THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Cultivate Your Faith & Unlock Your Potential w/ Erwin McManus

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

I think about the big questions in life a lot... What is love? How do I find truth? Is there a better way to have a more intimate relationship with God? You’ve got questions like these of your own and if you’re like me, you look for those answers all the time. That’s why I was particularly excited to sit down with my friend Erwin McManus. Erwin has searched for answers to the big questions in life by studying the great religions of the world. That quest has combined his curiosity, spirituality, and creativity, turning him into one of the most important thought leaders in the world. He founded MOSAIC, one of the most influential and innovative churches in America and has written more than a dozen books that dig deep into our beliefs about religion, consciousness and the essence of life. Erwin is also an entrepreneur and an incredible designer. I’ve never met a man like Erwin who can effortlessly move from profound subject to another with such ease. And rarely have I walked away with so many things to think about. In this episode, we touch on spirituality, faith, and how a deeper understanding of spirituality will lead to a better understanding of who YOU are. But we also talked a great deal about business and human giftedness Erwin’s take on the gift of imagination is unlike any I’ve ever heard before. And his thoughts on why Jesus was a genius may give you one of the biggest “A-ha!” moments of your life. Are you ready to challenge yourself with new ideas that will intensify your personal search for the truth in your life? Do you want to know how you can have a closer relationship with God? Are you looking for compassion, mercy, love, and forgiveness… If you are ready to uncover deep and compelling meaning in your own personal search for the truth… Then you must listen to Erwin’s revealing thoughts that will help lead you to the answers you seek... to the great questions in life.   👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈  → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK  ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE

This is the Ed Milach Show. Welcome back to Max out everybody. I got to be honest with you. I have wanted to have this conversation for a very long time and I've wanted all of you to get a chance to listen to it because the man to my left is my favorite pastor in the world, but he's also one of my favorite men and he's growing to become a really dear, dear friend of mine. And it's because he's so darn interesting.

This is one of the most interesting people you're ever going to listen to. If you're a person of faith, you're going to love today and if you're not, you're going to enjoy this journey like you can't believe. This man's an author, he's pastor of Mosaic Church, by the way. He's an entrepreneur, he's a fashion designer, he's a writer, he's musically inclined, he's a true Renaissance man. Now, we'll call him the Dosek, he's a man because he's a Christian man, but to me, one of the most interesting men in the world.

So, Erwin McMahon, welcome to Max out. Oh man, it's so good to be here with you. You're a pretty good intro off the cover. Live up to the intro, but. Live up to it, everybody, trust me. So I want to talk about faith right out of the gate. All right. I want to get right into it.

So one of the things I admire about you is that you came to your faith as I understand it a little bit later than most people in your family. You were sort of an atheist for a decent little part of your upbringing, right? Well, we grew up pretty much ill religious. I'm an immigrant from El Salvador. And so we have a little bit of a Roman Catholic,

kind of a like backdrop because everyone Latin America kind of did. And but we never went to mass and it wasn't a part of our life. And but my brother was an atheist and I was more of a mystic. What's a mystic? I didn't believe in a personal God, but I believe that there was something spiritual, there was something transcendent,

there was something more than the material world. Gotcha. I just didn't know what it was. And then my mom brought a Buddha home when we were young and so we kind of became Buddhists and then later she started studying Judaism and became more informed by Judaism. And by time I was in sixth grade,

I read every mythology book in the library. So I was always searching, but I just didn't know what I was searching for, but I think I knew why. There was a massive void in emptiness inside of me, a disconnection from people in the world around me, and I was trying to find some kind of answer to the existence of me. I think everybody is.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that there's an ongoing conversation in our souls and our hearts that are constantly trying to understand ourselves and what this life means, where are we going when our physical body doesn't work anymore. And I think that knowing, you have this unbelievable analogy that you use about phantom pain. Oh, yeah. That I think the entire world is about the benefit from.

If you've ever wondered, do you wonder if you're listening? I think this is a perfect example as to the fact that you are. So explain that. Sure. Well, I was a straight D student for 2-12 grade. Straight D. Yeah, that's impressive. I mean, I might have flunked out a few classes too, but I averaged around a D and barely

graduated from high school. They just graduated me just not to have me back. I didn't go to college right away away just floated around working odd jobs, work construction, work does a lumberjack, work as a carpenter, you know, just did all kinds of things. And I begged my way into college realizing my life had no direction. And found a school that would take me on condition. And then I stepped into a philosophy class. And next thing I knew I became a philosopher and suddenly started making straight A's and suddenly discovered a part of myself that had been asleep. I became what I would call a secratic.

I really was influenced by the Stoics and the teachings of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. This kind of began for me a rural conscious search for meaning in life. One of the things I talk about with phantom pain is that one of the dynamics of phantom pain is that when a soldier loses an arm or a leg, they, for years, if not for the rest of their life, they have experiences where they think that arm is still there, where that leg is still there.

They actually feel pain in that leg, even though it's not there. And one of the elements that has to exist for phantom pain is that you had to have lost something that once was yours. And what I've come to believe is that ideals, human ideals are the phantom pain of the soul. Just the ideas, let's say, of world peace when people say they want world peace. Where do we get the concept of world peace?

Because we've never done a world of peace. When we think about things like justice for all, when we get this concept that everyone would have justice, we've never known a world except the world of injustice. When we think of ending poverty or ending disease or ending homelessness, where do we get these concepts? These ideals have never been experienced in human history.

Right. And so I'm convinced that these human ideals are the phantom pain of the soul. There are souls remembering what humans are supposed to be like, and that, and it's our longing to reclaim who we are. Even like certain words like, when you say something's unnatural for a human,

or something's inhumane, how can something be inhumane if a human did it? I mean, when we see a killer whale eating a seal, I've watched them where they take the seal and throw it in the air while it's still alive. And then it comes down and starts swimming away and they come up to it and throw it in the air and they're so delicate with the seal, they don't kill it.

And until the seal is so tired, it can't swim away and then they eat it. So they're playing this game with the seal, but the seal doesn't like the game. And we never say that that that killer whale is inhuman. We just say it's just game with the seal, but the seal doesn't like the game. But we never say that killer whales inhuman. We just say it's just natural for the seal. When a tiger chases down a gazelle and consumes it, what's fighting for its life, we never say that's inanimal.

But when a human being does something, when someone walks in and kills students at an elementary school or someone randomly shoots eight or ten people in a grocery store. We know that's inhuman, that's inhumane. The reason we have the sense of knowledge is that we somehow know that the way human beings are living their lives is beneath being human. We're the only species that doesn't know how to be the species. That's called therapy. I mean, you know, gazelles are non-therapy.

Beavers are non-therapy. Kangaroos are not in therapy. They just know how to be the species. Human beings have the highest intention and where the only species that can live outside of our intention. And I think that's like the core of depression. You cannot be depressed if you cannot imagine a different self, a different you, a different

life, a different world. Depression is that your reality doesn't match to the ideals that are haunting you. So I think actually even like depression and sense of despair and this anxiety and stress at all of us struggle with. Those are actually beautiful reminders that we're meant for more. Oh my gosh, Erwin. As you say that, what I think is, by the way, now you know I want it,

Erwin, he's here for me today, just so that you all know. But I wanted to share him with you because, and you won't take, you're so humble, but Erwin's a brilliant man. And he's a special man. And he's got this incredible anointing to communicate thoughts.

And by the way, and possess thoughts that not everybody's capable of possessing, as you've just seen. And that's important to me because I think there's a segment of the world that hasn't yet accepted a faith or a God because somehow they think that that's less intellectual. That somehow that if I have these thoughts

that I don't believe in science, which you and I both sort of came to our faith almost the reverse that way, which I'd like you to talk about in a minute. But this idea of depression that you said, as you were talking, I thought, that is so true that we have this ideal or this comparison of what could be, and that's what depressed is one, because I think a depressed person compared to potentially a non-depressed person is in experiencing more negative things in their life necessarily, or more turmoil, or more anxiety.

That's right. It's perhaps maybe the lack of believing in some other space. So for you, when you found faith, was it, you were sort of pursuing it almost scientifically. You wanted to prove it to some extent. Did you not? I was pursuing it at least philosophically. I was trying to find answers that made sense in a holistic way. And what became really discouraging to

me as I read philosopher, et cetera, philosopher, et cetera, philosopher was I realized that they were in the same place I was. They were trying to make sense of life. And so eventually, I think my greatest comfort wasn't in the answers. It was in the questions. The fact that there might be a thousand different answers. You know, you're a Christian, the person, the Buddhist, the person, the Muslim. The ones that atheists have, the ones that are agnostic. And if you're anything like me, you've been several of those the long way, kind of by meaning in life.

But the questions were's the same. And I realize we're going to miss 7 billion people are all asking the question, why? And no one teaches them that question. I mean, I have two kids. And the first question they began to ask is children, was why? They didn't ask what, where, when, who, those are more important questions. Those are functional questions for survival. Why is not a survival question?

Why is an intrinsic question of the image of God in a person's soul? We need the why, not just the who, what, where, when, and how. And so for me, I was driven by the why, trying to find out what is the reason for life. And then I started looking at religions. And I was pretty much open to everything.

Okay. I didn't have anything that I had written off except maybe Christianity, I have to admit. Is that right? Yeah, I did. And I'm not sure why, but I was in a philosophy class and a professor read a passage in the Old Testament where it seems like God tells his people

to go kill people for no reason. And then the professor read that passage and said, and this is supposed to be the God of love. And we all laughed, I laughed so. And so in like 30 seconds, I discounted Christianity. But in the middle of all my pursuit, I started hearing about Jesus and I wasn't resistant, but I wasn't open.

Okay. You know, I became resistant as I got closer to a point of intersection because I heard this thing about Jesus saying he was the truth. I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute. When you give your life to Jesus, you're not allowed to pursue truth anymore. And so for me, it was a misunderstanding from the other side. And because I didn't want to become a dogmatic, close, minded, condemning human being, I love pursuing truths.

I love the search for the uncertain and the mysterious. And so this idea that there was, quote, a truth, and once you have it, you're right for the rest of your life, wasn't appealing to me at all. It was when I finally understood that what Jesus was saying, no, no, no, no, when he says,

I'm the truth, he's talking about, he's the trustworthy one. And that all truth exists because something can be trusted. And if there isn't a God who can be trusted, then there really isn't this thing that we would call truth. And so I realized the fundamental question for me is do I believe God can be trusted?

And so I looked at all these religions and I realized, oh, they all have something in common. They all give us a system of how we can get to God, of how we can attain God's love or His acceptance or His forgiveness or get that ultimate state of consciousness, whatever it may be. But Jesus was the only one that had a different narrative. Everything else said, this is what you need to do

to get to God, but Jesus, it was, this is what God did to get to you. And so I went, okay, you know, I have a process of illumination where any God that demands of me, things I am incapable of to earn his love is not worthy of my worship or of my belief. But if, when I love someone, when my kids were little, my love for them wasn't contingent on what they did for me. I was the one who loved my children unconditionally. In fact, when my son was like three years old at the dinner table when I'd hope it's okay if I say this,

you know, but he said to his mom, you know, I don't love you. and his mom started crying at dinner table. And of course, he loved his mom. He just learned that that phrase had power. And so we got in the bed that night, and he said, I said, Aaron, I love you. And he said, why don't love you? And I said, that's okay.

He said, because I have enough love for both of us. And then he pos it goes, well, that, how do I know if I love you? Like, he's a very philosophical, deeply thoughtful person. He goes, how do I know if I love someone? And I tell him, I said, you know, right now in your life, buddy, what's more important is that you know you're fully loved. And as you know that you're fully loved. And as you know that you're fully loved,

you're gonna understand love more and more. And one of the things that I realized about God was like, if my relationship with God was dependent on how much I love God, I'm in trouble. But my relationship with God is actually dependent on how much God loves me. And Jesus is the singular narrative of the divine that says, no, God did what was necessary to get to you,

that through God stepping into human history, taking on flesh and blood, dying on across, being risen from the dead, that that wasn't God waiting on us to get to him, that was God getting to us at any cost. And by the way, if you think the central principle of the universe is love, then of course the ultimate act of love is going to be sacrifice.

So it makes perfect sense to me because God is love that the ultimate expression of God's love was a sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. So I'm 50 years old and I feel like I'm a pretty faithful guy. I've been a Christian a long time. I've never heard it said that way in my life. That's a huge impact. It's not how I can get to God.

It's what God did to get to me. That is profound. It makes me very emotional. But I think that's why we actually know, love more profoundly, not when someone loves us, but when we love that person. And we all, we all dashfully long to be loved because it balladates our worth. But when we love someone unconditionally, it actually makes us more like God. So beautiful.

And by the way, any of you that are, you're driving in your car right now and you're starting to think, thoughts you never thought before, you're thinking of a very simple thing. I tell people all the time for me too, is like, I don't think you can love someone more than I love my two children. And to think that the Lord loves me even more than that, even with less conditions than that,

is such a beautiful thing to just know in our lives. And one of the things about reading scripture that I'm not created retaining Scripture. And I know that that's probably not something that's positive to admit, but I know how Scripture makes me feel. And I know the piece that I get when I read it. And I heard you say something so interesting about reading God's Word that maybe you're, we read God's Word because we want to understand more about God, but you really believe that you started the study of the Word of God to learn more about you.

Is that how, is that correctly said? Very, very much so. I see myself far more as an anthropologist and a theologian. And a part of that for me is, I don't know how to study God. You know, people say I'm a theologian that means the study of God. I don't think God supposed to be studied. I think God's supposed to be known. And I don't study my wife. I love my wife. I come to know my wife. I don't have a knowledge of my wife. I have a knowing of my wife, which is very, very different. And I think unfortunately sometimes we confuse those.

And I'm not interested in gaining more and more information about God. I'm interested in finding intimacy with God. So I began setting the Bible not to really learn as much about God as much as I wanted to learn about us as humans. And it was a part of the way I validated the Bible. So why do I believe this book? I didn't grow up with this book. Why do I believe Warren Peace? Why, you know, why, why he's in Catcher in the Rive? I fund the Mental Foundational Book. And so I didn't grow up with this advantage, I guess, that Christians have believing the Bible without questioning.

I question everything. So I thought, okay, first of all, if what the Bible says about humanity is accurate, then I can have greater trust in what it says about God. And if we're creating the image of God, two things can happen. As I understand who God is, I can understand who we are better, but also as I understand who we are, and I can understand who God is better. And so I became an anthropologist and it just gave me so much insight into humanity and what are the core intrinsic motives that drive us all.

And I think this is why it's so important. When I speak in the secular world, I mean, you posture me today, it's just talking as a pastor, right? And I actually love being in environments where I get to talk not as a pastor because then people think, oh, all he can do is talk about God.

So no, see, when you connect to God at the level, you can talk about leadership. You can talk about relationships. You can talk about emotional and mental health. You can talk about every arena because you'd be in understanding humans better. And a huge drive for me was, hey, if God's out there, he's fine.

I'm the one who's really needing help. All right. And so at Mosaic, we did a survey one Sunday. And I just asked everyone, how many of you are atheists? We had over 1,000 people at Mosaic, we did a survey one Sunday, and I just asked everyone how many of you are atheists. We had over a thousand people at Mosaic on the property who said they were atheists. And that's just how many people acknowledged they're atheists, not even other people who didn't that day.

And I've talked to so many of my friends who are atheists and I said, why do you come to Mosaic? They said because your perspective on life and on us makes more sense to us than ours. And frankly, my journey to help people to faith isn't to try to argue with someone about God. I'd rather take the time and talk about who you are and help you understand what it means to be human.

And as that understanding grows and deepens, I know it's gonna naturally lead you to God. Like this event that I just spoke at that you're asking me about this 100 million mastermind. I told my said look everyone in this room is on a search to understand themselves but how can you know who you are when you don't know what you are? And because if you don't even know what it means to be human, you never understand what it means to be you. And so I spent my whole session with them just talking about what it means to be a human being and how we've lost our sense of humanity.

And our search to reclaim our humanity is actually, our search to reclaim the image of God and us. I totally believe that. And speaking of, by the way, of business, because this man is an entrepreneur, and you know what they have fascinated me? I sometimes think maybe if people don't know me very well, or even if they do know me, they think,

you know, I'm a really confident guy, or whatever, right? Which I'm pretty good at expressing that without it always necessarily being the truth. But where my confidence does come from is a belief that I do have a God that loves me. And he'd like me to not, he'd like to protect me. And I think he'd like good will and good favor in my life. And that is a sense of deep confidence for me.

And as a businessman, it's been critical to my success before any business meeting I've got into to just get the comfort of saying a prayer, to ask the Lord, you know, let the Holy Spirit give me the right words. I give me the peace that I need to deliver here today knowing that when I leave, if I do or don't get the deal, God still loves me.

And those things have mattered to me. And one of the things that surprised me, because that part of my faith came very natural to me, not all of the stuff did, but to me, if God loves me, if there's a God, he's with me all the time. He's with me when I get in my car, he's with us in this conversation, he's with me when I'm trying to close a deal, right? And it's always surprised me, Irwin, when I meet people who on Sundays have great faith. In church, their worship, they're all excited. They'll go to a Bible study, they'll go to a men's group, but then when they walk into a boardroom, or they walk into Cut a Deal, now they're alone again.

And I've always thought, why is it? And all of you listen, you want to know all the keys I give you, mind, set, and visualization and all that stuff? I'm going to give you my big one. When I walk into do a business deal, I'm not walking away from God when I do it. And do you speak to that for me? Because I think even perhaps you've seen this in your life with business people you've interacted with.

It's like, hey, listen, this God thing, he's with you all the time. It's not just when you're praying on Sunday in church. Not so, so good. You're just the word confidence. It's just a construct, a two words, it means with faith. And so confidence means with faith. And what I think sometimes people forget is that every human being lives with some dynamic of

faith that fear is the negative side of faith. And so fear is projecting into the future a worst-case scenario. And faith is projecting the future a best case scenario. And it's just like with hope, you're talking about early about depression. So this work our way up to confidence in the business environment. We get depressed because we lose hope. Now, one of the interesting things about hope, because I love like studying how things exist in our

internal universe. Hope cannot exist in our internal universe. Hope cannot exist in the past. When your hope is in the past, it's called regret. Hope can't actually even exist in the present. And that's actually accomplishment. So for something to actually give you hope, it has to exist in the future. In fact, Paul writes that when something is a source of hope, when you attain it, it's

no longer a source of hope. That's why people who are single think, oh, when I get married, I won't be lonely. When I get married, I'll finally be happy. When I get married, it's all going to come together. Then you get married. Well, the idea of marriage was a source of hope, but once you're married, it's no longer a source of hope. It's true, though.

It's true, though. Yeah. And so your hope always has to be in the future. So that tells me is that humans are designed to be connected to the future, which makes us different than every other species that exists. And so then when our future seems inaccessible,

when we know longer we can create this better idea of who we can be or better idea of our life or better idea of our world, we move to despair. The reason you have confidence is that you've even, maybe even unconsciously accepted your role as a creator. Now when I first talked about humans being creators, Christians got really nervous. Right. You know, only God's a creator.

So, no, no, God is the one who is the instigator of all creation, but he made you in his image, he made you a creator. And the way I can know this is that you've been given an imagination. You've been imagined to imagine and you're created to create. You're both a work of art and an artist to work. And once as a human being you realize, oh, when I'm at a part of being human Ants create colonies, these create hives, humans create futures. And one of the unique design mechanisms of humans

is that we create futures without even knowing it. Like silkworms, they wake up in the morning, go, am I gonna make a cotton polyblender? Am I gonna make silk, you know? And sheep, they only make wool. They just, they never make linen. And humans can't create past. All humans can do is create futures.

But a lot of people live with a victimized mentality and say that their life is happening to them. That their circumstances are more powerful than they're in a world. And one of the differences about with you is that you understand that your choices create, I used to have it on our wall in our house, the most spiritual activity you will ever engage in is to choose. I would ask people, what's the most spiritual thing you do? The most

spiritual activity you can do is to choose. Yeah, because I go, what's the most spiritual thing you can think of? Oh, to pray or to read the Bible or to meditate or to go to church or to mass or to meditate. And I go, what's the most spiritual thing you can think of? Oh, pray or read the Bible or to meditate or to go to church or to mass or to meditate. And I go, all of those have a precursor. You don't pray until you choose to pray. You don't meditate until you choose to meditate. You don't go to church until you choose to go to church. You don't give generously until you choose to give generously. Every spiritual activity has this one thing in common.

You have to choose it. What makes humans different than every other species is the power to choose and in those choices to create. Our superpower is that we can materialize the invisible. So I heard years ago, you ever hear things that you think is in the Bible and you realize it's not in the Bible? Yes.

So one of those is that God created everything out of nothing. And I thought, okay, that's what makes God different, right? He creates everything out of nothing. But that's actually not what the Bible says. It says, the Bible actually says that God created everything that is seen out of that which is unseen. Now go ahead, man, wait a minute. Something that's unseen is different than something that doesn't exist.

Because oxygen, the atmosphere is unseen, but it exists. And if it didn't exist, we would suffocate. So the existence of our lives is the proof of this unseen element. And so our scientists explored for this invisible reality called oxygen because of the effect it has on our, because we can inhale and exhale. And so it was the effect that made us search for the cause. And so then when the Bible says that all that is seen came out of the unseen, I'm going, wait a minute, wait a minute. If God created out of the unseen, what was the unseen? It was the imagination

of God. So God created out of His imagination, out of his dreams. He imagined the universe and then spoke into existence. He imagined this planet with this perfect environment for life and then spoke into existence. And I'm going, wow, this is one of the things that translates to us. We actually imagine and create where the only species on this planet that can imagine something that does not exist and then create it. Yes. And that makes us unique as a species. Now, when a human being is not living up to their intention, they're not creating. Oh, gosh, that's good.

And so then we're now the victim of what others are creating. See, this is a powerful thing about Ed. I'm glad. Thank you. All right. You may not, people may not realize this, but we're living inside of someone's imagination. Now, you probably didn't design this house, and it's beautiful, by the way. But when you saw it, you thought, oh, I love this house.

And you might even thought, this is the house I imagined. Yes. But it's a house someone else imagined. Every time you walk in this door, you're walking to someone else's imagination. That's so true. When we live in this amazing country with all of its problems and all of its shortcomings, we're living in the imagination of Jefferson and Washington. We're living in the imagination of Lincoln.

The fact even what we're working through racial equality and dealing with issues of social injustice, we are still living inside of the imagination of Lincoln, ending slavery. We're living inside of the imagination of Martin Luther King, Jr. When he said, I have a dream, a dream of a day where a man will be judged by the content of his character and the color of his skin. When Barack Obama took the oath of office and became the president, I say, he was literally walking inside of the imagination of MLK, Jr. We are all living inside of someone's imagination. but the question then is, are we creating a better future for those that are walking our imagination? Because it off Hitler

had an imagination that it became a nightmare to the world. There are others who imagine a world that is a nightmare for everyone else. And this is what drove me crazy about Christy energy when I first became a follower of Jesus. Christians were so passive. They kept saying things like, oh God, what's it happened? It's going to happen. I was like, where did you find that in the Bible? Like, you know, it just wasn't God's cool. I would go to events where no one showed up and people said, well, everyone God wanted was here. So I don't think so. I think you're a terrible marketer. And you had a terrible job

planning with the event. I think you're a terrible marketer. I need a terrible job planning, it was a bad, I think God's really embarrassed. Well, you put his name on it. And I began realizing that Christians have this passive view of the future. Oh no, God's the only one to create the future. They're going, no, see evil men do not wait on God to give them permission to create the future they imagine.

But for far too long, good people have been passively waiting for God to create the future. You know how God creates the future? Through you. He gets the future through me, creates the future through us. And one of the things that really attracts me and draws me to you is that you are creating a future for other people that they cannot yet imagine.

You've compelled other people to believe they can be successful, that they can own a home, that they can have a career, that they can own their own business, that they can create a better world, not just for themselves, but for others. And every time we translate the power of that imagination into the creative force of creating a future, we've made the world a better place.

I have to tell you, I've been doing the show for a long time. I know disrespect to any other guest, that's probably my favorite 10 minutes. We could go back and do that again. I'm going to tell you why for a few minutes. First off, you're amazing. But I have a word of the year. Every year, I pray for a word of the year. My word this year has been imagination. Oh, wow.

And so I'm such a huge believer in what you've just described. And by the way, thank you for those kind words. I feel the same way about you. You also give people the strength and the courage and the faith to chase that. I think one of my most of my friends, my dearest friends, you know, some are financially successful, some aren't. Some are, they're successful in the sense that I love people that are curious. I love people that have imaginations. I also respect people who have the faith and the courage to strengthen, to step into their imagination and do something about it. And that's what you're just really describing right now. Your dreams, everybody. Your visions that you have. These are not

hallucinations. These are not jokes. God's playing on you. These are glimpses into what's possible in your life, if you step into it boldly, if you'll be resilient, if you'll be tough, if you'll find the resources, if you'll pray about it, if you'll speak about it, and put it out into the world, there's blessings coming your way, maybe not necessarily to your point, it wasn't God's will,

or may not be your time every single time, but there's a blessing, and I have to tell you, it's so, do you think that that's why, because a lot of you may not be your time every single time, but there's a blessing and I have to tell you, it's so, do you think that that's why? Because a lot of you may not know this about her when, but first off, he's written so many amazing books. There's another one that's gonna be coming out this fall. What's the one that's fall called? It's called The Genius of Jesus.

The Genius, what's the premise of that book? I mean, I understand that genius is of Jesus, but I imagine it's brought something to do with human beings too. Yeah, I spent 40 years studying genius and 40 years following Jesus. And I realized there was an intersection that was unexpected for me because every list in the world, every found about geniuses never had Jesus on the list. He's done on a single list I've ever found in the world. And I thought, so odd that Muhammad's on list, Gandhi's on list,

Buddha's on list, Mandela's on list, but Jesus never made a list. So I started wondering if I remove all the divinity from Jesus as equal as a genius. And ironically, the original concept of genius, which came from the Greeks, is genie, that you're touched by the divine. And so the original definition of a genius is a touch of the divine, it's Mozart, Beethoven,

it's Picasso, it's Hawking, it's Michael Jordan, you know, it's a touch of the divine. And I started wondering if geniuses, in a sense, are small window into the extraordinary nature of God and the potential of humans, then the genius of Jesus would be in his living out what it means to be human. And I wanted to search for genius that was transferable. Because if I spend my life in Mozart, I'm not going to come out with a musician.

Yeah. If I spend my life in Picasso, I'm not going to be a painter. But here's an interesting thing. A study was done in the 60s using technology, methodology used with NASA. And they were identifying high-level creativity genius. The study found that when they translated the children, that 98% of children at the age of five came out as geniuses. They tracked those children for the next decade.

By around the age of 12, only 30% of them were still geniuses. By the age of 20, only 2% were still geniuses. And so what you find is that human creativity, human genius, is intrinsic to being human. It's natural to who we are. Genius has to be destroyed. It doesn't have to, in a sense, be developed. It's natural to us. And creativity, everything being as creative, but we die so uncreative. Everything being is extraordinary, but we die or die. And so in the genius of Jesus, what I try to extricate

is the genius that Jesus actually emulates, and he expresses that he reveals to us, that is available to every single human being. Because I want a world where everyone is living out their creativity, where everyone is seeing their imagination translated into reality as the most beautiful future. I want a world where everyone's geniuses are awakened. And I believe in that. You may not know this about me, but by the time I was 12 years old, I was in a psychiatric

chair. And I spent time in and out of a hospital. And I was told I was retarded. If you looked at me at the time of my life, I was so broken and so fragmented, you would think I would never accomplish anything in my life. And I believed that about myself. I believed that I had no talent, no ability, no intelligence. It took 12 years to get the genius out of you

in your own belief system. Yeah, and what it was is that I was fighting, tried to hold onto my uniqueness. And it was driving me insane. I was going to a point of madness, even to a point where I ran away from home quite a few times, but I actually went out to a field and I convinced myself I was somewhere in another planet. And I started screaming in the middle of the night that I believed I was like the social experiment

to see if our species could live with humans. And so I was begging them to take me back. It doesn't work, it doesn't work. And now I know that was just my desperate sense of aloneness, that I think all of us struggle with. No matter how successful we are, no matter how much we have in the world, how much other people emulate our lives, we struggle with the sense of connection. And I think some of it though is, it's not just a disconnection from each other. It's a disconnection from our core selves. And I look back now and I laugh because they say in neuroscience that the first 12 years you teach your brain what to focus on.

So if you focus on math, you become a mathematician, if you focus on literature, you become a English professor. Well, I realized the first few years of my life, I was so messed up, I hated my imagination. And what ended up happening was I realized, I'm either gonna use my imagination to escape the world, or I'm gonna use my imagination to create a new world. And so now that I'm almost 63, I realized, oh, I just gone back to my initial space as a child.

I never gave up on my imagination. And I just think the power of the imagination to create. And that's what I want to help everyone else to be discovered. Do you believe, I believe that everyone is born with that form of genius. There's a unique giftedness that's wired into us. Two or three unique things could be your humor, your beauty, your intellect, your daughters is amazing singer. You're obviously an incredibly creative person. I'm a client of yours in your clothing brand. I wear your stuff all the time on my Instagram. Every time

I get a compliment, so I'm pretty much wearing your clothes, right? You're wearing them today. The way that you write and express yourself, but people think, well, maybe my gift isn't, there's these apparent gifts, as you said, are they're Michael Jordan, 6' 6' and Wynn Mill, Donk and Shoot and, but there's these gifts that we don't give ourselves credit for. It could be your discernment, your kindness, your sensory acuity, your humor, your touch. You know, you're born with them and I just think, I feel like that imagining what those gifts are and how to use them in the service of other people is the most blissful people that I know

and they're across the board, they're school teachers and they're CEOs that are multimillionaires. And both of them, what they have in common, if they're happy, if they're successful, A, in my opinion, they know Jesus and B, they know who they are with their gifts and they're imagining, I love your word. Different ways to use them to serve other people.

You seem to do that all the time. If it's your clothes, it's your, it's your, you know, the writings are just unbelievable. Do you ever feel like people feel, hey, you're a pastor. You should stay in this box over here doing that. They've been telling me to stay in my box all my life. Have they? Seriously.

You know, as a designer, I want to add to that. Yeah. As a designer, I want to add to that, as a designer, what I've come to believe is the most beautiful color is love. And, you know, for a person's word, why start? Just start loving the people in your life. Because when you start living a life of love, the whole makeup of your life changes.

You know, because if all of us are here to create a work of art, and a part of what always haunted me was, would I ever create that one work of art that I was born to create? And one of the things I think that I've come to grips with in my life is the most important work of art in your life is your life. And that's really your great masterpiece.

You know, but when I write, when I design, when I create, I'm actually trying to bring something to the world. I'm trying to give people the material from which they can create a more beautiful life for themselves. And there's part of the reason why I do design clothes. Oh, I got so much hate. And I got hate because my stuff is actually expensive. But I feel like Jesus turned water into wine and it was the best wine in the world. I got hate because my stuff is actually expensive. Yeah, it is. But I feel like Jesus turned water into wine and it was the best wine in the world. He didn't create some Shangri-La,

midnight special thing you buy over at 7-11 or something like that. He created the best wine in the world. And so when I designed clothes ago, I wanted to aspire to create the best clothes in the world. And I want to always measure myself against the best of the best, whether it's Louis Vuitton or Michael Jordan or whoever it is.

And I may never be the best, but I'm not gonna allow myself to feel like I'm great just because I'm measuring myself against the worst. Well, about that, I wanna ask you about that. One of the things I've seen you get passionate about that I'm kinda crazy about too, is this settling thing in life. Like it's hard for me this topic because there's a part of me that people say, when's

enough enough, for me, no point in my life was there a real desire to get rich. By the way, I don't think there's anything wrong if that's a desire. It just, it wasn't mine. Mine was, I'm left-handed. I think I'm right. I'm very creative. So for me, similarly to you, I just learned to monetize it better than you did

as we've joked about. But I'm a creative person. I like expressing myself, creating businesses, creating products, creating thoughts and concepts. More than I was like really intentional about getting wealthy, right? But I don't want to ever settle for the lack of expression of whatever those gifts are.

I feel like these gifts are muscles that we can build as well. And I see so many people in life for whatever excuse they come up with. They just settle. They just go, this is an yeah, okay. And there's this point where that genius does begin to die. Even if they kindled it later.

They're in their 20s, they were successful. And then they just kind of called it quits at 30 years old or 40 years old or 60 years old. How do you feel about that? Is there some obligation we have if it's the right term to not settle in our lives? Absolutely, and one of the things I would say is that it's not just that you learned how to monetize better.

You actually understood your value better. You understood that your contribution actually mattered. And if something matters in the world, it needs to be resourced. Because if it isn't resourced, then it doesn't replicate. And one of the things that sometimes we forget is that money is the best evidence of our value. It shows us what we care about in life. I've spent my life in this overwhelming haunting

that I would settle for too little, that I would never live my life with the full intention that God created me to live. And some of it is my own personal dysfunction, being told that I would never accomplish anything. Being explained by a parent that, hey, we always told you you were nothing hoping that you would rebel so that you would prove a strong.

Not a great strategy. It's a terrible parenting strategy, but that was the strategy they had. And I took my son when he was 15 to meet my stepdad, because he wanted to meet my stepdad, Bill McManus. And in that one meeting where my son met my stepdad, he said to my son, I don't know what your dad's told you, but he was just average.

Oh my gosh. He said, you know, his brother was exceptional. He was a great athlete. He really had talent for your dad, which is average. And I remember saying, you know, to my dad, saying, hey, dad, what else would I say? Of course, I was just average. And as I laughed, I had this haunting pain of,

why was this the one thing my dad wanted to say to my son about, you know, his dad, but then I was haunted by something worse. I was never average. I was always below average. Average would have been a compliment. I was afraid to put myself out there, because I was afraid that I would prove that I wasn't anything. And I think a lot of a subtle, not because we don't have aspirations, but because we're terrified that if we try, it will prove everyone else right that we're less than we hoped. And so I've lived my life as a metaphor. People

told me, I mean, I'm super shy, super introverted, super occlusive. And so I told myself, I'm gonna put myself out there. I'm gonna learn how to become a communicator. I'm gonna learn how to be a leader. When someone told me I couldn't do something, I just went out and did it. And people tell me, you're a pastor, you can't do this. I just go break the stereotypes and do it.

I became a designer years and years ago because I felt like creatives were not given value in the church. That creativity was seen as almost against God. And I became an entrepreneur because I felt like creatives were not given value in the church. That creativity was seen as almost against God. And I became an entrepreneur because I felt like, especially the Latins were so passive, that they kept waiting for someone else to change their fortune.

I said, no, as a Latino, you have to go create a new world. You have to believe in your dreams, you can actually aspire. And I feel like crazy, because I want people to realize, failure doesn't kill you. It doesn't end your life. And so yes, I want things I cannot stand as when a person chooses apathy.

Because apathy literally means the absence of passion. And you cannot live the life that I created you live without passion. By the way, this is why I'm not a Buddhist. A lot of Americans love Buddhism because they don't understand Buddhism. Buddhism's ultimate end is the end of desire. It's the elimination of passion. It's the elimination of self.

Christianity is different. See, Buddhism says the great evil is your desire. What the Bible actually says, no God created you with desires. And those desires will actually become your compass to the life God created to live. The Bible actually says, love God and He will give you the desires of your heart. God actually wants to fulfill those desires. And so one of the things that really draws me to Jesus is how passionate it was. If you want to know what God is passionate about, look at the cross.

In fact, the last three days around the life of Jesus are called the passion. Because if you want to know what God's passionate about, look what he's willing to sacrifice for. He was so passionate to end the destructive power of death that he died in a cross for us. He was so passionate to bring us to life that he died for us. I'm going, oh, God is not a God who's apathetic. He's not trying to move us to the end of desire. God is trying to move us to the most passionate life possible. That's freaking brilliant.

It's exciting to me. That means I get up the morning. I get to feel fully alive. So do you think there's a correlation between one's passion level and their willingness to sacrifice? Absolutely. Because you can only know what you're passionate about by what you're willing to sacrifice for.

And there's a lot of things that I'm interested in, but I'm not passionate about. I just don't want to sacrifice for them. I was at a TED in Rio de Janeiro and came out of a lobby. There was this whole group talking and the founder of the Center for Global Consciousness from Hong Kong was speaking. And I somehow got pulled into this conversation and he said, if we're going to achieve our ultimate humanity, we need the elimination of all thought.

And I said, when you say the elimination of all thought, do you mean also the human imagination? He goes, absolutely, we must come to the elimination of all thought, but it's not just that. And I said, well, what else? And he said, if we're going to become the ultimate expression of humanity, we must also eliminate all feeling, all emotion. And I said, when you say all emotion, do you also include love? You said, yes, even the elimination of love.

And I looked at him, I said, no, give me love and imagination. And I can change the world. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think a lot of people are on the wrong spiritual pursuit because they don't understand that the central message of the scriptures of Jesus is that, give me love and imagination and you will change the world. Oh my gosh. See, this is one of these things you guys, I think Irwin will probably end up being on the show

about 46 times, I'm pretty sure, because I knew this would be the what we would do today. Like I haven't even gotten into his childhood, you heard a little bit about his dad there, there's all these things. And you know, I just want to, first I want to say one thing, all of you should be following her when you're going to want

to get any of his books that are already out. The one that's going to be coming out, you're going to want to get. But I got to tell you guys something. I started the show by saying that I really believe you're unique and special because of your entrepreneur background, because of how creative you are. You're not a, you're a contrarian thinker, but a man who believes in a very deep faith

that he's carried for a long time, but you're still a contrarian thinker. And I love that about you. I want to get two more questions in, even though we're over on time. Do you? Sure. I loved today. For me. I get everybody gets to listen to us. I'm just really honored to be on time, do you go? I loved today. For me, I get everybody gets to listen to us. I'm just really honored to be on the show

with you, brother. You're gonna be, I am so excited because there's shares going on all over the world right now. There are people that are watching this and listening to, especially the ones that are listening to it. But you also, this life is precious and you were sick. You had cancer. And that can make a different impact

when you first got it where you scared. How did it impact you, your faith overall? It was in December, three years ago, that I was actually just trying to get a key man policy for my business and for the church. So that if I died, I would leave them something. And I went 10 years, well, we only get a tekeman policy. I couldn't pass an insurance test.

And so I went to the Middle East without any insurance like that, and I joke about that insurance is don't give you life insurance. They give you death insurance, right? You know, because I'm fully alive. And I'm done. I'm done. But so I was taking tasks just to get the insurance.

And I went to a doctor friend of mine and said, I can't pass these tasks. But they can't find anything wrong with me. And I said, can you find me a doctor that could, like, like an athlete in college help me pass these tasks? And my doctor friend said, that's illegal. And I'll send it to an old school doctor and he'll help you. And that old school doctor, it must have been like almost 80 years old, figured out a head

cancer. And they took me in for testing and I had stage 4 cancer the day they found it. And it was not just in my prostate, it was in my bladder, it was in my lymph nodes. So it was pretty advanced. And then they sent it to a radiologist, to I guess a specialist in bean radiology. And he was at a town on vacation. He flew in just to meet with me.

And he said, down to go, I can't help you. This cancer is too advanced. The treatments won't help you. Won't save your life. He said, but my daughter's lives have been changed by you. And so I flew in from out of the state, I was on vacation, but when I saw it was your name, I flew in just to meet with you. And he pulled out three names and three faces. He goes, these are the three best surgeons in the world. And if you'll, if you ask me, I'll call them. And so I said, yeah,

I'll take this one, this one. This big two right now. And he called them up and one of them is the doctor who invented Da Vinci, the machine that goes in and performs a surgery. And he fit me in three weeks later to have surgery. It was supposed to be a two hour surgery with six and a half hour surgery. Well, when the doctor looked at me, we went in just to get a clearance that I was okay.

My kids were waiting for me at a restaurant, and the doctor looked at me and he says, you have cancer. And my wife started crying almost instantly. And it was when I looked at her, I realized how heavy it was. And then we went to the restaurant and I told my kids, it was very unwise of me to do that. We're in a restaurant, I tell my wife, cancer, and it was just more than they could very emotionally. And I realized the part of the reason I didn't perceive how they would react, I wasn't afraid. And then I can tell you that I felt no fear, zero.

Now, I gave myself permission to feel anything I wanted. I hate when people feel like pastures are supposed to not be humans. So I tell myself, if I feel angry, I'm gonna be angry. I feel afraid and be afraid. I'm just gonna let whatever emotion I feel to be real. And I never felt fear.

Fear, no fear, or because you were okay if you passed on, because you knew you were going, or no fear because you didn't think this was the end. No, no fear because I had no regrets. I wanted to stay. I love this life. Are you kidding? I love the sound of the ocean.

I love looking at the beach. I love my kids. I want to see my daughter have a grandchild. There's so many things I love about life. But I didn't have this. I think most of us are actually not afraid to die. We're afraid because of the realization we never lived. And I actually knew I'd lived fully.

And the loss would not be mine, it would be my families. But I didn't feel fear. And I also, I don't know. I've walked in the middle of drug cartels. I've walked into rooms where oozing machine guns were protecting every door and co-cane up to ceilings and I never felt fear. And I think some of it is I've never been afraid to die. I've been afraid to not live each day fully. So three weeks later when I'm going to surgery, I still hadn't felt fear and I didn't feel angry and I realized, I wasn't angry because why not me?

See, I didn't have the sense of entitlement, like other people suffer horribly. Other people have experienced such pain and such tragedy. How in the world could I ever be a voice to other people if I was unwilling to go through pain and suffering and tragedy? And so, my only sense of, I'd like to live as I could live through this. So I could help other people through this. And when I got ready for the surgery, they explained to me they found more cancer than they thought. I had to sign some papers.

And I say goodbye to my family. And everything inside of me said, you need to say goodbye for the last time. And what was odd, and I was writing a book called The Last Arrow. And when they told me I had cancer, I went home that night. When my family went to bed, I sat down and thought, I have to finish this book. So I was in the last edit of my book. And I opened up to the page I was on,

and the first sentence I read was this, I need to tell you before you hear from someone else, I'm dying. I wrote that sentence a year before when I didn't know I had cancer. As the first sentence I read, the night I found out I had cancer. But the next line's a line that really matters. The next line after I need to tell you before you hear from someone else that I'm dying is, but so are you.

And I've lived this strange sense every day of my life that I was dying. And then I lived it as if it was the last day. And here's the crazy thing. In between being told I had cancer in the surgery three weeks later, we had this really nice hybrid family SUV. And I wanted to give it to this couple. And my wife, so generous, she always wants to. So I went and got it fixed.

I had it detailed. I had it look brand new. I'm driving it back from getting detailed. The family is waiting at our house for the car. I'm three blocks in the house. A white truck speeds through a stop sign. Hits me head on. Totals SUV.

Totals that car. They run for their lives. And so it's a hit and run. And I'm feet away. And I think to myself, I'm not even going to have time to die of a cancer. I'm going to die from God. Somebody running a red light, telling me, and the reality is that we don't know when we're going to die. We don't even know how we're going to die. But if we live with this sense of an expression, I think we'll live each day more fully.

So yes, I had cancer. Oh, and then, and for me, the most fun part of the story is coming out of it because, you know, six and a half hours of surgery. And then I called my doctor. I had a, what's it called? Man, I can't even think of the phrase of that machine

that they put into your private parts. I had a catheter, yeah. That was worse than cancer. And they told me I had the catheter for a month. So within a week, I called them and said, get this thing out of me now. And I said, what's the fastest thing once ever recovered from this kind of surgery? And said, well, there's no like world record. And so three weeks later, I snuck out of my house and I rented a basketball court and I called my guys and I was playing basketball

three weeks after having six and a half hours of surgery. And the holes were bleeding, but my three pointer was dropping. Signed in God was with me. The thing that we have not been able to cover today that I just want to say is this, because people that know as both, you're a psycho-competitive person. That's another conversation for another day. Yeah. But this sweet, kind, brilliant pastor will also just

cut your, whatever he has to cut off to beat you in any sport that he's playing, as long as it's legal. So I got to say one thing, because I knew that part of you, because we've shared this privately with one other, that you've always had the sense that you're dying, this sense about you. And I just want our audience to know that, that with one other that you've always had the sense that you're dying, this sense about you. And I just want our audience to know that that is one thing that you and I share very

much in common. Ever since I was a little boy, Mike and I were talking about before you arrived here today. Mike, everybody knows, is my video artist, and on every one of our shows, and I was sharing that with Mike. That since I was a very little boy, I've been very conscious about my death and that, not in the fact that I'm trying to speed it up or that I'm manifesting it, just in the fact that I do have an expiration date and I think it's a beautiful thing to contemplate death. One of the great gifts of my faith is that when you're contemplating faith, you're also

contemplating the physical death of your body and that hyper awareness of that has caused me to be in a little bit bigger hurry and to enjoy and to have perspective and to take time to notice important things in my life because I'm a flawed human being, I'm a person, I'm a man, right? And so this notion that I'm not gonna be here forever causes me to wanna be better, causes me to wanna do things sooner, causes me to enjoy things that maybe I otherwise wouldn't have perspective on it. So, I just wanna know what's up.

I think that's a sense of death. Allows you to experience the eternal value of temporary things. I think you're right. I think you're very right. You can live so fully present in a moment. Present. Present. And it's something that most high achievers

struggle with as presents, as being in the present moment. I've struggled with that too. But it does give me that gift. You're 100% right. I want to ask you one more question. This is such a remarkable conversation today. It's amazing, because forever people are trying to get you and I together.

And then, what I mean. What's quite contrast for when you had last week? It is different from the one that I had last week, that's for sure. Is it John Edward? John Edward. John Edward, correct. I just want to go public and say that you asked me.

It was you. And if you should have a nice, absolutely. You did say absolutely. You know one of the things that drives you crazy by Christians, being afraid to have conversations with people that you disagree with or different that. Or don't understand. I don't understand. Yeah.

And I love the fact that you had the courage to do that. Thank you. And so I just want to go public. I wanted you to be public because I didn't say who it was, but it was you. And that ought to give you all an idea of how much admiration and respect I've grown to have for you that I wanted it to be okay with you. It was not only okay, I applauded it.

I took great courage to do that. Thank you, brother. And I enjoyed it very much. So speaking of courage, last question for this show, because I know there's gonna be a bunch more. I wanna talk about the last thing is that I'm someone who I didn't come to this show today thinking I wanted to think about faith or God or anything like that, but now I

am a little bit, two things in there. One, what would you say is, what does God want to be in my life? And what would be a first step maybe I could take if this is something that, you know what, that phantom pain has been awoken in me and I'd like to find more answers to it. Well, it's a very, both deeply, spiritual and deeply personal question, you know, because a lot of times when you start talking to people about how to connect to God, it can make them very, very nervous, you know.

And I think I would start by saying this, no one can drag you to God kicking and screaming. And I think that's been the mistake of not just religion but even Christianity of trying to force people into relationship with God. I always told people, I said, look, have you ever been around someone that you liked for a while, but then you really didn't like them anymore? I mean, that's kind of like, that's torment. The idea that you don't want to know God or don't want to be in God's presence is I think a misunderstanding of God.

Because if I asked you the question differently, if I said, would you want to live forever in an environment where you were unconditionally loved? You go, yeah. Or if I said, would you want to live in a situation where you would always know your value? Would you want to live for eternity

where you lived free of fear and all the boundaries of your limitation were erased? And now you could be fully you. Would you want to experience that? See, I think the problem is that God's name has been connected to all the wrong characteristics. And I tell people, look, when I use the word God, I'm describing my search for God. It's like me looking for God. I use the name Jesus, I'm describing God's search for me. For a long time, I could

only use the word God because since I can only see the back of God's head, but when God turned around and realized, oh, it's Jesus. What I'd say to a person who's kind of open, I said, the first thing is just to be open to the possibility that God is for you and that the God is not worrying against you, that God is actually fighting for you. And that if you've run away from religion, you haven't run away from God,

you're actually running to God. If you've run away from hypocrisy and the falsehood of religion, you haven't run away from God, you're actually running to God. If you run away from hypocrisy and the falsehood of religion, you haven't run away from God. You're actually running to God. Because God isn't there. God isn't the other end of that. And when you're running toward love, when you're running toward compassion, when you're running toward meaning, when you're running toward hope,

you're actually running toward God. You just may not know it. And so what I would say is that there's a universe of words that you need to be good at identifying with God. Words like love and hope. Words like compassion and mercy. Words like beauty and wonder. This reporter who is a journalist from,

I think New York Times or something came to LA and she's an atheist and she said, what does it feel like to believe in God? Now that's a great question. You know, I told her, I said, have you ever been so in love that like, food just tastes better and colors are brighter and aromas are richer and I said, when you're in that kind of love, you just, you just can't wait to get up and you can't wait to, you know, to get with them because all you can do is think about

them. I said, that's what it's like to come to know God. That's what it's like to come to know Jesus. That's what it's like to finally find an authentic faith That's what it's like to come to know Jesus. That's what it's like to finally find an authentic faith. All of a sudden, like the Romans are richer, the colors are brighter, and you just feel that your senses are heightened because you're so fully alive. And so first thing, you just got to believe that God's for you, and that God cannot run you because when you're running away from God, you're running from love.

And you know what, insanity is to search for love and run from God. And so I talk about like a line of faith because for me, I didn't get all the answers when I trusted Jesus with my life. I wasn't even sure if it was real to be honest with you. I just basically said, God, if you're out there, I'm in. And Jesus, if you're real, I'm here. And so I just prayed a simple prayer. So at Musaic, I don't go through a long elaborate thing.

I just say, here's the prayer, Jesus, I give you my life. And I said, all this is gonna be so many conversations after that. So just imagine this line of faith, where it takes incredible courage to say, God, I'm gonna trust you to reveal yourself to me, to make yourself known, to meet me where I am, and to love me in all of my brokenness.

And yes, things like forgiveness are important. You know, not because God needs to forgive us, but because we need forgiveness. You know, because forgiveness frees us from guilt and shame. I forgive this, feels us, frees us from the condemnation of the past. So, you know, the reason Jesus wants to forgive us is because he doesn't want to leave us trapped in our past. You know, it's not that God is up in heaven being this

judge going, you need my forgiveness or I'm going to judge you. No, God is saying, no, you need my forgiveness so I can free you. And so see forgiveness and your need for it as God's way of freeing you to your future. And then realize that God has stepped into human history for you. That he's taken on flesh and blood for you. That what it looks like when God becomes visible is Jesus. And if you want to kind of a metaphysical like add to this, we now know that mass and energy are the same. That sounds like superstition.

Not that long ago, that would have seen mythology, not science. But now we know matter and energy are the same. We know this table and the light are made of the same material, which is crazy, right? So if God is light and He's moving so fast, we can't see Him when God slows down to take on material. That's Jesus.

So Jesus has got slowing down into time and space to walk among us so we can see him. Because you know if you're in a car going 120 miles an hour and you're looking at the trees, they look like a blur. But when the other car is going 120 miles an hour and now you're going 120 miles an hour, you can make eye to eye contact. So God who has light slowed down so that we could see Him face to face so that now we could live in that light and not be trapped and all the brokenness and all the regret of the past. And so what Jesus does for me is He sets me free to be who he created me to be. I just tell people, look, it's all about trust. You don't have to have all the information about God.

You got married. You did not have all the information on your wife. And she did not have all the information about you. One of the person says, I need to understand everything. That's not really true because you don't understand everything about anything. That's right. What you need to decide is who can be trusted. And this guy told me the day, we need to accept that we're gods and that I'm a God, you're a God,

and our ultimate job is to love ourselves unconditionally. And I looked at it and I said, how's that going? Okay. Okay. Okay. So because I know the one thing you can never do is love yourself unconditionally. See, here's the crazy thing.

We're not capable of loving ourselves unconditionally. And I looked at him and said, that's why you need Jesus. He's the only one who can love you unconditionally even though you're not deserving of it. And so if you're listening, I would say, you are worthy of absolute unconditional love because God created you that way.

And what God stepped into human history through Jesus to do was to create a way for you in Him to reconnect. And that God's goal for you is not perfection, it's intimacy. And you and I, we finally relinquished the goal of perfection. Right. But I don't ever want to relinquish the hope of intimacy.

And that's what I would just challenge people to do. It's all about relationship, it's all about trust. Just take a moment, cross the line of faith, and if you're there, just say, Jesus, I give you my life and watch how God will meet you where you are in your life will change. Amen. I cannot believe I believe, Ed. I can't believe you believe. I get up on Sundays at Musaik and I go, you understand, like I have this skeptical,

cynical mind that I just can't believe I believe, but what can I do when Aaron was around 11, we're driving in the car. And he said, Dad, I don't know if I'd be a Christian, if I didn't go up in a Christian home. I said, why is that? He goes, I have so many doubts and questions. I said, oh, doubts and questions. We all have those. And I was a little nervous. He knew what was going on and said, so what are you going to do? He said, well, you know, I've met God, so I don't know what I can do. And that's the way I still feel it. I have so many questions and so many doubts and so many uncertainties. And there's so much mystery, and it doesn't make life better.

Yes. Yes. Yes. But I've had this unexplainable encounter with the creative of the universe, and I've come to know his name as Jesus, and that's as real to me as us sitting here together today. And that has been what has given me meaning and wholeness

and hope, and that's what I hope for everyone. So do I and by the way as I said earlier confidence is giving me confidence in my life too in addition to the things that it's giving you and I'm so grateful for you because your vulnerability and your authenticity gives people like me I wish I to met you so much so many years ago but I think we met at the right time. But that, I don't have all the answers, and I do have doubts, and I do have questions from time to time. Doubt's about why God doesn't handle certain things, or why is someone suffering, or why is this pain?

But I've met him, and I don't doubt that he exists, and that's the beautiful part. And I'm so grateful for you. Today was very, very special for me, and I know it was for millions of people. And I want you guys all following her. I want you getting his books. I want you getting the one that's coming out. If you want some beautiful clothes on your back and you want to look really awesome, take a look into that too and share this show. There are people

you know and that you love who need to hear or see what went on here today and you know it. And so that ain't that difficult to say share or watch this or give it a shot. So thank you everyone. God bless y'all. Max out. This is the Ed Milach show. We are the twins