It Wasn't Me,...Really?

Good Morning My Friend!! How many times have you said it, or heard it said? "But I'm only human!" Those words were uttered in response to a mistake you made, weren't they? The reason we fail, the reason we offend others, the reason we sin against God is that we are human. If we sin because we are only human, then our sin is not our fault. We are really not responsible for our sin.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.—John 1:9 (NIV)

Unfortunately, way too many people think this way! But this line of reasoning is a classic example of blame shifting! It is a way to excuse sin by shifting the blame away from ourselves. Adam and Eve provide a good example. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, they made excuses to God. Adam said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate." And Eve said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate" (Genesis 3:12 & 13). In other words, Adam blamed his wife for his sin. Eve didn't do any better. She shifted the blame to the serpent. Adam and Eve refused to accept responsibility for their own sin. We do the same thing today when we use the excuse, "But I'm only human!" The amazing thing is that we shift the blame for our sin to God,...after all God made us the way we are. Then our sin is really God's fault! This is the ultimate in blame shifting,...blaming God for our sins. But do you really think God will accept the blame for your sins? Well, He won't! Using excuses will only compound your problems. When you've sinned, the answer is to accept responsibility,... and confess your sins to God,...like the Bible says.

It's that the message we try to give our children,...Don't lie, don't hide it, I know you did it,...just admit it.

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Jesus, we know there are a whole lot of things that we can do outside of You,...but we can't do anything that's going to matter in eternity unless we rest in You. So Lord and Life, we surrender it all to You right now. We want everything to bring glory to You. So we're giving up doing anything on our own. Teach us to become more and more dependent on You. Thanks!

" The Lord loves a cheerful giver,...until he brags about it."

What Can We Do,...Really?

Good Morning!! You know when Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing," He clearly didn't mean that we can't do anything. There are lots of things we can do. We can drive a car, we can go to work, we can pay our mortgage,...we can do things. What He is saying is, " If you're going to do something of eternal significance,...if you want to make a difference in people's lives, if you want to bear real spiritual fruit that matters eternally,...apart from Me you can't do any of that. You cannot create true fruit in the power of the flesh." If we choose not to remain in His love, if we choose not to abide in Him, not to allow His power to work through us, we’re just like a branch that’s not even connected.
This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.—John 15:8 (NIV)

There's no difference. Why would we even want to live that way? (Well, pride for starters, but let's just pretend that was a rhetorical question.) The point is this; We were designed to "remain" in Christ and in His love for us, dependent on Him to live His life through us. What happens when we bear fruit? Two things:

1. We show ourselves to be disciples. The true fruit of the Spirit makes it obvious that we really are disciples, because only He can bear this kind of fruit. If it’s borne, then it’s obvious He did it through us, and we’re disciples.
2. The Father gets the glory. And there is something that is just so right about that. It’s like everything falls into its proper place when people look past us and praise God from whom anything good flows.

 

If the life of Christ is in a believer,...fruit and growth are inevitable.

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Jesus, we know there are a whole lot of things that we can do outside of You,...but we can't do anything that's going to matter in eternity unless we rest in You. So Lord and Life, we surrender it all to You right now. We want everything to bring glory to You. So we're giving up doing anything on our own. Teach us to become more and more dependent on You. Thanks!

" The Lord loves a cheerful giver,...until he brags about it."

Only Jesus Is True And Lasting

Good Morning!! When we come to Jesus, and find our rest in Him, our heavy souls are lifted. I think the real challenge is getting to that point. It's so easy and natural to place our hope in so many other things and places. We often don't even notice we are abiding in other things,...until those things fail us. In those moments of personal revelation, we have a choice: will we choose to abide in Christ? Or will we become angry and embittered by the failure of things that were never designed to meet those core needs in the first place?

"Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."—John 15:4 (NIV)

When our spouse doesn’t love us the way we thought our spouse was going to love us, and we are disappointed in the lack of love we find there, what do we do?  We leave it to Jesus, we abide and we rest in His love! We find our needs met there, regardless of what our spouse does. When children start to go off the wall, running in every direction except the one we're pointing them toward, what do we do? We trust in Jesus' love, we rest there. When parents are turning up the screws and they just don’t get it, what do we do? We rest in Jesus’ love! We abide there, moment by moment, day by day. The list could go on and on,...because it's not just people that fail us, it's money, jobs, our health, etc. etc. etc. But the pattern remains the same,...only Jesus is true and lasting.

Anytime we face difficulty we have the choice to either become embittered or to embrace our relationship with Christ and remain in Him and His love to bring peace to our souls.

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Jesus, You are the true vine. Give us the wisdom to quickly see when we're trusting in anything other than You. Give us the willingness to readjust our focus quickly away from the things that are doomed to fail us. By faith and the truth of Your Word, draw us into an intimate personal relationship with You,...so that we can find rest and peace for our souls. Lord help us today. Amen.

" The Lord loves a cheerful giver,...until he brags about it."

The Branch, And Prayer

Good Morning!! Some people believe that when prayer was removed from schools, our country headed straight to hell. Prayer. Seems like it should be a simple enough topic. But just take a little sample of what people say about it:

·   "God punishes us mildly by ignoring our prayers and severely by answering them."—Richard J. Needham
·   "When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing - nothing."—Saint Francis of Assisi
·   "Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."—Soren Kierkegaard
·   "Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers."—Austin O'Malley
·   "I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."—Frederick Douglass, escaped slave
·   "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."—Author unknown
·   "When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic."—Jane Wagner

Jesus had a lot to say about prayer, too. Thankfully, we can accept His words and His practice of prayer as truth. In John 15, as He finishes explaining the vine and the branches, He offers us another important facet of prayer to consider:


"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."—John 15:7-8 (NIV)


In the context of everything that Jesus has just said about the vine and the branch, this passage is so much more than some sort of formula to get what we want,...it's just so much deeper than that. Note the preconditions to answered prayer: "If you remain in me… if my words remain in you…." Jesus is talking about an intimacy, that is so real that it appears our will becomes conformed to His,...so much so, that anything we ask will be a reflection of who we are in Him, and who He is in us. Isn't this the vine-and-branch relationship at its simplest, most profound level? If we are living our lives in the context of His love on this level, there will be joy, there will be sacrifice, there will be obedience… and whatever we pray, consider the answer YES, because we will be praying for the right things!

"As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools."(Author unknown)

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True Vine, align our desires with Your will! We want to remain in You. We want Your Word to remain in us. We want our minds to be renewed, and our life to be transformed so deeply that our prayers will be a natural reflection of Your will. This will require many things to be pruned from our lives, and it will stretch the boundaries of our comfort zone. Lead us and empower us, to be more obedience to the Father’s glory. Amen.

" The Lord loves a cheerful giver,...until he brags about it."

We Were Chosen, We Did Not Choose

Good Morning!! In most situations, we like being chosen. Of all the people looking for work, we were chosen for the job,...and at least at the time, we liked it. we all loved that feeling in elementary school when we were picking teams and one of the best players would take a chance on us. Yeah, being chosen can be a pretty cool thing. It is a privileged position, and sometimes we can start to get a little full of ourselves,...particularly as Christians.  As Jesus continued His teaching about the vine and the branches, He gave the disciples a little attitude check:

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you."—John 15:16 (NIV)

Jesus appointed us, He chose us for a reason, and He appointed us to go and bear fruit,...fruit that will last. We were set aside and we were sent forth. We will be used as conduits of His love, to reach others with His grace. So, it's not okay for us just to say, "You know what? I'm just going to abide in Jesus! I don’t need anybody else, and nobody else needs me." We abide in Jesus in the context of community. It's also not okay for us as the Church, to ever say, "Well, we're just going to abide in Jesus together." NO, we are commissioned to bear the fruit of love and joy so that we can make a difference in our community,...to people who don't have that yet. Yes, we have insider info, but Jesus wants us to live and share that info with the world. As we go out to them on the mission that He has given to us, we will see people coming to know the Father, as a result of Christ living His life through us,...a fruit that will last forever.

It can be a real short distance between realizing that we are branches of Jesus' vine,...to looking down on others because they might not be.

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Lord of the Harvest, check our attitudes! Search our hearts and show us if there are any hurtful ways in us. Reveal any sense of pride and arrogance, that we've let creep in, because You chose us. We want to fix our eyes on You, and we want to see beyond ourselves to the community of believers, that You've placed around us in this world. We want to step out in faith with the marching orders that You've given us to produce an eternally lasting fruit,...by being part of Your global harvest. We're willing to till up hard soil, or plant seeds, or water, or whatever You would have us do. Amen.

" The Lord loves a cheerful giver,...until he brags about it."

Relationship Has Privliges

Good Morning!! Imagine that you are in charge of a whole company; you are the top dog with authority over everyone and everything. You have a chauffeur, and you say, "Charles, bring me up my car!" And Charles says, "Yes, Sir," and brings up your car, no questions asked,...because that's his job, and that's what a servant does. But now imagine that you are the top dog’s best friend, and he says to you, " bring up my car!" You might say, "For what,...where are we going?" "I need to go downtown!" And you might ask, "Oh, what's going on, are we going to buy something?" It's a whole different relational dynamic, isn't it? The difference between a servant and a friend is that the friend gets more information,...and that's cool. Insider info is actually one fruit we bear, when we remain in Christ.

"You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."—John 15:14-15 (NIV)

Jesus calls us "friends",...but it is a friendship that is carefully qualified, isn't it? There is a conditional clause, "You are My friends IF you obey Me." Obedience is a pretty big thing to Jesus.  As we walk in the power of the Spirit, He expects us to obey. But here we start to see the distinction between a servant and a friend. The servant just obeys. A friend obeys and gets more information. God, through the Spirit and His Word, makes known His Truth to us, and that's a special privileged place to be. It is part of what it means to be remaining in Christ.

As Christians, we have a level of access to information, that only comes with relationship.

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God, thank You for speaking to us through Your Word. We praise You for the quiet, steady voice of Your Spirit inside of us. What an awesome privilege to have this kind of Truth available for worship, prayer, and relating to You as a friend! Lord, we thanks for calling us" friend." Amen.

" The Lord loves a cheerful giver,...until he brags about it."

Love Others

Good Morning!! At the very beginning of Jesus’ farewell discourse, He said, " Hey, a new commandment I give to you, love each other as I have loved you. This is how they’ll know you’re My disciples."  He was telling them to love the way He loved. Is that possible? I don't think so! So, why did He tell us to do it? Maybe, because He was assuming we would be abiding in Him,...and that we would remain in Him,...so that Jesus would be doing the love through us.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this:Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."—John 15:10-13 (NIV)

" Remaining in Christ," just as a branch must remain in the vine, bears supernatural fruit: obedient, joy-saturated acts that can only be attributed to Jesus. Sacrificial love is one of those fruit. It is not an option, but rather a natural outpouring of Christ’s love for others when we allow Him to live through us,...and this speaks louder to the world than any of our words. We are described, and we are defined as His disciples was, by this love moving through us.

Have you ever noticed that those that are the hardest to love, seem to need it the most.

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Lord, You love us just like the Father loves You. We want to remain in that love, we want that joy,...and we want the obedience that springs forth from being a branch on Your vine. In all honesty, our flesh wants to judge and condemn and punish!...but we choose to give in to Your love instead. Love others through us, just as You love us. Amen.

" If you can't see or show love, you are not a Christian,...you're just playing one."

The Mystery Of Faith

Good Morning!! If we were to be honest, if we're willing to be real, about our faith and beliefs, we must regularly return to the realization that so much of what we embrace, is still a mystery. As the hour of Jesus’ death loomed closer and closer, He was sharing with His disciples final words that were simple to understand, yet so full of mystery that they could not comprehend.  Jesus held nothing back. He made it very clear what He wanted His disciples to know and to remember.  Listen as Jesus speaks into that concern:

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.—John 14:18-20 (NIV)

Is this not the great mystery again? Jesus is in the Father; we are in Jesus; Jesus is in us. Someday, the mystery will become our full experience. Death is our passage into the full reality of God. For now, though, on this side of the grave, we live it simply by faith.
 

Jesus' words transcend time and distance to speak to us today: love, obedience, truth, fear… and being left alone.

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Thank You for speaking into our fears, with truth. Thanks for holding nothing back in the final words You spoke to the disciples,...the words that You speak to us today. You have not left us. You live, and we will live, because we are in You! Thank You Jesus. Amen.

" If you can't see or show love, you are not a Christian,...you're just playing one."

From Bad To Worse, And Still We Believe

Good Morning!! The disciples were starting to get scared,...this wasn't just another parable, or illustration,...this was for real. Jesus was telling them of His impending death and departure, and Judas had already left the group, destined to set in motion the events that would climax in His innocent blood being shed.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.—John 14:1-3 (NIV)

Jesus knew that over the next few hours, days, months, and years His disciples would have to learn how to believe, and live, the things He had taught them. He knew that in centuries to come, we would need to learn the same. In His final discourse to the disciples, and His future encouragement to us, His teachings were twofold: the Spirit will be in you on earth, and " I will come back for you one day. Trust Me,...I  have it all worked out."

Our circumstances, don't have to dictate our faith.

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Lord, what can we do but praise You for Your provision? You have given us everything and the only thing we truly need on earth: Your Spirit in us. We trust and believe in You. Even when circumstances on earth go from bad to worse, we trust and believe in You. We trust and believe that You will be coming back to take us to a place, that You have prepared for us. We trust and believe. Amen.

" If you can't see or show love, you are not a Christian,...you're just playing one."

The Holy Spirit Live In You!

Good Morning!! Jesus knew that His time had come. In a few short hours, He would leave the world and go to His Father. There was no question of His love for the men He was sharing His last meal with,...and the next day, He would prove His love for the whole world. For those closest to Him, the words of His pending departure caused confusion and concern. As part of His "Farewell Discourse," Jesus offered them words of comfort:

"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."—John 14:16 (NIV)

Help was on the way: an Advocate, a Counselor,...the Spirit of Truth. This Spirit had been with them,...soon, He would be in them. That's no small distinction! Not for them, and certainly not for us. The Holy Spirit of God is not just around us, not just among us. He is IN us,...in YOU (if you have opened the door of your life to Christ and allowed Him to come in.) The movement of the Farewell Discourse is profound: from "with us" to "in us."

Of all the "famous last words" spoken, the most important we could hear are Jesus' final words telling us who we are,...because of Who is in us.

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Holy Spirit, let us never, never get over the wonder and awe of who we are in Christ, and who You are in us. Give us the peace to ponder this, the passion to envision it, the faith to live out the truth that You indwell us. Amen.

" If you can't see or show love, you are not a Christian,...you're just playing one."

Love, The New Standard

Good Morning!! Only hours before His death, Jesus gives His disciples a new command,...Love. Yes, the Christ is just about to usher in the "New Covenant",...a fulfillment of all the law and the prophets,...and yet a 180-degree shift in the direction of human spirituality. Man-made religion and legalism would soon be nullified by the sacrificial death of Jesus "because God so loved the world…" Love is about to become the new standard. But this new command, is it just a new thing we must do? A new burden to carry? Not if you look at the context, and Jesus’ prayer that follows:

I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."—John 17:26 (NIV)

At the very end of the discourse, Jesus says that it will be His love in us that will distinguish us as His disciples! He is in you, it is His love that will fulfill this new command to love others.

"A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples." (John 13:34-35)

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God of Love, Your Son showed us Your love, on the cross. By the Spirit, stir up a genuine love for You, and others,...that You created within us. We do love You! Your love is real and You have placed it in us, so let it flow, in the name of Jesus! We can't do it on our own, so we ask that You wake it up, in our hearts and minds today. Amen

" If you can't see or show love, you are not a Christian,...you're just playing one."

Letting Jesus Serve, Through Us

Good Morning!! During the last meal Jesus shared with His disciples, He gave them way more than they were ready for,...He was simultaneously putting them in their place, and communicating who they would shortly become in Him, after Pentecost. No doubt, they were a little confused and conflicted in those moments. He had just told Peter that unless he let Him serve him by washing his feet, he had no place with Him. " You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. "(John 13:7) Jesus had just reversed the roles, then He changed the rules, and then He threw them a major curve ball: 

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one anothers' feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.—John 13:12-17 (NIV)

Do verses like these feel like a burden to you? They shouldn't, if you consider the full 'example' that Jesus set for us. He was fully dependent on the Father every step of the way. God moved Him so that He could serve us,...and now He calls us to the same. This very Jesus, the servant Jesus, lives in us. As we live in Him, it will become the most natural thing in the world, for us to serve others.

Just know that God has placed you where you are,...so that He can serve others, through you.

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Lord Jesus, make us servant! No, more than that,...would You serve through us today? We are fully dependent on You to love, and serve those around us,...particularly the difficult ones! We stand aside, surrendering our self-efforts. We give in to Your Spirit in us… give us some feet to wash. Amen!

"So even if we've chosen the Lord God in the past,...the real challenge; like Joshua is to choose This Day, whom we will serve."

Chosen

Good Morning!! If we complain about "favoritism", more times than not, it's because we're not the one being favored.  In the world, it's all about favorites. We reward those who behave as we wish,...act as we wish,...look as we wish. That's how it works in the flesh,...but God has a different standard in His family. 

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.—Galatians 3:26-29 (NIV)

Knowing who we are as individuals in Christ, can transform our individual lives. In the same way, a corporate understanding of who we all are in Christ, will transform the Church. God's truth trumps temporary social distinctions. Earthly ethnicity, gender, or social standing does not define us in God’s eyes,...if we are in Christ, we are all brothers and sisters. 

The Church is the one place where ethnicity, gender, and social standing should never matter.

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Heavenly Father, You show no favorites. In Your infinite love, You love all Your children with individual, eternal equality! We praise You that we're,...that we all, are Your favorite. Thank You for forgiving us all,...for the favoritism we show every day in Your family. By the power of Your Spirit, free us to see all others as "one in Christ"… and give us the willingness to let You love all equally,...through us. Amen.

"So even if we've chosen the Lord God in the past,...the real challenge; like Joshua is to choose This Day, whom we will serve."

Love, Dependence, And Obedience

Good Morning!! We love God, and we want to be obedient,...but we don't want to be dependent on Him, or anyone else. We tend to say, "I love God, thus I must obey!" "I want to please God, so I will obey Him." We often skip a vital part,...dependency,...and try to do it in our own strength, in order to please God,...rather than by faith, and trust, in God. Our love for Him = dependency on Him = obedience to Him.

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.—Hebrews 11:7 (NIV)

How do we know Noah  had faith? We see his faith, because he built a boat. True faith will display itself! Likewise, our faith should lead to action,...as Christ lives His life through us. The Christian life is not lived on the couch, flicking through the channels with a spiritual remote. Christian faith leads to action in the power of Christ, through us,...as we trust in Him.

Our identity in Christ is not determined by our deeds,...our identity in Christ is displayed by our deeds.

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Father God, we love You! Break the independent desires of our flesh. Give us the wisdom and faith to depend on You with increasing trust. Then, God, we ask that You would enable us to follow You in joyful obedience, into any work that You have prepared for us to do. Amen.

"So even if we've chosen the Lord God in the past,...the real challenge; like Joshua is to choose This Day, whom we will serve."

A Faith Fight

Good Morning, My Friend!! Living out who we are in Christ, and experiencing who Christ is in us, is a challenge. There are reasons this does not come easily! Every step requires faith, and that faith has some powerful enemies. We battle at lease three things that keep us from trusting God:

• Christian dogma and philosophy
• Paralyzing fear
• Our own personal fleshly desires
  

And each of these " foes of faith " carries thoughts and ideas that war with our minds,...daily.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.—2 Corinthians 10:4,5 (NIV)

If your desire is to please God, the way you accomplish that is by trusting Him. It is through faith that we bring pleasure to Him. If we wake up today and say, " I'm going to trust Him today, I'm going to trust Him moment by moment," we're going to end up in quite a fight! But thank God, that we do not fight this battle for the mind alone,...because just as He was with the Israelites, He is in us.

" The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you, in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing."—Zephaniah 3:17

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Mighty Warrior, as we head into this week, we praise You for Your presence in us, and around use. We proclaim Your victory. In the days ahead, reveal the philosophical, fearful, fleshly enemies that attack our faith, and quiet our hearts in Your love. We trust in You to fight this battle. Amen.

"So even if we've chosen the Lord God in the past,...the real challenge; like Joshua is to choose This Day, whom we will serve."

Who And What, Do You Trust?

Good Morning!! The problem with questions, I'm almost positive that no one liked the idea of having to choose between those two questions from yesterday. They seemed to be boiling down to this:

1. I can choose to trust in myself, and in my own efforts in order to earn God's pleasure.
2. I can choose to trust in Christ, allowing Him to live His life through me, to enable me to live a life that is pleasing to God.

At first, it seemed like a very subtle difference. Maybe this was all just a little word game?

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.—Psalm 139:23 (NIV)

But the more you think about it, the more the significance of this choice impacted you.

• The question revealed what you believed about your own abilities outside of Christ.
• The question revealed you true beliefs about God's grace and mercy.
• The question revealed a lot about the natural tendency all humans have towards self-righteousness.
• The question revealed what you believed about God, and how you think He sees you in Christ.

" You are doomed to make choices. This is life's greatest paradox."—Wayne Dyer

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Holy Spirit, You are our counselor. By the truth of Your living Word, and the reality of Your presence inside of us, we ask that You would lead us this week. Lord, we stand aside and ask for You to work in our hearts and minds. Give us the willingness to allow You to search our hearts,...and reveal our thoughts so You can answer our questions correctly. Amen.

"Revival restores our first love for the Lord, and brings unquenchable joy of service."