today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer.

The only reason that we think that we're more merciful than God

is we have no idea the depth of the evil of what we've done.

But when you really see the extent of the evil,

then what will amaze you is not the harshness of God's judgment,

but the magnanimity of his mercy.

God's mercy is staggering, scandalous.

God sent his son, knowing full well what we were going to do to him.

Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich.

Today, as we conclude our short teaching series

on the parables of Jesus, I have a question for you. Are you just hearing things about Jesus as we go

through this content? Or are you truly listening and understanding what he's saying to you? Big difference

between the two and a challenging question as we wrap up this series today.

Now, if you miss any of the messages or you'd like to get your copy of the Parables and Peace Resource,

visit us at jd.gere.com or give us a call at 866-335220.

But for now, let's rejoin Pastor J.D. in Matthew 21.

Sometimes religious activity is a way of keeping God at bay because you don't have to deal with

real surrender because you don't feel desperate for God and His grace in your life. For a lot of people,

it's like the goal of their religion is to keep Jesus in time out. You parents know how, you know how when your kid gets naughty or noisy or just annoying, you want to put

them in time out and they go stand in the, I'll just say the corner, and they're over there

in time out. And that's where people want to keep Jesus. It's like, he's there when we need

them. We don't want him all away. We want him in our lives. But our goal is to keep him kind of out of our lives and not interfering with what we're doing.

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