Episode 7 – The BE-Attitudes: Living Your Best Life Part 5: Becoming Filled With Sustaining Goodness

Kimberly Faith: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your host, Kimberly Faith. We seek to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of His remarkable love.

Welcome back to the Truth in Love podcast, and we are here today with my wonderful father, John McLarty.

John McLarty: It’s great to be back, Kim.

Kimberly Faith: And we are continuing with our beatitude series, living your best life. And, you know, in the last beatitude, we discovered that an attitude of meekness, which is strength under the control of almighty God, allows us to become both powerful and gentle. But we also discovered that this attitude only comes through the spirit. Christ is the sustainer and creator of all things. He made himself nothing to give us everything.

And, you know, when we have that attitude of meekness, we join in that mission. So thinking about the first three attitudes that we’ve learned, I think this is so brilliant the way that Jesus leads us to this next beatitude, which is, the way that we learn to sustain these attitudes in a world where we are constantly bombarded with becoming more self-sufficient and less dependent upon God. Jesus said in this next beatitude, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled, Matthew 5:6. Dad, last time we ended by asking this question, what is it you hunger and thirst for, and is it satisfying you?

 John McLarty: That’s right

Kimberly Faith: So you’ve lived a few decades. What in your experience, what do you see most people, even Christians, hungering and thirsting after? In other words, what’s driving them the most?

John McLarty: We were seeking, and most people are just seeking fulfillment in different ways. If you go back to our testimony of salvation, we were seeking fulfillment, a spiritual fulfillment that we didn’t even know was missing. So we were out on the land, you know, the whole thing living in the teepee and searching for spiritual truth, but just fulfillment in life. And I think most people are doing that, and a lot of it is in socially, you know, different ways. Some people are pursuing that by going back to the land. Some people are pursuing that by trying to become a millionaire.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And it’s in my experience in my office too, people are coming in full of anxiety because they’ve been stuffing themselves with physical things, the pursuit of physical things to satisfy a spiritual need. And, you know, in our concept study, we talk about body, soul, and spirit and how, yeah, we have a physical hunger, not just to show us that we can be hungry, but because the Lord wants to teach us a spiritual principle. And Jesus is in this beatitude. He’s saying, you know, if you will hunger and thirst after righteousness, you’re going to be blessed.

And I know that your story, yours and mom’s story about that, which we kind of started in the first podcast is really a testament to what that looks like. And so I’d love for you to share that with our listeners this morning.

John McLarty: Well, some follow-up to that story is fortunately after we were saved, we joined a church that really focused on discipleship. So Lynn and I don’t take a lot of credit. Like, we were more spiritual than everybody around us. This was just the norm in this fantastic church we joined. They taught and practiced discipleship.

Kimberly Faith: Which is the great commission.

John McLarty: The great commission.

Kimberly Faith: Jesus said, go ye therefore and make disciples. You know? And that’s what this church was doing and still is doing.

John McLarty: Yes , It’s still doing that. And  Lynn and I were talking about this the other day, one of the most known songs in children’s church is from this verse. And it’s seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Jesus is answering the question, well, “how shall we eat? How shall we drink? How shall we be clothed?” And, he says basically, “take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take care of the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” But the solution is to seek ye first the kingdom of God. We sing that in Sunday school.

Everybody’s familiar with that song. I’m not going to sing it.

Kimberly Faith: You’re not going to sing it first?

John McLarty: Going to talk to them about it.

Kimberly Faith:  and sing it

John McLarty:  No one wants to listen to my singing  voice. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. So Lynn and I were just taught that, we were shown that as an example to seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. So just live for God, and he will add all these things unto you. And God opened  doors to us because of that.

Kimberly Faith: Before you start, though,  I want tell people some basic ideas, when I teach people who have not been really discipled.

John McLarty: Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: And when they hear this verse, most people don’t have any idea what this means. What does it mean to seek righteousness? Right?

John McLarty: Well, I’m glad you stopped to clarify. Seeking righteousness  goes back to, and I’m just going to throw out a Bible verse.  We don’t need to turn there. But in, 2nd Peter, Chapter 1, verses  3, 4, and 5, it talks about adding to our faith virtue. So when we’re saved, righteousness or virtue is just to do those things that you know are right. 

Kimberly Faith: Exactly.

John McLarty: And quit doing those things you know are wrong. And we don’t need to define that for everybody, but it’s pretty obvious.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And that’s according to God’s truth, not according to some version of the truth we make up. But Jesus is saying, look. If you will do the things that I’ve told you to do, not because you have to, but because you love me. Right?

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Because you’re grateful for the sacrifice that I made and seek my way above any other way, then you’re going to be blessed. So I’d love for you to tell the story about how that worked in your life over the last, what, 40 years?

John McLarty: Right. And it’s real simple, and I’ll let people make their own definitions of destructive behavior, but just the one obvious thing of seeking God’s righteousness, living a virtuous life, is to quit doing destructive things, whatever that means for different people.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But to Lynn and I, it was kind of obvious to stop doing these things.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And then seeking God’s righteousness to just spend time with him in his word, in prayer, forsake not the assembly, start going to church, start hanging around with Christians

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: You know, instead of, you know, the old crowd, and then start, Jesus has the love of souls that he’s put in our hearts, so start telling others about Jesus.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Your friends, your family. So start living for him, carrying out the great commission.

Kimberly Faith: And the desire to live according to God’s standard isn’t something we manufacture. It’s something that when we are born again, we now have the spirit of Christ. We have the mind of Christ in us. And if we belong to Christ  we will desire his ways. If we are not desiring, if we claim to be born again, and are not desiring to live in his ways, it’s kind of like if you don’t have a pulse, you’re probably dead.

John McLarty: Right. And I’m glad you said that because it’s not like you just learned these new sets of rules. And just try to make your life fit into this new box.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: It’s just the spirit of God is now alive in you, and you just let that out.

 Kimberly Faith: Your spirit is alive and communicating with God’s spirit and your soul responds to that. Their soul, and if you haven’t heard our video on body, soul, and spirit and human design, it’s a great just simple breakdown of who we really are. But then our soul responds to that, and our soul is the deepest part of who we are. And it responds by saying, you know, this is, I desire to have more of what’s made me alive.  Like you said, forsaking behaviors that are destructive. 

Our soul does not desire destructive behaviors. But, unfortunately, we still have our flesh that wants what it wants. 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith:  And we get diluted because our enemy is constantly pounding at the, you know, we have the enemy within, which is the flesh. We have the enemy with without, which is the world culture. We have the supernatural enemy, which is Satan. And we have all these forces pounding on us to, oh, go ahead and continue to live in the destructive ways that you’ve lived in before you were born again. But when we feed ourselves by behaving in a way that conforms to our inner man, it leads us on this remarkable path. And that’s why I want you to tell your story.

John McLarty: So it’s hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and it’s a spiritual growth. It turns into a warfare because the flesh never just dies.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: But that’s why I wanted to emphasize. You just start with real simple things to get rid of the destructive behaviors.

 Kimberly Faith: Mhmm. 

John McLarty: And that maybe not just be a one and done thing.

Kimberly Faith: No.

John McLarty:  But put those aside and, you know, walk away from them, and it’s not one and done because the flesh is still there. But then just start pursuing God’s plan, which is, you know, spend time in his word. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: Spend time in prayer. You know, start going to find the church God wants you to be a part of, and start the ministry.

So as we did that,  we joined a group of people at that time it was about 50 or 60, and they were all doing the exact same things. And we were just taught obvious things, like you’re at your job, not necessarily for career advancement, but you’re there to witness. And I have to say, I’m not against people planning a career, and saying I’d like to do this and go to college and have a degree in that. But we did not take that route. I did not think about a career.

And I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that. But we were just still,  I mean, we were kind of on the low economic scale. So we’re just like, I need a job. But we were taught that the purpose of that job was to minister.

Kimberly Faith: And the purpose of education is to minister. You know?

John McLarty: Yes. Even with getting skills

Kimberly Faith: There were a lot of people who were in college who were in this initial church. It was kind of a startup 40 plus years ago. And a lot of it started as a campus ministry at the University of Arkansas.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: So a lot of people were already there. And I appreciate you pointing out that this isn’t some call to abandon everything and go be missionary in Africa. No. This is a call to make your first priority glorifying God and carrying out the great commission. And secondary to that is God will guide you in the career or the job or the path that complements that and uses the gifts and the talents that you have.

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Right?

John McLarty: Yeah. So that’s kind of interesting. So Lynn and I were in our twenties when we were saved. So we were already married, had a little house payment, either rent or in the little house

Kimberly Faith: Three wild kids.

John McLarty: And 3 wild kids. And we were just in, you talked about, paycheck to paycheck. You remember those things?

Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah.

John McLarty: I didn’t have time to think about a career and a future plan. I was just like, I need to go to work today and get the paycheck this week, and we need to buy some groceries. But as things progressed, the Lord led me into different job ministries, and it went from a factory, then to maintenance at a hospital, then some guys and I in the church started a building maintenance company. Then Lynn and I, that ended, and Lynn had taken a job at a sub shop. And we ended up buying that sub shop because they went out of business.

So every quote, “career move”  was just God leading us to another set of ministries. And the Little Italy shop, the sub shop was down on Dixon Street. And we weren’t there to make a killing in the restaurant business. We were just placed there to make a living, and we’re handing out Chick tracts to all the Dixon Street people.

Kimberly Faith: The people you had previously hung out with as you know, in the hippie lifestyle.

John McLarty: Yes and as christians we tried to avoid that lifestyle Right? So, you know, this isn’t our career choice.  The Lord put us  there to minister.

Kimberly Faith: Uh-huh.

John McLarty: Ministering to these people.

Kimberly Faith: In a time when you were mature enough to handle

John McLarty: To handle it. Yeah. That’s a good point. 

Kimberly Faith: The things that had been temptations in the past. You know, I’ve had several clients who come in and they say, well, I’m called to go. They’re in my office for a DWI, and they’re like, I’ve called to go to the bar ministry.

I said, I don’t think you are right now. You’ve got to learn, have a track record with God to know that you’re able to handle that temptation in a way that because you love Jesus more than you love drinking.

John McLarty: Mnmm.

Kimberly Faith:  And I think there’s,  I think you’ve talked about this in the first podcast, maybe the second podcast. So you had to stay away from that in order to strengthen your soul and your spirit to be able to overcome the temptations of the flesh in that area.

John McLarty: Right. Yes. Yes.

Kimberly Faith: So go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt you.

John McLarty: No. That’s great. That’s great. So I don’t want to  use the whole podcast for this, but,  so Little Italy actually went bankrupt. No, we didn’t file bankruptcy, but it financially collapsed.

Kimberly Faith: Uh-huh.

John McLarty: So around that same time, our pastor, Brian Disney, bought a radio station and decided I should be the manager. So that wasn’t, I had no goal to be a radio station manager, but the Lord just led me to that. So I did that. Then Lynn and I started foster parenting. And the state opened up this new program to  have foster parents in the private sector train and recruit foster parents and adoptive parents. So Lynn and I did that for 3 years. We partnered with a wonderful couple in our church.

Kimberly Faith: Was it through that that you ended up actually becoming foster parents and adopting my 4 siblings?

John McLarty: No. What’s really interesting is that it was just a ministry. We became foster parents just to actually minister to 1 child, a teenage girl that needed a home. Kimberly Faith: Wow. 

John McLarty: So we did that and then found out to take her in, we had to become foster parents.

Kimberly Faith: Okay.

John McLarty: We got certified. We were just going to minister to this one girl. Ended up, over the course of the next 10 years having over a 100 foster children, adopting 4 of them, and then got into this career thing, this partners for family training, where we actually recruited and opened foster and adoptive homes in Northwest Arkansas.

Kimberly Faith: So all these career moves were not because you were looking for a career. It was because you were following God’s leading in ministry.

John McLarty: Yes, exactly. So then after 3 great years of working with people that wanted to foster and adopt children, we opened more homes than the public sector ever did per year. But the state ended that experiment even though it was a great success. And I thought, well, gee, what do I do now? So I followed in the steps of my children, and I went to school. I was a 45 year old freshman.

Kimberly Faith: I remember your graduation. We had everybody from every corner of the United States come to your graduation because we were all so proud of you. And you made better grades than all of us.

John McLarty: Well, I was just following my children’s footsteps. So but that was never planned. So I thought, well, what would be an interesting degree? And I took a degree in geography because I was fascinated with maps. And I knew I was on campus just to minister.

So it wasn’t even a very clever, at the time, career move to get a degree in geography. Right? Right. Who makes very much money as a geographer? Well, that ended up with this job at regional planning where I thought I was being hired to be the mapping guy.

And, the lady that hired me said, no. You’re the transportation planner. So then the next 15 years of my life were just this wonderful career of transportation planning, working with the highway department, developing trails and roads and bypasses in Northwest Arkansas, and it turned into a great, even financially rewarding career decision. But it wasn’t planned that way. I was just following the leadership of the Lord.

And, Lynn and I, you know, we just emphasized this. It wasn’t like we were more spiritual than our peers in our church. We were just, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and he’ll add all these things unto you. And it was just more abundant than we could ever imagine and is now.

Kimberly Faith:Yeah. You know?

John McLarty: Very fulfilling.

Kimberly Faith: It’s funny. If you just assigned an accountant or an economist to look at the path of your life from when you were saved in your twenties and I’m assuming you were, our family was classified below poverty level.

John McLarty: I would think so.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, we, you didn’t really own anything. I mean, you know

John McLarty: A teepee 

Kimberly Faith: You had us crazy kids, but that you know, that’s a more of a liability, I think, than an asset. And then today, you know, a lifetime spent pursuing the righteousness of God, in other words, a lifestyle prescribed by God’s word because you love God  has really I mean, if you look at your assets today,  it’s not even something,  what’s interesting to me,  when I look at you and mom is that you have more than you probably could ever imagine  you ever having , even if you had set out to make a $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 or whatever, but they don’t own you. These things don’t own you. It’s very evident to me that your home and your business are absolutely God’s resources. They’re 100% God’s resources, and they’re used to accomplish his eternal purpose.

It’s everything you have, in my opinion, when based on my observations of you and  mom, is used as an eternal investment. I mean, you have a beautiful home on top of a mountain that every, you know, every opportunity you have people are here being ministered to. And it’s been such a great example for us, everyone who knows you. I mean, it’s an example to me. It’s, you all who have encouraged this prayer in my life to, Lord, I give you 100% of my law practice.

I give you 100% of my home, my resources because they’re not mine. I just live here. You know? And it’s not my law practice. I just get to run it.

Does that make sense?

John McLarty: That’s a great perspective. That’s our perspective. And our greatest asset is not even the things we have, even though the Lord has blessed us, But, it’s the relationships we have. It’s sitting down with you right now, doing this podcast. It’s these deep relationships we’ve had with our church, our brethren, the church that we’ve gone to, all gone to, the same church for over, you know, 45 years.

Kimberly Faith: You know,I really appreciate you sharing, you know, this story, and it’s kind of interesting how this whole beatitude study has really allowed us to kind of look back and say, wow. This is what it looks like when you live with that attitude of hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness. And, you know, and this isn’t to say, you know, our pastor never tells us, oh, you need to be these super spiritual people walking around in white garments and, you know, and being unspotted by the people around you. It’s so you need to be in the trenches with people doing exactly what God calls you to do. And then I’m not only going to  bless you, you know, with the least important things, which are the things you can’t take with you. Right? But I’m going to build up all these eternal blessings. And, you know, a lot of  people I talk to say, well, you know, I’ve heard of the great pie in the sky by and by. If we live righteous, God’s going to give us this crown, blah blah blah.

But I always tell them, look. No. You’re missing the point here. Jesus yeah. That’s great, and I don’t have a clue what it’s going to be like. You know? I’m hoping I get to be an architect and a landscaper in heaven. That’s because I don’t need any lawyers. Right? And, but  I enjoy the satisfaction of life now.

John McLarty: The right now.

Kimberly Faith: Right now.

John McLarty: True. True. Yes.

Kimberly Faith: You know what?  think about the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, all these things that are the fulfilling of the law. Right? We get to be all up in the middle of those things.

We get to be, you know, all of these things, the fruits of the spirit. I just wrote a devotional series on the fruits of the spirit because the fruit of the spirit, it’s so powerful. We want these things. Right? But if we’re not getting them from God, then we still always feel needy.

But when we’re getting these from God, we must give them away. The very nature of love is selflessness. God’s love is selfless. If we have, if we possess God’s love, we have to give it away. And these are the fruits of righteousness because God is love.

He is pure. He is righteous. And when we are in him, when we are hungering and thirsting after the things that he offers us, which can only be obtained through him.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And not trying to stuff ourselves full of more things, more physical things, more money, more relationships. we’re not pursuing these things, but we’re pursuing him. Then we’re so full to overflowing that we want more righteousness.

John McLarty: And there’s a myth, even among Christians, that if you pursue righteousness, if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, that your life will be miserable. That you’re  going to  be living in a tiny box. It is just the opposite. Your life is abundant. It’s fulfilled. Every day is an exciting adventure.

Kimberly Faith: You know, you call it a myth. I think it’s a lie right out of hell.

John McLarty: It is. It is a lie.

Kimberly Faith: Because and then that’s the reason you see so many Christians who look just like the world. 

John McLarty: Mhmm. 

Kimberly Faith: Because they’re desperate. Their soul and their spirit is born again.

John McLarty:  But they’ve believed a lie.

Kimberly Faith: And they’ve believed they’ve been drinking the poison. 

John McLarty: right 

Kimberly Faith: You know? And and their atrophying, instead of producing the fruits of the spirit, they are more greedy. They’re more unkind.

They’re, you know, I heard some lady, a friend of mine say the other day, she said, and she’s not born again. She said, you know,  I’ve made this observation that in the workplace, the meanest people in the workplace are the people who claim to be Christians. And I just told her, I said, you know, I’m not going to even try to counter that with anything. I said, I’m going to tell you this, though. People who are hypocrites, give Christ a bad name.

John McLarty: True

Kimberly Faith: You know? And you can’t attribute that to him.  If all you knew about me was from my worst enemy, a person who pretended to be my friend but was really my enemy, you would not like me. But, hopefully, you’ll give me a chance to tell you and show you who I really am.

John McLarty:  Right 

Kimberly Faith: So you can’t shut off Christ because there are people who have

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Misrepresented him. 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: That’s cheating yourself. You know? And I, this hungering and thirsting for righteousness, I just you know, for anybody listening to this who, first of all, maybe is a Christian, but is not experiencing the abundant life.

I know what it  feels like and I’ve been there.  I lived like a starving Christian for years because I didn’t understand this. You know, I would say a solid 15 years of my life was spent as a starving Christian. I like to put it another way. I was in a spiritual coma, you know, because I was so career oriented.

I was so about obtaining things and being somebody, and I wanted to be exalted. I wanted to be lifted up. I wanted to be admired. I wanted to be the most beautiful person in the room. I mean, it was  just a cycle of misery. And it wasn’t until I recognized that I was not. I was feeding my soul with dirt and pig’s slop. You know?

John McLarty: Garbage.

Kimberly Faith: Garbage. And no wonder my soul was starving. You know? It’s funny because when we begin to hunger and thirst after the ways of God, then our life becomes an oasis. And I want to read a couple verses. We become an oasis basically in this great desert of loneliness, pain, trouble, fear, and anxiety. And this makes sense. The book of Isaiah chapter 32 verse 17 says, the work of righteousness will be peace 

John McLarty: Right

Kimberly Faith:  And the effect  of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever.

You know,  think about those;  peace, quietness, assurance. This, of course, goes, you know, goes back to how the last beatitude we talked about being, having a beatitude of meekness. That’s strength under control. Right? That’s this great strength that’s under control, and that’s who we present ourselves as.

We are not  in our own strength. We’re walking around like we own the place because we’re owned by god,  who owns everything.

John McLarty: True. 

Kimberly Faith: You Know? And we can offer people assurance, quietness, peace, because we have plenty to give away.

John McLarty:  The fruits of the spirit.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And, and then Psalm 16:11 says, you show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures evermore. You know, some people interpret that to be, we have to be in heaven to experience that.

No. This is the path of life right now.

John McLarty: And  I need to add to that, because that’s what happened to our life. God showed us that path that I just described. We could have never figured that out. I mean, from a sub shop to a radio station, to training foster parents, to being a regional planner for Northwest Arkansas.

Kimberly Faith: Doing better than you could have planned.

John McLarty: Yes, It was not a plotable path that made any sense. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But it was the path God had for us, and it brought this fulfillness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. It just brought us the abundant life.

 Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And I’m not talking about material things. I’m talking about relationships 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: And with fellow believers, and being a part of other people’s salvation, and the joy that brings to serve him,  the mighty God.

 Kimberly Faith: And it’s measured by, you know you have it when you know that your most priceless possession is not your home, your career, it’s your relationship with God. 

John McLarty: Right

Kimberly Faith: You know, there are times when,  you know, your brain just does crazy things when you’re sleeping at night, but there have been times when I wake up in the morning and I think I feel like I don’t,  I can’t feel God’s presence. You know? And that’s just a natural thing that happens at night when your body’s just doing whatever it does.

It can, and it becomes a terror. It’s a terror. It’s a terrible place. Like, woah. Woah. Woah. God. You know? Wait a minute. Let me read your word.

And it’s not because he’s not there. It’s just because our mind does crazy things. Right? We have to constantly be guarding our mind. But living in God’s righteousness, in his presence, it takes us into his presence.

John McLarty: Right

Kimberly Faith: And this is not about denying ourselves pleasure. It’s about discovering that our deepest delight and satisfaction is in our creator, the creator of all that is good. You know, he creates everything that we love and what we do. Sin is just a perversion of God’s goodness. You know, it’s just taking something that God created as good and perverting its use.

When we know this and I don’t know who said this, but this is my take on who said this. But when we know Jesus is our greatest need, he also becomes our greatest desire. And that is hungering and thirsting after righteousness. If you know, if you’re listening to this and you feel like your greatest pursuit, your greatest passion is for anything except Jesus, except a relationship with Jesus, and in pursuing him, I promise you, if you turn, make a 180 and make Christ your greatest pursuit, his righteousness, his presence.

First of all, you’re only going to want that if you’ve been born again. If you’ve not received Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you’re never going to want that because you don’t have the connection. You’re not alive in Christ. A dead person, a person who’s laying dead on this floor right now does not desire anything because they’re dead. If you are not born again, if you’ve not received Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you’re not going to desire his righteousness.

It’s impossible. But once you rectify that, once you appropriate the gift of salvation, And if you are not hungering and thirsting after righteousness, you can never be blessed with the types of blessings that Christ wants to give you in every area of your life. And the measure of that is, what do you spend, what do you dream about being the best thing you could ever have? What is your time spent doing? What  do you worry about the most?

That reflects where your greatest desires are. If you worry about money the most, that’s your greatest desire. It’s not hungering and thirsting after God. And it’s because hungering and thirsting after God, after righteousness, is really just hungering  and thirsting after the presence of God.

John McLarty: Right. Right.

Kimberly Faith: That’s what it is.

John McLarty: With serving him and spending time with him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And so, you know, one of the questions, you know, I like to ask you is, how do you learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness? Well, these beatitudes, what this is, what it’s teaching us. You know? You have to first be born again, and then you need to, I’m ashamed to admit that I pray this, but I do.

I pray, lord, help me desire you because my flesh is no better than it was the day I was born again, and it wants what it wants. So, lord, just help me, help me desire you. That is not a prayer to be ashamed of. That’s an honest prayer, that’s like when one of my kids was young, and I won’t tell you which one, but mommy, why can’t I ever be good?

John McLarty: Right

Kimberly Faith: And this child said, I want to be good because I want to be close to you. I said, it’s a struggle. It’s a struggle. But if you love me, you’re going to want to be good more than you’re going to want to be bad. And that’s what boils it down for us.

If we love God, Jesus said, if you love me, you’re going to  obey me. That’s proof of our love. Right? And, so, you know, these beatitudes, the great thing about these beatitudes is they’re so basic. Jesus saying, if you just do these things, you’re going to be so blessed.

And, like, you described the path of the last 40 plus years. You just love Jesus and you wanted to be close to him, and he guided you on this amazing adventure. 

John McLarty: It’s fulfilling, and it gets better. That’s the amazing thing. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And the more you seek his righteousness, which for me,  since I’ve retired, I’ve spent more time in his word and prayer, and that’s opened up a whole new dimension of fulfillment to me.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. You get to do these podcasts.

John McLarty: Yeah. And wake up and spend more time in his word. Lynn’s always done that, but I, you know, usually had to be at work at 8 o’clock.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: So it’s, the adventure that  doesn’t end.

Kimberly Faith: Well, so we’re going to wrap up this particular beatitude, but we’re going to also kind of think about the next beatitude. And it’s about mercy. It’s about the rewards of mercy. And Jesus said in Matthew 5:7, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. I’m not going to lie here.

I did not have a clue what this meant before I began studying this beatitude. And what I found out was I was missing out big time by not understanding what it means to desire mercy. And so I’m just going to put this question out there for us to start with next time. And the question is, are you experiencing miracles that only come from understanding being in this,  the experience of being in the cycle of mercy. We’re in the cycle of mercy.

In other words, giving and receiving mercy, that’s when we experience miracles that are just mind blowing. So that’s the question I’m going to  leave everybody with,  is, are you experiencing miracles that come from this cycle of mercy? Thank you so much for joining us today, and we look forward to the next podcast where we explore the blessings of living in the mercy of God. 

You have been listening to the Truth in Love podcast with your host, Kimberly Faith. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com. Hallelujah. You rescued me.