And my point is that all of us had been told by people what to look for in the Bible, and we get a lens that is given to us by wonderful parents or pastors, but often the lens says, "This is the thing to look for." And I am going to suggest to you that whatever lens you may have had, there are two wonderful tent poles in the Bible, and you can hang all of Christian theology and life theology on two wonderful tent poles. One has to do with the changelessness of God's love, and the other is the ever-changing scene that requires from you and me a choice.

Now a changeless God, the God of the Bible from the Old Testament right through to the New, says one thing, God loves you. "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might have life."

What does that mean? Consistent message. It means there is nothing that you and I can do with the rest of our life that will make God love us more than He loves us right now. That's hard to grasp. It's the difference between God, the God of grace, and religion. Religion says there are rules and, of course, there are rules. But it says, "Here are the rules. Try harder and you might make it." The Bible says, "You've already made it in terms of God's love. He loves you unconditionally, unreservedly." Jesus Christ is the embodiment of that love.

You know, it's the difference between Santa Claus and Jesus. What do we do at Christmas time with our young kids, or in my case, our grandkids? We put them on the lap of this jolly fat man in the red suit and the white beard. What's the first question he asks this little girl or boy? "Have you been a good little girl or boy?" And now the child is faced with a moral dilemma. If he or she tells the truth, no presents, or if you lie and get the present, you've got to live with your conscience.

Jesus does not ask that question. For example, in the 5th chapter of John is a man by a pool, sick for 38 years, and Jesus comes by and says, "Do you want to be healed? I am God's love; I am God's grace; I am God's power incarnate. I love you, and I want to make you well." He doesn't say to the man, "Are you a good man? Are you a kind man? Are you a just man? Have you kept the Ten Commandments, which is a very wise thing to do, but have you done that? Do you say your prayers? Are you a tither? Do you swear?" He asks him nothing about the man's deservedness or worthiness, but simply, "Do you want to be healed?" And the man must have said, "Yes." Jesus says, "Take up your bed and walk."

So, Jesus loves all of us as though we were His favorite children. I said that once at a conference and a woman said afterwards to me, "Do you want me to believe that Jesus loves Saddam Hussein as much as He loves Billy Graham?" I said, "Yes, I believe he does."

The difference is in John 1:12 where it says, "To as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the children of God." As far as I know, Saddam Hussein has not received Jesus, but does God love him? "Yes," I said, "of course He does."

I was talking about the difference between grace and religion. There is nothing you can do so bad with the rest of your life that will make God love you less, or nothing you can do so sacrificial that will make Him love you more. He loves you, period!

I was talking about the difference between grace and religion in Portland, and a man came up to me when I was signing books later. He said, "You remember, you talked about the difference between grace and religion at a Lutheran Church in Hawaii a few years ago?"

I said, "Yes, I remember it well."

He said, "I belonged to a cult in Hawaii. I came to that series of lectures and I heard you talk, and I heard about a God of grace who loves me as I am and I realized I was in a religion that said, 'Here are the rules and if you work hard and try hard, maybe you'll make it.'" And he said, "I decided to leave the cult. I accepted Jesus and I joined this Lutheran Church." He said, "And you saved my life."

I said, "I did?"

He said, "Yes, because my friends that were in that cult were all members of the Branch Davidian Family that perished in the fire at Waco. I would have been there."

A God of grace is a very different thing than a God of religion. Believe in the God who is always planning wonderful things for you. He delights in you. You are His favorite child, even though He has other favorite children.

One of my colleagues at the Cathedral is Juan Carlos Ortiz, a great, wonderful pastor. He pastors our Hispanic church there and speaks on the "Hour of Power" in Spanish, and he was telling me about a member of his church who is a jeweler who came and said, "Dr. Ortiz, I am going out of business as a jeweler. I want you to come to my store tomorrow and everything I have is available to you at my cost. You may buy whatever you want."

And Juan Carlos said, "I don't have time to come tomorrow."

"Come the day after."

"I don't have time this week. I am filled."

"You must come."

"I can't come."

"I will tell you what I will do. I will come to your office tomorrow and lay all my things out and when you come to work, you may pick what you want."

Juan Carlos said, "What could I say? I said, 'Very good.'"

The next morning he and his wife, Martha, have driven in from home. They parked in the parking lot and they're walking to his office, and Martha says, "Juan Carlos, do you know what today is?"

And Juan is thinking. He says, "Do I know what today is? Well, of course, Martha. Help me."

She said, "Today is our anniversary."

"Oh, Martha," he said, "would I forget our anniversary? Come to my office and see what I have laid out for you. You may pick anything you want? It's my present to you." Then he said, "Thank you, Jesus."

Now, I believe in a God who not only accepts me and forgives my sins and who loves me, but who is planning wonderful things to bail me out when I make a mistake. That's the changeless God, that's one of the two tent poles on which you can hang all of your Christian theology.

The second tent pole has to do with the ever-changing power of choice. You and I are given the power of choice. Moses says to the people of God after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness -- he's about to die; Joshua is about to take over and lead the people into the promised land -- and Moses gathers all the people together. He said, "Now listen. I want God as my witness to all of you. I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life that you and your people might live."

And so, God has given us a choice. What are these choices? Well, the choice is wonderful. You can choose health. Jesus, by the pool at Bethesda, says to the man, "Do you want to be healed?" The man has a choice. He says, "Yes, I do want to be healed."

You say, "Well, who wouldn't want to be healed?" Apparently there are all kinds of people that don't want to be healed. There was a recent test done at the Cedars of Sinai Hospital of 110 terminally ill patients given hypnosis and interviewed and they were asked, "Do you want to get well?" Forty percent said no, for various reasons. "I have never gotten more attention in my life. I have power because of that." Some said, "I go back to face terrible things if I live. If I die, I die a hero." Some said, "I've done bad things. I am paying for my bad things with this illness."

But you and I make daily choices. We choose good food or bad food. We choose exercise or no exercise. We choose too much alcohol; we choose drugs; we choose toxic friends; we choose toxic jobs; we choose toxic churches that tell us how bad we are. We have many choices. So, we choose about our health.

But a second choice we have is to choose to forgive. Peter says to Jesus, "Lord, are you telling me that if my brother sins against me seven times, I am to forgive him?"

"Not seven times, Peter," Jesus says, "seventy times seven."

Why? Well, not because your brother is deserving, or sorry, or repentant, or it will change his life, it's for your sake. Forgive the people who have hurt you. We have all been hurt by people, by family, by friends, by colleagues. And Jesus says, "The greatest power I've given to you is the power to forgive." So forgive because you have the power.

Do you remember the story of Corrie Ten Boom who, with her sister and father were in a Nazi concentration camp? This is a Dutch woman, and she saw her father and her sister killed in that camp. Years later she became a preacher, a lay preacher. She is preaching in Germany about the love of Jesus who forgives all of our sins, and after the meeting a man came up, and she recognized him as the jailer who had humiliated and tortured and killed her father and sister. And this old German said, "Ja, Sister Ten Boom, isn't it wonderful how Jesus forgives all of our sins?"

And she said, "I looked him in the eye and I said, 'Lord, forgive me, I cannot forgive this man.'" And then she said, "I heard Jesus say, 'Corrie, I forgive you for not forgiving that man,' and when I heard that word in my heart, forgiveness came and I hugged this man and I said, 'Yes, brother, I forgive you and I love you.'"

You see, when we are forgiven by God, even for our lack of forgiveness, we are given the greatest power God gives to anyone, which is the power to forgive.

Well finally, a choice you can make that will change your life is to make a difference. Life is not a warehouse where we collect things -- honors and trophies and houses and lands. Hebrews says, "Strip away everything that you have that you may run the race." Life is a race. God has a purpose for your life and God says, "Strip away all the things that are unimportant." As you get older, you collect less things.

We just came back from a trip to Europe, my wife and I, for two weeks, and we did not buy a single souvenir. We are not acquiring things; we are in the giving-away mode, and there is freedom there. God has called us to do random acts of kindness. God has called us to help people in hunger. We who are in the system can help people who are homeless and hungry to find jobs and come into the system. We can bless people with a kind and encouraging word. We have tremendous power.

We have tremendous power. The power of one person to start a Habitat for Humanity or Alcoholics Anonymous. We have tremendous power. The meaning of life is to choose to make a difference, not to be collectors, but people who are involved in a race.

Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly." Accept the fact that you are God's favorite child -- He has good things in store for you -- and then believe that you can make choices that God can use to change you and all the people around you. "I've come that you might have life and have it more abundantly." Choose life. Amen.

Bruce Larson: Well, I was just outraged at what was happening to innocent people, and I enlisted, and then the army took over and made me a soldier. It wasn't even a choice. The choice was to enlist. I think that if you enlist in the kingdom of God and say "yes" to Jesus and accept Him as your Lord, all of a sudden many things open up, many choices and opportunities.

Talbot: Now you are at the pinnacle of your career. You transformed a Presbyterian church in Seattle, doubled its membership, and now you're at the Crystal Cathedral. What is worship like inside that structure so dominated by its architecture?

Larson: Well, the church is not the building, nor even our wonderfully dynamic pastor, Bob Schuller. The church is the people who come there, not just to worship, but who faithfully and wonderfully love Jesus and love people and love each other and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. It's a real church and I am proud to be part of it.

Talbot: I have to ask you what you are going to do with the rest of your life. You are creating new ministries all the time.

Larson: Well, immediately we're moving to Florida for six months to be the preacher at the Chapel By the Sea in Captiva Island, Florida, and after that, we don't know.

Talbot: But you've started a new school for preachers.

Larson: We have a school, The International School of Christian Communication, for preachers and it's a very exciting school. Dr. Schuller is on the faculty and Juan Carlos Ortiz, whom I mentioned with the jeweler story. We have a great faculty and there is no school like it. It is the Julliard School for great preaching, to help good preachers become great preachers.