Reckless Love

You have a lot on you publicly, professionally.

When you wrote in the, the, the song Reckless Love came out-

Mm-hmm

... and you had so much controversy-

I wanna make sure for anybody who does not know, is it, was it just the title, or was there a certain lyric within it, or is it just the one verse?

Yeah, yeah.

That, that title, Reckless Love.

Uh, and they would say, "You're calling God unthinking," basically.

Let's hit it.

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.

Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves nine and nine.

They should have put-

But this was a, I would say a big division point in, in churches of, like, do we like this song? Do we not like this song? This was-

What's the name of the song?

Uh, it's, the name of the song is Reckless Love.

Wow, so they led with the, they, they led with the-

And we can look at their songs, many of them, and say, you know, what does the song actually say? What theology is being associated with the ministry that's producing the song? How is the song being used in practice? Is it used in a very respectful, worshipful, quiet, orderly way? Or is it being used in a way where people are just swaying the music or lost in it? And some of the songs you could look at, Raise a Hallelujah, it's got some problematic stuff.

Reckless Love, I know that gets a lot of hit.

Actually, that song, if you look at it pretty close, it's not all that bad, but the reckless part is what gets people worked up.

One of them that, it's really not all that bad.

Just because it's produced by Bethel doesn't mean that the song's doctrinally false.

And this is difficult for us.

You know, reckless love is probably the best example for a theological discussion because the criticism really isn't much about the music.

It's about whether calling God's love reckless or not is helpful or is that misleading of a description of who God is.

But he also knows when God says to do something, he's in obedience with it.

There was a season that Corey took off two whole years because he wrote Reckless Love and Reckless.

he he started I mean he was traveling crazy amounts in that moment I was not doing well at all postpartum depression hit me anxiety all of all of these elements insomnia I had insomnia really really bad and I and for the longest time I felt I feel like it's important for me to also express this because there are moments in marriages when a husband or a wife travels.

There are moments when you do need, if you need to cry for help, you can cry for help.

We just sat in worship and prayer.

And Corey gets to this, I'm painting and I'm just, trying to connect with the lord and get his perspective and corey's doing the same and um i felt like the lord said i want you to share what gabriel said to corey i said okay i said so this is what gabriel said and i just felt like i was supposed to share that with you and corey begins weeping and he said the lord just asked me to well the lord Ask me the question.

You wrote the song Reckless Love.

Now are you ready to recklessly love your family? And it was weighty.

I don't know how many of you have heard of a group, a church called Bethel up in Redding, California.

And this group produces a lot of the songs, the song Reckless Love.

Reckless, I think it's called Reckless Love, right? And when I first heard that song, I walked into a church and I said, man, that's a weird thing to say that Jesus, God's love is reckless.

Some of y'all drive reckless, but I don't think God is reckless, right? And I always wondered, but here's this.

That God wants to reach out and hold nothing back.

We sometimes sing a song here called Reckless Love.

We haven't sung it for a long time by a guy called Corey Ashbery.

The lyrics go like this, "'There's no shadow you won't light up.'" No mountain you won't climb up to come after me.

Through people who spoke truth into you, who come alongside you, through moments of crisis, even in crisis, God has thrown seed at you to break your hardened heart, to break down those walls of your hardened heart.

He even uses songs, sometimes a song that made you cry during worship time or in your shower or in your house or wherever it is and just brought you to tears.

This is sowing seed.

Maybe it's through the sermon you heard five years ago that you're still thinking about today.

He's been throwing seed in your life this entire time.

Generously, almost recklessly.

You know the song Reckless Love, right? He is so relentless and so generous that he just casts seed, doesn't matter who they are.

And to us, we think that's a little crazy.

Even more than that, you know, as a recording artist, quote-unquote, for a number of those years.

And I think the success of Reckless Love was so beautiful and so, you know, such a blessing in so many ways.

But it also opened a door, a lot of doors, to some things that I thought were going to be really pure and really beautiful, you know, because that was always my heart and intention behind worship.

You know, I'm leading worship back in Kansas City for three people in a room.

That was their job.

So that's the place that I was coming from.

And then all of a sudden, the success of Reckless Love, And all the doors are open.

Everyone wants to write.