Welcome back to the Brilliant Perspectives podcast. I'm your host, Jalen Bowden, here

with you for another episode of Learning Powered by the Heart. This month we're talking

all about the cross, and I've got to say that growing up in church, I heard this story

dozens and dozens of times. I knew that Jesus came, He died, and He rose again so that

we could have victory in Him. But for a really long time, my life and my mindsets

sure didn't seem to be victorious. Or if they did happen to feel that way temporarily,

it was because I was working really hard to fix myself or to serve more and that became

an exhausting cycle. If you can relate to that feeling, I encourage you to take a deep breath

and relax. Because the purpose of salvation is not to strive harder to earn our freedom.

It's to learn how to abide in the freedom we've already been given. Let's go ahead

and dive right in as Graham shares what the nature of freedom truly is.

Before there was an earth or a universe or even light, before you were ever born, your

redemption was already completed. God initiated our salvation, a way to be with Him in His

truth and His life. Not only before we were born, but before the foundations of the earth,

it was a done deal before anything was made. Before time ever was, the Father, Jesus, and

the Holy Spirit planned and determined how they would make people in their image, how

they would create a way to be with them so that we could behold what they really like.

And that as we continue to see the image of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we would become

like them. So if we'd a walk with God in the same fellowship as the Father, Son, and

the Holy Spirit, then we must understand their vital purpose in relationship with mankind.

To be made in His image and likeness means to have the same nature and to radiate it from

the same source of inner light from God. That's what it means to have Christ in you, our hope of

...