“It’s All About Love” kicks off Season 2 for the B.L.E.S.S. Podcast. Gary Kendall and Brooke McMahan discuss lesson one from the Love KC Online Discipleship Course.
You can learn to live your faith with confidence and know what to say to your friends about Jesus. These online courses, videos, and podcasts are here to help you develop the right heart. We want to have a heart like Jesus. We want to see the world how He sees it, feel what He feels, love like He loves and care like He cares. If we do this, we will be effective, as Jesus was effective.
From God’s point of view, there’s nothing better than love. God is madly in love with you. The Gospel is a love story where God reveals His love for us. Jesus won back His beloved by laying down His own life. He conquered death and purchased our freedom. He loves at the cost of being unappreciated, misunderstood and rejected. No one loves better than He does. And even though we reject Him, He still loves us perfectly.
Our deepest longing is to be loved. Until we embrace the love we need we really have nothing to give away. Once we experience God’s love, we naturally want to give it away. It’s fulfilling, empowering, freeing, powerful and eternal.
Receiving God’s love is the starting place to loving your neighbor as yourself. Listen to this first podcast to help you learn more about just how much God loves and feels about you so you can then, in turn, love your neighbor as you love yourself.
If you reduced Jesus to one word what would it be? Okay, I guess if you read the title then you are way ahead of me but why would I choose “love?”
We could certainly make the case from the scriptures and I’m tempted to go there first. Instead, let me say why I think this is significant. There are so many words we could use to describe God. We could talk about his power, his creativity, and his wisdom. All of these attributes dwarf my simple mind. We could try to grasp infinity and beyond–no, not the movie. Some lean into truth while others claim grace is what sets Jesus apart.
Love is what we most need and love is what Jesus is. Read the gospels and love is what jumps out at you. The woman at the well, the words to the centurion at the cross, forgiveness for the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus weeping when Mary and Martha wept. I could go on.
Truth without love turns into legalism. Power without love creates a dictator. Eternity without love creates distance.
Songs, poems, and stories about love always number among the best sellers. Wars have been fought, letters written, cross country moves have been made all in the name of love. Is there a more powerful force in heaven and earth?
So if we, the children of God, are going to share Jesus with the world where do we start?
What is it the world needs to hear?
What will be music to their ears?
We start this online discipleship course with the podcast, It’s All About Love.”
If you listen you’ll hear the rest of the reason why.
Transcript
Welcome to the B.L.E.S.S. podcast, where we join Jesus, where He is already at work. We dream of the day when every home in America is adopted by one or more persons living the pray, care, and share lifestyle. Your host is Gary Kendall, Catalysts for Love KC and the National Prayer Mobilizer for Blesseveryhome.com. Gary works with founder, Chris Cooper, and the team at Blesseveryhome.com to equip you to live on mission where you live, learn, work and play. If you haven’t yet signed up to adopt your neighborhood, you can do so at Blesseveryhome.com. Now let’s turn our attention to this episode of the B.L.E.S.S. podcast.
Gary: Welcome to the B.L.E.S.S. Podcast where we join Jesus, where He’s already at work. Today we’re beginning a new series where we’re going to work through the contents of an online book that I’ve written called, Love Your Neighbor A Field Guide for Adopting Your Neighborhood.
I have in the studio today with me Brooke McMahan. Welcome, Brooke.
Brooke: Hi, glad to be here!
Gary: I’m glad you are here. Well, what we’re going to do is we’re going to walk through the content of the book, but we will do it in kind of an interview type format. So you’ll hear both of us adding more content than what you’ll find online. But I do want to point you to Love KC.net and through the online course. What we’ve learned over time is that we have some great tools that we teach at Love KC in partnership with blesseveryhome.com. But a tool is only good if the person knows how to use it. And in our case, if a person has the right heart.
So what we’re trying to do with these online courses, and later the videos, is to help a person develop the heart. We want to really have a heart like Jesus. We want to see the world as He sees it. We want to feel what He feels. We want to care like He cares. And if we do that and the Holy Spirit works in us, we’re going to find that we will be able to be effective in many of the same ways that Jesus was effective, and the disciples were effective. Just like people throughout history have been effective as they share their faith–that’s what we’re after.
As we go through this content we’re just going to go back and forth in conversation. If you want to find it in the written form, just go to the website. It’s all there. We’re going to deliver it for you today on this podcast.
Brooke works with Faith in Action as a part of Love KC. We have a chance to work together here in Olathe primarily.
So let’s dive right in. Lesson One is titled ‘It’s ALL about love.’ We sing about love. The movie industry makes a living on love stories. Teens lie in their beds at night, dreaming about love. Wars have been fought; cross-country moves are made; last names change – all because of love. It’s been said, “Love makes the world go ‘round.” And I have to ask, ‘Is there anything better?’
Apparently, not! Not in God’s point of view. At least that’s what God the Father thought when He made us. To reduce the message of Jesus to anything less is to miss the point. God is madly in love with you! And that’s the good news. Really, though, the world is a love story that’s unfolding a page at a time from the beginning of time.
The Gospel is a love story where God reveals His love. Then He places those He loves in a paradise. Unfortunately, they didn’t return His love, but instead kind of turn selfishly and pursue their own interests. They forfeit the garden as a result, but not His love.
This is where the story is fascinating beyond expectation. Jesus commits to a rescue mission to win back His loved ones at the cost of His own life. There’s no story like this. No one does this kind of mission justice. Jesus joins humanity and dies for the sin of His beloved. And in so doing, He conquers death and purchases our freedom.
We know this as the Gospel, the good news. But, Brooke, you and I are a part of the story, too, because we also have ignored God’s love. That’s our story, too. So the risky part is that after God’s done all of this work, He doesn’t force us to love Him because that would be manipulation, not love. So once again, He loves at the cost of being misunderstood, unappreciated and rejected. That’s exactly what happened.
But get this! No one has ever loved better, more consistently, and as unconditionally as God! And still, we hesitate. Why do you think that is?
Brooke: Maybe we just can’t believe that it’s real. We’ve never known a love like that, so it’s hard to grasp. Perhaps we don’t feel we deserve it – which, hint, hint, we don’t! It could be that we want to stay in control. But the offer is there for us.
What will we do with that? The world has never known a greater love, and for now, we still have time to respond with a yes.
Gary: So let’s say ‘yes!’ Saying yes is to realize the deepest longing in our human soul – which is to love and be loved. It’s a love that’s truly good for us, too. It’s fulfilling. It’s freeing. It’s empowering. It’s eternal. There’s nothing better!
Until we embrace the love that God has for us, we really don’t have anything to give away. But once you’ve experienced God’s love, it’s like the most natural thing to give away. It’s natural to tell others. That’s what we do when we find something good, right? If we love a song, we sing it. If something good happens, we tell somebody. And definitely if we fall in love, we tell somebody–maybe everybody important to us. Am I right?
Brooke: You’re so right. This is why we’re here. We want to tell our friends about the love we found, don’t we? But how? We want our friends to find out we’ve what we found in Jesus. But we don’t want to force or manipulate because that’s not what God does to us. So, where do we start?
Gary: Well, Brooke, I know you care about your friends, and the people listening care about their friends, or they probably wouldn’t be listening to this podcast. One thing that’s true for all of us is that we live in a world that’s a difficult place. It’s often cruel and cold without love. Apart from God, we always seem to look for love in the wrong place as often with painful results. I don’t know if there’s anything worse than falling for something or someone. And then it turns out to be less of what we hope for. We’ve all been there. Right?
Brooke: We have. For sure. I’ve been duped as well. I think we’ve all been duped at some point, thinking that we’re gonna find love somewhere else other than the Lord. I know, for me, I’ve definitely tried to find it in having a husband and definitely ended disappointed in that area.
But the Lord is good, kind, and shows me that true love is only to be found in Him for the love that I truly need. But it gets worse. It turns out we have an enemy; we have an enemy of our soul who is in rebellion against God and wants to steal, kill, and destroy. Life would be challenging enough if everything were neutral, but it’s not. We have help in making bad decisions. Then there’s our own selfishness. But let’s not go there for now. It’s depressing. But that’s not the end of the story! There is hope!
Gary: Well, I thought maybe you were going to tell your deepest, darkest secrets here at this point. Should we just go on?
Brooke: Yes.
Gary: OK. All right. I guess the point is we’re not alone, right? Like this is the plight of humanity. When you read the online course and listen to this podcast, what you’re hearing really is kind of the Cliff Notes version of the gospel. It’s the story of Jesus’ love that carries divine power to rescue, redeem, and restore. Thank God His love changed you. It’s supernaturally superseding your best efforts. Probably shouldn’t have put those words back to back. That’s a mouthful. But what it means is that we’re not alone. We have help. We have the Holy Spirit. When
Jesus left His disciples, He promised, ‘I’ll send you my Holy Spirit,’ the third person of the Trinity. It’s interesting because they didn’t really know what He was talking about at that point. They had met the Heavenly Father, and they knew Jesus the Son. But later, the Holy Spirit filled them like He fills us today. When we ask Jesus to forgive us and lead us, He does. He transforms us on the inside. Then we get the same promise. He gives us the Holy Spirit. He becomes our Guide. So let me ask you, Brooke, which would you rather have, a guide or a map?
Brooke: Well, to be totally honest with you, Gary, there was a time where I would have said, give me the map. I want to go by myself. I want to find my own way, even as a Christian, not just before, I was used to being in control and going my own way. But I’ve since learned to surrender to the Lord and know that I can’t find my own way with the map. He really is my Guide. I want him to be my Guide. So I hand the map over to him.
Gary: Are you saying you’re independent?
Brooke: Maybe just a little.
Gary: Well, the good news is for you, and for all of us. We can have both. We have a guide in the person of the Holy Spirit. We need to get to know Him. He’s very much like a friend, a helper and an advocate. All of those are biblical words for the Holy Spirit. We can also have God’s Word that we call the Bible. Fortunately, it’s a living word, meaning the Holy Spirit. He is the author of Scripture and helps us apply it in everyday life. The author of the story, the Holy Spirit, will give you ideas and promptings. He’ll give you a direction to share the good news with your friends.
Brooke: Whew, that is great news!
Gary: Help is on the way! The online course, “Love Your Neighbor, A field guide for Adopting your Neighborhood,” helps you build a foundation for God’s love expressed through Jesus. You’ll find that at every point along the way, it’s supported by the wisdom in the spirit. It’s like food for our soul. My mom used to tell me, the reason why we needed to share our faith with other people is sometimes people need “Jesus with skin on.”
Sometimes our words are not enough. They need to know us. In the same way, as we think about sharing our faith, words in Scripture are not enough. We need the Holy Spirit to guide us. We’re going to try to be the incarnation of God’s love to other people in our lives.
When I think about the truth of what she told me, I can see that was true in her life. I can see that she was an example. For me, she was Jesus with skin on. She fleshed out what it meant to follow Jesus and she’s lived it out. She’s going strong now at 84 yrs. of age and still is an example.
Who is a person like that for you, Brooke? Or maybe there was a couple?
Brooke: There was a family. I dated a guy in my senior year in high school. His family just took me in as their own. I came from a broken home. I saw a kind of love and care in their family that I hadn’t known before. I wasn’t raised in a Christian family. The unconditional love that they shared with me spoke to me that they loved me no matter what. I was a little ornery, but they loved me for who I was in that moment. Going to church with them, having the conversations we had, them taking me into their home, and blessing me the way they did had a huge impact on me. They showed me what it looks like to really love someone.
Gary: Now, you get to be that person for others. It’s a cool thing. I ask everyone – who in your circle needs God’s love? The first question I usually ask is the same one I just asked you, who is that person who showed you God’s love? We think about that person. We can even feel something in our heart as you think about that person.
But then we want to link to the truth that God places us in other people’s circles. We can be that for others. At Love KC, we’re here to help. That’s true of Blesseveryhome.com is as well. You have what you need at the most basic level when you know the truth. We’ve talked about it here. Let’s begin to put these together so we have something that we can give away in the online course.
You’re going to have nine lessons. This is the first lesson, “It’s ALL about Love.” This lesson is an introduction to the rest of them. But then we go into “How to be a Fiend,” “How to Pray,” “How to Invest in your Circle,” “How to Engage in God’s Word,” “How to Care,” “How to Share,” “How to Disciple and Make Disciples” and “How to Live on Mission Every Day.”
We close with ‘You are Made for This.’ It’s so interesting to me that when Jesus called his disciples, He said, ‘Come follow me; I’ll make you fishers of men;’ that was at the very beginning. Then at the very end of his life the last thing He said to His disciples at the very end as to ‘Go into the world & make disciples.’ From beginning to end we are in the people business. We’re all called to it. It is not just for pastors, not just for leaders or teachers. It’s not just for people who are professionally trained. It’s really for all of us. And so we’re in this together.
The lessons are intentionally short. I really was hoping you could digest the lessons in about 15 to 20 minutes each because I wanted you to have energy left over to start on your plan & applications. Each lesson will have a video story eventually and links, which are like bonus material. There you will see video stories, follow links, and find other content where we will invest in you. That’s what we really want to do.
Our goal at Love KC is to equip you to live your faith with confidence, help you to know what to say to your friends about Jesus, and invest in you as a privilege. We invite you into a partnership as you extend that love to others. We don’t charge for this content, but if you want to pass it on to others, they can join in. In a sense, you can pay it forward by going to www.Love KC.net/donate.
So let’s dive into some bonus content. Brooke, the name Jesus actually means ‘Savior.’ A lot of people don’t realize that His name is really descriptive of what He came to do. When people saw Jesus, they would call Him by His name. We think of the name ‘Jesus’ as a Greek word. But they didn’t think about it just as a name. They also thought about it as a descriptor that He came as Savior.
The Bible says in Romans 5:8 that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He paid the price for the sin of the world in hopes that one day we would realize our need of Him and turn to Him. It so blows my mind that He purchased our freedom without any guarantee that we would love Him in return. I think about how many times in my life, I’ve offered conditional love. I might say that I love someone if I think that they might love me back, especially in my younger days. But I wasn’t really always ready to venture out there if I wasn’t sure it was going to be reciprocated. That’s not what Jesus has done yet.
Brooke: That is true love for Him just to love us, give everything, and we don’t even have to give anything in return.
Gary: Absolutely. When John, the disciple who later turned writer, wanted to choose one word to describe God, he chose the Word love. When you think about it, there are so many words He could have used that could describe God in their words. They could have wanted to focus on His power or that He was a God of justice. Those things are certainly true of God, but they sound big and dominating. Love however, is a drink of water for a thirsty soul. That’s the word that God chose to describe Himself. It’s an action that He performs. God is love. Love is who God is. The Greek language is reflexive, meaning you could say either way. It would still be true. God is love, or love is God. To truly love is godly.
As children of God, we get this privilege of loving. The flow of that love when we accept Jesus as our Forgiver and Leader transforms us to be like Him. It’s a work He does. It’s a work He engineers on the inside. We don’t have to make it happen. We do have to let it happen.
Because He’s love, we too will love. It flows naturally if we don’t resist it, which is a cool thing. We don’t have to try to generate this from our own efforts or strength. We just have to allow it to happen in our life. John, the same writer, later stated that God lives in us and that His love is made complete in us. This is where we get to enter this story.
If the world’s going to see God and know God’s love, then it’s up to us. Jesus talked about this love. Over time we’ve given it a name, ‘the Great Commission.’ Many times, we quote this scripture. I wonder, Brooke, do you know the Great Commission?
Brooke: Let me see if I can try it. ‘Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
Gary: Essentially, we get to be an extension of God’s love to disciple people. It really means that we help people become like the Master. The word disciple can mean so many things as people hear about it today. For us, at its essence, a person who is a disciple became like a mentor. They replicated His life. That’s what it means to be to replicate of His life. If God is love, then what we’re trying to do is be love and help other people become love. That’s our mission, which is really our core mission. We get to be lovers of God and lovers of people. I love it.
The Word we translate ‘all nations’ means, make disciples of every ethnicity. I like the distinction the Greek language makes. This brings the Great Commission into my world and yours – especially if we think of ethnicity not purely in racial terms but as
someone culturally different from me. That brings that close.
Some people might think making disciples of all nations is going to Africa to make disciples. Or if I really love God, I’m going to go to China. But actually, that’s not what it’s saying. It’s saying that we start where we are. We reach people like us. That’s probably the easiest reach.
But then we also want to have the discipline to reach beyond us to people who are a little bit different from us. We extend God’s love to them. We have the same kind of function that Jesus did when he came. We’re following Him as a disciple. With the people we reach, they get to do the same if they want to. We’re a disciple who makes disciples. The circle becomes complete.
There is another step here that I think’s actually very helpful. It’s found in the Great Commandments. I’ll put you on the spot again, Brooke. Do you know the Great Commandment?
Brooke: I do. You must love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
Gary: Well done. Jesus said these two commandments sum up all the law and the prophets. This is amazing when you think how big of a deal this is. If you took your Bible, that would be like half of it being summed up into these two commandments – to love God and love your neighbor. I find it really interesting that Jesus didn’t quote ten. He reduced it to two. But sometimes we take those two and turn it into one.
Brooke: How do we do that? What do you mean by that?
Gary: Well, I mean, I think of when I talk to people and what I so often find. I ask them, what’s your plan for the loving God commandment? Well, what would you say, Brooke? What’s your plan for loving God better?
Brooke: The first step for me is spending that quality time and intimacy with Him like Jesus did, He got up in the early mornings and even would go away from the crowds and during the day. I make sure I have those times to receive His love & filled by Him so that it be poured out.
Gary: Anything else?
Brooke: Reading His Word regularly is vital because it’s like a love letter from him. If I can read His Word and get that in me to digest, the Word says we can actually eat it or consume it. Staying in the Word and worshiping Him, whether it’s alone in my room with music or corporately as a body, is also essential.
Gary: You’re saying what most people say when I talk to them. Usually, they can come up with three or four things where they say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m reading my Bible,’ ‘I’m praying,’ ‘I’m going to worship,’ and maybe they throw in a couple like ‘I’m fasting.’ Almost all followers I know if you ask them, ‘Hey, how you’re trying to grow as a Christian, they’ll have a plan.
Then if I say, OK, what’s your plan for loving God? What’s your plan for loving your neighbor as yourself? You’d be surprised how many times that I get this deer in the headlights look. It’s almost as if they are saying, ‘I never really thought about that one.’
So I ask you, what’s your plan?
Brooke: Well, I’m going to use Blesseveryhome to adopt my neighborhood and get training on the online course that Love KC.net.
Gary: Of course, you just have to say that. So what else?
Brooke: For me everything starts in prayer. Beginning to pray for my neighbors and the people the Lord puts in front of me are the opportunities to minister. I plant the seeds in prayer because He goes before me. I keep my ears and eyes open for opportunities – whether that’s to speak and say something, to meet a practical need, to get to know them, or simply listen to what they are saying. Those are a few ways to do that.
Gary: I’ve seen that to be true in your life. So awesome. You pass.
Brooke: Well, thanks.
Gary: If people don’t have a plan, we’re glad to help them with a plan. One guy met me at the end of a service one time after I spoke. He said that he never thought before that God wanted him to want to love his actual neighbor. He’d always made it aspirational. He never thought about the one who lives next door.
What we do at LoveKC l is come alongside people and say, ‘Let’s fulfill the great commission to go into all the world – all of your world and make disciples.
Let’s start with those who are your neighbors. A neighbor can also be those with whom we live, work, or play. I think in many cases, it is our actual neighbor who lives next door, but not all of us live in the same kind of place, some live in apartments or duplexes, some live on farms. Neighbor doesn’t have to mean the person who is nearest to you. But it can. It can be a term that that refers to people who are near you in your sphere of influence. As we follow Jesus, we want to love our neighbor as ourselves.
I want to ask you, what’s your plan now? What will you do about loving your neighbor? How will you pass on the love that God has given to you? You can do it. I want to encourage you to engage in the online course. If you dove in right now, you might find some of it still under construction. But the content is there for the most part. We’re going to add to it as we go. Thanks, Brooke, for participating today in this podcast. We’re going to do the next eight together. We’re going to have a good time!
You may want to look for the videos when they come up, too. If you don’t know, we partner with Blesseveryhome.com and the founder, Chris Cooper. We use his tools. Again, we’re going after the heart and the tool. When you have both of those, you’re well prepared to share the love of Jesus with others.
Well, Brooke, do you want to add anything before we go?
Brooke: I love having a plan. There’s a quote. ‘When you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it.’ So it’s great to have a plan in place. I also was just thinking how it’s great no matter what we’re setting our mind to do, to have accountability. We could just share this with a friend or a couple of friends in our small group and embark on this together to keep each other accountable. That could help us to fulfill it.
Gary: Absolutely. That’s one of the things I like best about the Blesseveryhome tool because you have “the daily five,” that’s what I call it. There are five names that come to you every day. It’s good accountability.
Brooke: It sure is.
Gary: What I do is I if I didn’t do it for any certain reason at the beginning of the morning, I’ll leave it there. I keep seeing it as I go into my inbox. It reminds me and prompts me to pray.
Well, thanks for joining us today. I encourage you to go to iTunes if you haven’t yet and subscribe to and like it.
Write a comment if you want and then pass it on to others to share with others what we’re learning and then join God where he’s already at work. Thanks for listening.
Thanks for joining in today for the Blessed podcast. People often ask what do the letters stand for in B.L.E.S.S.? We like to think of ‘B’ as a lifestyle where we begin with prayer. ‘L’ Listen to God and to others. ‘E’ Eat together. ‘S’ serve and ‘S’ story. Sharing your story and the story of Jesus.
We not only pray that every home in America will be adopted by a disciple who lives this lifestyle, but also those that do will join their efforts to build missional communities where we live, learn, work and play.
If you haven’t yet signed up for Blesseveryhome.com, you can go there now. You can find more from host Gary Kendall, including ‘Ways to connect’ outside of this podcast at
Love KC.net. Thank you for being a part of this B.L.E.S.S. podcast today. We invite you to subscribe to like it, share it, and write a review.
Now let’s join Jesus where He is already at work.