One of the few things that all humans agree on is that all humans are all flawed. Ironically, one of our biggest flaws, is our inability to notice our own part in that statement. I used to love refereeing 5-year-old basketball. They all want the ball, even though none of them can dribble, pass, catch, or shoot. It was so funny to watch players from the same team fight each other for the ball like it was a rugby scrum. Eventually they’d all lose control, and it would go out of bounds, or the other team would grab it. I even had a kid climb up my arm trying to get the ball from me once during a time-out. I imagine that’s how God sees us a lot of times. 8 billion kids fighting for control of a really big ball, blaming each other when it doesn’t go well, and occasionally even challenging the One overseeing the chaos.

We’ll never change the problems of the world. We weren’t designed to do that. Instead, God wants to change our perspective. For Him to be able to do that, sometimes we have to stop asking who to blame, so He can show us who to help.

I annoyed my mom to death as a kid asking “why?”. No matter what she told me to do, I wanted to know why. When she answered, I asked why that was the answer. And so on.

Week to week, from Ben’s sermons to podcasts, Bible studies and random conversations, a lot of theme words start to pop up. Faith, truth, grace, gratitude, patience, freedom, all just from a quick scroll back through show titles in the past few months. But no matter how complicated we try to make it, God always points us all back to the same answer. Love ties it all together, like a start/finish line we always seem to circle back to.

It’s easy to get the cause and effect backwards on this one, thinking that we love others so God will love us. But He loves us either way. We love others because God loves us. Loving others isn’t a prerequisite. It’s a litmus test. His love propels our love for others. And if we don’t love others, it basically shows disregard for His love for us.

I have a feeling if I tried to play 20 questions with God, asking why He told me to do this or that, He could spend an eternity fitting “love” somewhere into His answer, because that seems to be His ultimate theme word.

We follow rules for a lot of different reasons every day. We follow some rules because they align with what we feel is right. We don’t kill or steal, for example, because we know this is just wrong. We follow traffic laws for own safety, and for those around us.

Fear can also motivate us to follow the rules. We obey our boss to keep the paychecks coming, and honor legal contracts so we don’t face the repercussions of going to court. And sometimes following the rules is just more convenient than having to deal with someone else being upset with us.

But sometimes we follow rules out of our love for someone else. We don’t want to let them down and we want them to be pleased with our actions. Approaching 40 years old, I still try to do what my parents would approve (usually). We honor our spouses by honoring our vows to them.

There is a certain righteous progression in these motives to stick to the rules. To be sure, doing what someone else says you should do because you love them is less selfish than simply protecting yourself from harm or jail. But I think there is one final step God wants us to take in our obedience of His Law. I don’t think God wants us to do what He says just so we don’t have to face the consequences. On the deepest level, I’m not even sure that He wants us to obey just because we love Him.

By doing what He tells us to do even when we don’t understand why, we demonstrate that we not only love Him, but that we also trust Him. He already knows whether or not we love Him. But by trusting Him, we show that we know He loves us. And that’s the message He wants us all to receive most of all!

Trying to balance truth and grace can be a big challenge. The truth shows us the standard God wants for us, but none of us will live up to that standard in this life. If we focus too much on God’s standard, we’re blinded by the shortcomings of ourselves and others and lose sight of grace. The guilt and self-righteousness that comes with this also conflicts with God’s standard, so we over-correct and focus on grace and before we know it, we’re condoning sin for the sake of grace. Sometimes this feels like trying to balance a house on a needle. So how do we do it? Simple. We don’t.

Jesus didn’t come in 50% grace and 50% truth. He came in 100% grace AND truth. They aren’t in conflict with each other. They go together. There’s no balancing act. They both stand firmly on a foundation built by His love for all of us. His love tells us the truth so we can enjoy a life filled with peace, joy, empathy and love. His love also welcomes us back into this truth when we choose to suffer from our pride, worry, and hate instead.

Our first of 50 shows was titled “Thou Shall Not Hurt Yourself”. A year ago, I heard this as threatening warning from a jealous God holding the remote control to a shock collar wrapped around my neck. Now I hear it as a plea from a loving Father who doesn’t want to watch me endure the pain (again). Experiencing that love through the Holy Spirit replaces our nature with His and shows us how to share the truth, with grace, out of the same love that doesn’t want to see others suffer.

In all of their various forms, relationships progress through stages. Friendships, your spouse, business relationships, etc. all follow some form of a pattern. There is a beginning, where both sides start to explore whether or not this is a relationship that worth investing in. A growth phase may follow where you get to know each other better. Eventually there may come a leveling off or maintenance phase that can be healthy in some cases. For example, having as close of a business relationship as you have with your kids is unnecessary and even a little weird. Some relationships also go through recessions and may be ended entirely. This may be a gradual process over time, or a one-time disagreement.

I’m no therapist, but I do know that there is one word that is key to the trend of a relationship: communication. If you go long periods of time without communicating with someone, it’s nearly impossible to expect that relationship to grow. Likewise, ending a relationship is usually accomplished fastest by minimizing communication.

There are a few key distinctions, however, in our relationships with God compared to each other. First of all, there is no question if we need God, and no question that He wants a relationship with us. And I imagine if you asked Him how well He wants us to know Him, His answer would be simply “more”. Whether you are a 90 year old pastor or a 5 year old child, God wants you to know Him more than you do today.

And unlike with other humans, our relationship with God involves a party that is perfect. He never makes mistakes, and He lacks no knowledge. So there should be no disagreement. But should we choose to, He is also all-forgiving.

Perhaps the most important distinction in our relationship with God is that with another person, a break in communication means that both parties lose touch. But no matter how far you step away from God, or for how long, He still knows you just as well as He did the day He made you. So reconnecting with Him after a while feels more like talking to an old friend, except you don’t really have to waste any time catching each other up on missed time. He hasn’t changed, and He already knows how you’ve been. There may be a need for an apology, and you may have developed some habits that He’ll want to address, but He already knew that.

After some time apart, you’ll need to catch up on getting to know Him, but since He hasn’t changed, you find yourself picking up closer to where you left off than you might expect. And to do that, you end up right back where He wanted you all along. Communicating with Him so you can know Him more.

The more we love something, the harder it can be to turn it over to God. This can be a sin, a person, or even a Godly virtue. Placing a sin above God on our priority list is a challenging enough starting point. We know it is wrong. But our human nature still helps us ignore God’s perspective and choose destructive paths over God’s perfect plan for our lives.

But our loved ones can present a sneakier challenge. It’s hard to acknowledge God’s sovereignty when it comes to the people He blessed us with. We shouldn’t worry, but surely that worry is justified as long as it’s in the name of love, right?

Then come our virtues. These may be Satan’s last stand. When we see the obvious disregard for God from the world around us, anger, worry, and hate not only comes naturally, but sometimes might even feel in line with God’s will. We should be angry at what angers God. And shouldn’t we worry about helping others see the truth? We are called to be disciples, so that means God needs our help, right?

Seeing God’s perspective has to start with recognizing His sovereignty. Remembering that He doesn’t want to see us hurt ourselves with sinful habits. Remembering that He loves our loved ones more than we do and that they are in better hands when we trust them to Him. And remembering that of all of the virtues He wants to see from His children, love comes first.

The Godlier the excuse for holding onto something instead of giving it to God, the more I think He demands us to surrender it. It could be a test of our faith. But what we might see as a test of our faith, God might see as a reward for it. He’s not taking the things we care about from us. He’s offering to take care of them for us. Which is a no brainer, as long as you believe He is who He says He is.

Two summers ago, I sat down to watch a live stream to hear Ben preach for the first time in about six years. He preached a great sermon, thought provoking as always. He talked about pride, which of course, didn’t apply to me, but I could see where he was coming from. He talked about prayer, and I had to admit to myself quietly that I probably needed to work on that one. He said something about our practices, but honestly, I wasn’t really listening. It was too late for a sermon to fix the mess my practices had already made. He said there was one final “P”. Almost done, then I could get back to fixing my life. “It’s your priorities” (he said it twice for effect).

Then God interrupted. I doubt anybody else heard it, but He couldn’t have been clearer to me. God said “see, I told you it wasn’t complicated.”

I’d been using that phrase a lot around that time, and God loves to use my words to make His points with me. I guess He knows I’m the only one I won’t argue with (He would later double down on this trick and suggest I record them). As Ben continued, I realized that I’d never made God my top priority. I had asked Him to serve me, and had offered Him plenty of constructive criticism to help Him do it better. But I had never put His will first. Or even asked Him what His will was for that matter. I’d always assumed it was to make me happy.

As I’ve learned to seek His will, God continues to show me that it’s not complicated. He wants us to be more like His Son. That’s not complicated at all. It’s impossibly difficult, but it’s a simple instruction. Be more like Jesus.

When things are going well, be more like Jesus. When things are tough, be more like Jesus. When you don’t like how people are treating you, and this one isn’t fun, but be more like Jesus.

I guess He was right. It’s not complicated. But then again, being right is kind of His signature move. I guess that’s why He told us to seek first His righteousness.

Once in a while, I’ll catch myself playing Biblical algebra. By rearranging or removing certain words from our favorite verses, you start to notice how important each word ends up being. “God works things together for good” isn’t nearly as powerful without the “all”. Surely as Christians, we know better than to play word games with the Bible. Right?

We may not do it when we read the Word, but we can’t deny doing it when we try to live it out (sometimes we delete entire verses in real life). But let’s apply this to old faithful: Romans 8:28. When we worry about something not working out, isn’t that deleting “all” from the verse? Maybe we prefer to delete “good”? God works all things together, but they not be for good? These are too obvious. Surely, we know better than this. How about “know”? Do we “know” God works all things together for good? Or do we hope? Or think? Or do we add words like “might”?

Once we nail down every single word and start applying them all in our daily lives, it can change us in a big way. What if you really knew that no matter what you were facing today, God was going to work it together for good to those who love Him? What would you worry about? What would you be afraid of? What type of peace would you experience? How much would joy would you have?

What if the very thing you hated today became the thing God used to prove this verse to you in the future? Would you still hate it? Or would you thank Him for it?

I’ve never really asked myself these questions. But I have started to notice lately that God has been answering them anyway.

Suppose you were gifted a life changing sum of money. And the grantor of this gift happened to be a successful stock market investor with decades of 50% returns per year. Suppose they also offered to let you invest your gift in their own private fund. Would you take the money to Las Vegas and see if you could do better yourself?

It may not seem like it, but this is exactly what we do when we waste our prayers and all of our other spiritual energy on ourselves. We take what God has given us and decide that we can manage it better than the One who gave it to us. By investing our prayers into learning the ways of God, we reap the compounding rewards of better knowing Him and experiencing more of His love. We start to become a little more like Him, and we start to trust Him. This has a double effect of taking our focus off of our wish list and trusting Him, which brings peace and joy that we want to see others enjoy. Sharing that becomes more important than our own wish list, freeing up even more time for peace and joy.

When we pray for what we want, we get the same experience you get at a Blackjack table. Some random wins and losses, and an increasingly short stack of chips in front of us over time. We notice what we don’t have, we worry about bad things happening to us, we get angry and make mistakes which brings more problems and creates more to worry and be angry about. Our “wins” are short lived and really just give us more to worry about losing later.

Maybe this has something to do with why Jesus told us to store up our treasures in Heaven. Investing in God’s righteousness pays off. Righteous prayers are answered more often, because simply put, in the end, His will WILL be done. He offers us the gift of better understanding WHY His will is best, so we can enjoy it when we see it playing out. Or we can bet on ourselves and wait around to lose.

Jesus’ final recorded command in Matthew is to go and make disciples and “teach them to observe all that I commanded you”. The very last verse. Right before ascending back up to Heaven, parting words from the Savior of the world.

I’d almost say He skipped a step, but the step really should go without saying (and He’s Jesus, so I’m not questioning Him). But before we teach others to observe all that He commanded, I’m pretty sure He meant for us to also learn to observe them ourselves, too.

We tend to be a lot better at teaching Jesus’ commands than observing them. Those who can’t do, teach, right? But Jesus really didn’t seem to be a huge fan of that philosophy. Obeying His commands is the best thing we can do to bridge the gap between Him and the lost. But when we don’t, we make Him even blurrier to the lost and become Trojan Horses in His army.

Maybe it’s just me, but I almost hear a little bit of a sarcastic irony when Jesus said “all that I commanded you”, because He really boiled 39 books down to one word in Mark 12, and John basically repeated it in every chapter. Love. And when that seems impossible, remember that He didn’t forget anything at all in His final message. He just chose to remind us of something more important instead: He is with us always.

We have the choice to be grateful for what we have and like about the world, or to worry about what we don’t like. Like all of His commandments, God’s preference for gratitude comes from the simple fact that it is better for us, bringing more peace and joy to ourselves and those around us.

Try it sometime. Spend an hour thanking God for the things that you are grateful for. Then spend an hour complaining about what you don’t like about your life. Go ahead and tell God about them, I guess. He probably won’t like it, but it’s not like He doesn’t know anyway. See which hour makes you feel better. Or just take Him at His word and skip step two.

Spoiler alert, I’ve done a lot of both. Gratitude always wins.