In VELVET ELVIS, Rob Bell makes a brilliant point. In discussing the “principle of first mention,” Bell brings up John’s telling of the resurrection. Mary, having found the tomb empty, is weeping in the garden, and Jesus, whom she mistakes for the gardener, comes up to her and asks her why she’s crying.¹ Bell writes that Mary thinking Jesus is the gardener is significant. The first mention of a garden in the Bible is obviously Eden. Bell says that John is connecting the first Adam with Jesus, the second Adam. Pretty profound. Paul makes this connection both in Romans and in 1 Corinthians.²

It’s beautiful that we fall in the garden, and God comes and redeems us in one.

In 2 Corinthians Paul writes about how through Christ God reconciled us with Him.¹ Kris Vallotton, the Senior Associate Leader of Bethel Church in Redding, CA, has some phenomenal teachings on this passage. He emphasizes how God reconciled us by “not counting men’s sins against them.” Paul says that we have been given this ministry of reconciliation. Kris talks about how this should have implications for the way Christians interact with the world. That same “not counting men’s sins against them” thing.

This connects with the teachings of Jesus, where He implores Christians not to Judge.² Instead, He repeatedly tells His followers to love others, even their enemies.³ Maybe, this implies that Christians should be the least judgmental and most loving group of people. Maybe, their purpose is to bless the rest of the world.⁴ Maybe, it’s actually kindness that leads people to repentance.⁵

It seems that Jesus had this idea that as we experienced the love of God, His love, it should change the way we love others. He even says it directly in John.¹

At another point a teacher of the law asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Jesus replies that it is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind.” He then says that the second commandment is to “Love your neighbor as yourself².” It’s interesting that He slides that “as yourself” part in at the end. It almost sounds as if it’s a prerequisite for loving others.

Some say that simply means, to value others as highly or higher than yourself. While that is a good principle, there’s probably more depth there. Maybe to truly love others we must first love ourselves. This is not to advocate narcissism but to say that until we love ourselves, there will always be fear in our relationships, fear of rejection, fear of being hurt.

As we love God, as we experience His love, we will begin to see ourselves the way He sees us and find that that is where our worth is, not in our relationships with others. You matter because the God of the universe, who could have had anything He wanted, chose you, and He loves you. He will never leave you.³ He will heal you. This is what motivates and allows us to love others, first being loved by God.⁴ Maybe, this is how we begin to change the way we love others.

Surprisingly, Jesus didn’t really preach the gospel of salvation. He was always talking about this Kingdom, telling people that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand or that the Kingdom of God has come close to you.¹

What’s even more interesting is that this connects all the way back to the book of Daniel. In one of Daniel’s dream, the Son of man, a phrase used to describe Jesus, is given a Kingdom. It appears this is what Jesus is talking about, His Kingdom. Yet when the dream is interpreted for Daniel, the Kingdom is given to the saints, or to Christians, as if through Christ, Christians receive a Kingdom also.²

We, at Love Is Free, believe this, that as Christians, you carry the Kingdom of Heaven inside you. Paul writes the “Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead” lives in us.³ He also describes our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit.⁴ At one point, Jesus sends out His disciples instructing them to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.” He says to tell people “the kingdom of God has come close to you,” implying that they carried the Kingdom with them.⁵ Later, Jesus says that anyone who believes in Him will do greater things, greater miracles, than He did.⁶

This is huge.

We hope that as we become more aware of the Kingdom of Heaven inside of us. It will begin to change the atmosphere around us, that even though it is dark, our light has come.⁷

To give you an idea of what a Friday night giving out free pancakes looks like: On a typical Friday night, we would cook 45 pounds of dry pancake mix. This translates roughly into 1,250 pancakes, which are all cooked on 6 electric griddles in a room that is about 200 square feet. If the average person eats 2, we would serve around 600 people each night, and not every one we talked to ate pancakes. This whole ordeal cost on average costs about $150.00 each week. It only took us over a year to get it all down.

In his sermon, Heaven Superimposed on Earth, Kris Vallotton from Bethel Church presents the environment in which he believes this is possible. He talks about how Jesus believed in people before they deserved it. One of the examples Vallotton uses is that Jesus, knowing Judas was a thief, made him the money keeper.¹ Something else he brings up is how Peter got his name. Originally, his was called Simon, meaning “broken reed,” but Jesus tells that his name is actually Peter, or “rock.” Jesus speaks life into him, empowers him.² Vallotton also incorporates the lives of Paul and Barnabas. It’s rather powerful.

Vallotton says this environment is how Jesus took some Jewish boys, who hadn’t made it in religious school, and transformed them into people who changed the world. He says that cultures where we believe in people while also getting below the surface and dealing with problems are places where people can become great. He advocates us speaking worth into people, connecting them with their identity in Christ, creating environments of empowerment and confrontation.

Sounds like a pretty good idea.

This phrase is an excerpt from the Great Commission, where Jesus tells His disciples to go into the nations and make disciples.¹

What’s interesting is that the word “nations” there is actually the word “ethnos” in the Greek, where we get the word ethnicity. Rob Bell says in one of his teachings at Mars Hill that this word, “ethnos,” essentially means people not like you, in this context. Consider that these are a few Jewish boys, who have intentionally avoided the “ethnos” or Gentiles their entire lives. It was not uncommon, in Jewish culture at that time, for the Gentiles even to be despised. They were of course unclean.

Jesus is more or less saying, “You know those people you intentionally avoid and maybe dislike a little, possibly a lot? Go to those people and make disciples.”

It’s probably something relevant today. Maybe it’s even about the people that annoy us a little or groups we avoid.

Oddly, you won’t find the term “apostle” anywhere in the Old Testament. This is probably because it was coined by the Roman Empire. The Roman form of conquest was multi-dimensional. Using their dominant military power, they would invade an area. They would then establish Roman policy and implement taxation, allowing them to both unify and fund their empire. Having done that, they would move on to conquer more territory.

What they found though is that when they returned to regions they had already conquered, the inhabitants would be living the same way they did before the Roman occupation. Since this compltely undermined the Roman model, they began leaving a special class of officers in the region to show the people through example how to live as a Roman citizen. They called these officers apostles.

It’s interesting that Jesus uses this term to refer to the twelve.¹ It was almost as if He was saying that they were to show people what it looked like to be Christian, almost like what Paul says. We are the ambassadors of Christ.²

Shane Claiborne has some interesting insight on the parable of the mustard seed in his book, The Irresistible Revolution.¹ He shares that mustard has similar characteristics to kudzu, a plant known for slowly, but completely, overtaking its surroundings.

Maybe some revelation as to how Christianity should spread. It’s also interesting that the birds of the air find their home there. Some claim that this refers exclusively to unclean birds, those taboo to the religious institution of the time, possibly inferring how we should receive those, who aren’t so well received by the present religious crowd.

Chris, a guy who was a pretty big part of starting Love Is Free, took a trip to Swaziland in 2007. He said that he was overwhelmed by the death and darkness that consume that place. Something more disturbing was the familiarity of what he saw. He had found the same death and darkness in the streets of his hometown, Auburn, AL. The tragedy of Africa is that you die by the time you’re thirty. This is truly heartbreaking. The tragedy of America is that you die by the time your thirty and then walk the earth for another fifty years. It seems like there is an urgency to bring life even in a place like America.

There are all these stories in the Gospels of Jesus spending His time with prostitutes and tax collectors, eating with them, loving them. It appears He spent time predominantly with people like that, people the religious establishment disaproved of, so much so that it affected His reputation.¹ Luke writes that Jesus was known as “a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and notorious sinners².” Not to ignore the idea that “bad company corrupts good morals,”³ we should still have Christian community, but Jesus also said that it’s the sick that need a doctor.⁴ Maybe, Christians are supposed to actually be in the world, even though they’re not of it.

The beginning of Acts is pretty weighty. It talks about how the early Christians sold everything they had, gave to those in need, and lived together in community.¹ This seems pretty far from what we see in the current North American Church, but maybe, they were on to something. Maybe, there’s something to living in community. What if Christianity was actually something that affected your entire life? What if the veil was torn and there is no longer a division between sacred and secular?²