Donald E Coleman 0:22

All right. Welcome back to the Daily Living for Christ podcast. And listen, I'm going to just jump right in because if you haven't listened to the last episode, you need to go back and listen to it because I just know that this teaching here is going to be something profound. And it's

Welcome And Quick Series Review

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love to live, is what we're talking about. We're talking about love to live, living that sacred rhythm of agape, agape tose, agape, and agapeo. I got my Greek down this week, y'all. I was tongue-tied last episode, but I'm feeling really good right now. And one of the things I'm going to do a quick review, and then I have a question that came up that I want to answer, and then I'll finish out. In the last series, Becoming Who You Already Are, we talked about six sacred movements. And I want to make sure that you have those sacred movements if you haven't picked it up. So beloved, before anything else, you are loved. Chosen.

Six Sacred Movements Of Belonging

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You are wanted and called into a relationship. Blessed. God sees you with delight and speaks goodness over your life. Broken. Your wounds are not hidden from God. They are the place of deepest love. They are the place of deepest love. And I'm going to encourage you to go back to the first episode in this one and listen to what we talked about here now. And then given, love received becomes love expressed or love flowing out of you. And then abiding. The spiritual life is the ongoing returning to love. I want you to grab that. Those six points is what's got us to where we are now. And in this series, lived love to live, others, we're going to be really breaking down this movement of agape that shows up in the New Testament over 300 times agape and its derivatives

Why The New Testament Uses Agape

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are used in the New Testament. And I said in the last episode, it's not, it's not a coincidence. It was done on purpose. And when you think about the now agape, which it's in its noun form was used 116 times. Agapitos, the adjective, which means beloved, appears 61 times. Agapitan, which is the verb form as identity. And then agapau is the verb form expressed in action. So it's agapitan in movement, appears a hundred and forty one times. That's that's for me, that's profound. And when you think about it from that point, is stop and really think about what I just said. A hundred and forty-one times the verb form of agapitan from our identity in motion appears a hundred and forty-one times, and it's not an accident. Consistently throughout the New Testaments, the writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit to choose the verb form of love far more frequently than the now. I just want you to get that. Because this matters because agape, as the now, is the substance. It's the energy, the divine energy, the source of God's nature. Right? Agape is the verb that love in motion. It's it's us, it's the it's the love that's in us in motion, in relationship, in dailiness of life. And in the early church, they understood this. It's incredible what they understood. And then in the last episode, we talked a little bit about being and doing, the distinction. Because most people, when you think about being and doing, or the story of Mary and Martha, there's a false sense of dualism when people

Protective Self Doing Versus Beloved

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look at that and they they feel that they have to choose between Mary or Martha. And Jesus never said to choose. Because it's crucial throughout this series, we're going to talk about this distinction because most people don't grab a hold of it. Because in the New Testament, it assumes but rarely makes explicit in the English translation, and this is the key, there is a profound difference between being, I mean, between doing that originates from being or from our belovedness, from being beloved, than doing that originates from a wounding or a need, and I'm gonna say our protective self. You see, because we can call these two things very different experiences by name. The protective self-doing is very simple. It's this it's loving others in order to feel worthy, needed, safe, or approved. It means that you're doing it because there's something you're getting out of it. You may not be willing to omit it, but there's something at the end of the day, there's something that you're desiring from that. And I've heard people say it this way: that everyone desires to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved. And in most cases, when you're operating out of the protective self or what Paul called the flesh or the old man, you're doing stuff to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved. And how you know it is, is when you don't get that, how do you show up? But that's why this is that's why what we're talking about is so important because Jesus reveals to us, and God uses Jesus right up front to say, before Jesus did anything, anything in public ministry, anything with God flowing through him, God said, You're my beloved. And God speaks the same thing over us. Every human is beloved of God. And I want you to bring if you don't get anything out of what I'm talking about, out of this series, please come back to keep listening so that you can hear that you are beloved of God. It has nothing to do with your religious status, it has everything to do with God so loved the world. It has everything to do with God so loved the world. God so loved us that he called us into existence, and every human that is alive on earth today and that has been alive was loved by God. So let me think. So let me let me rephrase this. We'll now repeat the protective self doing one more time. It's loving others in order to feel worthy, needed, safe, or approved, or the ability to get something out of it. The action looks like love, but at the end of the day, in the root, it's motivated by fear. Now, beloved self-doing is loving others because we are so settled in our identity as the beloved that love simply flows outward. The action is love, the root is love, and that's what's so important. And how do we do this? Right? I I started to talk about this last episode. I talked about the four movements, and I want you to get it, and I just spoke it out the four movements that kind of flow. So the four movements are this agape, God's divine energy of love. And here's the thing: you cannot separate love from God. First John tells us that God is love. Not

Four Movements From Source To Action

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that God loves, God is love. So everything that God does is coming from a place of love. There is no variance in God, in his love. So agape, the noun form, the divine energy of God's love, the source, the sustaining force that holds, pursues, and forms us. And you will hear me throughout this, you'll hear me talk about the hidden river. And that hidden river is the flowing of God's love when most people don't see it. From the beginning of time, the river has been flowing. And then we have agape tos, the second movement, is the adjective or the title. That's us, the beloved. It's who we are in agape, or who we are in God. Identity received, not earned. Identity received, not earned. And then the next movement is agape tan, it's an adjective, and it's it's the beloved person who loves. So it's moving from our identity to the person going into action, that person that loves. It's the one through whom divine love or agape moves without obstruction. It's identity expressed. This is what I love. It's identity expressed, not to get something, but it's identity expressed, and it's the vessel fully formed. And I'm going to come back to this one because I said something in the last episode that I want to make sure you get a hold of. It's identity formed. Got it? So now a gapau is the verb. It's identity, it's our identity formed in action, but the key is the verb is the actively, it's to actively love, to actively put yourself out there to be moving and doing it. So it's the ongoing daily relational expression of the identity that we receive, the belovedness or agapitan in the world. It's love in motion, it's love as life. So it's agape, agapitan, I mean agapitos, agapitan, and agape. But here's what I'll say it in this way, so that you can really grab a hold. It's the source, identity received, identity expressed, and love in action. That is the four movements. And what we see here is we see Jesus as the perfect template for this. We cannot talk about Agapao, love in motion, without beginning where Jesus began. That's important. Not with his miracles, not with his preaching, not with the cross, but with his baptism. And here's what happened. We all know it. Matthew 3 17. It says, and a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son,

Jesus Baptism And Beloved Identity

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with you I am well pleased before anything. And what would that do for you to hear those words? That you are my beloved son or daughter. In you I am well pleased. What would it do to know that that's what God spoke over your life? The moment you came out of, not came out, the moment you were conceived, God said that you're beloved. I just want you to think about that. And God already knew how you were gonna come. And I use these terms, in spite of, and in everything, God declared that you're beloved. And all of us, it doesn't matter what we're good, what we've gone through or what we're going through, love is present with us. And what we're gonna get to as we keep talking about this, we're gonna get to the awareness of that love that's present with us. Because attentiveness and acknowledging that love provides strength in everything and in all of the inspired in spite-of situations. So I said this, right? I said I wanted to come back with the vessel fully formed. You will hear me, and you've heard me talk about that our job as the beloved, or I should say our goal as the beloved, because it has to be willing, is for us to remain empty. And now

What It Means To Stay Empty

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I want to explain to you because I got a question about that. What does it mean to remain empty? And I want to give you this picture before I explain it. I'm gonna use Jesus' first miracle to share with you insights on what it means to remain empty. So empty is that place that you are attached to God, you're abiding in Christ, and you're not allowing what Jesus talked about in the parables of the sower, you're not allowing the cares of this world to come in and choke away what God has already placed in you. You're not allowing envy, strife, bitterness, anger, unforgiveness to fill up the area where God wants to pour agape in. So what we have to do, I don't want to say have to, what God is asking us to do, and we become the willing vessel, is to constantly keep reminding or keep ourselves empty. So now I want to go and I want you to focus on the miracle. I'm gonna go to Luke real quick, and I want to read to you the miracle, and then I want to break this down for you. So the first miracle Jesus performed was the changing of the water into wine. And it's in John chapter 2. It says, on the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples

Cana Jars As A Love Template

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had also been invited to the wedding. Say, divine opportunity, say Kairos time. It says, when the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, They have no more wine. And we all know the story, but I'm not going to focus on the story here. Jesus replied to his mother, Woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, My hour has not yet come. And Jesus' mother, his mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. And then verse six is a narrative, and this is what I want to focus on. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Let me keep reading. I want you to pay attention to the six stone water jugs. Verse 7, Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim. I want you to catch that. They filled them, the servants filled them to the brim. And then Jesus instructs, then Jesus told them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. Are you catching this? So Jesus didn't pull it out, Jesus filled, and the servants pulled out or took some out and then gave it to the master of the ceremony. And we're witnessing transformation. Water was poured in, the pulling out of the water and giving it to the place that it needs to go was when transformation took place. So the servants did. So, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. And he did not realize where it had come from. Right? Because though the servants who had drawn the water knew, I want you to just stay right there with this. So now the focus is talking about staying empty. So it's the formation architect of agape tan. Right? So now remember, agape ton is our identity expressed. So the jars were ceremonial, they existed for purification, they were not for decorative purposes, they had a specific purpose. They were vessels with a specific function in the community's religious life. And this is not an accident. Right, let me say it this way identity expressed is not a passive container. Or through us, us expressing our identity. Our belovedness outwardly is not a passive container. It is a person whose entire orientation, our entire being has been shaped towards a specific purpose. And this is what God declares over us when He says we're beloved. Let me say it again. It is the person whose entire orientation, entire being has been shaped towards a specific purpose to be the vessel through which divine love, agape, moves into the world. And Romans twelve and one says, brothers and sisters, present your body as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God. This is your reasonable service. So when you think about Romans twelve and one, he's telling us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. So as the jars, the purpose was ceremonial. So our purpose is to be able to present our bodies as expressed, our bodies as the expressed function or the expressed action of agape to the world. I want you to get that. So this is all part of being empty. So six containers, six is the number of man. And there were six of them waiting to be used by Jesus. It's not about us trying to find purpose. Our job is to stay in the position of being abiding. And look what happened next. And it's important here because the jars were empty. That's our responsibility is to keep ourselves empty, keep ourselves, keep all the other stuff from attaching itself. And when I say empty, it's don't allow ourselves to be attached to anything that can cause agape not to flow or agape not to fill us. And you can use Philippians 2, 5 through 7. I've been saying this now for about nine months, kenosis. Right? It's the self-emptying act. Jesus was the first to do it, the self-emptying act, he emptied himself from divinity and became a man on our behalf. In the beginning was the word, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And Paul explains in Philippians what he actually did. Now, for us as believers to honor God, our act of kenosis is worship to God and honoring Christ. I say it this way: every time we flow in kenosis, we keep ourselves empty, we are being what Romans 12 and 2 says, we are worshiping. That is a worship to God. We're honoring Christ. And I will be as bold to say we are being Christians, Christ-like. Remember what they said at Antioch. It was the first time that they called them Christians. Why? Not because of what they were saying, it's because of what they were doing. The agapao, the love and action that was showing up. So let me finish. So Jesus does, so the jars were empty. Jesus does not ask the servants to journey them first. That's the key point. It's implied. He says they come to him already empty. This is the key. And this for us is the contemplative posture. Let me say that, man. My tongue got tight. It's the contemplative posture. It's the stillness. It's the solitude. It's the multiplication through subtraction. It's the journey into wholeness. It's everything that we talked about from April of 2025

Stillness And Kenosis As Practice

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all the way up to right now. It's the discipline of creating and maintaining interior spaciousness. It's like what Paul said. He said, What can separate you from the love, from the agape of Christ? That's what that question is for us. So stillness, solitude, silence, centering prayer, the Jesus prayer are not spiritual achievements. They are spiritual practices of remaining empty. I want you to get that now. Remaining empty to receive only what agape can fill. This is it. This is it, y'all. You want your life to be a vessel for God? Stay empty. And see, the key here is a jar that is already full of something. All you have to do is say something, something else cannot receive water. If it's already full, nothing else can go in it. And a person whose interior life is crowded with noise, performance, self-management, whatever else you want to name, attachments cannot be filled to the point of overflow with agaping. So if you're wondering why God may not be using you, maybe you're too full. And I mean that in a loving way. Maybe God is inviting you into stillness and solitude that he can start to let some of that stuff out so that he can fill you with agape. Now, here's another point. Jesus says to the servants, watch this now. He says it this way. He said, fill them. He says, fill the fill the jugs and fill them to the brim, not partially, not sufficiently to the brim. They filled them to the overflow. God is about

Overflow Living Not Scarcity

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us living out of the overflow, not out of scarcity and not just sufficiency. So when we're flowing or agape is flowing through us, remember it's about the overflow. And this is Ephesians 3.19 in action. Let me read it because I want to make sure that you get what Ephesians 3.19 says. 319 says, and to know this love, this agape that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. Isn't that awesome? The fullness of God, not of Donald, not of Frank, not of Teresa, not of anyone else, but to have the fullness of God in us. And Paul said it this way: my life is hidden in Christ and God. Colossians 3 3. So when you are full, when we're living out of Ephesians 3 19, they don't see Donald. They don't see you. They see Christ. You see, and this is the formation journey. This is the key. It's the journey from agapetose to agapeon or from identity received to identity expressed. You see, and that's the key. And this journey, it's a journey of allowing that the filling to reach the top. It's allowing God's agape to reach the top. Because many times we try and we move before we're full. We get a quarter of the of the jug full and we're already moving out there. And then before you know it, we become depleted. So God will constantly in the formation, He will fill us and allow it to flow out of us. He will use us to flow out. And he wants to see if you're going to come back to that place where he can fill you again. It is a consistent rhythm of being full and then releasing and then coming back empty and then being filled up again to the overflow, releasing, empty, coming back. That is the sacred rhythm. I want you to grab a hold of that because that rhythm is awesome. And here's the key the filling and the reaching the top and letting it flow out of you takes time. And it's not based on what we think, but it's based on Cairo's time. It's the returning again and again to those contemporative postures, to stillness, to meditating on the Psalms, to reading your word, to praying and being in presence, to be attentive. All those things get you into the posture to be full. And it takes patience, faithfulness, unhurried practice of creating space for agape to fill what the world and the womb has emptied. Because when I say agape to fill what the world and the womb has emptied, that's because it's filled up with the wombs. It's filled up with the busyness of the world. That's what I call protective self-living. We're living out of the person we created. But that's not what it is. So we want agape to fill what the world and the womb has emptied our beloved identity. And now watch the next movement here. There's two other movements that I want you to catch on this one. And this is all explaining about empty. And I want to make sure you're getting this. The next movement was this the servants drew from what was filled. And then watch it now, it doesn't stop there. They take it to where it is needed. What

Hidden Service Without Recognition

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is that saying? This is the critical movement. Jesus does not take the wine himself. This is what the willing vessel is. He does not announce it either. I want you to get this now. Whoever's listening to this, he doesn't announce it. He doesn't say, hey, y'all, look, I'm about to turn water into wine. No, that's not Jesus. He does not make the filling a performance or a showcase. I want you to please grab a hold of that. Because when you're living out of identity, there's something key you know. And watch what happens. It's going to be revealed here. He tells the servants to draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. So the agape, the identity expressed, does not choose where the agape goes. It's not ours. We're just the container. The Holy Spirit leads. The form vessel simply draws from what has been received and obediently carries it to where it is needed. This is a gabo, love and action in its most natural form, not manufactured, not strategized, not SEO optimized, not keyword optimized, not trying to get followers optimized, but it is drawn from overflow and offered at the Holy Spirit's direction. And through the filling and emptying, filling and emptying, you will learn. That's what God trains us, and we will learn the sensitivity to know where we're being led. I want you to get that. But the most important thing here is Jesus does not make the filling a performance or a showcase. I'm just going to let that settle. I don't need to talk about it. Let God do what he's going to do with you. Last point here, I want you to see what's happening here. There's another point here. The head of the banquet, you got this now? The head of the banquet did not know where the wine came from. Only the servants knew. This is perhaps the most quietly powerful detail in the whole story. Beloved self-doing is not announced. And yeah, let me just say it. You don't need to go on Facebook or LinkedIn and share what God has done or is doing through you. The containers did not speak. This is how you know you're beloved. Because if you're if you're out doing something and it's the agape flowing in you, there's no need for you to have to publicize what's happening because the glory is not yours. Well, I hope you caught that. The glory is not yours. All the glory belongs to God, and it belongs to Jesus because it is not us, it's the Holy Spirit flowing and working through us. Jesus is the sustainer of all life. So let me keep going here. So beloved self-doing is not announced. It does not need to be seen. And if you are, if you need to be seen, here's the key. Be honest with God and allow God to nurture you through that process where He will remove those attachments because He's revealing if the need to be seen is there, I said that at the beginning, there's a womb attached to that. And only God can do divine therapy to remove that womb. And it may even be trauma, but God can do divine therapy to remove that trauma. Not us, only God. So the one through whom agape flows does not require recognition because the protective self need for visibility has been displaced by the beloved self security and agapitos, identity received. And here's the key: the wine appeared, the celebration continued, and the source remained hidden, known only to those who had done the filling and the carrying. So that's what it means to stay empty. And I hope you got what you needed, that answer about staying empty. So now what I want to do is I want to just touch on a couple of other things and we're going to get a little bit more into it. So when you think about that template, source, agape as the source, agape tose as identity received, agape ton as identity expressed, and agape, love and action, that template is what God is working in us. So his identity, he loved us because his identity was already settled within us. This is the template. This is what the three over three hundred uses of agape in the New Testament are pointing to. Not effort, not performance, not striving, but love that has a source. And that source is agape, received in identity, formed in identity expressed, and expressed through love and action. So I want you to just think about this now as we do a quick little contemporative pause here. Because I know a lot, I said a lot here. So I want you to just really take a deep breath in and slow down your breathing, but take a deep breath in. Just breathe in and let it out. Now I want you to breathe in again. And when you breathe in, I want you to understand you're breathing in the love of God. And

Breath Prayer For Being Over Doing

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when you exhale, you're exhaling the love of God. So now I'm breathing again. I am doing, my doing flows from my being. Hold it. And exhale. I am not what I do. I am who God says I am. Let's do that one more time. You ready? So as you get ready to breathe in, so breathe in. I am doing or my doing flows from my being. Hold it. Now exhale. I am not what I do, I am who God says I am. I want you to stay with that. Let's do it one more time so I can get this right. One more breathing. Ready? Slowly breathe in. My doing flows from my being. Hold it. Exhale. I am not what I do. I am who God says I am. Now let that distinction rest in your heart or rest in you before we keep moving and before you start moving. Because here's the key. Now, there's a couple of questions that I want you to take with you to hold on to. So the diagnostic question for this series for everything that we're going to be talking about is this. Is the point of it is throughout the series we will be returning to one simple diagnostic question.

Diagnostic Questions For The Week

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And a question you can carry into each act of service, any relationship, and any moment of giving. And here's the question: Is my doing coming from my being or from a wound, wound or a need? Let me read the question again. Is my doing coming from my being, or you can say, is my doing coming from my belovedness or from a wound or a need, or from my protective self. Because this is not a question meant to produce shame. I want to make sure you understand that. Because the first action of God is for us to reflect, to look in the mirror, and to be honest. It is a question meant to produce freedom. The truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Why? Because when you act on the truth, freedom comes. Because when we can honestly locate the root of our loving, we can begin to allow God to move us from the protective self-doing into beloved self-doing. From a ga pao as striving to a ga pao as overflow. And here's a couple of questions for you to take with for the next week. Number one, reflective question. Where in your life has loving others felt exhausting rather than life giving? Let me say it again. Where in your life has loving others felt exhausting rather than life giving? And now, what might that be telling you about the root of that love? So it's two questions in one. Question number two. When you hear that the New Testament writers chose the verb form of love over three hundred times, what does that stir in you? Over three hundred times, hidden in plain sight, God was speaking to us. And last question here. Can you identify one area in your life where you may be loving from the protective self rather than the beloved self? Here's the key there's no shame in naming it. Naming it is the beginning of freedom. Why? Because Philippian tells us that every knee must bow, and everything that is named in heaven and on earth must bow down to the name of Jesus. So giving it a name is the beginning of freedom. Let me pray. Father, thank you for the revelation that love is not only what you are, it is what you do. And through Christ, it is who we are and what we are formed to

Prayer And Next Steps

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do. Holy Spirit, as we begin this journey, show us where our loving has been rooted in fear rather than in you. Gently loosen the grip of the protective self, deepen our roots, in our identity, in agapitos, in the settled knowing that we are beloved. Let Agapau, let our love in action, love and dailyness of life, and our daily living become the natural expression of who we are in you. Amen. All right, so in the next episode, we're gonna move from the language of love into the life of love, specifically how Jesus modeled Agapo in its purest form. We'll walk through the baptism narrative again, the wilderness, and the ministry years to show that what the beloved self doing actually looks like when it's lived. Until then, carry this with you. The New Testament writers use the verb form of love over three hundred times. Not because love is hard work, but because love that has found its true source cannot stay still. And until next time, keep living daily for Christ.