These are some quotes from notes I took listening to the Distance Delusion series at City Church Hong Kong's youtube channel. The pastors doing the series are Sean Whaley and Sifiso Dlamini. Enjoy!
The link to session 1: Distance Delusion 1
If what God says is independent of what you do or don’t do, then it’s grace.
God is good and He gives good gifts and you can’t work for them. Anything you can work for is not a gift.
God never demands anything of you. He supplies to you.
There’s nothing you can get from God. And the reason is because He’s already given it all to you because He’s in you, with everything.
God meets us where we’re at in our thinking and doesn’t demand perfection because it was a gift in the first place.
The Spirit and truth is what’s already here.
The Messiah you thought was in the distance is right here with you now.
Jesus is not the author of faith. Jesus is the author and finisher of faith. Anything of faith that was required was authored and completed by Jesus. Come on! We say, “I’ve got to have faith.” Guess what? You have it.
The progression of people’s understanding in the Bible is that God is: in a garden, in a rock, in a bush, in a tent, in a building, in a Man, in Jews, in Gentiles, in you and me, in all!
We don’t have to give Jesus something. He gave us something. What we do doesn’t hinder the gift because the gift isn’t dependent on what we do.
There’s no action you can do or not do to diminish or withdraw the gift of life. You already have it.
The fact that we exist means we have life from God. The fact that we exist is God’s will.
God doesn’t get closer or farther from us, or us from Him. He’s in you and you’re in Him.
Only in a place of oneness (no distance) do we actually see the way God sees. So remember: there’s no distance, no steps needed to get to God. You’re one with God now. You’re already there!
Hebrews 10 says, “Sacrifices and sin offerings I did not desire.” So did God desire Jesus’ blood? No. But because man in that delusion had a requirement of blood, He spilled His blood because He loved us to the point of death. But God’s eternal purpose and His eternal will is life.
There are rivers of living water inside. They may not have welled up yet. You might “feel” distance or still feel like you need to work, but Jesus is sitting there in front of you saying, “There is something on the inside of you.” He is recognizing what is already in you. When you see that, it solves all the other issues. The imagined “distance” disappears. You can stop striving to “get” because you already have.
I thought I had to do something to come to a place of life. But I already have life. He’s in me and I’m in Him. It’s simply the way I was made.
The distance doesn’t exist. It’s just in our mind that it exists. God is in us and we are in God. The distance between us and God is a lie.
You can’t leave His presence. There’s no distance between you and God no matter where you go.
You’ve already got it all inside of you, because that’s the way He designed it.
Sometimes we think, if you get angry with God, you might get struck down. That’s not what Jesus preached. He said if you get angry with God, He’ll come to meet you where you’re at.
The father went out and pleaded with the older brother. The older brother felt like he was a slave having to earn his way, but really he was already the heir and master of the house.
We’re always in a place of abundance. God blesses us wherever we are at.
If you’ve been afraid of Him, afraid of Him judging you, being angry with you, or punishing you, you’ve got the wrong concept of who He is. So God invites you to come up here and think as He thinks. He doesn’t think in judgment.
Every time you encounter God, you’re encountering love, because God is love.
Jesus says, a new commandment I give you - love - which means there wasn’t much love in that old command. The old system didn’t work, it was cancelled at the cross. Let’s have some life now. It is finished.
We’ve called God our enemy but He never was our enemy.
When we think of God in the wrong way we’re in torment because we’re afraid of God. God doesn’t want us to be afraid of Him. He’s never a threat. Never harming us. Safe! Love!
God created us in His image. If you want to know what God looks like, look in the mirror.
Think like Christ. Christ really thought He was one with God! Come on!
God walked the planet as Jesus. And some recognized Him and some didn’t because He looked like every one of them, every one of us. God looks like us and we look like Him. Because that’s how He created us. Adam and Eve were already like God. We are already like God! So what’s the deception? The deception is that you can become Christ-like, that you can somehow work your way to be more godly. That’s a deception. God created you in His image and likeness. So, what are you doing trying to become like God when that’s the way He created you? The serpent said, “You’re really not like God.” But Adam and Eve were already like God. Do you want to think like a snake or like Christ?