God Already Loves You

• The fundamental component of my belief system  about this is if there are eight billion people in the world, God had options, and he put you  in that house. He put you in that business. He put you in that ministry. He put you with  that woman. He put you with those kids. God chose you. Say it to your neighbor.  “God chose you.
• ” Now look right back at them and ask them a question. “Will  you?” Will you choose you? That’s the decision you’re making every day. Or  are you going to feel the need so much to measure up to something called perfection  that God knew you were never going to be? Or can you be cool in the process? Can  you say to yourself, “Well, I did cuss, but I didn’t say the really bad words  this day.
• Next week I’m going to dial it all the way down to heck.”  Every step you make toward heck, you’ve got to be like, “That’s pretty good.  You saw where I came from. It wasn’t heck.” I’m passionate about this because I am a  perfectionist. I don’t know what version I think God is looking for when I come through  the door, but sometimes I just have to sit myself down and be like, “Dude, you grew up in a  small town. You stepped out.
• You met this woman. God has been good to you. You’re doing  all right.” I always wondered, though… Holly, I wonder what you think about this. Where’s the  line between being content and being complacent? Holly: Yeah. It’s tough. Steven: Because I want to be content in every  circumstance, but I don’t want contentment to turn into an excuse whereby I can just accept  immaturity in my life.
• The first step of growing into who God knows you are is to accept who you  are. Accept it and step into it. We’ll get you from this bar, and we’ll put some plates on it and  some more plates on it and some more plates on it, and you’ll barely recognize yourself.  This is the process of transformation. Holly: Okay.
• You open up this section, this  mindset, “Christ is in me; I am enough,” with this story you tell about dropping a class in  college, and the professors say to you… They imply that they knew you weren’t a serious enough  student. Then you say this later in that chapter: “I’m constantly fighting a voice that tells me  I’m not deep enough as a preacher or that I’m not serious enough or I’m not a hard worker, and then  all that defensiveness is going to come out in how I preach and teach. I’ll subconsciously think,  ‘Oh, this needs to be deep. I need to be deep.
• I can’t get on that platform and be shallow.  I’ve got to prove the people wrong who said I’m not deep.'” Then you go on to talk about  performing for the wrong voices in our lives. So, how do you catch yourself when you  find yourself living for the wrong voices, and how do you get yourself back? Steven: Can we do the answer to that in stages? Holly: Yeah.
• Steven: If it’s a sermon, I’ll put Eric on the  front row while I’m studying. Eric has been my best friend since we were 14. We did Green Day  shows together, Pearl Jam shows together, and now we spread the gospel together. When I put him  on the front row, I realize, “Wait a minute. Eric isn’t thinking about me like a seminary professor,  judging if I said ‘Mephibosheth’ right.