dismiss that because of me being a young kid. He said, Well, that's great. He said, what you need to do is keep your eyes on Christ. And he said, as you grow, if that desire is still there, then you'll know that it is God who put it there.

That's a good advice today was in your old,

it was good advice

to anybody.

So at 16 years old, I had a youth Sunday, or we did the church did that I attended. And I actually preached my first sermon at 16 years old. What was it about? Well, the humor, the divine humor behind it strikes me as ironic even now, the name of the sermon was kill the old man. And it was from Romans chapter six. And the whole gist of the sermon I shared that day was that we each need to kill the old nature by doing the right things. Now, let's fast forward all these many decades later in that the whole, the whole underlying message that I shared is absolute absurdity. We don't kill the old man, the old nature, Christ killed the old nature, right when we died on the cross with him. So I sometimes I sort of imagine the angels in heaven snickering when I preach that first sermon, and the Lord said, just give the boy time.

LTG Yeah, I guess

I've heard in the south, they say, oh, bless his heart. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right. And there's a lot of meaning behind that. I'm, I'm sure. I'm sure all the southern part of heaven was saying, bless his heart.

So how did grace become a major part of your life? Well, as I said, Because you'd be you did become a pastor. Yeah. And then God gave you a different revelation of grace. You take me on that journey,

I was always zealous about my faith. And from the time as I said, when I was 16, I was preaching in youth meetings. And, you know, as a teenager, there aren't that many opportunities to find places to speak. So I actually was one of those that would preach on the street corner, I stood on the hood of my car in the bowling alley, one night and preach standing on the on the hood of the car. And of course, it was a novelty. So everybody gathered around, I had a big crowd gathered around, listen, listening to me. Another time when the movie, The Exorcist came out, right? They lined up down the street waiting to see that movie. And I thought, okay, they want to know about demons, I'll tell them about it. So I went out the parking lot where they were lined up, and I preached to the crowd waiting to get in line about Legion, the demonic and about, you know, him meeting encountering Christ. And so I was very zealous. And I had filled in for a pastor who was a service to church in the area where I was going to school at the time, and he left the church and they asked me if I would fill the pulpit while they looked for another pastor. I was 19 years old. And after a few months, the leaders came back to me and said, You know, we've been looking for a pastor, and we've come to believe that the pastor God wants for us is the one standing in this foot every week. So they asked me to become the senior pastor at 19 years old. What was the average age of the congregation at that point? Ever? Almost everybody, there was over 60.

And they wanted a 19. I still

shake my head and disbelief. Well, actually one of those guys that was involved in that process, believe it or not, he's in his mid 90s. Now, but he's still alive. Oh, and I asked him, I saw him a year or so ago. And I said, What were you thinking? And it's going to kid to come to your senior pastor. He said, Well, you didn't seem 19. And and and that's true. Yeah. I had a, I had a sort of a disposition about me that made me seem older than I was. I'm married at 19. And, and at 21, I had my first child, I just kind of seems like I started things earlier in life. So he said, You didn't seem 19. We had about 100, folks every Sunday, and most of them were over 60. And I was the 19 year old faster. And so I started as a senior pastor at 19. And I was very sincere. Now, to your question about grace. Obviously, all of us are always in grace. But I didn't understand it the way I would come to understand it later. But I've got a type A personality, and I've always been very goal oriented shirt and just driven. And so over the years, from time to time, when I would move from one church to another, every time I would go to a new church, the church would begin to grow. Things went well. All the churches I served, were expanding, and the congregations were appreciative of me and affirming of me. And that's just the way it happened. And so I went to a church in Atlanta, Georgia, from a from a place I'd served in Alabama. And I was in a small town in Alabama, Talladega, Alabama, where the races are, you might have broken down. And I went to Atlanta and I thought, well, the church there was leaving in Alabama, I thought, well, this is the fastest growing church in the county. I've been recognized by the Jaycees is an outstanding religious leader. I mean, the newspapers if they wanted to a clergy is a clergy man's opinion about anything going on in town. I was the guy that came to I was kind of like the town pastor in that little town and the church, it exploded with growth. And I thought, well, and I get to Atlanta and get into that big city. There's no telling what can happen there. So I packed up my family, and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia expecting things to go and blow and grow. And the church, I went to admin declining for five years, in every measurable way. But that didn't bother me because I thought, well, you know, everywhere I go with things happened, right? You've got a pretty solid track record. It's got a strong track record. And, but I had prayed a prayer. Before I left, Alabama, that I realized now might have been, if not the most certainly one of the most meaningful prayers and life changing prayers I have ever prayed. I said this in prayer, I said, God, I want to know you as completely as I can possibly know you in this life. I want to grow, I want to experience the depths of who you are. I want to know your love. I want to know your character. I want to know you because that was my personality. I mean, from the time I was 19, I've been reading about the great revivalist of the 19th century and I really was a student I'd studied deeply on my own all my life. And I said, I want to know you want to plumb the depths of who you are. And then I said this, I ended the prayer with God, whatever it takes, whatever it takes for that to happen. I want that. So now, back to my moved to Atlanta, I went there thinking things were going to would grow and explode. But to my surprise, when I got there, things did not start to grow. In fact, after my first year there, the church had actually declined in attendance. That had never happened to me. Wow. I didn't know what to make of it. The older you at this point. I was 36.

Okay, so you've been a pastor now for

from the nighttime of 19 to 36.

What, 17 years?

Yeah. And I'd always felt successful. Yeah. And I'd always been affirmed. I mean, when I left Alabama, those people literally cried and begged me not to go. Let me tell you how how strong strongly we were connected in Alabama. They actually put banners in town over the main city street across the covered across the street. That said, don't lead McVeigh family, please stay. I mean, that's that's that, that that's how much they wanted me to stay. But I felt like in Atlanta, we were going to explode. But it didn't, no matter what I did. I couldn't get it to begin to move forward. I had in right now singers and speakers and I preached my best sermons and I pulled out all my, you know, proven programs that had helped church is to grow and nothing word. And so it was October 619 90. It was two in the morning, actually wrote about this in my first book called grey swan. That book came out in 1995. October 619 90. And here's how I start the book. I said, I was lying on my office at 2am on the floor in my office at 2am. crying. I said the last year brought me to brokenness. Because see, I felt successful for so long, that when the church was dying, my identity was so wrapped up in ministry that when the when my ministry seem to be failing, and dwindling away, it seemed to me that my mound for worth my own sex, you know, my value was withering away. And it was devastating. And I done all I knew to do. So I was lying on the floor. two in the morning. And I was I was crying because the it was actually a Sunday morning 2am I wouldn't call it Saturday night, but it was at midnight was still EM so it was actually Sunday morning. And that Sunday morning was to be the first anniversary of my service there. My tenure is their pastor. And what I had always done for all those 17 years, as you said before, every year on the anniversary date of me becoming pastor, I would give what I call a state of the church dress, okay. And every year was the same thing. I would talk about the progress we had made, the expansion, the extension, the growth, all the measurable results. But now here I was in 1990, facing that anniversary date on the next morning, and there was nothing to brag about. There was nothing that I could see to celebrate. Instead of growing, the church had diminished. And so I didn't know what I was going to do. So I said, God, I don't understand this. I've given my whole life to serve you. Right from the time I was a child. I've done all I know to do. I don't understand you. I said, and I was angry. I said In fact, if this is ministry, I won't out, won't out of ministry. And I said, in fact, if this is the Christian life, it's overrated. AC right for getting me into heaven. But in the meantime, what's the big deal? It's overrated, I said, I want out.

And so

I laid there for a moment and My mind

went to a piece of paper, my thoughts went to a piece of paper that someone had left who had been a speaker in my church. And I felt like I needed to get that paper and read it again. So I got up off the floor, I got that paper item, the file, and I began to read it. And it was a paper that was on the subject of absolute brokenness. Absolute, actually was just a list of things. And what the paper did is it listed all the things that we needed to start surrender, and give up and put into God's hands, and quit trying to be in control of and it was things like, you know, I surrender, and I begin to pray my way down that list, I give up my right to success, I give up my right to a happy, you know, environment that I live in, I give up my right my future, my plans by you know, it's just this whole list of things, right. And I just begin to pray my way down that list, just basically emptying myself. And by the time I reached the bottom of that list, I was like a blank sheet of paper. And at the very bottom of that list, there was a paragraph that said, I give God permission, acknowledge his right to do anything he wants to do in me, to me with me or through me, I want to claim these rights as mine, but now I've relinquished them, and they belong to Him. And I signed it, I've still got the paper, I signed it October 619 90. And at that moment, I was empty. Now looking back in retrospect, I know what was going on. I mean, Jesus said, Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies that abides alone. So I know now that what had to happen was my own sense of self sufficiency had to die. My confidence that I could do things to make churches grow and change lives had to die. And let me be clear, I was very sincere all that time. Sure. But little by little, I began to depend on my own self sufficiency and my own abilities. And so that prayer that I prayed, God took seriously. And it was like, now I know, it was like God was saying, okay, Steve, I'll answer your prayer. But it's not going to be an easy road, because there's some things that are going to have to be undone in you. Before I can do in you, what needs to be done. An example I've often taught, is the example of the the day a day at 24 hours a day, if I say to the average person, what are the three parts of the day I'll ask you is just to see if you give this answer most people do. What are the three parts of the day if you divide the day into three parts,

probably morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night.

That's what that's what everybody says. But if you go back and look at the Genesis narrative of creation, when God created the days and the time, every you'll see it again and again. And that those first few chapters it says, and the evening and the morning, were the first day. Now what that tells us and Jewish folks get this, what it tells us is that days don't begin when the sun comes up. Some days begin when the sun goes down. And for instance, of practicing Orthodox Jew now when they observe the Sabbath, well, we know the Sabbath is on Saturday, but they begin to observe the Sabbath when the sun goes down on Friday, right, because that's when the new day starts. So that was something I had to learn. And I would say the people that might be, you know, listening to us at this place, now, they've said, Well, like I did, they've said, Oh, God, I want you to work in my life and teach me and change me and those that kind of prayer. Well, the thing I would say to the folks listening is don't be surprised if things get darker, right before they get lighter. Because the new day begins when it gets dark, not when it gets bright. And so that's what happened to me. And so when I finished, you know, praying my way down that list, I said, God, you know, I can do whatever you want. And I went to the congregation The next morning, just hours later. And I said, folks, I'm going to tell you that things are going to be different. I said, I don't know why. I don't fully understand it. But the measurable results in the church and dwindled over the past year, just like they had done five years before that. I don't know what's going on. I said, but I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to cancel all the plans that I have for the future in terms of special events and speakers, singers. And I said, we're just going to pray. And we're just going to ask God to show us what's going on here. And I began that. Two weeks later, I received a letter from a pastor in the area who was having a conference at his church. And it was a conference about grace. And I'll go ahead and tell you who it was. Because I think a lot of folks would know who this was. Who This is Charles Stanley. Okay. And, and Charles Stanley sent out it was a mass letter. Yeah. And he said, what these people are going to be teaching transformed my life. And I here I am now blank sheet of paper, right? And there's Charles Stanley saying what I learned from these folks changed my life. And I'm thinking, well, it's a no brainer.

Yeah. a bad thing.

Yeah, can't be a bad thing. Go here, this and so I did. And so I went in and hurt. Some folks teach grace, in a way I'd never heard of before. In fact, the person who stood up there that day, was a man who now works with me. And we co authored book together, his name is Mike corals. My co authored a book with Neil Anderson called finding freedom from addiction. And Mike came to work with me some years, many years ago now. And Mike and I co wrote a book called helping others overcome addiction, Mike's 82, I think, now 81 or 82. But Mike was an addict and coming to understand grace, and his identity in Christ is what freed him from that addiction he had to alcohol. And so Mike was the one I heard, I heard when I heard Mike speak at that conference. First of all, I was shocked than a man and ministry would be so transparent as to acknowledge that he had become a follower of falling down drunk, as he said, I was shocked by his transparency, his vulnerability, but as I listened to him share that message. Some I didn't get it, you know, completely that day, but something about what he said, about grace just took root in me. Yeah. And over the next weeks, I bought a bunch of books, and read and study then, to get to the final cancer. I was sitting in my office some weeks after October six. I'd read a lot of books, but I was reading a book by a man who would ultimately become my mentor. His name is Bill Guillem. He's in heaven now. He wrote a book called lifetime guarantee. And reading that book, the scales fell off my ass. And I was like, Saul on the Damascus Road, I suddenly saw grace in a way I've never seen it before. Yeah, and things have never been the same since. So Steve,

what was your definition of grace before that moment?

My, my definition of grace before that moment would have been that God through Jesus Christ saves us from our sins, and takes us to heaven. And it has nothing to do with us cleaning up our act and living the moral life. Okay, now, that wasn't a wrong definition. Right? Right. But the thing I would come to realize is, it's a very narrow definition. Okay. What I say now is that grace is not so easy to define. It's a lot easier to describe. It's like the word love. I've grown to love you already. But when I say I love my wife, you're going to know I don't mean the same thing. It's better

to say when I say

I love my children, or I love sushi, right, right. Or I love to go sailing on a sailboat. I mean, the word is the same word. But how you define that word depends on the situation, the context. Absolutely. And so the same can be said about grace, the apostle Peter, when he talked about grace, he referred to it as the manifold grace of God. And the word manifold, if you look at that word studied, it really means multifaceted. So it's like looking at a diamond, a cut diamond, that has so many different facets to it. And when you hold it up to the light and look at it from this angle, you know, it's beautiful, but if you slightly shifted, and nap, the light catches a different facet. It's like a different diamond all together, but it's equally as beautiful. Well, Grace is like that. So now I say, you want me to describe Grace? Well, let's let's talk about the context, right? Are we talking about salvation? Are we talking about what it means to live my life day to day in this world, I'll give you another definition that I often use now regard to our personal lives. And that is, Grace is the divine enablement by the life of Christ in us, for us to be all that we've been called to be and do all that we've been called to do. It's divine enablement. It's divine empowerment. That's a good definition to write. And so again, we could we could go down the checklist, and we could give different descriptions of grace, depending on

where we're attaching Exactly. And I just spent the last three days with you in the studio recording 13 half hour episodes of grace walk where you expound upon this, and there's still so much more to talk about,

you know, Paul, the apostle called it the grace of God, he called it fathomless, you know, have them as a nautical unit of measurement. So what he's really saying is, there is no bottom to this, I think, you know, that was 1990, when my eyes began to be open. Hey, that wasn't a one time event. Right? I'm still growing in grace. I'm still learning and growing. And it's an ever expanding circle. And I think that we will explore the depths of grace, all through this lifetime. But I'm one that believes that even when we move into the next world, I don't think we're going to become omniscient. know everything, man, because Grace is infinite. And I think we'll spend eternity plumbing the depths of what grace the grace of God means.

Yeah, I heard somebody, I forget what exactly it was. But I heard somebody kind of described the scene in heaven of, here's God sitting on the throne. And here's that for everybody all around them. And they, God reveals another attribute, or another aspect, another facet of his, it was character, and everybody just boughs down and worships, and then Okay, once they like, once they kind of like come to their senses, again, they get up, and then they see another part of God. And then it starts the whole process all over again.

I love that. And you know, I think I can go with that easily. As long as we all are saying, Yeah, and every facet of God we see is going to be yet another facet of His grace and His love. Yeah. Because we won't reach we won't, we won't, we won't exhaust that subject. God is infinite. Right? His love is infinite. And so everything about him that can be learned, has to be seen through the lens of loving grace. Absolutely. I mean, everything I'm talking His holiness is justice, his rant, everything that can be said about God or understood about God has to be seen through that lens, or else we're going to begin to paint some character of a God who's not real. Right.

Now, Steve, this, this grace walk message. I've heard people criticize the grace message. And I've heard you know, there's, there's a lot of extremes in Christianity and religion. And so a lot of times people will just shout from the pulpit. And I don't, you're not one of those guys. So how do you talk to somebody? That doesn't quite get Grace?

Well, first of all, let's remember the scripture says we will reign in life through the abundance of grace. I know not only have people criticize that whole books have been written about at host campaigns and crusades and been done about what they call hyper grace. Let me be real clear about this hyper grace thing in case anybody thinks I'm a hyper grace teacher. That's exactly what I am. I proudly, you know, gladly, I guess is a better way to wear that badge. Because what does the word hyper mean? It means in excess, right? It means something that is excessive people that say you can go too far with grace don't have a clue what grace is in the way that I'm talking about. Because if you go, you know, there are those who say, Well, people that go too far with grace, and then next thing, you know, they're going out live in like the devil and raising Cain, you know, and they don't, that's not what grace is. Yeah, I mean, the Bible says, Jude the says that the grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us to deny and godliness of worldly desires and how to live soberly, righteously. And just in this present age, you show me somebody who goes crazy. And they point at Grace and say, Well, I'm under grace, I will show you somebody who doesn't understand grace, you show me somebody who points that those of us who teach grace and say, well, they're just giving people a license to sin. But I'll show outpointed that person and tell you that somebody who doesn't understand grace, because that's not what grace does. Let's be very clear. Grace. In US operating through us is Christ in us and operating through us. And I know there are people that are going to misunderstand it. I hear the critics I've one guy wrote a book mentioned me 13 times in it as a, in a critical way as a great teacher. But when I read his book, I thought, dude, you don't know what grace is, you might be educated, but you don't have a clue what grace really is. Because grace doesn't make people go wild with misbehavior. Grace, causes people to fall in love with Christ in a deeper way in love with other people in a deeper way, and causes our lives to be elevated to the point that our lifestyle becomes an expression of Christ Himself. So no, you can't go too far with grace. So and I'm glad you brought this up. Because I want to make sure everybody hearing knows at least there's some of us out there that are teaching grace that are saying, when people tell you, you can go too far with that, it shows you they don't understand it. Let me change it. Sure. It's like saying that, you know, there's all this talk of Jesus Christ, that's all well and good. You can be a hyper Christian. I mean, you can go, you can, you can get, you can, you can go, you could go overboard on your emphasis on Jesus Christ. Somebody said that any Christ follower would say, What are you talking about? Do you even know what it means to be a Christ follower? And I'm saying the same things true. Those that say, they give those cautions about grace. They don't understand it, or they wouldn't do that.

So people that are wild living that's, they can be in rebellion. There's a word for that. Yeah. Oh, disgrace. It's okay. Okay.

Against grace.

Okay, that's good. That's good that, that thank you for helping us understand that. Because so much of the problems that we have in this world is because we're not on the same page, we're not on the same definitions of things. And somebody understands grace and in a completely different way than you do. And that we've been learning about. And so if you use the same word, it's going have totally different meetings, and you're going to be in conflict. John,

you've watched me teach 13 half hour programs this week. You know, my personality? Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm not one to mince words. I'm going to say it this way. Somebody who tells me Oh, Steve, I understand grace. And then they give me an explanation, that in some way would diminish the love of God would change the character of God and in such a way that their perception of God now it's going to be that he's judgmental, he's harsh. He's punitive. He's exacting. He's all into rules and regulations. He's watching you to make sure you do it. Right. You'll bless you if you do, but he's going to let the house caved in on you if you don't. So they give me that picture of God. And I'll say to you, that's not somebody who has a different understanding of grace. That's somebody who has a misunderstanding of grace. Because that's not what grace is. Yeah. I mean, it's, that may sound harsh, but look at Paul, the apostle Paul, when he wrote the, when he wrote the glaciations, you know, the legalistic crept in the Judy, geysers, they crept in, and they were saying, Well, yeah, yeah, we know, it's all about Jesus Christ. But come on, you got to be circumcised. We know you trusted Christ. And, and now you're, you're, you're a Christ follower, and you're devoted to him. But now that you're a believer, you want to you want to get going, right, don't you, you want to do this thing, right? But we're going to help you understand what you need to do. And next thing, you know, they're dropping laws on top of them, right, which today we would call religious rules. Some people would call it convictions, principles, standards, I don't care what you call it. As you said, as you said earlier, Christian rules and procedures, Christian rules and procedures, you can call it crap, you can call it the newer you can call it biblical principles for all I care. But it's the same thing. Because when you add something to Christ, and you add a response, a requirement, I should say, on a person, they said, You have have to do this, or you must do that, to be accepted by God, well, then you're not, you're not talking about the same God I believe in because the God that Jesus came to reveal is the one about whom Paul said, we've been made accepted in the beloved. And it's independent of what we do or don't do. You mean, I could go out and as you're saying, live up wild and crazy life, and still be loved by God? Absolutely. I could be loved by God, just as much as Paul the Apostle was loved by God, I could go out there and have 10 affairs and take drugs and do anything that anything anybody could imagine some wild person doing. And God would love me just as much then as he loved me this week while I was teaching the Bible 13 TV programs. Now, let me say, God's attitude wouldn't change toward me. But what about the way it would affect me? What about my lifestyle? If I made that foolish choice to go out and live that lifestyle? There would be there would be consequences. But now here's the part the religious legless don't Yeah, it wouldn't be god that was punishing me. It would be my own stupid actions. Exactly. Yeah. If I jump off the house and break my leg, I can't say God, why did you punish me by breaking my leg? Because everybody who had any good sense to say You idiot, not didn't do that to you. And by the way, idiot is a word Paul use with the collections. You foolish go license, the word means idiot, you bunch of idiots. Did you begin this thing in grace? And now you're going to turn the tables and try to finish it by the efforts of religious rules?

Yeah, that's just my opinion.

And the opinion of Paul the apostle,

I appreciate that. Definitely. I'm passionate

about it, John. Yeah. See that? And the reason I'm, somebody told me not long ago, in fact, I was kicking the daylights out of legalism. And somebody said to me, you know, you don't you don't sound very gracious. When you talk about that you it doesn't sound very loving. And I said to them, you know, Paul, the apostle talked about those that he emulation, he talked about those that bother you. And if you look at that word bother. In the Greek, it's the word that's translated molest. Now it doesn't mean sexual molestation. But the way I've responded to this person is I said, Listen, if you think I'm not gentle enough with child molesters, you're just going to have to overlook it. Because I've seen the damage they do to people. And the same thing is true with religious legalism, a lot of damage has been done on you. And you're a young guy in his mid 30s, son of a missionary family, who ended up hanging himself. And the last time I saw him, he was on a mission trip with me. And he said, I think God will bless and use my life, if I can just get my stuff together. But that's not the word he use, right. And I said to him, Brian, if you were able to get your stuff together, then there was no need for Jesus to come, said he loves and accepted, just like you are just looked at him. But sadly, he'd been indoctrinated in a legalistic culture, for all his life, and he just couldn't wrap his mind around that. And he ended up hanging himself committed suicide. John, I've seen that not suicides, but I've seen people The Walking Dead, so to speak, time, and time and time and time and time again, because they've been injected all their lives with the toxic teaching of a legalistic religion that has been called Christianity. It's been called biblical living. And it's nothing of the sort. And I've watched the damage it does. So you know, I'm an old guy. Now, I don't have much patience with that crap. I'm not going to stand down on I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak out against it because it's hurting people, right? And I'm going to instead say, quit drinking out of the muddy, dirty, contaminated, stagnant pool and come on over here to the living water. And let's show the contrast. Right? I'm gonna show the beauty of its we've been talking about grace. But I'm also going to warn people about the danger of ingesting a constant drip an IV drip of legalism. Yeah, I think the best thing some folks and you know, you may edit me out on this, I hope not. But I think the best thing some folks could do in the Christian world, is stop listening to some of this religious teaching they're listening to. They wonder why they're miserable. They wonder why they're not living the life that Christ promised. And yet they keep taking in that toxic, legalistic teaching and preaching. It's like me going to a restaurant and getting food poisoning. But I keep going back there every day eating the same meal in the same place. And then I look at the doctors, I don't know what that I don't understand why I'm sick all the time. You know?

Maybe we can fail yet. Yeah.

I have a question for you. This is a little departure from where I was planning to go. But it just came into my mind. So I'm going to ask about that. Okay. Are you familiar with the Joshua Harris and the I kissed dating?

I am and I know about the breach of development. Okay. Yeah. So

I can, I don't want to talk about that. Because I know that is an issue of legalism that has really affected my life in the past. So the book I kissed dating Goodbye, I believe it started out with potentially good intentions, and maybe the audience that he was writing it for, wasn't as widespread as it became. And in a lot of Christian circles, it almost became doctrine. And so as a result, people like myself, oftentimes have a hard time relating to girls relating to the opposite gender. And so it's been very, the legalism kind of screwed me up, I guess, isn't as a good way to say yeah, so it's something that I still have to catch myself feeling, okay. No, this is, here's, here's just, here's just a girl that I can talk to. And this is fine. I don't have to worry about leading her on, she's as much in control of her own emotions as I am in control of mine. So recently, Joshua Harris, last year or so put out a documentary talking about the negative aspects or the negative repercussions of his book. And that, that whole teaching during that time when I was a teenager, but sadly, over the last two weeks, we're recording this at the end of July, over the last couple weeks. He's not he's now said that he and his wife are separated, and he's turned away from the faith.

So that's an example of legalism that has as he swung too far, what's your what's your take on? Well, my take on it may surprise you. Sure. First of all, when he wrote that book, and I read it, I was still illegal. lyst. Okay. And even then I thought that was crazy. So we'd all didn't buy into that even believe even among legalise. Some of us didn't buy into that. I dated my wife, she's the only girl I did ever date. Now, I know, that doesn't happen very often. But we dated and, you know, my children, David, and, you know, I didn't agree with that from the get go. But in fairness to him, he came to the place. He wrote that book, when he was a young guy himself. He came to the place where he said, Wait a minute, what what am I saying? I don't believe that. And in in, you know, he had the integrity to say, I don't agree with what I wrote. I mean, I've had to do that my first book rights walk I wrote when I was 3917 books later, I wrote a book called beyond an angry God, well, and over the years between 39 and when I wrote that last book that I've written, I said, you know, I've changed a lot. And I said, you're going to see some things that in this book that don't agree with what I said in my first book. So that's because I've grown I mean, that's true. And I'll church we talked about early Luther light Luther, early Calvin. Right. Right. So we all grow, and we all change that hope. So back to Joshua Harris. So he writes that book, and then he changes his mind about it. And as you said, He is the product of the legalistic culture that he lived. But now here's what here's the part that thing that I said, my surprise you? It is tragic that his marriages ended. But hang on. You said he did renounced his faith? I don't think so. I don't know. I haven't talked to the man. But what I suspect at what I suspect is that he renounced the faith that he knew, okay, but maybe his faith that he knew needed to be renounced. Maybe the legalistic God that he believed in is a god he needed to walk away from. I know I did, I have often said, that the god I believed in as a young person, I don't believe in that app, become an atheist toward that angry, punitive, judgmental, harsh, legalistic, demanding God, I don't believe in that God anymore. And so I rejected God at a certain point. But But let me be real clear, what I rejected was the god I had created in my imagination, and the God that had shaped for me in the legalistic culture I lived in. And it was, as I rejected that old view of God, or to put it another way, I rejected that God who in fact, was not God. Sure. It was then then I became more open to consider that maybe God is not who I thought he was. So here's my hope for Joshua Harris. Harris, I wish I could sit down and talk with with him. Because, you know, sometimes when people said to me, I walked away from God, I said, Well tell me who God is that you walk away from. And they describe God so good for you. You needed to walk away from that God, maybe Joshua Harris is at a place now where the right messenger and the right message comes along to him. He can now understand that he did a good thing. I he's in process, remember, sure always renounced his fate, but what version of faith? What God, what form of Christianity has he renounced? Maybe he needed to renounce that and now he might be at the place where he can encounter a God who is very different from that silly tyrant God that he believed in back before, maybe now he can meet the God that Jesus Yeah, the true God, and don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting he's not really a believer. I mean, I think you'd let's be clear, I think that most people in the modern evangelical church have a false concept of God. People say, well, they don't need that, that talking about other religions, like the Muslims. Well, I don't believe in the same God I do. I say, Listen, I grew up the Baptist Church, and they don't believe in the same God I do.

So maybe Josh Harris is at a place now where that kernel of wheat has fallen to the ground and died. Yeah. And maybe now some new life is going to come out of it. That's what I believe in hope and trust for him to be the case. Yeah, because let's face it, when you've got the when you when you How can I say this, when you sense that call from God in your heart, you get mad, walk away and storm out and shake your fist and do everything you want. But what you know that you know, that you know, deep down inside, which is that there is a real guy, you're going to still feel that draw that attraction. And so I trust and pray that he'll come to a place now where he understands the truth. And as far as what he's done in the last few weeks, not about his marriage, of course, but about his faith. He's walked away and said, I don't believe that anymore. I applaud him for that. I'm not one of those who say that's a shame. I'm one of those who say, I hope his, I hope the way he screwed up so many people with that book. Now he can have that same kind of influence, to help people understand that that whole concept of who God is that they might have failed all their life has been damaging to them, instead of helpful so that they can come to the point that they're open to the idea, maybe God is that they felt they can meet the real God.

So if I'm understanding you correctly, your view of doing the right things. You know, like, we've got our we've got the 10 commandments. And we've got all these laws that are actually in the Old Testament, in the Bible, when Jesus boils it down to love the Lord your God with it heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Now, if you love God, all those good things happen as an outpouring of love, and God's it's a response to grace. And, but sometimes we try to just do those things without the love for God. Am I understanding you correctly?

We're on we're on shaky ground here in my mind, high voltage here. Yes, I know. Okay, first of all, we don't have to live by the 10 commandments anymore. We don't live by the law. If there's one thing the Apostle Paul made clear, it was that we were made to die to the law, so that we might be joined together to the one who was raised from the dead. to Christ, I don't live by the law. I have nothing to do with religious law, the Old Testament law or no law, I have nothing to do with religious law anymore. In fact, Paul, in Romans seven five says sinful passions are aroused by the law. God did not give those Jewish people in the Old Testament the law, so that they know how to live. He didn't give them that law, thinking they would keep it. He knew they wouldn't keep it both. So what they knew they wouldn't keep it, then why did he give it to them? Because in their self righteous state, they thought they would keep it. And God was saying to his people, do you really think that you can behave in a way to earn something from me? No. And they said, Just try us, give us the law, give us the law. So God gave them the law. And they failed miserably. Later, the apostle Paul would say that the law was a tutor, at teacher to bring us to Christ, but we were made to die to the law. So we don't live by laws anymore. Now, I'll give you an example. My dad, he never speeds when he's never speeds in the car. He never litters. He never gets drunk. He never commits adultery. He never steals. He never passes. He never lasts.

He never is impatient.

Sound like pretty good, man. Yeah, but this is one thing I didn't mention. My dad died in 2006. So my dad doesn't live in the domain where any of those things even apply anymore. Speed limit, littering laws. He's outside that domain. That's what happened to us. Paul said, we died with Christ. We died with Christ, the old man was crucified, the scripture says, we were taken out of that world of law. And we were put into a world of grace. So now we have been set free from the law. We have no responsibility to that anymore. We have no obligation to it anymore. And so since we had been set free from it, we don't have to focus on it. What do we do we focus on Christ. And as we focus on Christ, than the lifestyle that we live, are we keeping the law No. But to somebody who judges us by the law, it might look like we're keeping the law, but that's not what we're doing. It just looks that way. If you insist on trying to apply that template to us.

I like that. That explanation that's good.

What No, I don't keep a law. I used to say this. Even when I began teaching grace, I misunderstood. I'd say it's Christ lives through you, then you will, you will, you will keep the law and see later, you know, Christ was the fulfillment of the law. We don't live what we have no connection to law anymore. We don't need law anymore. But our lifestyle is not a law keeping lifestyle or lifestyle is animated by the perfect righteousness of the Christ who lives inside us. And again, if somebody wants to take that law template, it's going to look to them like we're keeping the law, but we're not.

Okay, make sense that that makes more sense than my my pitiful explanation earlier. Well, Steve, do you remember the first thing that, that you heard God speak to you?

From the time I was a young boy, I was always aware of the presence of Christ in me.

And

I was aware of him speaking to me, guiding me directing me at so many times in so many ways. I think, maybe, rather than say the first time, I would be easier, it would be easier for me to answer the most significant time, okay. It was on October 619 90. When I said, God, I give up, I quit. And he said, Good. I've been waiting for you to get to this place. Now, what I was quitting was all of my effort to try to live for Him. In fact, I said to him, I, I'm done with it. If you want this church to grow, it's on you. If you want me to behave and live, a godly lifestyle, if you want me to act a certain way, then you better make me do it. Because From now on, I'm tired of the struggle. I'm tired of this rededication and trying hard and then failing and rededicated I'm tired of that I'm done with and I'm exhausted. I'm just going to be Steve, I'm just going to be me. And I'm going to just live my life. And for all the good stuff that happens, I'll give you the credit for all the bad stuff that happens, I'll give you the blame. Because it's not my life is yours. And he said, Good. And that was that was, that was the most significant thing I had heard because, again, sometimes, church folks who've been steeped in the religious legalism of the 21st century world and 20th century world, don't understand that. When you understand your identity in Christ, when you know that you live in union with God through Christ, and your nature is of perfectly righteous nature, Peter, the apostle said, we become a partakers of the divine nature, when you know that, you can chill out and do whatever you want to do. Now, you know that scares, there's going to be people listening to me say that right now that's going to scare them, I got it. Oh, wait a minute, the Bible says make no opportunity for the flesh. I said, you can do what you want to do. Your heart's desire will be change. That doesn't mean you won't have impulsive momentary opportunities to act out of character. But that doesn't change your route desire. Let me let me say that anybody who's listening right now you're going out doing the funky cold Medina and acting like a fool and live in like hell itself in? Are you happy? Are you happy with that, you know, Christ, I can guarantee it, they're going to say deep down inside. Now, it's not satisfying, it's not gratifying. So I'll say to you, then, that might be listening, I would say, well, then you're not really doing what you want to do. To the contrary, you find yourself in the place, Paul was when he said, I don't understand myself at all the things I want to do, and things that don't do, and the things that don't want to do, or the things I find myself doing, who's going to help me out of this mess. I'm wretched, I'm miserable, who's going to help? I'm telling you that somebody who has has understood that Christ is our life, and they belong to him. They don't, they might go out and do crazy stuff. But that's not their heart's desire. They're just trapped in foolish behavior. And it is gratifying. But it's not satisfying. Yeah. And they'll soon learn that.

Yeah. See, there's a couple of questions that I love to ask whenever I do these conversations. If you could go into the past and talk to a younger version of yourself, what would advice What advice would you give yourself? And where along your timeline would you interact with yourself,

I would go back to my 19 year old self, because that's when I became a faster when you asked that I wrote a blog about that a while back what I would say to my younger self, I would go back to my nine 19 year old self. And I would say to them my 19 year old self, Steve, I know when I tell you this, you're going to think that as an old man, you've lost your mind and you become a compromising, you know, watered down liberal kind of person, but you need to listen to me, Steve, you need to listen. A lot of the things that if you don't correct your course, now that you're going to worry about, and think our life and death and are so important. When you get be 65, you'll realize they weren't that important. So here's my advice, young Steve, just chill out. Jesus said, Come unto me, and I'll give you a rest. But you act like it's a race. It's not a race, it's you act like it's a test. Now we can be It's a race in the sense that we're running for fun. But it's not a test, it's arrest. So just to allow, relax, let receive God's love for you. And then share that love with other people. Don't take yourself so seriously, in fact, don't take life. So seriously. Now remember, I'm a type A personality, that might not be what everybody needs to write. But I would say to myself, don't take life so seriously. You don't have to charge hell with a squirt gun thinking you're going to put out the flames. You could just enjoy this rest in Christ and be who you are. And let Christ be who he is in you and through you. And you'll make your life a lot easier. And you'll make the life of people around you a lot easier to as he said, my yoke is easy. And my burden is light. And I looking back, John, I put a unnecessarily put a lot of demands on myself that and I think a lot of folks do this, I put so many demands on myself that now I realized God didn't put those demands on me. Hearing Peter, Lord many years ago, make this statement. Wouldn't it be horrible to spend your whole life making God an apple pie, only to die and discover he didn't like apple pie. And that's sort of what, in some ways I did for a long time. Thinking God expected this, God expected that I needed to be doing this, I need to be doing that. We're wearing ourselves out, we're called to a lack of arrest. And that doesn't mean passivity. In fact, for folks like me, resting can be the hardest thing we do. Because I'm I'm hardwired for activity, and action. But rest means that we are animated about a life of Christ in this instead of trying to let flesh or ego you know, control and propel us forward with high speed. So then answer it.

Yeah. Yeah. You kind of pulled in some of the another question I'd like to ask is about the, you know, Jesus is walking with us. But we don't realize until we look back and you kind of roll that all into the same and say the truth is Jesus is not walking with us. Jesus is expressing divine light through us.

There's a difference. Yeah. Jesus is not with me.

He is in a sense, but only because he's in me. He's in me. And his desire is to express his very light through me policy glaciers. 220. I no longer live, I don't have a life. I was crucified with Christ. I no longer live. but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in this physical body, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, it's the life of Christ to be expressed through me, not my life, not me doing things for him. I won't even say I even dispute this. People say, well, Christ is in my life. No, he's not. Christ is not in your life. Because when you have that attitude, you still have a dualistic mindset. There's me there's Christ, know, Christ is your life. Paul said, for me to live is Christ. JOHN said, When Christ who is our life shall appear Christ is not in my life. He is there he is our life the way I illustrated it for Gosh, since 1990 is an illustration I wrote about my first book about sweet tea. Now you guys up here, Yankees? No, don't know what that is. First time I you know, I was here in Pennsylvania. I was here, Cornerstone television a lot back in the 90s. And when I first started coming, I went over here to what is it Irma's and Mack center Max and armas. And I sat in there, this little Southern boy looked at him said, Can I get something to drink? I said, Yeah, could I have some sweet tea? The server brought it set down on the table. I tasted so I said to this waitress, I said, That's not sweetie. She looked at the tea. And she looked at the sugar right in front of it. And then she looked at the tea. And she looked at me and she looked at the tea. And then I realized, oh, bless her heart. She doesn't understand. She thinks that I can make that T sweet by putting sugar in it. Now hear me out. Let me and I jokingly tell in my my second book called The grace rules, I gave the recipe for sweet tea, which is very helpful. I jokingly say it's not just a ministry of graces some culinary ministry down the Northerners learn how to make tea. So as I said, I thought to myself this poor girl that get acted put sugar in that iced tea and stir it started started started started, it's not going to make it sweet. 30 seconds from now all the all the sugar is going to be settled to the bottom of the grass and it's still going to be on sweet tea with sugar in it. Now, the way you make sweet tea is this. You take the tea bags, put it in a little power pan and you put water and you boil it and then you take that hot concentrate and you pour it into a gallon pitcher. And then when you pour it into that gallon pitcher, steam, you know it's morning, concentrate, here's the here's the step. Here's the step you take to cut sugar. So gallon pitcher, you take two cups of sugar and you pour the pour it into that hot scalding concentrate right now the sugar dissolves. And so you finish filling it up with water and you stir it the sugar has now been dissolved into the tea. So now

Now

you've got you've got something that's not tea and it's not sugar because the two have become one, right? I've said this and one guy said you know sugar had one guy to conference said to me, he said you know sugar has a certain chemical composition. tea has certain chemical composition, he said but when you put the two together it creates a brand new composition, which is neither sugar nor t you know what it's called? Sweet Tea, white tea blessing. Bless your heart. A lot of folks give me a blank stare. That's right. It's a new thing a new creation. Crop now Christ coming into your life, Christ in your life. That's the that's the new order de with the sugar at the bottom of the glass of iced tea. Christ as your life. You know that sweet tea. But you become a sharer, Peter said, A partakers of the divine nature. Christ is so fused his lack with your lack that it's not your life in Christ life. It's just our life in Christ. Yeah.

Now, you might like this little addition to that, all right. If you add, if you add lemon to the tea, before you add the sugar, it won't. Even if it's hot, it won't connect

really

well, then you're adding something else that's not supposed to be there if you're adding rules and regulations. Lemon. Is that true? If you do the limit first it won't. The sugar won't dissolve. My dad always always says that. And he's demonstrated it. And so

where were you? 30 years ago when I started giving this illustration. That's a great illustration. And you're right, that lemon, and what a perfect metaphor for religious rules. A lemon. But you know, people are scared of grace. Because they think well, but if you don't if I'm and I tell you, man, I was speaking at a pastor's conference one time and I said quit preaching religious rules to these people. And so help me I promise this happened. a pastor raised his hand in the q&a. And he said, You said to quit preaching religious rules to folks. He said, If I dont preach word, religious rules, what am I supposed to preach? And I said, No. How about Christ? Yeah, but it isn't it amazing that in the world of the religious world of the modern church, we're so caught up in legalism, that poor guy couldn't think of anything to preach if he didn't dumb legalistic laws on them. Wow, people are scared if they don't have the rules. They're scared. They'll run a while. I let me say, let me say some of the folks listening you and i right now, some of the people listening. They've never been free to live a holy lifestyle. You know why? Because they've always been obligated to. You can't be obligated and free at the same time. So true. So you got to know your free free, Paul says all things are lawful. Anything is permissible. In fact, some translations say that anything is permissible. But then it goes on and says, but not all things are profitable. Yeah. In other words, you want to act like a fool, you're free to do that. But be ready to pay the price. It's not going to be God punishing you. I mean, the wages of sin is death. Who pays the wages of sin? not God. God doesn't kill you. Because you sin, sin kills it sin, Rob's life, the wages of sin that brings it and back to those rules. And you know, the book of Hebrews, you know, are we fulfilling the law? Well, the writer of Hebrews says, when the New Covenant came in the Old Covenant was made obsolete. That's exactly what it says. obsolete. is the way he describes the old system of rules. We're not under that anymore. I'm in Pennsylvania, my wife's down in Florida right now live way from now. Am I going to come to Pennsylvania and find a girlfriend now? Why not? Because there's some Bible law that tells me not committed adultery. No, I'm not going to do it. Because love motivates me. Yeah. I don't need a law telling me that there are laws to tell you how to raise children. But good parents don't need those laws. Because love motivates them. Very true. Yeah. And so the same is true in our spiritual

Steve, what's the life verse that you have? You probably have a number of them but

Well,

I think

probably

the that's, that's a hard question. I do love relations to 20. I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live. But it's not me. It's Christ lives in me. And this life that I'm living right here in this 65 year old body is a life that I live by the faith of the Son of God. I love that one because it describes the essence of what life is about.

It teaches us that we're not who we think we are.

Most of the time, because most of us, we judge our identity based on our actions. And we think well, if you lie, you're a liar. No, you're not. You're not defined by actions. It's not behavior that defines you its birth. Right? birth defines you not behavior. Well, I had been born by His resurrection from the dead script, Peter said, as a child of God. So I am identified by my birth in Christ, not by my actions, and a lot of folks don't get that. So the license to 20 makes that really clear that we died in the old the old a dynamic race died in Jesus Christ. And we right were raised together with him to a newness of life. Paul said enrollments. Yeah. And so that's who we are.

Steve, I always like to ask, what is a book that you would recommend for me?

You know, I, I knew you were going to ask that you give me a heads up. I thought about it. I'd be hard pressed to name one book. I've written 17 I could push those but the last book I wrote is actually the most important book of my lifetime, I think but so far, but I I'll tell you, I'd rather tell you who my output some authors. Yeah. And why, even when it comes to the love of God, and understanding God's love.

I don't think anybody did a better job of it than Brennan Manning.

Brennan Manning. He wrote books like Arbus, ciao, ragamuffins gospel, the lion and the lamb. Brennan Manning was a treasure in a in an earthen vessel. The man struggled with addiction to alcohol all his life, and he would relapse over and over and over. But I love the verse in Proverbs, it says the just man falls seven times and rises up again, because that's what Britain did. He get up and go again. And he go out telling the love of God, he was always very transparent about his own weaknesses and faults and failures. But because he speaks or spoke, he's going to heaven now, but because he spoke from a place of brokenness, his words in his books would bring me to tears over and over. So Brennan Manning is a great author. When it comes to theology, Thomas F. torrents, now this is getting into books where people, you know, they'd have to have a propensity for deep studying being a serious student, but Thomas F. torrents, he wrote a lot of good books on tributary theology and who, who God is Christ is Robert KCAPON. wrote some good books, my favorite book, maybe my favorite book ever is a book Robert Kagan wrote, called the tween noon and three, that might be my favorite book that I've ever read. It's irreverent. It is, it's, it's, it's almost garish, in the way that it presents grace in all of its raw purity. It will offend religious sensitivities when I got that book and started reading it. And I'll say this for the sake of any listener who might buy it, I would read a while and he would make me mad, and I would throw the book down, I say, that guy's an idiot, this is ridiculous. And then I would pick it back up and start reading and I would find myself shedding tears of joy. And then I go a little further, and he made me mad, and I throw it down again. And then I pick it back up. By the time I finished that book, that guy had gouged every religious legalistic nerve inside me. So that was a good one. Robert.

How do we find your books?

Yeah, well, thanks for asking. My books. I've written seven thing my last book is is. Again, I think the most important book I wrote my most popular book was my first book, Grace wall books in 16 languages. And you can find my books on Amazon. Or, yeah, that the best way you can go to my website, Grace wall.org, and find a link to my resources there. But you are, you can get it on Amazon. I think if you come to Steve vai.com, you'll find links that will point you toward my resources, but I'm on Amazon,

right? I'll provide links for these. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. And Steve, we hadn't even we haven't even touched on this thing that you're passionate about right now the quantum life. And so we're gonna have to save that for

later. I'm excited about that. Can I kind of just give a little plug on that? Absolutely. I live with a group every morning. Every weekday morning, I meet live at 830 Eastern Standard Time, the video stays online. And you know, they can watch it anytime. But I meet with a live group. And what In short, what I've learned is that quantum the world of quantum science, the quantum world, coincides perfectly with the kingdom of God, with the invisible world of God's kingdom, because the quantum world is the world of the invisible reality that shapes and guides and gives expression to everything in the physical world. It is the kingdom of God. And with the advent of quantum science, early in the 20th century, we're at a place now where we're experiencing what Jesus said. When he told his disciples, they asked how do you do all these weird things, these miracles? And he said, I could tell you what you won't understand. You couldn't bear it now, he said, but I'm sending a teacher who guides you into all truth. I believe right now the 20th century we're seeing that happen with it. With the advent of quantum science, I think we're seeing that material as rav4 as That's fascinating.

Yeah, that's gonna be really cool to have a follow up conversation about that. Perfect. Alright, well, Steve, thank you so much for being on along the way.

Thanks, enjoyed it.

Through my time with Steve McVeigh, I've come to realize that I need to really study more about God's grace so that I can have my own understanding, and not just rely on what I've thought my whole life. My view of grace was unknowingly more rigid and legalistic. Then I realized, there were plenty of verses in the Bible about grace, and many more books about the topic as well. Grace changes everything. And we need to dive into God's grace. I love how he prayed, God, whatever it takes, and he meant it. How willing Am I to pray that prayer, and really mean it. I liked the document that he signed with God, I give God permission, I acknowledge his right to do anything he wants to do in me, to me, with me or through me. I want to claim these rights as mine, but now I've relinquished them and they belong to Him. This is is not an easy agreement to make with God. I've made ones like that in the past. But I honestly am not sure how ready I am to renew that commitment. I've been trying to process this since our conversation because I know that surrendering our rights and placing them in God's hand is by far the best for me and for you. But it is difficult. And I don't want to just say something flippantly and not be serious and follow through with the Lord. God's character is multifaceted, and he is excitedly wanting to reveal more of Himself to us all the time. Grace is often misunderstood. But it doesn't cause us to be wild. It causes us to love Jesus. And when we love Jesus, our hearts desire will be changed. And we won't desire the things that are not good for us. We are called to live a life of rest, trusting in Jesus, so chill out. That's what I needed. tell myself a lot.

Just relax john

Stevens, some authors that were very influential for him, Brennan Manning, Thomas F. torrents, and Robert Kagan and specifically the book between noon and three. If you want to know more about Stephen the cafe. As always, I'll be putting links in the show notes. Thank you for listening to along the way. If you've enjoyed joining me along my way, please share this with a friend who you think will be encouraged by this podcast. Also, please rate and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening. And as always, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram and at my website along the way dot media. You can also email me at John along the way at gmail. com. I hope you've enjoyed this part of my journey and may you realize when Jesus is walking with you along your way.