NO ONE can talk Christ out of loving YOU!

Christ consistently demonstrated radical acceptance, refusing to be influenced by human judgment about who should be included or excluded in his ministry. His own disciples required correction and guidance when they tried to derail his mission.

• The disciples represent our own humanity—jealous, exclusionary, cynical, and doubting despite witnessing miracles
• Modern religious gatekeepers often chase people away who don't meet their standards, just as they did in biblical times
• Your salvation doesn't depend on human approval or acceptance—others have no power to remove it
• Jesus specifically came for those who recognize their need for him, not those who consider themselves perfect
• Christ offers belonging to those feeling spiritually homeless, confused, or manipulated by religious judgment
• The journey of faith involves rising above condemnation, exclusion, and gossip to discover biblical truth
• True discipleship means pressing on until we fully grasp what it means to dwell in Christ's presence

I'm Jimmy James Johnson with guilt-free faith in your corner, no matter what. Let me know what's happening and how I can help.

Transcript

Christ's Radical Acceptance vs Human Judgment

Speaker 1 0:00

Let's really talk about how we can unwind and separate human judgment, human limitations, human stereotypes, from what Christ was clearly demonstrating, where he was never thrown off by what humans were saying that he should do or shouldn't do, or here's who he should accept or not accept. People were doing that all the time. I don't know if people realize that. I don't know if anyone's ever said that to you directly. Do you know I mean this is biblical to you directly? Do you know I mean this is biblical? People were always trying to derail Christ from His mission. So, yeah, even people close to Him, like even the disciples, right In their varying ways—we won't get into those details in this video—but in their various ways, they required some management, they required some pushback. Jesus had to say, hey, man, like back off that, or hey, I'm not here for that, or that's not fulfilling what God, the Father, has sent me to do. So, like, even like the disciples, like people we look up to and think of as surely they're sinless and are always on God's page and like, no, they weren't. They weren't sinless, they weren't always on God's page. The power of the narrative of having the disciples there is that the disciples are really just representatives of us. You had disciples that were jealous. You had disciples that wanted to exclude people. You had disciples that were cynical and doubting everything. You had disciples that really just seemed to be weak on faith in general, even though they were watching all these miracles come to pass. So, like this is—we are those people, we are the disciples. The discipleship continues. But unfortunately for people like you and I, because Christ isn't literally here talking in our ear, fighting our battles for us, just like in a literal, physical sense, it's easy for people to circle the wagons and chase us out of town, and millions and millions of people have been run out of town by people that don't understand the gospel or never read the gospel, or feel like they're supposed to judge who belongs like in the Christian family, or here are all the steps you need to take, or all that's there. But, believe me, that was all there in the Bible too. But the whole point of that is it doesn't matter what they say. You're not trying to please them. Your salvation doesn't rest on what they think of you. I mean, they could pray for you or against you or curse you, it makes no difference. Humans like to think they have more power than they do. They really don't have any power to remove your salvation or somehow cast you out into the darkness. So the good news I have for you today is so.

Speaker 1 4:21

The good news I have for you today is you're living in this mental or emotional or spiritual place where you're homeless, where you're just kind of drifting shelter to shelter, where you feel vulnerable and confused and nobody you trust is reaching out their hand to you. Or maybe people are reaching out their hand to somehow manipulate you or abuse you or take advantage of your whatever you don't know, or your guilt. So we're going to just we're going to put an end to that man. We are going to put an end to that man. We are going to just continue to chop that off at the root. And as we walk through this process, you and I, we're both going to feel more accepted by God, more included, more empowered, more defended, more supported. We're going to come from being low on the totem pole, the runt of the litter. We're going to rise up through, we're going to rise up out of that the mud and muck of guilt and condemnation and cynicism and exclusion. People talking bad about us and gossip. Conclusion people talking bad about us and gossip. And, yeah, we're going to actually rise up out of that to discover a greater truth, and not just a truth like we pulled out of our ass. We're going to look at a biblical truth and understand that.

Speaker 1 6:14

Wow, this isn't my imagination. Jesus was already demonstrating this. Jesus came for people like me. You know, when people would confront Jesus about things like that, he would be like hey, you know, if you don't need me, fine, I'm coming for the people that need me. Why are you with the sinners? Why are you with the—because they need me? Okay, if you're, you know, perfected and sinless and blameless, and all that great you don't need me then blameless, and all that great you don't need me then.

Jesus Came for Those Who Need Him

Finding Belonging in Christ's Presence

Speaker 1 7:00

So, even in this modern day, I believe that Christ is following through on that mission where he's coming to people like me, jimmy, like you, and saying, hey, I'm here for you, but God, I suck at this, or I don't belong in this, or I haven't. But hey, man, I'm here for you. That's the whole thing. I am here for you. I know you need my help. I know you need to belong. I know the way that I've for you. I know you need my help. I know you need to belong. I know the way that I've constructed you, I know what your needs are and I believe Christ is encouraging us to never give up but to just keep pressing on until we really take hold of what it means to dwell in His presence and dwell in the Spirit and have that blessed assurance that that perhaps we've never experienced from other human beings over the course of our entire lives. So you know how we do. It's Jimmy James Johnson, guilt-free faith in your corner, no matter what. Let me know what's happening and how I can help.