You know thousands of people who have had near-death experiences encountered a love from God that was shocking.

It wasn't at all what they expected in at least three ways.

And what if this is the love that you have always wanted?

Well, I'm John Burke, author of The New York Times Best Selling Books, Imagine Heaven, and Imagine the God of Heaven.

Welcome to The Imagine Heaven Podcast.

[Music] The light was shining over my shoulders.

I began to see a small bright brilliant glow that got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Brighter than any light I've ever seen even in the sun, 64.6% of near-death experiences describe an unearthly beautiful mystical light.

They feel overwhelming love is sort of like a million times a million of any love they ever felt on Earth.

They did see the magnificence of just the light shining forth in everything bringing life to everything.

And the light was not just something you would see.

This was really a light born out of love.

This God of light.

This God is personal.

He knows them like no one has ever known them.

He loves me so much by the time I'm thinking of Him loving me, it's old news because He even loves me more.

Then I felt this tremendous amount of love and I knew I was in the presence of God.

[Music] You know, today feels like the most important podcast I've done but maybe will ever do.

I've interviewed close to 1,500 people having a near-death experience who on every continent, when they clinically die and as their body lies their dead, they say they were more alive than ever in a place more real than ever.

And the presence of the love that they say consistently they had always wanted.

48% of near-death experiences experience the love of God and consistently say this love is just astounding.

They never wanted to leave God's presence.

Now this may be the most important content you'll ever hear or consider, not because I'm so smart, not because I make such great content, but because you're going to hear directly from near-death experiences I've interviewed who when they clinically died, they said what they experienced was the deepest longing of the human heart.

And they experienced the unimaginable love that your creator has uniquely for you.

That's what they consistently experience and it's a love that defies human words.

Now maybe you're listening to this podcast and you don't even believe God exists.

Maybe you're agnostic or atheist.

Excellent.

Where I was when I started first hearing these testimonies by all these people having near-death experience and hearing them and then starting to look into the evidence it changed my mind.

And so if that's you, I want to encourage you to ask yourself a question.

Do I even want this to be true?

That there truly is a God who loves me this much.

Or is there something in me that if I'm honest it just rejects the very idea.

And if so, ask yourself why.

You know, just be honest with yourself.

Because here's the thing, if you're open-minded there is plenty of evidence.

Go watch episodes one through four where I laid out a lot of what convinced me.

Maybe though you believe in God, maybe you've been a follower of Jesus for many years or maybe you come from another religious background.

But I want you to see that we all have misunderstandings about God.

And that's why today I want to address the three big myths about God's love.

I've had them, you know, even as a follower of Jesus and as I've been a pastor for the last 30 years I find most people have them.

I don't care what religious background they're coming from.

So I want to show you the truth of what God's love is truly like.

Myth number one that we have is that God's love is like human love.

You know, you hear people say things like God loves you or God is love.

Both of those are true, but our human word love is just so inadequate.

You know, John in the New Testament, one of Jesus' youngest followers writes this.

He said, "God is love and all who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.

God is love." In other words, God is the very definition of love.

God is the source of all love.

That means love is at the center of the universe.

Love is what this whole thing is all about.

And as we've seen in other podcasts, it near death experiences confirm that.

But here on Earth, we only experience God's love filtered.

In other words, we experience a love that gets filtered down through broken, wounded, sinful people.

So what we call love is a very dim expression of the source of true love.

You know, think about it this way.

In April, 2024, we had a full eclipse of the Sun that came right over my home here in Texas.

And it was incredible.

I mean, at noon, it went from daylight to dark.

And you know, you're not supposed to look directly at a full eclipse because the Sun's brilliance, even a little bit of it, can burn your retina and blind you.

So, you know, we had to wear these funky glasses that filter out most of the sunlight so that you could even look at the eclipse.

I looked at the specs of these glasses.

Do you know they filter out all but 0.003% of the Sun's actual brilliance?

So you can still see a lot of light, but that just shows you how powerful the Sun is.

So we look at a filtered down version of the Sun's light, but the light of the Sun is actually 33,000 times stronger than what we can see through those filter glasses.

Now, here's my point.

We experience God's love in a similar way here on Earth.

It's filtered down through imperfect, fallen humans.

So it's not even close to what the source of all love feels like, which is the love of God.

The true experience of the love of God is at least 33,000 times stronger than anything you felt on Earth.

And near that the experiences, they use words more like millions or billions of times as you'll hear.

So we're talking about a love beyond words.

I want you to listen to how indie ears, near that the experience, are struggle to find words to convey this love that defies description.

And then I want you to imagine one day when you are in the presence of this love because understanding how much God loves you can change everything about how you live today.

I want you to hear from three people, a neurologist here in America, an Indian woman who is a counselor and an aerospace engineer who's now a lawyer living in Australia.

These are professional people from all over the world who clinically died and yet experienced the same love of God and came back when they were resuscitated to tell of it.

Two of them went through horrific experiences.

The worst evil Earth can muster but found themselves then in a love that blew away all the horrors of their deaths.

Debbie O'Leigh, who was featured in episode three, was abducted and brutalized for two weeks when her body finally gave out and she found herself in the arms of love.

Dr.

Ron Smotherman is a neurologist who had a psychotic man turn on him and stab him 13 times.

Wayne Fowler, who lives in Australia, died of complications during exploratory surgery.

And yet, listen to how all three struggle for words to describe this unbelievable love.

And God showed up as a light and the light was triangular in shape with the apex at the top and rounded corners.

And as I looked into it, it was roiling.

You know that words are roiling with energy.

As you would expect if you were up close to say an atomic bomb, it was just churning this tremendous energy.

The brilliant light and the most striking aspect, I mean the energy was roiling okay but was roiling even more.

It was the love that came with it.

I'm sorry, I have a hard time talking about this.

If you think of love as if you're in the ocean and you're on the beach maybe and it's nice and gentle and it's really wonderful and you're thinking, "Oh this is great, I love love." And then in the distance you see something coming which is a tsunami, a tsunami the size of which you didn't know exists and that's God's love.

The comparison of gentle waves in the beach of our love to his tsunami.

It's hard to compare.

You can say okay there's an ant on the ground, that's life.

And here is a man, you and that's life but you're not the same.

Whatever ails you, that love is going to fix it.

And I was just in such joy and he brought with him, I guess people ordinarily call attributes, the qualities always call them quality, the qualities of God.

And in one single instant all of his qualities were in my face as an exploding light and they were so distinct at the same time even though they all came together.

What were the qualities?

Well first of all was joy and it's a ridiculous quality of quantity of joy.

I've heard it called divine joy, I've never heard that word before but maybe that's it.

But it's something like you wish you could be that happy.

You wish anybody could be that.

I mean happiness is not even a comparable word, just overwhelming.

It put me into ecstasy and this is all with me, he's still frozen in time by the way.

I mean, he's still frozen in time.

Like knife raised, frozen in time, ready to come and experience this overwhelming tsunami of love and joy.

Yeah exactly.

How did you experience that toward you personally?

I knew I was safe.

I knew I was safe.

I knew he loved me.

He admired me despite all my mistakes, despite all the blind alleys I've gone down in my life.

Love of money, lust, pride, he could easily hate me but he didn't.

Not one single grain of even dislike and on top of that love and admiration.

I can't even touch his toe and everything emanated this life.

His toes his feet his clothing his hand his face everything.

At that point I did not dare glance at his face.

But I looked at his toes in symmetry and I saw the light emanating and I thought, "Oh, that's cool.

He has a really nice sandal." And you know, at that point I'm thinking, "Sandal." And then I realized, "Oh, it's not a sandal." He's bare feet like me because I was abducted bare feet and he was bare feet and what I saw as a sandal was just light being pushed forward.

And I felt so, I don't know, so close to him.

I mean the peace, the indescribable peace you hear about it all the time but for the first time I experienced it.

And I always say, "I could have stayed there for all eternity just by that one toe and not be bored and not be tired or fed up." You know, just bask in his glory, right?

Well, you know what's amazing is a friend of mine Dean Braxton who had a near-death experience was at his feet and he said, "His feet loved me so much I could have just stayed there forever at his feet." You see?

It's like everything about him emanates love.

So it's just whether it's the pinky toe or the big toe, it's just knowing that you're in his presence.

And I mean before I could even just settle in just to remain there he lifted me up to a standing position.

And he said, "You know, Charles, you've been through enough your tired, your exhausted, you can rest now." And there were no sweet words for me at that point than to hear that.

And I mean before I could even process everything was happening so quickly, you know, almost like seconds.

He creedled me as an adult.

He creedled me just like this, like a newborn baby.

And I remember just snuggling, snuggling money, you know, just like a little baby with snuggling on his mom to get comfortable.

He did that.

He snuggled me, and I slept.

Man, John, that was sleep.

You know?

Because there was safety in that sleep.

Like I said, I see down into this one and I'm never at any point am I ever stopping, right?

I'm still going towards it.

I can say this though, that the speed that I was going at before I was going faster than speed of light.

But here I had slowed down for lack of a better term.

I wasn't needing to go that speed.

I was where I was supposed to be.

So it's just like when you drive your car, you get off.

Right.

So that's what I did.

I'm looking into this beautiful light, this living alive light.

I see the outline of this man.

And I know it's a man.

Why?

I don't know yet.

But and arms outstretched towards me.

Like in a when you reach out for someone to hug them, right?

It's like that.

And but they're fully outstretched.

And welcoming.

And at that moment, Pastor Burke.

I entered the light.

I entered.

I merged with the light.

And at the very same moment, the light merged with me.

It brings to mind the scripture that says, I am in you and you and me, right?

When we're talking about that, how do you explain it?

I don't have an explanation for it.

I just know that that's what it was.

And then suddenly, I became like a glass container that's being filled with water.

I'm being filled with him.

Filled up, filled up, filled up.

And then it's more and more and more.

And as this is happening, I am experiencing the most ecstatic love.

See if I can put it in terms.

It was a bliss.

Beyond belief.

It was a rapture beyond reason.

It was an ecstasy beyond explanation.

Racked all up in one.

It was love times a billion.

Isn't that amazing ecstatic love?

Those are the words he used.

Truly a love beyond words, though.

He interviewed hundreds of people who have struggled in the same way to find words to express something that's inexpressible.

Paul writes about it in the Bible.

He says in Ephesians 3,18, "May you have the power to understand as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

You experience the love of Christ, though it's too great to understand fully." And that's exactly what Neurodeth experiencers are saying all around the globe.

And you know, God has this love for every person.

Even if you don't know God, maybe you've worshiped other gods.

Maybe you say, "Well, I've done things.

There's no way God could love me." But you're wrong.

There is nothing that could change how much He loves you.

And you know, we all want that, right?

We all want to be loved fully, and yet all of our earthly loves just fall short.

I mean, we all long to be deeply known and seen and valued and understood for our good and our bad, right?

You know, that's when you really feel loved when you're known for good and bad, yet you feel accepted and safe, even when someone knows your deepest, darkest secrets.

But the truth is, we don't let almost anyone in like that.

We don't let them know us like that because of our fear of being judged, of being rejected.

And yet, did you catch what both Ron and Debbie said in God's presence, they felt safe, and admired Ron said, even though he didn't feel very admirable.

You know, Ron said, "God sees it all.

He knows it all." And he said, "He should hate us, but he loves us with an unconditional accepting, safe love." Now, do you imagine God that way, you know, toward you personally, He created you for that love.

And did you in love and for love?

And that's really what He wants from you, your love.

It's really that simple.

But the truth is, we withhold our hearts.

We don't trust God.

We hold back from really going all out in vulnerability, giving ourselves to trust in God.

And I think it's because of myth number two many times.

And that is that God is unrelatable.

We say things in our hearts like, "Well, God may love me, but He didn't get me." I mean, He's so out there, so far away, so other.

He didn't really understand, you know, my struggles or my desires or the life I live.

So we kind of feel like God is unrelatable.

And because we feel that way, we hold back.

We don't trust.

We don't let ourselves trust God.

And trust is what love requires.

Yet the truth is, no one gets you more than God.

God is actually more intimate than a parent, a best friend, even a spouse.

You know, all our earthly relationships, they're really like fingers pointing to the greater relationship we were created for.

You know, throughout history, God tried to explain this through the Jewish prophets for thousands of years.

He used every relational metaphor to show us that the relationship He wants with the people He created is more intimate, personal, and relatable than any of our relationships.

You know, God said to the prophet, "Gerah Maya, that this is what He wants with people." He said, "I thought to myself, I would love to treat you as my own children.

I wanted nothing more than to give you this beautiful land, the finest possession in the world.

I looked forward to your calling me, Father.

I wanted you to never turn from me." And God reveals that his heart is like a parent to a child.

You know, He loves us.

He wants to give us good things.

You know, just like every parent wants good things for their children.

If they're a loving parent, right?

I mean, I have two grown children, my son, Justin's 28, my daughter Ashley is 31, and she has my two granddaughters, five, and two and a half.

And they are the greatest blessings of my life.

The greatest blessing is that my children love God and they actually like me and Kathy.

They like us.

And I can't tell you, there's nothing better than that.

Every Sunday, they all come over here and we laugh and we enjoy each other.

My daughter is actually helping produce this podcast.

She's helping us with it.

She's excited about it because she feels like her talents are helping others.

My son and I play soccer together on a men's league.

We're good friends.

We have a great relationship.

And that's what every parent wants.

And God is like a parent.

But think about that.

What if, as they grew up, they obeyed us all the time.

They did all the right things.

They proved they were good kids.

And now as they are mature, they want nothing to do with us.

They don't like us at all.

Think I'd be a happy father.

Kathy would be a happy mother.

No, no, because loving relationship is the whole point.

As they were growing up, we gave them good things.

We gave them gifts and opportunities.

We gave them that rules and boundaries.

We taught them.

Sometimes we had to discipline them.

But the whole point was loving relationship.

We wanted good things for them.

And God is like that, but so much better.

Such a better parent than I could ever be.

But He gives you and me and every person He gives us moral law.

He gives us guidance.

But not so that we can prove we're good or earn God's love.

It's because God loves you.

And so He wants you to love and to trust Him.

And to do what He says because it's good for you and me, but most importantly, to never turn from Him.

That's what a good parent is like.

But God is also like a best friend.

Friendship is built on trust.

You get to know a person by learning about them.

And then you start to trust them and entrust yourself or reveal yourself more to them.

And the more you spend time together, logging memories, friendship grows.

Well, actually, it's the same with God.

Maybe you never thought about this.

You know, in Ephesians 4 it says there is one God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all.

What that means is, you know, God has always been with you.

You know, whether you believed in Him or not.

God is the only one who's been through all of your highs and all of your lows.

He's not judgmental toward you.

He really likes you.

Isn't that amazing to think about?

He likes you.

Even admires you, as Ron said, because you are one of a kind, his unique creation.

And no one else understands you like God does.

You don't even understand yourself as much as God does.

And you know, God claimed to enter into our humanity in a form we could relate to.

That's what He was doing through Jesus.

To show us that God gets us because He's experienced the temptations and the hardships and the slander and the gossip, the betrayal, the torture.

And even on the cross when Jesus was hanging on the cross, it wasn't crucifixion that killed Him.

It was when He experienced every wrong, every sin, every act of hatred and murder and violence and betrayal and lying and stealing and adultery.

All of it.

Jesus felt that all of mine, all of yours and all of every person throughout history and it crushed his heart.

It was a heart attack that killed Jesus.

How can we think He doesn't understand us?

He understands us more than we could ever even understand ourselves and yet He wants to be our friend.

And when you trust God, it builds friendship.

You know, it says this, Abraham put his trust in God and he became right with God and he was called the friend of God.

See, trust is the currency of friendship, trust develops friendship even with God.

And that's why Jesus said to His disciples his last night on earth and John 15.

He said, "You are my friends if you do what I command.

I no longer call you slaves because a master doesn't confide in his slaves, but now you are my friends since I've told you everything the Father told me." I mean, isn't this mind blowing?

God doesn't just love you.

He likes you.

He wants to be your friend.

And it's real.

I mean, I've experienced it.

You know, for about the past 30 years, I have journaled, chronicle, written down my relationship with God, my prayers, my struggles, my questions.

And even when I saw God answer, I mean, I've seen God actually answer and interact and guide me.

Now, caveat, I have never heard an audible voice from God.

But as I've talked in some of the other podcasts and we'll talk as well in the future, I have had promptings in my thoughts, just like the communication of heaven that we talked about in the last episode.

Right?

These thoughts directly into my thoughts, into my heart.

And when they're in line with what I think God might want me to do and I act on them, I'm blown away how many times I look back and I go, "Oh my gosh, that was God speaking to me in my thoughts and guiding me." And that's the way He will guide you as well.

You know, if you don't yet feel like God is truly your friend, try that for a year.

Try really paying attention and saying, "God, I'm willing to do your will." And when you have a prompting thought that you think is in line with love and God's, you know, what God has laid out in Scripture, do it.

And then you will start to look back and see, "Oh my gosh, He's real and He really is my best friend." So He's not only, though, as intimate as a good friend and a good parent, His intimacy rivals that even of a lover or a spouse.

And I know, I know, I'm probably going to get comments, go ahead, comment.

But I want you to think about this, all right?

It sounds bizarre, but it's actually not.

Again, all our relationships are from God.

He thought it all up.

But they're all fingers pointing toward an even greater love and even greater intimacy.

You know, in episode five, we talked about the relationships of heaven and how they go even deeper connected in God's love.

But throughout the Bible, throughout the history of the Jewish people, God called Himself like a groom to His bride.

He uses analogy many times in Scripture, with the prophet Jeremiah, you know, where, first, He says He wanted to be a father and that they would never turn from Him and then look what He says.

He says, "But you've been unfaithful to me.

You've been like a faithless wife who leaves her husband." See, He switches the analogy.

He says, "I feel like a jilted lover when you are unfaithful to me." For they have chosen crooked paths and have forgotten the Lord their God.

And then He pleads.

He switches back.

"My wayward children says, 'A Lord, just come back to me and I will heal your wayward hearts.'" Do you hear the heart of God, the depth of intimacy He wants?

You know, there's an entire book of the Bible called Hosea, where God has a prophet named Hosea, act out His love for people.

Hosea takes a wife who was a prostitute, but he falls madly in love with her.

And for a while she loves Him and she's faithful to Him and then he finds out she's been cheating on Him.

She keeps going back to these abusive men who, you know, take advantage of her and abuse her.

And then Hosea goes and rescues her.

And it's breaking as heart, but she comes back and she loves Him again and then she goes and cheats on Him again.

And each time in the book God says to Hosea, "Take her back and love her and forgive her for that is how I am with my unfaithful people." Wow.

I mean, what amazing love that God has for you and me.

It's a crazy, intimate love God has for you.

Do you realize that?

I want you to listen to a couple more people try to describe the relational metaphors, the relational analogies.

Hosea and Seymour was 12 years old when she and her family went skiing in the Poconos, mountains up in Roundup or State New York.

And it was at a very old-style toe rope kind of ski lift that pulled them up the mountain.

This is many, many years ago, something went terribly wrong that day.

And then the man is now a nurse, but listen as she describes the relationship she experienced that day in her near-death experience.

And then listen as Wayne Fowler, the lawyer from Australia, describes how this relationship with God is deeper than all other relationships.

One time my parents and grandparents were at the bottom of the hill, my scarf, which my mother had me, I tied it through once and she had me tie it through twice like a knot.

So, and I remember I had a terrible instinct about not wanting to do that and I stood up to her about it.

And I fought her about not tying it twice, but she insisted.

So I did.

And so the fringe got caught in this rope that's fun spirally.

And when you held it, my brother and I, my brother said if you didn't catch it right away, it would rip right through your gloves.

It was just way too fast.

And this is, so this is like a toe rope that you're just grabbing onto.

And it's not from the ground.

Yeah, it's not going off the ground.

It's just you as you ski it's pulling you up.

Right.

So you're grabbing this rope and my brother said like it was because it wasn't regulated or anything.

It just ripped through his gloves and it was obnoxiously fast.

So we we grabbed onto it and we didn't have anything to compare it to because we weren't skiers.

Now we know this.

But back then we didn't know.

So when my scarf caught around it and it was spinning spirally.

I'm a person that will fight to the end to try to get free.

I wasn't, you know, panicked.

I just was really trying to work, get my hands getting it free.

But I couldn't.

So so you grabbed on and it was the rope was kind of twisting as it pulled and twisted at your scar.

Yeah, as it goes up the twists.

And it wrapped your scarf up really quickly.

That's in a knot.

And so now it's pulling you.

Right now it's hanging me.

Oh, my God.

Why my neck?

So and as far as I know, a hanging is a really good execution.

It's it works every time.

This is really fun for the engineers.

So I was like, well, there's my skuh, my head must have hit.

I don't remember my head hitting I, I don't know if I, I guess I died right before where my.

My neck had to break.

And so it all I know is that my grandpa and my dad, everyone they saw my scarf.

And they went straight, they saw it flying perfectly straight without any holes or cares.

It came, it went through the, the bottom hole and came out the top hole.

It so it went through all those tears.

And it came out perfectly straight.

And in that moment, my grandfather knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that we have a God that we have a supernatural.

It was unexplainable, unexplainable.

You mean it came out the scarf flew out like perfectly straight hanging from the rope with all the fringe.

And there was no because it went in.

And so it would have had to get through all those gears.

It was not it around my neck.

How did it fly perfectly straight?

Right.

Did the scarf break?

No, it's scarf never broke because it can't it.

Somehow, Mariah, okay.

So I'm laying there.

The scarf went through and it came out flying perfectly straight as if something had untied it as if it was untied and unscathed from the machinery.

And we walked it and with walking it on a day in spring with no snow up to your knees.

We, it took us 45 minutes from bottom to top.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

That's high.

Yeah.

So you were dragged all the way up all the way up all the way up and look at me now.

Oh, okay.

So you got to tell us.

Handy work.

So what happened?

What happened at that moment?

Okay.

So then I'm laying in the snow and on the side of me are there's woods and and birch trees and pine trees.

And I'm seeing the birch and pine trees because because I'm attracted to this, this being that's surrounded in light.

And I thought it was my dad because it felt loving and it felt like it was going to help me and rescue me come and get me.

And I'm looking over there and I said that might be my dad.

I'm thinking and it's coming coming closer very quickly.

And I felt there was a sense of urgency.

So he came very quickly and as soon as he came close, he put his hands out and he just looked at me and through his eyes, he told me he just tells you who he is.

And he's like, I'm Jesus.

And I thought, well, this is, you know, I've just felt all this love and light.

And I'm thinking, I don't really know Jesus.

And I thought, okay, you know, he felt so loving.

And next to him were these two angels that I didn't know to call angels because they, they were male.

And they had like armor on and they had wings that were, they look really practical like they could move, you know, and they, and then they have these like boots on that I'd never seen before.

I've just danced everything was going to be all right.

All this information now.

I write down, I wrote it down because the only way I could describe it is, if you've never met Jesus, you'll know everything you've ever wanted to know about him in a minute.

He tells you everything about himself instantly.

There's no question.

And he lets you, it's like he lets your whole body know that he knows everything about you, everything.

And, and just feeling that understood and that, you know, my mind, my heart, everything felt so understood it felt like he knew my whole life in a second.

And there was just, so there was no fear because we had this instant like I've known you all my life.

And I felt I knew him all my life.

And, and so he was my dad.

And so I wasn't wrong when I thought it's my dad.

And so he picked me up and, you know, scoot me up like this and the two angels.

I don't know, they were right there.

And so the three of us were in, I was in a state of home and bliss and happy.

It was joy.

Like when I, there's so much joy, John, just joy like this presence and these angels.

I never felt more loved or more joy.

I was aware of where you were going or how you were going or it was a quick, it was a quick flight.

So I got there and we were, it wasn't like an interruption like your, your in his arms, your floating there and then you stop.

And there was this big tree.

I remember that because that was the first time I thought that a tree was, I didn't know the importance of it, but we sat under it.

And then I sat on his lap and then came this, you know, all these explanations, which are really kind of telepathically he lets you know every question you want answered.

So all my little questions that were spinning up here, he was answering them with this tremendous peace in his eyes.

So when you looked in his eyes, you, you knew the answers.

It was like, and he almost knew your questions before you did.

And so I knew he was very superior to me in that way.

I thought he knows everything.

And, and then this trust is what, what happens.

And what kind of things were you hearing him say?

And the comfort, the way he communicates, it's not like words that are, but, but just sum it up, it's like everything will be all right.

And this trust in when he tells you everything, everything will be all right.

And it's not like we say it, it's with a tremendous trust because you know he's superior and you know he knows you.

And so you know he knows everything and everybody.

And so, in an, you're able to accept that instantly because of, because of the magnitude of, of love.

And I think that love that he that comes through him is carries wisdom and carries trust and carries knowledge, a lot of not he's so, you know, there's nothing that he's not going to know about you, nothing like right down to your DNA.

And then it goes, you're, you're whole being knows that like the cells in your blood know that like you're, it's so real.

I learned the Bible backwards.

So I still don't know it forward.

I learned it backwards.

And I, what do you mean?

My experience was my Bible.

And so, in so many ways for at a young age.

And then as I grew, I would hear stories from the Bible.

And I would be like, oh, that's that's, that's what that meant or that's what that was.

And so, I was all connected.

Yeah.

So for me, the Bible was alive.

And well, like I, I don't have, I read when I hear or any type of reading from the Bible, I get it.

I'm like, yep, yep, yep, because there's.

It fits.

It always fits.

And, and as much as I would try anyone would try to disprove it, I, I never could.

I could never, it always fits.

I'm like that fits.

That, the only thing that wouldn't fit is the delivery sometimes of, I guess our human understanding.

And so I describe it to my husband like, when men watch a football game, you're going to get like three or four or five commentaries on the same game.

You know what I mean?

They're always going to have a different point of view, not that they're wrong.

But that's how I hear different.

Someone said it to me who had had a near death experience, like imagine me trying to describe what it's like to fall in love.

Right.

Actually falling in love.

Right.

That's the word just can't until you experience the words are not going to quite get it.

And I just love Jesus because he comes in love and, and that's the mystery of God is love because love is our greatest mystery and our greatest power.

And yet we can't describe it or explain it.

And so it's really kind of comical how, you know, how we stumble around to like try to trust it or grab a hold of it or bottle it up.

And so at, at this age at 12 and not knowing really much about Jesus, did you have a sense of who this was?

Yeah, I knew he was God.

I knew instantly that Jesus was that he was the the one true God.

And I, and because everything about him was truth and everything about him was.

Bigger than anything I could ever describe, but yet he comes so humble.

If I could quantify in a can't if I could quantify the greatest love that I've ever experienced or anyone can ever experience in this earthly body.

And so it's not just English or word love just fails so badly because there are so many different types of it.

But think about every loving relationship you have ever had.

And I mean, I mean, wife, friend, brother, sister, father, mother, all of them, everything, combine them all together.

And then blow them exponentially beyond your ability to reason them.

Millions of times, all of that.

That's what I was experiencing.

And are you still feeling fully yourself?

Yes.

Like you do right now.

Yes.

But full of this ecstatic love.

Yes.

And is there communication going on at the same time?

That's what happens here.

This is what I'm just about to say.

Because as I'm being filled up, not not yet.

I'm being filled up filled up.

And it's like this balloon.

I can actually feel the pressure of it.

And I get to the point where I feel like I'm going to explode from the power of it.

And I can maintain anymore.

And just as I have that thought, I can feel it start just like the beat of light things start to subside a level.

And then the realization that that's what was happening.

And I said, no, no, get me all you got.

And then I heard him chuckle.

He thought that was cute.

He thought that was.

And I thought, and he starts filling me more and more until, but he knows how much I could take.

And so he did as much of that.

And as he's doing this.

And then I start having this knowledge because I am filled with him.

And I know who this him is.

This is Jesus.

And you knew it intuitively.

I knew it with a level of knowledge that is a knowing beyond knowing.

And questionable truth.

I knew this was Jesus.

I knew this was God.

I knew he was the way, the truth and the life.

I knew it in a way that is beyond us reading it.

Now I can say that because I didn't even know that scripture.

And I remember I hadn't read the Bible.

So that's what I'm saying.

I knew this was the way, the truth and the life.

And I understood what that meant.

I mean, isn't that just mind blowing that God loves you that much?

I mean, I know I feel that way.

But that is how wonderful God is.

And you know, remember both Wayne and Suzanne really knew nothing about Jesus and hadn't really read the Bible.

I mean, Wayne had just come to faith.

Suzanne was just a 12 year old girl.

Her parents didn't even believe until that ski accident when her scarf was tied and not and should have gone through the gears and yet came down, came back down the mountain on the tow rope hanging perfectly.

And she came back even though the X-rays showed a broken neck, she was healed.

Amazing.

But do you see how relatable God is?

He gets you like a best friend.

He's like a wonderful parent, but also with the intimate, ecstatic oneness of love like Wayne talked about.

You know, others did too.

And then, Cedric Besegna described it to me as scary intimate.

You know, today, Cedric is actually a Catholic, passionate priest.

But when he had his near-death experience, he was college age.

He had stopped going to the Catholic church, turned away from God.

He was just partying.

He got his girlfriend pregnant.

They had an abortion.

And then for the next six months, just grief and guilt overwhelmed him until finally, he turned back to God for forgiveness.

And then he has his near-death experience.

And in it, he was shocked at how he was treated, not at all as he expected.

Listen to what he said.

The interesting thing about this is that I didn't want to go through the tunnel.

I thought, "Oh, no, because I knew I was not ready to come before God.

Before I knew it, I was at the end of the tunnel.

Suddenly, I found myself in the presence of God standing before the throne.

The only way to describe it was a living, luminescent light that embraced me.

God's love for me was intensely personal.

I sensed that I was known and loved even before I was born into this world.

His love was unconditional.

God's care and affection for me were not conditioned on my goodness.

Rather, there was such a powerful, pulsating, goodness radiating from God that it was overwhelming.

God's love is an energetic passion.

God's love is affectionate.

It's very intimate and personal.

I realized that not only did God love me, He was in love with me.

What I mean is that He knew me through and through and still had His heart set upon me.

As God communicated with me telepathically, I remember being amazed at how vulnerable an intimate God wanted to be.

I remember thinking He loves me so much, it's scary.

Scary is a strange, agitive to use about love.

I know, but I was overwhelmed with the intensity and intimacy of God's love.

God is obsessed with us.

Do you realize that God feels that way about you?

He's obsessed with you.

So let me ask you, why wouldn't you seek to grow closer to a God like that?

What would possibly hold you back from wanting to get closer to someone who knows you, wants good things for you, loves you that much?

And all He really wants is for you to do life with Him.

You know, just talking through the moments of your day and listening for those prompting thoughts of guidance and then doing those things that are in line with His will so that you see Him at work in your life.

Why wouldn't we do that?

But I think that brings up myth number three that causes us to hold back.

And that's that we tend to think, well, I'm just one of billions.

You know, I've heard people say it over the years, I don't bother God with my little concerns.

That's why I don't pray.

I mean, God has much bigger fish to fry.

Or they'll say things like, well, God couldn't care about me and my little problems.

I mean, there are eight billion people on the planet.

How could he possibly attend to bat many of us?

But you have to remember God is not at all like humans.

We are bound by three dimensions of space, but God is not bound by space.

We're bound by one dimension of time.

But God has many dimensions of time through which He can act.

And God is great enough to always be present with you and care about every little thing in your life.

And He knows how it all fits and it all matters.

And yet He's so great He can do that for all eight billion of us.

What you don't realize the truth is that you're actually God's favorite child, which I know it sounds absurd.

I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't heard so many near that the experiencers say that's exactly how they felt.

I can't remember looking at Him like I could look directly through the light and exactly see Him as He is.

And that really got me to be able to do that.

Now that light coming off of Him, I remember it rapid itself around me.

So when asked me one time was He hugging you, I said, everything about Him was hugging me.

And as I could go back to that point that I was talking about how I was spanning up and everything about Him was showing love to me.

I looked into His eyes and when I looked into His eyes, John, what did I see?

I saw the love He has for me.

Like it would go on and on and on.

I'm an eternal being.

I will live forever.

But it looked like His love would outlasts me.

That's what it seemed like to me.

It was like, and this is what really got me was the moment He looked at me.

He loved me.

And the next moment He loved me more.

And the next moment He loved me more.

I didn't know that His love for me is growing every moment.

And every moment I looked at Him, He loved me more.

All of a sudden I started thinking about others.

I thought about my wife at the time and I saw the love for her like He only loved her.

I thought about my mom at the time.

And I saw the love that they had for her like He only loved her.

And then when I thought about Him in the switch of my thinking, all of a sudden I saw the love for them like He only loved them.

And I made a statement, "You really do want everybody here." Browns and greens and blues.

And those were the colors of His eyes.

And how did you feel when He was looking into Your eyes?

I can't.

Everything I would say would be cliche.

I felt home.

It was my home.

He was my father, my friend.

He was everything I had ever hoped for.

Everything I could have dreamed but beyond that.

He loved me with a consummate love because He was love.

And I had never known the person of love.

I had known the emotion of love.

I had known all of these other facets of love.

But being in the presence of the person of love was entirely different.

And everything I felt like I was the most special person.

I felt like I was the only person in the world.

I knew Jesus cared for everyone but that's how He looked at me.

That's how He treated me like I was the only one.

All of this, the world, the millions that He had charged over, watching over.

And I felt like I was the only one.

I was the only one.

I was the most special person in the world.

And that's how He viewed me.

And He was restoring what I had lost in my life.

And He was revealing to me something that I never understood and that He was with me even when I was not with Him.

And even when I was an agnostic and it denied Him that He still was watching over me and waiting for me to come to Him.

And as I am just filled up with God Himself, I have this knowledge that this is the savior of the world.

It's not questionable.

We were talking about these other people that may have not had a belief in God or Jesus or whatever.

They know it's Jesus.

Right?

You cannot deny it.

It is so powerfully undeniable.

But it was deeper than that for me.

I knew that everything about Him was also true.

And He actually did die on a cross.

It's very difficult for me to express this particular part without getting emotional about it.

I apologize in advance.

I knew that if I was the only person in all of creation that ever would have said yes to Him, He would have gone to that cross and died just for me.

Just for me.

Just for me.

And I knew the truth of that.

I knew the truth of it.

I had never, never contemplated.

I, I, me with, with this filthy as I felt that I was is unworthy as I felt that I was.

And yet I knew that was so undeniably true.

And this was also undeniably true that he would do that for you.

And everybody else.

There is not a single person that he is created that he wouldn't have done that for.

And this, this is another part of that.

He wants so badly to have a personal relationship with us.

He wants a relationship that's closer than we can have with a loving spouse.

He wants to do that.

Not only does he want to, he can.

Truly it is an amazing love.

A love that would do that just for you.

That if you were the only one, he would take the bullet.

He would lay down his life so that you could be forgiven of all your wrongs by just simply turning back and saying, God, I want your forgiveness and I want your love and your guidance.

And that is why this is called good news for all people of all nations.

You know, we don't have to get our karma right, prove we're good enough.

You know, to get off the cycle of samsara, we don't, we don't have to perfectly keep the ten commandments or, you know, the eightfold path of Buddhism or the five pillars of Islam.

But truth is, no one can perfectly do all the right things and yet God in his love forgives us so that every human heart that turns back to him and wants the forgiveness that he paid for in Christ can have it freely.

Have you told him that?

That's all he wants is your heart turned back.

He's learning to walk in his love, realizing how he feels about you and letting that love channel through you to others just as we talked about in the last episode on relationships.

I want to end this podcast in a different kind of way.

I want to read to you my favorite chapter part of it from the New Testament that summarizes this love we've been talking about.

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

What should we say about such wonderful things as these?

If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

Since He did not spare His own son but gave him up for us all?

Won't He also give us everything else?

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?

Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death?

No, despite all these things overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us.

And I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love.

Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither are fears for today or are worries about tomorrow.

Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love.

That's the great love He has for you.

You are His unique beloved child.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast.

If you have, I hope you'll share it with others who need to know that God feels the same way about them.

Subscribe, like it, and be sure to give me your comments down below, give me your thoughts and suggestions for future episodes.

And I'm so grateful for you guys.

Thanks for all your encouragement you've been leaving in the comments.

And until next time, be blessed.

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