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Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you abide in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Welcome to the Abide in Me podcast. This summer we will be hearing from different voices, each bringing you reflections, songs, and liturgy to help us stay connected to the vine. This week we are joined by our warehouse campus pastor, Anna Anderson.

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Listen with me to this last sentence from Ephesians. Grace to you who love the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. Actually, I misquoted that there. It's grace to all. Okay, I'm gonna start over. Listen with me to this last sentence from Ephesians. Grace to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. So how do we respond? How do we respond to a dying God in Jesus Christ who enables us to live with an undying love for him, with grace upon grace? First, we're invited to talk to him, to talk to God. Ephesians 6 18 says this pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. God wants to hear from you. He's dying to talk to you. Start by journaling. Start by talking out loud on your commute. Start by reading a psalm if you don't have the words yourself. Talk to him. God will never get tired of hearing from you. We're also invited to put on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. Listen to this. The belt of truth buckled around your waist with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Truth, peace, righteousness, salvation, and faith. Embracing these as a way of life is to live a life armored in undying love. Evil and the devil. This armor of God enables true neighbor love, a love that is sourced in the presence and work of Jesus. Listen to this invitation to love from Henry Nowen. He begins with quoting excerpts from 1 John. Let us love one another, since love comes from God. In love, there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love. Because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love. But God is greater than our hearts. We have to love because he loved us first, and then now and goes on to say this. What else does this mean besides the redeeming revelation that love is a possibility? Perhaps the best definition of revelation, and by that he means hearing from God, is the uncovering of the truth that it is safe to love. The walls of our anxiety, our anguish, our narrowness are broken down and a wide, endless horizon is shown. We have to love because he loved us first. It is safe to embrace invulnerability because we both find ourselves in loving hands. It is safe to be available because someone told us that we stand on solid ground. It is safe to surrender because we will not fall into a dark pit but enter a welcoming home. It is safe to be weak because we are surrounded by a creative strength. Someone has appeared to us and said the sign of love is a sign of weakness, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. That's the invitation to embrace, to be available, to surrender, and to be weak, and to find there the source of undying love, the presence of a living Christ who lives in you and for you and with you as the ultimate revelation of self-giving love.

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Thanks for joining us. If you have any questions, comments, or would like prayer, we would love to hear from you. Reach out to us at abide at pillarchurch.com. And for now, if you're willing, receive this blessing. May the grace of Christ, which daily renews us, and the love of God, which enables us to love all, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which unites us in one body, make us eager to obey the will of God until we meet again through Jesus Christ our Lord.