Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the World Changers Church Gold Coast Podcast. Join us as we listen to today's message.
[00:00:06] Okay, you know this be still T shirt here, people are like. People who know me are like, not really are you.
[00:00:14] I'm always like, I'll be it back. I'll be there anyway. I'll be there. But it's an internal thing. We all know that, right? We all know be still and know I'm God is a inside thing.
[00:00:25] So thank you, Pastor Kyle, and thank you, Pastor Tina, for giving me the honor on Mother's Day to stand up here and just bring a message to you that God has been working on me all week. I've been in tears, I've been in laughter, I've been weeping, asking for prayer, getting texts from people saying, we're praying for you. Something's going on, you know, and it's a beautiful thing. But Mother's Day for me is the hardest. Being a mother has been the hardest thing. I mean, outside of marriage.
[00:00:50] It's the hardest thing I've done.
[00:00:53] It really is.
[00:00:54] It's the darkest days I've experienced.
[00:00:58] And, you know, I want to honor all mothers here, not just biological mothers, not just stepmothers, people carers, foster carers, people doing it on their own.
[00:01:13] It's a thing called motherhood. Spiritual mothers, ministry mothers, community mothers, mothers at school, teachers.
[00:01:21] Gosh, motherhood's huge, isn't it?
[00:01:24] And as I was crying in the week at some point, just thinking, oh, my gosh, it's the deepest thing that I've gone to so far in my life, when it hits you personally, I found Joyce Meyers on YouTube as you do, and it made me giggle. So I have to share it with you. I have to share this with you, so don't get offended. Father's okay, it's just a joke.
[00:01:45] The mother says, I'm going to bed. Gets up off the sofa, I'm going to bed. Then she picks her toys off the floor. She loads the dishwasher, puts a load of laundry in the machine, remembers she hasn't packed the kids lunches, lays out the clothes for tomorrow, checks the doors to make sure they're locked, picks up the socks and shoes left out, turns the lights off, checks each child is brushed their teeth, fixes their quilts, kisses them again. Good night. The husband shouts from the sofa. Florida, have you not gone to bed yet? She's like, answers a quick email she forgot for work, writes a note for the next day's schedule, fills the dog's water bottle, takes something out of the freezer for tomorrow because she forgot about dinner.
[00:02:25] Finally, she washes her face, puts her creams on. She has to remain beautiful as well.
[00:02:29] And then finally gets in bed with her mask on and all that, ready for tomorrow.
[00:02:34] Meanwhile, the husband says, I'm going to bed, and goes to bed right now. This is. I read it to Paddy, and he's like, oh, gosh, that is true. In our house, Paddy will walk up the stairs, there'll be a school bag, shoes, clothes from the ironing, and he'll walk straight past them. Just won't see them. It's something about how we're designed, right? And I'm like, did you not see this while you were going to bed? You know, but, you know, in Genesis, it says, the Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone.
[00:03:03] I will make a suitable helper for them. And. And we are women. We are truly, truly the helpers. So, you know, we get one day a year. We'll take it, okay? I think we need a lot more, but we'll take it. We'll take it. And I'll make up all of this. We'll make up all this in church on Father's Day, okay? We'll love you and cherish you.
[00:03:22] But seriously, we want to honor all motherhood roles.
[00:03:26] If you look at a scripture, God showed me this scripture throughout the week. He said Romans 12:15. Especially when it comes to Apostle Paul, when he said this scripture, he was talking to community and togetherness and saying, rejoice with those who rejoice, but weep with those who weep.
[00:03:45] And, you know, it's called a celebration of Mother's Day. But, you know, so many people we join together today with in the sound of our voice out there that maybe can't make it to church in the morning because they're in so much suffering.
[00:03:59] Apostle Paul said, rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Because we know in a community, we're all going through life lots of different stuff.
[00:04:08] We know mourning of loss of a mother. We know people are mourning. We know people have lost children, whether it be in the womb, whether it be after birth, people have lost children.
[00:04:19] You'll never, ever not mourn that on Mother's Day. It's a time when we bring it up.
[00:04:25] Some are waiting to love a child that haven't experienced that yet. They haven't got there yet.
[00:04:31] Some have a knitted baby in their womb and are going to experience it very soon. We rejoice with you.
[00:04:37] Some are Loving the time of being a mum and a family. And that's a beautiful thing. Grandmothers have seen much.
[00:04:45] Grandmothers have seen a lot.
[00:04:47] We weep and rejoice with you because I'd imagine you've been through a lot.
[00:04:51] And foster parents and care mums I fostered for 18 months in England.
[00:04:58] And honestly, if I didn't cry in one day, from what they have to experience and the deep well of pain and love and rejoicing and all that at once.
[00:05:08] Paddy, when he took on my two older children when we got married, he said being a stepfather, learning to be a stepfather was the hardest thing he ever did.
[00:05:16] To take on someone else's values and to be able to, you know, that fractional thing that goes on, it's the hardest. So we honor you if you've taken on someone else's children. Wow. It's a beautiful thing.
[00:05:29] And God worked on me throughout the week. And as I said in the weeping and in the rejoicing, many people here know me, know I'm not a poet person. I am not someone who comes up with poems. I'm certainly not someone who's creative. Right. So if you know me, you know I'm a logic, very framework, process person.
[00:05:48] So this is from God to you? Because it's not from me. Okay. Because it's just impossible for me to write this. And with the help of people and reflection and time, this is what came out from God.
[00:06:03] So the deep well of a mother's heart.
[00:06:06] I see you, daughter.
[00:06:08] From the beginning, I crafted the heart of a mother.
[00:06:11] A deep well of fierce and tender love. A place where hope refuses to die, where sacrifices are made in secret, where battles are fought with tears no one else sees but me.
[00:06:23] I watch Mary, young and afraid, say yes. When the world would not understand.
[00:06:27] I saw her endure the whispers, the journey and the labor pains with nowhere else to rest.
[00:06:32] I was there when she fled the night, cradling her child, trusting that my voice was enough to guide her steps.
[00:06:39] I see every mother who follows after her. The long nights, the silent prayers, the survival through heartbreak, the laughter, the. That bubbles up in the heart when the heart is so tired.
[00:06:50] Your heart, Mother, is a hidden battlefield and a secret garden. You protect, provide and press forward even when you feel empty. You feel the shortcomings of a broken world. You feel it more acutely than anyone.
[00:07:03] The pain, the injustice, the fear for your children's future. And still you fiercely love and go on when no one else notices. I do. When you rise to pray early, I notice. When you Wipe away the tears. You don't explain to anyone. I notice when you stand on the crossroads between heartbreak and hope, I am there.
[00:07:24] I chose a young girl from Nazareth to carry my son because I knew only a heart like yours could hold such mystery, such cost and such endurance.
[00:07:33] I see the mother wounds you carry from generational past. I see that you've had to survive, not just live where you have fought to protect your children's future while carrying your own unseen burdens.
[00:07:45] I am the God who binds up the brokenhearted.
[00:07:48] Take heart. The secret sacred work you do is never unseen in my kingdom.
[00:07:54] Your private yes echoes louder in eternity than a public victory ever that the world praises. Your hidden faithfulness is precious to me. And I'm your strength, your shield and your reward.
[00:08:07] Well done, beloved. I am with you always.
[00:08:11] And that had me in bits. I can't believe I just got through that. Because.
[00:08:15] And I hope you heard that in your heart from God, because the deep well of a mother's heart is so, so, so deep. And it's not that your fathers don't have it. It's just, you know, Mother's Day.
[00:08:29] I'm sure Pastor Kyle will write you a nice Father's Day poem, but a bit about it leading into my testimony, hence the tears. My testimony is in Weymouth. In England, where I was brought up, you are taught to marry a Navy man and have kids by the time you're 18. If you're going to survive, you know, that's it, pretty much it. So I got married, had my first children, 18, 19.
[00:08:51] And then I got a job, a career in sales and marketing. And I got entered into this world of darkness.
[00:08:59] I didn't know God. Nobody had ever mentioned a Bible to me. Nobody had ever mentioned love to me. I don't think I'd even experienced what love was at this point.
[00:09:07] And so I couldn't love my children. It was the most bizarre thing. I think back now because I didn't realize it then because you're caught in it, right? God hasn't opened your eyes to it yet. So I was just in darkness. I couldn't hug them. I couldn't love them. I was a very functional mother. I just couldn't. Like with Leo now, I'm just always cuddling up to him.
[00:09:25] But I remember being a mum without God. I remember it clearly. I left my children. They were three and four. I left my husband.
[00:09:34] And you think back to this. You know, I had affairs.
[00:09:38] I just left. I just deserted them.
[00:09:41] And now, I mean, obviously now I can say this because I've had immense healing from God in all of this, but I've. It's the darkest and the deepest secrets in my heart from what I've gone through in parenting.
[00:09:53] But then God, as he does, found me, saved me, and I've had the honor and the privilege of now having a child and a family unit with God right in the center of it. Leo was born three years after Paddy and I were saved, and I can just. I don't know how moms do it without God. I have no idea. Well, I do. I did it, but it didn't look good.
[00:10:17] But that's really what today's about. It's like, if you haven't got God in the center of everything you do, then it just doesn't work out.
[00:10:26] Leo, now I can hug, and I feel it in my heart, you know, now I know love. I can receive love right now. I know I'm loved. I can receive love. And it wasn't that my children, George and Amy, didn't love me. Of course they did. I'm their mother. They wanted to hug me. I was just like, oh, come on, go. I've got work to do. Come on, don't do that weak stuff, loving and all that, you know, that's all, you know, that's dark stuff, you know? And I walked out that darkness without even knowing. Now I look back, I think, my goodness, who was I? It's just another lifetime, another person, because my eyes were open to the love of God, and I had never experienced that.
[00:11:04] And I'm just so grateful. God's a God of reconciliation and restoration. George is on his way over on a plane right now. He is coming to live here. Leo's obviously here. He has no choice. And Amy's coming back in a few months, and my three children have been reconciled and restored and healed through Jesus Christ.
[00:11:21] And that is just, you know. But it doesn't take away the deep well of a pain of a mother's heart and all the things that happened in that. But you just look at it and smile and say, hey, it's not about me. It's about what God's done and what a miracle that is. Do you know that Jesus Christ was the only person in history that got to choose his mum?
[00:11:43] Right?
[00:11:44] I mean, I don't think they would have chose me. Not George and Amy anyway. But Leo would have. But he chose his mother. God chose Mary, the mother of Jesus. Right?
[00:11:56] It blows my mind. What was it about Mary? I know as Christians, we're called To Christ follow. We follow Jesus. But the characters in the Bible are for us to examine, right?
[00:12:05] And I think Mary in the religious church world is either put far too much up there like God, or she's completely ignored. But Mary has so much to teach us. God chose her to bring the Savior of the world in. And, you know, being in a motherhood role, however that looks for you, is a ministry of influence.
[00:12:24] You know, you're being watched every second of every day, in your hidden times, all the time. You know that they watch.
[00:12:33] But why Mary?
[00:12:35] 1 Samuel 16:7 said, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn't look at the things people look at.
[00:12:47] People look at the outward appearance. The Lord looks at the heart.
[00:12:51] So he chooses people to do the mighty things here on earth because of what you're thinking, what your deepest desires are, what your heart is, who are you at your core being in the hidden moments. He doesn't choose people because they do a lot, serve a lot, give a lot.
[00:13:07] That's not it. It's all the inner heart stuff. Matthew 5:8 says, Blessed are the pure in heart. They will see God.
[00:13:17] I find that amazing. Luke 6:45. A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good.
[00:13:24] I mean, there's a lot of goods in there, right? But it makes it clear that if you've got a good heart, you'll bring forth good.
[00:13:29] It's pretty simple. Romans 10:10. For it is with your heart that you believe and you are justified.
[00:13:36] You know, in psychology, we look at the unconscious. You know, when we're doing counseling, et cetera, we look at the unconscious mind, which the Bible refers to as the heart.
[00:13:44] It's not what you really try to be. It's who you are. It's your core identity. That's why here in this church, as a restoration church, we focus on identity. In Christ, if you know your identity, you will be free.
[00:13:59] It's a journey for all of us, but it's the core being of who you are.
[00:14:04] So we don't know much necessarily about Mary's past. We can't look at her values and how, like Kaz was saying this morning, I was brought up by a wonderful father. We don't know Mary's really that. We know she was a place from a place called Nazareth.
[00:14:18] And then if you heard the saying, can anything good come from Nazareth?
[00:14:22] You know, in John 1:4-6, it says, can anything good come from Nazareth? We know that this was a village in Israel that had no significance whatsoever. Very commonplace.
[00:14:35] We know that they were poor when they, when Mary and Joseph came to do their rituals. If you were wealthy, you would bring a lamb and a dove. If you were poor, you would bring two birds, a pigeons and two doves. And we know in the Bible it tells us they brought that in their purification ritual. So we know they weren't flash with money.
[00:14:53] So we know it wasn't her riches he came after when God chose her.
[00:14:57] So we know that. And we know that. And Pastor Kyle, you can come up and correct me if I'm wrong, because I have studied it as much as possible. But we know that women in those days weren't theologically taught the Torah, but they were taught how to live out the Torah.
[00:15:12] They were taught how to bring it to a motherhood role, a community role, a gathering role. They were taught that they were. They belonged to God.
[00:15:21] They were taught pretty much, you belong to God, you are loved by God, and you live out that. So Mary knew that Israel, she belonged to God. That was her thing.
[00:15:32] And so we know that Angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her of such all this news. Okay, so we're going to go to Luke 1:26-38, and it's going to come up if you haven't got your Bibles.
[00:15:44] In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, greetings, you are highly favored. Whoever wants to hear that from an angel in their room? Greetings. You are highly favored.
[00:16:05] Now I've lost my place.
[00:16:07] Greetings. You are highly favored.
[00:16:10] The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a child, and you will call him Jesus. They will be great. And he will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. The kingdom will never end. How will this be? Mary asked the angel. I'm a virgin, the angel answered. The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child at her old age who Was said she was unable to do so and she's conceived and is in her six month.
[00:16:56] So what we know about Mary is that she was betrothed to Joseph. So she was about 14. She was probably between 12 and 16 years old.
[00:17:06] When you're betrothed you would have been about 14 years old. I've got a 13 year old son. If Angel Gabriel visiting him right now, any children and said that they'd be running, they'd be legging it. I mean in this day and age a 13 year old girl would be just working out her identity probably if we're lucky, you know, just about if we're lucky, if she's not caught up in all the comparison of the world and trying to figure it out. But we're pretty much figuring out our identity. If you're not brought up as a Christian in your 20s, you know, it's really. But this pregnancy. So Angel Gabriel's come to her and said you're going to get pregnant.
[00:17:41] So now she's going to be pregnant outside of marriage. Huge scandal, public disgrace, death by stoning. In those days she was a virgin, which meant nobody's naturally going to believe her. Nobody's going to believe that she is pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Her engagement to Joseph was almost certainly endangered. And we know in the Bible it said he tried to see secretly divorce her until he got visited and confirmed what was going on. Social shame. The entire reputation of her and her mother and her family would have been gone.
[00:18:13] And then the spiritual weight of being told, you're just about to have the Son of God, you're going to be pregnant with the Son of God. To me that is unbelievable.
[00:18:25] Why did she then respond with Luke 1:38, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.
[00:18:36] Could you imagine? I mean I'm a coach therapist and I hear a lot. Why? Why has this happened to me? Why? It can't be. It couldn't have been God's plan. I'm going to turn around this way and go this way now because of the persecution that's coming that way. It can't have been that for me. It must have. Why would he do this to me? But if we just look at this example alone, her calling in life to carry the Son of God. She was persecuted from the minute she was told she was going to carry him. What would your response be if you were told? I remember my response was, when you're going to Australia, give up everything and go. There was a lot of things going on in my head and my family's head, you know, and we're just going to look at a few characteristics of how did she get through that with such a beautiful response of, I'm your servant, let it be done.
[00:19:27] I mean, if we could all respond like that, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing, a faithful vessel. She was just such a faithful vessel. When we come into church, how many people are, use me, God, use me. Make me the vessel you need me to be. I want to serve you, I want to.
[00:19:42] But when the callings come that don't look quite like we thought we were going to be, do we respond like this?
[00:19:50] You know what, Father, I didn't expect this plan.
[00:19:53] In fact, I was supposed to be a pastor in Manchester right now. You know, my plan was very different to his plan.
[00:19:59] But do we respond like this? She was such a faithful vessel.
[00:20:03] And, you know, all Mary really knew is that she belonged to the Lord.
[00:20:07] She didn't have Bible college, she didn't have theology college. She didn't know everything. She didn't even know. Well, she did at this point, but Jesus, she's in Old Testament, you know, she didn't know any of that. And yet she knew she belonged to God.
[00:20:25] And I think if we could get rid of everything in our heads, everything in this world, cancel it out and just know, like, you know, like you know you belong to God, then all you need to do is know who God is.
[00:20:39] If you know you belong to him and you know who God is, there shouldn't be many problems in this world that we face because he is perfect and he is love and he loves you and you belong to him.
[00:20:52] And so whatever's going on in this world, like Mary's life, when she first heard all of that, she just said, I'm your servant, let your word be done.
[00:21:01] Wow. What a response.
[00:21:03] The thing about mary in Luke 2:19, it says, but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
[00:21:13] So we know Mary was a ponderer. We know that she didn't just react and respond. You know, nowadays with all the information coming at us and we're fast paced, we often respond straight away, don't we? But what we can take from her character is that she pondered, she treasured stuff in her heart. She went off and she applied, oh, I'm loved by God, I belong to God, you know, and she knew that.
[00:21:37] She knew like she knew, like she knew.
[00:21:40] And that changed everything. This could have gone very wrong. Had she responded like I respond Sometimes, you know, it could have gone very, very wrong.
[00:21:49] She kept focus on God, no matter what.
[00:21:52] She was told all of this and said, let it be done. Let your word be done. But she also believed in the impossible. I expect Mary had been told the what God had done in Egypt and led all the Israelites out and the miracles and all of that. She just believed God's going to do it because that's the way it is.
[00:22:09] She just knew. Like she knew, like she knew. And I think sometimes nowadays in the Christian world, we have so much knowledge and not enough knowing.
[00:22:19] This isn't it. This isn't it. You can quote as much scripture as you like, but until you see the fruit and until you know, like you know you are loved. Now, to know your love doesn't mean you know God is love. We all know God is love. But for you to receive it personally, it takes you to get out your own way.
[00:22:36] It does. You can't come to God. You can come to God with all your insecurities right where you are. Of course that's what we do. But he's trying to lead you to repentance like he did with me. Because I knew I was forgiven for what I did to my children. I knew that. I knew because someone told me, you know, you're forgiven. And I believe that.
[00:22:53] But my heart still was angry and fed up and shameful and guilty of all the things I'd done previous to being 38 years of destruction, by the way I did. That's a lot of repentance. But just because I was forgiven, I needed to know God loved me. And I couldn't receive that until I'd got rid of my shame and guilt. And all of those things you have to move out of to receive it. And the beautiful thing about Jesus is he meets us right where we are.
[00:23:18] He doesn't say, come to church when you're done. He says, come to church. I really want to walk out your repentance with you and just make you whole and know how much I love you.
[00:23:28] The faithful in the hidden and the ordinary.
[00:23:32] She was faithful in the hidden and the ordinary. If there's ever a job, it's motherhood, where you have to be faithful in the hidden right. For years and years, with the chickenpox and the illnesses and the.
[00:23:42] Oh, God, I still remember it now.
[00:23:45] Need some healing there.
[00:23:48] The sleepless nights, the yeses. Mary said yes. In the hidden moments.
[00:23:54] You know what? If you're busy looking for the extraordinary Christian life, you're probably looking for the Wrong thing.
[00:24:01] Jesus comes to us in our quiet moments, in our ordinary moments, and he sees the heart. He sees everything you're doing in your private time. He sees every decision you're making, how you're treating your children. He sees all of that. And this is not to condemn.
[00:24:14] This is not to condemn. This is because he wants to take that out and say, that's the world. This isn't us. This is not what we do. I can offer you so much love and saturation in love. God says that you can change all of that.
[00:24:27] And that's the beautiful thing about being, having the humility to get on your knees and say, God, I can't do this. I need to get out my own way, because I need your love.
[00:24:36] And we said before, mothers, you're being watched. Dads, you're being watched. But mothers, you're being watched.
[00:24:42] You're being watched every minute of every day. And that ministry of influence that you have on those little people or big people, teenagers, more so, is all through your actions and your behaviors, your words, your hidden moments, your ordinary moments. That's what's shaping them.
[00:24:58] That's what's shaping them.
[00:25:01] Luke 16:10 says one, one who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.
[00:25:08] And one who is dishonest in very little is also dishonest in much. And we can't hide it from God. So if you're dishonest in little, you won't be getting much.
[00:25:17] Matthew 6:6.
[00:25:19] But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray for your Father who is in secret.
[00:25:25] And your Father who sees it in secret will reward you.
[00:25:30] And then the third thing about Mary is faithful endurance. Okay, so she got so she heard all of this that we've heard already. Then Mary had to endure a difficult journey to Bethlehem. Straight away, pregnant, on a donkey, all the way to Bethlehem. She gets there, there's no room.
[00:25:45] There's no room for her. I mean, can you imagine right now I'd be like, this isn't from God. It can't be. It can't be. Look, they haven't even got a room for me. Surely God can work out a room for me, right? You know, we go into our justification and all of our stuff in our heads, and then we discance the knowing that we had in the first place of the calling and the anointing over our lives.
[00:26:04] She gave birth in a humble and harsh place. Then she was told, flee Herod's massacre.
[00:26:11] Oh my gosh, can you imagine how we'd be Responding to this, watching Jesus misunderstood and rejected his whole life. I've got two sons and if someone misunderstands him, I feel like going down the school and throat punching some people. In my human nature I'm like, don't you call my son that. Can you imagine Mary's grace upon grace upon grace that she needed to watch Jesus go through what he went through and let him because she trusted him. She's thinking, she's looking at him, not her and Jesus.
[00:26:42] You know, and this is the biggest problem we have in parenting, trying to control their lives.
[00:26:46] Instead of handing them over to Jesus, hand them to God. He gave them to you. He can take care of them as long as you're on your knees praying for them.
[00:26:56] And then after his death, then she just watched him die. She was at the cross, she didn't go anywhere, she didn't hide her head, she didn't go hide, she was at the cross, she watched him tortured and killed. Any mum here can do that, go through that.
[00:27:13] Not even at that point did she doubt her anointing and her calling. And then onwards after his death, taking him down, burying him, being faithful with the apostles, all of that, like just carrying on, you know, the dwell of the heart poem, the deep dwell. We go on, we go on, but we don't go on. I see so many people's like mine.
[00:27:34] Don't let your heart harden because of what you've been through.
[00:27:37] Just take it to God, you have to take it to God, otherwise you get a hard heart, your kids will get a hard heart and then we're all in trouble because now we're raising hard hearted generational people cannot be the way.
[00:27:49] But the fourth thing, and the main thing as I come to an end is she knew she was beloved, she knew that she was loved, she knew who she belonged to.
[00:28:02] And can we honestly say that?
[00:28:05] Because I think in this day and age, I think, you know, you have to meditate on that, you have to take quiet time on that, otherwise you'll forget. You can feel like you belong to him in your heart one day and then the next week you're all in your own strength trying to do it, trying to figure it out, trying to make things happen that just aren't going to happen. And if we really, really, really know we belong to God, really, no, in our hearts of hearts, then you're going to walk it out with him no matter what. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It doesn't mean there's not suffering. We know that right there's always suffering.
[00:28:37] But we don't live in this kingdom. We don't belong to this world. We belong to heaven here on Earth. And, you know, people should see the difference in us. Because of that, we're sanctified, we're made holy. We're in the upside down kingdom where we come here to serve people who hate us, who persecute us, who don't like us.
[00:28:55] We're gonna love them anyway, right?
[00:28:57] And we're gonna love each other anyway. No matter what. I said to offend anyone today, I love you, all right? And I want you to make sure I am. I think it's because of my memory that I don't actually remember anyone offending me. So I'm a really lovable person, you know? So if you have offended me, I can't remember because I don't necessarily remember yesterday. But the point is, is that if we can love each other because we know we're loved, it's pretty simple, right? That's not that hard.
[00:29:23] It's simple, but it's not easy. To receive the love of God is not easy in your heart.
[00:29:29] That's why not everyone does it. Otherwise, we'd all be walking around in the fruit of the spirit. We'd all be patient and joyful and loving.
[00:29:37] Are we.
[00:29:39] We'd shine. We'd be different. And Mary is a brilliant example that we can go away and meditate on her characteristics and say, I want more of that in my life because God chose her.
[00:29:52] I'm not sure I want to be chosen to, you know, give birth or anything ever again, but I want to be chosen for big stuff in this world. I want to be chosen. God choose me. Can you put your hand up and say, God choose me?
[00:30:04] Yeah. And you mean it.
[00:30:06] And when it comes, when it doesn't look like it's supposed to look, will you walk it out?
[00:30:10] And that's something this week to meditate on.
[00:30:13] Thank you for tuning in to today's message. To connect or find out more, you can reach us online at worldchangers Life. Remember to subscribe for more uplifting messages from our pastoral team, and may you continue to walk in faith and transformation until we meet again.
