Our Guest Misty Edwards
MISTY: I don’t know how to do this! (laughs) My mind… I love You. And it was like 30 seconds later and I’m thinking about pizza or something like what I wanted for dinner. I, I don’t know how to love You with my mind. How do I love You… He said love Me with your mind. Have you ever tried to love Him with ALL… He said ALL of your mind? That is intense! This is what I’m talking about. When we talk about love it’s invasive! It’s an all-consuming fire! He is an all-consuming fire! He is! He doesn’t look like fire. He doesn’t put on fire. He IS! And He is an all-consuming fire! And He IS love. He is fire, love and spirit are the three times it says God “IS,” describing the essence of who, who He is. God is love. So I went on a journey. I’m like I’m going to love You with all my strength, with all my soul and I’m going to love… out of the overflow of that, I’m going to love myself in the grace of God and I’m going to love others and transform society in the image of this love. But the goal of transforming society, the goal of evangelism is what? That people would love Him! That’s the goal! The goal of global transformation ultimately is that the earth would love Jesus with all their heart, their soul, their mind, their strength. And so we want to, we want…I want to demonstrate that. I want to figure out what it means to love the Lord with all of my mind! I want to figure out what it means to love the Lord with all of my soul! But how many of you are like me? Weak and broken? And love is the opposite of that gravitational pull that we’re born with. To be self-centered. Focused on myself. My comfort. My ease. What I want. He demonstrated love when He came and He hung on a cross and He said “This is love!” This is love. This is love’s definition. Love pours out. Love gives for another. So ultimately love is a pouring of one’s self out for the sake of another. But we can’t do this on our own. I can’t do it on my own. I mean like I said I can go all day and talk about love. And I try, I say Lord, I’m want to love You with my mind, but He’s not a natural thought. Do you know what I mean? It’s like I have to force myself to think about God. When I wake up in the morning I want Him to be my first thought. When I go to bed at night I want Him to be my last thought. When I’m driving in my car, you know that daydream that kind of goes on in the back of your head? See, like right now you are a universe of worlds! Right here in this room you’ve all got a world going on in the inside (laughs) and I don’t know what you’re all thinking. You’re all thinking every something different. You’ve got a universe in there. There is a vast world, a limitless ocean so to speak inside this, the being of every man. Close your eyes for one second, but don’t fall asleep (laughs). See that world inside? Open it. That’s where He lives. We all know that. That’s where God, if you’re born again, that’s where He lives. And He wants to help us, enable us to love Him to the, to a radical degree. To where it affects our actions. It affects the way we… what we do with our time, our money, how we will, we inter, inter… how we relate to the lost. But He is going to help us. It says in the Book of Romans that the Holy Spirit has been given to us to pour the love of God into that sacred space. But how severely and utterly criminally have we underestimated the power of our inner life. There is a world within. It says if you’ve been born again you have the Spirit of God. That “Shekinah Glory” that filled the Temple is on the inside of you! What? Huh! What? It’s like the, the priests in the Temple would be going like “Really? If you would have been there and seen what I saw I don’t know if you’d be so, so nonchalant about that.” The “Shekinah Glory” that filled that Temple when the priest fell over is inside of YOU!
AUDIENCE: Whooo! Whooo!
