Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their study of how Jesus lives in the world and what we can learn from him about living as God intended for us to live.
"Because God loves me so much and has the best in mind for me no matter what, then I want to do what he says. When the Circle of Love is working, it is a beautiful love relationship. For example, a husband loves his wife, and then she loves her husband. You can't tell where it begins, even on any given day. It's a continuous thing, but it always begins with one person. For us as believers, at the heart of it is the Father's love for me in Christ."
"Romans 8 is Paul's Mount Everest. It's just magnificent. And it's all on our reception of God's love for us. Because input love, that's faith, comes before output love."
"Think of this as the Circle of Love: 'And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave himself for us as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.' We couldn't begin with our own love. We have to begin with our Father's love for us."

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about how Jesus lived, looking at different aspects of the soul and how they relate to one another.
"A common image is the iceberg: getting down to my motivations, which are often opaque even for us. The whole experience of Christian life operates both above and below the waterline."
"When we look at Jesus, we just assume that he wants good things, which is true, but the way that he wants good things is that he desires the will of somebody else. He asks 'What does my Father want?' "
"Above the waterline is the will. But below the will, below the waterline, is the thing that we love. What loves us and what do we love? What I love shapes what I do and what I want."

Paul, Jon, and Liz explore the beauty of submission and why Jesus, fully submitted to his Father, became more vibrant and free.
"The modern word that is almost anathema to our culture is submission. Jesus' primary driver for his entire life was his submission to his Father, and he would not call us to do anything that he himself had not done."
"Jesus didn't get flatter by submitting to his Father. He became vibrant."
"Jesus appears to be in bondage since he is so submitted to his Father, but he's freed to love an incredible variety of people. And his brothers, who appear free, are actually in bondage to other people's opinions."

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus and how he loves. In the podcast, they reference a chart on the four ways Jesus loves that you can view here.
"When Jesus sets up a boundary, it's because people want him to do something that, in the world's eyes, would be way more glorious or easy. He'll put up boundaries to keep to his mission that's actually much harder and more painful. The boundaries he sets up keep him on track to not what the world wants, or even what his friends want, but what his Father wants."
"We talk sometimes about having our loves rightly ordered, but we also need our fears rightly ordered."
"The act of gentle intrusion is fading away. People are so fearful of triggering someone. What keeps them from loving is their risk assessment, with the result that people's lives are narrowing around the self."

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their conversation about Jesus, reflecting on one of the ways Jesus loves: receiving what other people bring into his life.
"Selfless openness is simply being willing to let other people intrude into your world. With Mary Magdalene in the garden, Jesus stays in the background. He's the receiver of what's going on. Jesus receives Mary's tears quietly. He leaves space for her. Then with Pilate, Jesus receives his verbal abuse and mocking, which gets worse as the trial goes on. And in the footwashing, he receives the disciples' pride by washing their feet. He absorbs it."
"We can potentially be very productive, but we miss opportunities to love all the time."
"It's easy to see the seeming 'disorganization' as a problem. Like, Jesus could have benefited from a really good travel agent or team manager. 'He's not able to come help your daughter today, but you can book an appointment using our online form.' But, by design, he's responding to real life unfolding around him. That's something we can learn from him, too."