In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects.

Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity.

Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

– Matthew 5:48 MSG

The invitation of the Gospel is stark and unrelenting: Come and die in order to live. It is strange and compelling that Jesus, who healed so many, never once chose to heal his own disciples instantaneously. Instead, he continually beckoned them to the weightiest of challenges, probing the very depths of their souls—both the masculine and the feminine within them—daring them to come and die at the deepest levels of their human experience:

Pick up your cross and follow me.

If you want to save your life, you must lose it.

You cannot serve God and money. You cannot serve God and power.

Leave everything you’ve ever known, and follow me.

Unless you surrender all to me—giving up everything, father, mother, sister, brother—you cannot be my disciple.

Jesus’ language to his disciples is a language of initiation. He shaped and implemented a culture where men and women can realize their God-given identities. And from generation to generation, he guides his followers into a lifestyle of ever-increasing maturity through loving challenge.

If we allow our lives to speak, we will hear Reality inviting us to pass through a death and experience rebirth. At every moment, Jesus is freshly inviting us onto the ancient path of initiation. It is the center of his brilliant and loving work.

You cannot discipline your way out of woundedness and brokenness. At the same time, you cannot heal your way out of immaturity. Jesus’ way with the disciples is both: to heal and mature. By day and by decade, he not only heals what is lame in us but trains us to join him in walking on the water.

Join me and Conrad Schottel for a conversation as we dare to let Jesus lovingly challenge us.

For the Kingdom,

Reclaim the lover inside you.

The post 179: The Sex Talk You Never Got, with Sam Jolman (Part 2) appeared first on Become Good Soil.

"If you can’t be kind to yourself, you can’t change."

– Sam Jolman

Friends,

I’d like to invite you to savor with me a breathtaking excerpt from Sam Jolman’s book as we plumb the depths of the intersection of God’s kindness and our sexual stories: 

We take the risk to call shame what it is: a damn liar. We turn the tables on shame and question it. That starts with getting curious about what provoked it. Maybe it’s lying to you. Maybe love is still available . . . and you can recover a sense of safety. Leaning into vulnerability like that takes immense courage.

If you don’t want to handle your sexual shame with contempt, you must take a risk on love.

Contempt or kindness. That’s it.

What is this kindness stuff? Maybe it invokes an eye roll. Kindness feels too close to niceness . . . but kindness is not niceness. It has more teeth than that. It’s brave with the deep things of life. It looks you right in the face and really sees you with no pretense, with no threat of harm. Can you imagine someone who does not flee from you or metaphorically hit you back, who keeps their heart open and available, but does not flinch from the truth? That is kindness. Someone who can hold the tension of facing reality but still stays openhearted and kind.

Kindness says I can handle you. And I can love you. It’s profound.

Jesus is this incarnate kindness we most desperately need. 

And Jesus is the kindness that we get if we but turn to him with our need.

The Sex Talk You Never Got is brilliant, thorough, and God-breathed. 

I will be recommending it and giving copies as gifts to men (and their wives) I am investing in for decades to come. Grab a copy and immerse yourself in this treasure chest of wisdom, guidance, and hope.

Come along into Part 2 as we reclaim, together, the lover inside of us all. 

For the Kingdom,

Morgan

The Gospel is an invitation to be curious, rather than ashamed, about our sin.

God’s preferred method of communication is through a still, small voice.

– Dallas Willard

Dear Friends,

Who have I become, and who am I becoming?

For over two decades, I’ve relentlessly asked these questions and found myself lovingly interrogated by Jesus and His Kingdom at every turn of my journey.

Now, as I transition from one season to the next, I sense another pair of soul-searching questions rising from the depths:

Who is God, really?

Who will I allow Him to become in the decades ahead?

Parker Palmer beautifully wrote, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must first listen to my life telling me who I am.” God comes to us brilliantly disguised in the ordinary moments of our everyday lives.

Let us look back and see afresh the God who has prevailed. Let us look forward with confidence and hope, trusting in the God who will continue to prevail.

This episode offers a brief, real-time reflection for the soul. My hope is that it will beckon you deeper still. As you engage with this Examen, may you receive a renewed and personal invitation to explore the updated version of "A Soul’s Review," BGS Podcast Episode 151. While this exercise can be done individually, many allies have found it to be an especially transformational experience when shared as a couple or small group during a half-day or full-day retreat. Pray about it. You and your community are worth the time it takes to transition well from one season to the next.

So, as a prologue, come along. Let us slow down and dare to tune in to the still, small voice of God.

For the Kingdom,

Morgan & Cherie

"You should not be surprised when I say, 'You must be born again.'"

I had always felt life first as a story—and if there is a story there is a storyteller.

Love, as Paul and the New Testament present it, is not action—

Love never gives up.

Clothe yourself with compassion…

...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts...

Who must I become to live and love well? 

In times of uncertainty, there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our Kingdom’s call; a common man with an uncommon desire to love. Forged by adversity, he stands alongside God’s finest warriors to serve his Kingdom and to serve the people God has placed under his care, and to protect their way of life. I am that man.