008: God’s Love

-Transcript-

Bruce: Good morning and welcome to episode eight of our Unshackled Love podcast. I am here with my beautiful, gorgeous, unawake, sleepy eyed wife. Kaila Payne and yes, I did say good morning and yes, I did say her name Kaila Payne for her. She's sitting over there looking at me like, what are we doing this morning?

For those of you who know me or who have known me for a long time, I'm actually a morning person when I sit there and text you, "good morning, sunshine." I really mean good morning sunshine, cause I love the morning time and this is the first time we have gotten the podcast in the morning. So now that I've taken over the microphones and done both of our parts so far, I will let her speak for just a moment real quick.

Kaila: For those of you who are just joining us, Bruce and I are two teachers in the greater Austin area, and yes, I'm a teacher, but I manage my mornings with 32 ounces of coffee. Don't judge me.

Bruce: That's not really 32 ounces. It's like 27 ounces of coffee and five ounces of half and half.

Kaila: That's none of your business.

That's personal. It's personal.

Bruce: This podcast is personal.

Kaila: Okay, so we are two teachers and we also have the privilege or blessing of raising nine beautiful children. Our children ages 18 to five, so our oldest is a senior in high school trying to figure out life. And then we've got everything all the way down to the teenage girls and pre-teen boys and rambunctious

5, 6, 7, 8 year olds and everything in between. And if you're a young parent and you have little ones, we've been there, done that, and we're just riding the waves of parenthood one age and stage at a time.

Bruce: Yeah. Well I, I think it's funny that you sit there and say, Hey, if you've young parents, we've been there, done that.

I think we were in diapers for 16 years straight in my life. And for most of that 16 years, there was two kids in diaper. At all times. Just wanna add on to that. And then when you sit there and you mentioned our oldest kid trying to figure out life, it's funny, some things don't change. You know, I'm 40 years old and I'm still trying to figure out life.

So I think it's kind of funny that I look back and you just said, Hey, he's trying to figure out life. Yeah, I think I'm trying to figure out life too right now, and not just my wife and I both, we sit here and we are teachers and we enjoy our jobs, but at the same, we kind of feel called to some other things right now, and so we're just trying to figure out life, right?

And so when we sit there and we look at our kids, we're able to sit there and interject on a similar level to where they're at.

Kaila: Absolutely. The more experience we have as parents...

Bruce: Wait is more experience, is that the word, wisdom? Hey, I'm only throwing that out there. Right there. My boy Jeremiah, he once said, the hair color on his face is the color of wisdom. AKA gray. so are you saying we have wisdom right now?

Kaila: I don't know if we've quite reached wisdom, but we definitely have...

Bruce: I'm not as old as him. He's 41

Kaila: ...experience. The more experience we have parenting, the more I do see God in a different light, because God is our heavenly Father.

And so there are a lot of times where we'll be in a certain situation with our kids, and then it's like you hear God in the background being like, yeah, that's how I am with you. You're like, oh God, why you do that? And so Bruce and I, fun just little preview, we're actually working on a book that is all about the way God has been teaching us through our kids and the lessons we learn about God through parenting.

So I'm really excited for that.

Bruce: Yes ma'am, we are. And I think a big thing to what you just said, Hey, you know, God, why did you do that? Or, God, I see you now. And I think a big thing that we've both started to see in a different way is just how God loves us.

And I think not just parenting, but in life ourselves. There are so many different things that we've gone through. We've been married for 10 years now. We've gone through the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I'd say in the beginning of our marriage we went through a lot of ugly, by the grace of God, we're here married today, and he's brought us through the pit of hell and back.

And on top of that, now we're sitting there to see his fruit in our lives and grow. And at the same time, now we're watching our kids go through some challenging situations. And I think the biggest thing as I've gotten older, I won't call it wisdom yet cause I'm not 41 and I don't have wisdom on my face, is I've shaved my beard.

But I think the biggest thing is that God loves us. We're gonna sit there and we are gonna mess up in life. We're gonna sit there and go through situations that hurt God's heart, and so I think as a parent of nine kids, we see this in different ways and I think it's grown on us as we've parented longer is I used to get angry at my kids when they did something stupid. When I used the word stupid. Yes, I used the word stupid or just dumb, or just immature, whatever you wanna use. It used to hurt my heart. Like I would sit there and I'd get so mad and then I realized like, man, you wanna know what? My heart hurts for them.

My heart hurts for what they're doing. My heart hurts for what's going on in their heart. Cause I know something's lacking in their own heart for them to act a certain way. Do you have anything you wanna add?

Kaila: I think it's just the perspective change and that that's pretty much gonna be the verses that we dive into, is we're really going to look at instead of being angry, they always say, be angry at the sin, not the sinner.

We can be mad or upset, but then we've talked in a prior episode about anger, how usually anger's a me issue. And so why do we get angry over the sin? Well, because we feel like it reflects our ability as parents. Oh. So we get mad that our kids are acting this way or making dumb decisions because we think it's a reflection of our ability as a parent when that's actually not the case.

And then that's, I think the big perspective change is it's really a heart condition. And so today in our passages, we're gonna look at a couple different passages that talk about that reflection of the heart and how God loves us through that.

Bruce: I think when looking at a perspective change, you have to have a real perspective also of the devil or you have to have a real understanding of who the devil is. And personally, when looking at the devil, I look at him through two different lenses. The one lens in which I look at the devil is, I might have believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, but I wasn't actively walking with the Lord, reading the Bible every single day, experiencing the truths every single day, or I wasn't involved at church, or I wasn't getting sharpened by other men.

And as a result of that, the devil kind of just let me steer my own ship going down. You know, almost like the Titanic about to hit an iceberg. And he is like, Hey, you wanna. Yeah. I might encourage you to go drink Bruce, but you're gonna take care of the rest because you're gonna go have 10 beers.

I mean, when's the last time I've ever had a beer? The first time I drank, I didn't even have a beer. Or gambling, he might sit there and say, Hey, you might put the little inclination in my heart to maybe you should go gamble. But once I go gamble, he already knows I'm gonna take care of the rest myself.

That I don't need him to sit there and tell me, $5 limits good for you? Uh, no. I tell myself, let's go play a hundred dollars a hand, even though I'm a teacher and I make no money. I think a hundred dollars a hand is a better idea. And so I don't need the devil to sit there and actively sit there at the table with me and say, Hey, Bruce, go bet more.

I do that on my own. And so I think there's that aspect almost like playing checkers. It's a little kid's game. He already knows you're on your own. Go have fun with it. and then the other lens, I look at the devil through is more of like a chess, right? When you're sitting there and you live in the word of God, or you're in the word of God on a regular basis and you're doing things to further the kingdom or to better your life, you are in the word every single day you are praying, you're on your knees, you are tithing you a million different things in terms of what God has asked us to do. You like your, your, your will of your life is within God's will for your life. And as a result, now, the devil's sitting here trying to be counterproductive to what you're doing. And so he is making a chess move.

You make a chess move, he makes a chess move, often you hear why do bad things happen to good people? And the reality is because the devil is real and the devil is at work, and that goes for our kids as well. It's so often with our kids that we can go and we're like, what's going on?

Because the devil's at work. The devil doesn't want these little young creatures to sit there and know Jesus like you and I do now. And I think it's important as parents that we sit there and we raise them up to understand and to know who Jesus is, but they also need to know who the devil is

because at the end of the day, how often do our kids go to church and they come home and oh yeah, we learned about the devil today. Well, the devil's real. They have to learn about some, like, guess what if my six-year-old can learn that he didn't get money from the tooth fairy, cause the tooth fairy is not real, maybe we should be actively teaching him that the devil is real.

And then if you don't want the devil sit there and have an impact on your life, maybe you should have your own relationship with Jesus.

Kaila: and I reflect on that too because Bruce and I have very different upbringings in terms of, you know, his mom was a believer and he remembers seeing his mom be baptized, and so he was raised with a foundation of knowing God's love and knowing God's truth.

But at some point we all have to make that choice for ourselves. Whereas I was not raised with the word, I was not raised knowing God. I was not raised going to church . So for me, when I came to know Jesus, I mean it really was like a pivot. It was a complete turnaround. It ties straight into the verse that we're gonna talk about today, but the reality is both of us come from that same perspective.

Even if you're raised knowing the word of God, and this is where I just reflect with our own children because we are trying our best to raise them, knowing the word of God and knowing these truths that, you have to put on the armor and the devil is at work and there's gonna be sin and temptation in your life.

But through all of that, we can teach them and we can share them and we can give them the words, but at some point, their walk has to become their own and their faith has to come their own. Just like Zoe shared her testimony last week, she had to come to that realization that, oh, this is what my parents mean, or this is what they've been talking about.

This is what God's word really means, or this is what God's love is. And so even if you've been raised in the church, you've been raised going to church or hearing about God, there's a difference between knowing about God and then knowing God for yourself and having a personal relationship with him.

And so whatever walk you're on, I definitely challenge you just to pause and think like, how is my relationship with God? Am I really walking with him? or do I say I know him, or, oh yeah, I go to church on Sundays. But then Monday through Saturday you're living to your own vices. And I think that kind of segues into the verse that we're gonna talk about.

Bruce: Yeah. And so the verses that we're gonna start with are ephesians chapter two. I don't know. Sorry. When I read my Bible in the morning and my wife she pushed the play button and that's how the guy talked. Ephesians chapter two. Anyway, here we go.

Verse one. "Once you were dead, because of your disobedience and your many sins, you used to live in sin just like the rest of the world. Obeying the devil, the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God . All of us used to live that way following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature, we were subject to God's anger just like everyone else."

So real quick before we move on with this chapter, guess what? The devil is at work. It just says it here in the Bible that the devil is at work. And when I sit there and I read through it the first couple times this week is it has the word obey in there, right?

Like obeying God and also has the word obey in the devil. And just that makes me cringe. And as I've lived my life, there've been many times where the thought of the fact that I obeyed the devil makes my heart hurt . And there are so many things in life, whether it's living my own life or parenting, where it's like, man, did I really sit there?

And it says in the Bible that I was obeying the devil. That is not a good thing to me as I'm older. And I, and I won't call it wisdom, but as I've gotten older that makes my heart hurt. And I find myself on a daily basis wanting to obey God.

So anyways, the devil. And our kids need to know that the devil's real. And our very own nature. I think the hardest part here for me too is that if your relationship with God is anything like my marriage, like I don't wanna see my wife get angry at me. I don't wanna see her try to bite my nose.

Like I just don't, like I want to, I want her. That was just a metaphor. I don't even know what's a metaphor. Maybe it was a simile, maybe it was the truth, I don't know. But the reality is I don't want her angry at me. I don't want her to come at me and be like, guess. You hurt me to the point where I wanna sit there and I'm gonna unleash on you.

I don't, I don't want the hap maybe early in my marriage I enjoyed it. That's why I didn't learn from my mistakes. But as I've gotten older, I do not like to see her in that stage of her emotions, if that makes sense. And so, think about that, with my wife, I look at God, I don't want God to be angry with me, but the reality is God does get angry with our sin.

God does not like us sitting there doing things outside of his will for our life. And so just like any good father, which he is, a good father, is our sins do anger him. But you wanna know what the best part is. You know what makes God, God and not me. Cuz you wanna know what? For a very long time, my kids would sit there and do something stupid or a sin and I would get beyond peeved.

I would sit there and I'd lose it. I'm like, what is wrong with you? And the reality is our God, even though he gets angry, he goes to the next verse and says, "but God is so rich in mercy and he loves us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead."

And so not only does he up the ante a little bit by saying, Hey, guess what? I'm gonna show you grace and mercy. I'm gonna send someone to die. Someone who's perfect. I'm gonna put him on a tree so that you don't have to be. So not only did I sin and mess up, not only did he show me. Or anger. Then he came back with mercy and he didn't stop there.

He went to the point and say, Hey, guess what? That's not even enough. I love you so much to the point where I'm gonna send my only son, unlemished, into this world to live, to die on a tree for you so you don't have to. What do you think about that? .

Kaila: I love it because I know for me, like I was dead in my sin because of my disobedience.

That's the big thing for me is when I look back on my life because, and again, this is not necessarily because of my upbringing, but I was on that ship of self-destruction, I was making bad choices. And you could say it's because I didn't have God in my life, or because I wasn't raised that way. But the reality is is I was making my own choices and I was definitely living a life that was far, far, far away from God.

So when I came to know Jesus, I really grieved who I was and the fact that God said it doesn't matter, all those things that you've done in the past, like I'm gonna give you a new life.

Bruce: I'm gonna take over from here. God's gonna give us a new life and he gives our kids a new life and he gave us a new life and then she goes back. I think those tears are those were alive.

Kaila: No one knows I'm crying except to you.

Bruce: It's okay. This is a personal podcast. I love my wife and I love where she's coming, where she's going. I think as a married couple, we love where we were and where we're going.

And it's living within God's will. She has this verse that she wanted to read and I don't know if she can, cuz she has tears coming down her face. I joked, I called her like phlebotomy earlier cuz she's like hacking up hairballs over there like a cat. She's had to run to the bathroom twice.

I mean, you name it, I start laughing like I'm a morning person. She's over there trying to exist. And she's doing a great job. She, you're gorgeous. Even with everything coming outta you right now, you are absolutely stunningly beautifully and gorgeous. Mm-hmm. . Mm. I love your two eyes, your mouth, and your nose.

Just kidding. She's gorgeous. Okay. Do you wanna read the Bible verse or you want me to?

Kaila: Well, just going back and tying in this idea, and we talked about this perspective change and realizing the devil's hold on us until we decide to make that decision for ourselves, and so with our kids, we can get angry at the sin, but we have to remember that they are entrapped by the devil and they're entrapped by their own sin.

And so we are dealing with unbelievers until they decide to make that decision for themselves. And so the verse that really stood out to me was First John, chapter two, verses 16 and 17. It says, "for the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for things that we see and pride in our achievements and possessions".

So this is what our kids we're seeing our teenagers as they're in high school, and there's this craving. Physical pleasure. There's a craving for acceptance. There's a craving for the things that they see other people doing, whether it's social media or the clothes that they wear, or the music that they listen to.

There is a craving. There's a craving to want pride in what you're doing, in your achievements, in your possessions, and, oh, look at me and look what I did and look what I have. These are the things that the world offers. But then the next verse says, "these are not from the Father. They are from the world, but this world is fading away along with everything that those people crave. Anyone who does what pleases God will live forever."

And so it's so hard because when we believe, and then when we step into that personal relationship with God, that's why the song Amazing Grace says, "I once was blind, but now I see". So in that moment, right now, my kids are living blindly. It's the blind following the blind, which leads nowhere good, and the blind is the way of the world.

But once we see God's ways and we accept him into our hearts, and once we accept him into our lives, and then we see his love and we can experience that love, and we can experience his mercy and grace and saying, Hey, it's okay. Like, I understand you were blind.

You were following those ways, but he doesn't hold it against us. He doesn't hold that sin over us. In fact, it says not only does He forgive us of our sins, but when we truly repent, he forgets our sins as if it never even happened. We are white as snow. That sin is wiped away because of the blood of Jesus, so he doesn't see us in our sins anymore.

All he sees is that sacrifice of Jesus that we've accepted and we wear his righteousness. And so it's hard for us with our kids when we see them. and they're blind and they're following the blind, and we just want to rescue them from that because we know that following God, that's what pleases Him..

And then following that way, it says right here like, we're gonna live forever. That's eternal reward.

Bruce: Amen. Sister. No, not sister wife, but just Amen Wife. I. Yes, absolutely. That was wonderful. Like I'm sitting here right now and the fact that you came alive in the morning and you're starting to wake up, it must be after nine o'clock.

It is.

Kaila: Or it's just the Holy Spirit speaking honey.

Bruce: It is the Holy Spirit. And I agree. This past couple weeks it is been challenging for us as parents, we've seen our kids go through some stuff and it's like, man, you wanna sit there and rescue them, but the reality is their relationship with Jesus has to become their own.

And the same goes for some other people that we know who are going through some stuff, their relationship with Jesus has to be their own. And at the same time, even if you have a great relationship with God, you need to understand that He loves you and He's willing to show you grace and mercy.

We all fall short. We all fall short and it's not living within that shortness that we've fallen or that we live but understanding that God loves us to the point where he shows us grace and mercy and we just turn away from the sin that we're living in and we make that relationship with us ours.

When you sit there and you look at life you can sit there and this one thing to be a believer, and it's another thing to be a follower, and it's another thing to sit there and surrender at the knees of the cross and actually pick up your cross and do what he wants you to do.

And there's a whole nother sermon that we can sit there, or a whole nother conversation that we can talk about, sitting there walking with God. But I really, really, really, really, really, really hope that people here, if nothing else, make your relationship with God your own, know that God loves you regardless of what you're going through.

Be obedient in terms of your walk. Don't just sit there and make it words, but make it actions. Like sit there and follow through with how you are living life. And you'll see a big, big difference in your life, I think this week we sat there and popped out a devotional earlier this week.

You give God an inch, He'll take a mile. But you have to be active in terms of your relationship. It's the same difference as a marriage, right? Like I just talked to my wife about this pre podcast and it's like, how good would our marriage be if we never went on a date, we never got naked in bed together.

We never held hands in public. We never showed affection in front of our kids. We never just snuggled on the couch, like, how, how good would our relationship be? And it would be pretty crappy that that's the reality. And your relationship with God's the same way. If you're not intimate with him, he can't be intimate with you.

You need to take the time to sit there...

Kaila: You need to be able to spend time with him, read his word, pray, and really just open up your heart to him because that's how we build that relation. That's how we maintain the relationship. Like Bruce was saying, you know, there's always that spark when you first get married and you say, I do and everything's fresh and exciting, but to continue on

that relationship. You need to be intentional about your walk and with our kids. Our kids need to see, I think more than anything is we need to show our love and yes, we can get angry about the sin or the things that they're doing, and our hearts can hurt for them, but we need to be able to show them that, you know what, beyond that, I love you and we're gonna get through this together, and then being genuine about our faith and our walk and then showing that to them,

Bruce: Hey, real quick, thank you for not throwing me under the bus and saying I was having tears come down like I did with you.

Cause I just did. I had an emotional moment and so I had some tears and so thank you.

Kaila: but I love that it's the spirit like for me, I would say I don't cry a whole lot, but , my husband jaw just dropped in his eyes, like popped out of his head. No, but hear me out. Hear me out. I am not a physical hurt crier, like I could stub my toes, sprain my ankle, get a tattoo.

I'm not going to cry over it, but there are two things that I do cry over, and one is when I get really frustrated and I can't figure something out and I'm trying and I get frustrated, I cry outta frustration, or b, I cry over Jesus. Because I can't explain to you the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so that's why even now, 10 years later, when I talk about Jesus saving me, I get emotional because it's the power of the Holy Spirit. The feeling is too big for my little human heart to handle. And so when I talk about the greatness of God and that's why I can relate.

If you are really reflecting on how just awe inspiring God is and how good He is and all the things He's done in your life, it's emotional. It's emotional in my life. And so how do we respond to that? We praise God.

Before we end and wrap this thing up, I just wanted to encourage you, if you maybe need to talk this out with someone, Bruce and I are here. We would love to connect with you guys. If you check down in the show notes, you'll find our email, you'll find our website. Bruce, this week just started a men's small group, which I'm so proud of him for doing that.

And I've been connecting with some women and so if you would like to get in on those small groups or connecting with us, please reach out, send us an email, go down below in the show notes. You're also gonna find all the verses that we talked about today. And then otherwise, I just want to pray with you guys and we're gonna pray straight out of scripture.

Prayer of praise comes from Jude, and I want this to be the last thing you know God loves when we speak scripture back to him because they're his words and his words are so much better than our words and what we could say. So we're gonna end with this prayer of praise. Jude 24, "Now, all glory to. Who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.

All glory to him. Who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord. All glory, majesty, power and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time." Amen.