A SINGING GOD MAKES FOR A SINGING PEOPLE

I love to sing. When I was a little boy I would make up songs. As I got older I sang in several bands both before I became a Christian and as a Christian. I also used to sing solos and
lead worship at times in my church. As a parent are used to love to sing songs
to my children and make up songs about them, My wife is always encouraging me to sing to her and
sometimes even goads me  to step out and do karaoke. My favorite time of singing is when I
gather together with the body of Christ and sing during worship at church.  The church I currently
attend, Harbor Church in Pompano Beach, sings every Sunday for 45 minutes to an
hour and . I love it! Singing is truly my favorite part of church,

There's just something about singing isn't there? Singing will be an important part in eternity of worshiping God in Heaven when we are all gathered around the Him at the Throne.
Revelation 15:2-3 "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. 3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."
Revelation 14:2-3 "And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: 3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth."

In the book of Revelation we see over and over scenes of multitudes singing songs of worship and praise to God together forever and ever and ever and never bored or tired engaged and joyfully excitedly and engaged.

The Psalms are full of exhortations to sing. Here is a sample of what the Psalms say about singing:

Psalms 5:11: “Let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.”

Psalms 9:2: “I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.”

Psalms 51:14: “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.”

Psalms 59:16: “I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.”

Psalms 63:7: “For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.”

If you still don’t believe me, here’s a clincher from James 5:13:  “Is anyone cheerful?  Let him sing praise.”

Why is it we love seeing so much? One reason is that singing is a gift that enables us to  express our deepest longings for God that increase as they are expressed. Passions often wither in silence. Undeclared delight is a virtual contradiction in terms. God never intended for our joy to be quiet. C.S. Lewis wrote;

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy: because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." There's nothing more frustrating than an experience of sheer delight in the absence of someone with whom you can share it. I went to four national parks one summer by myself and it was very lonely and very empty without someone to share the beauty with. When I see a glorious sunset my instinctive reaction is to shout at anyone within earshot `Did you see that? Wow!' To leave my exultation unexpressed is unthinkable. So it is with singing in worship, but on an even grander scale. When I gather with God loving, on fire, white hot worshippers something happens both in my being in the presence of the Lord with them all and joining them in expression of our delight in God together.

Singing is not only the expression of joy, it is the soil in which additional and even greater joy is seeded. As we celebrate God in word and praise, the Spirit works within to cultivate still deeper delight in God that cries out to be vented in exuberant exultation. Enjoyment issues in worship. Worship incites knowledge. Knowledge awakens joy. This joy issues in worship ... and so it goes, to the gladness of our hearts and the glory of God!

But there is another reason that we love seeing so much? I think it is because singing is a very
part of the nature of God and one of God's delights and pleasures is expressing joy in singing. God  sings and expresses joy with songs like we do. We were made in the image of God in the ability to sing and enjoy music like He does!

One of my favorite scriptures is where we see God thinking about His people, As He does, He opens His mouth and sings with inexpressible joy!
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."

Zephaniah 3:14-17

God's love for His people is so infinitely intense that He quite literally sings for joy.  The depth of His affection is such that mere words prove paltry and inadequate.  So profoundly intimate is God's devotion to you that He bursts forth in sacred song. Can you imagine?

Or the time we see Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, singing.
"After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." (Mark 14:29)

Can you hear Jesus singing?  Was he a bass or a tenor? Was there a down-home twang to his voice? Or was there an unwavering crystal pitch? Did he close his eyes and sing to his Father? Or
did he look into his disciples’ eyes and smile at their deep camaraderie? Did he
usually start the song? Or did he join in when John started it, or Bartholomew? Would he always sing lead or did he like to harmonize as well? Did he only sing Psalms from the Old Testament? Or did he make up songs?

Oh, I can hardly wait to hear Jesus sing! I think the planets would be jolted out
of orbit if he lifted his native voice in our universe. But we have a kingdom
that cannot be shaken; so, Lord, come on and sing.

It could not be otherwise but that Christianity be a singing faith. The founder
sang. He learned to sing from his Father. Surely they have been singing together
from all eternity. The Bible says the aim of song is “to raise the sound of joy”
(1 Chronicles 15:16). No one in the universe has more joy than God. He is
infinitely joyful. He has rejoiced from eternity in the panorama of his own
perfections reflected perfectly in the deity of his Son.

God’s joy is unimaginably powerful. He is God. When he speaks galaxies come into
being. And when he sings for joy more energy is released than exists in all the
matter and motion of the universe. If he appointed song for us to release our
heart’s delight in him, is this not because he also knows the joy of releasing
his own heart’s delight in himself in song? We are a singing people because we
are the children of a singing God. No wonder I love to  sing!!

Pastor Bill

FULL ASSURANCE!

There are a lot of maladies out there that are permeating society known by their abbreviations such as HIV, ADHD, STD’S. A great spiritual malady permeates the church of Jesus Christ today. If I were to give it a name, I would call it ADD: Assurance Deficit Disorder. The problem afflicts millions of sincere Christians who have put their faith in Christ for salvation, consistently attend church, read their bibles, faithfully serve the Lord, and pray regularly. And yet these precious people have little or no assurance that their eternity is secure in Christ. When asked if they are on their way to heaven, they might answer if they are being honest, “I think so,” or “I sure hope so.” But they would stutter to say “I know so.” The symptoms of Assurance Deficit Disorder include an inordinate fear of death and hell, a questioning of God’s love for them or of the believers worthiness to be His child, a sense of real insecurity concerning eternity, and-not surprising-a lack of spiritual victory and of joy in daily living.

Assurance is no minor issue. There is real assurance and certainty that God wants you to have. God means for our souls to be anchored in heaven. He does not want us to bob and drift on the sea of people’s opinion, our own feelings and emotions or our works in order to gain assurance. When those become the ground of our security we become insecure because they are only as good as their mood or actions at any given moment. Too many of us are looking for assurance in all the wrong places. God's will for us is that we live in the liberty and the joy and the power of full assurance. He means for us to know assuredly that we are bound for heaven and that we will not fail to get there. That is why John said in 1 John 5:9, 13, "We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater... I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life."

Our experience of assurance is highly subjective and must constantly be brought back to the solid, stable, secure ground of God’s Word. He wants us to be anchored in a knowledge based on the truth and certainty of the Word of God. In Philippians 1:6, the apostle Paul gets our eyes off of ourselves and on to God as the source of our confidence, security, and assurance. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6 ESV

Paul is exalting the fact that the saints can have absolute assurance that they are saved, that the Father is directly involved in their life and that they will go to Heaven! He celebrates the glory of his God who is involved in the totality of our salvation: past, present, and future; a God who does not partially save us, or halfway save us, or even three-quarters of the way save us, but He saves us completely, totally, and eternal; and we can have full assurance of that fact.

Paul was confident in God’s working in their salvation, and you can be confident and assured in your salvation as well. You can have joy and confidence because:

God previously acted by His grace in you- “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you” In regards to our salvation, Paul was “sure”. Paul is not saying that he was hopeful in regards to our redemption, the work of redemption in our lives. Paul uses a strong word peitho in the Greek which means “to persuade, to convince beyond all doubt.” Paul uses the word “you” to make this confidence personal. Just as Paul knew, so you need to know and you need to know based on the evidence. Who was it that began that good work in you? “He.” Who’s the “He”? God! Paul is emphasizing the initiative of God in salvation.

The verb "began" (Greek enarchomai,) is interesting, it is a rare word only used two times in the New Testament. It's used here and Galatians 3:3. It literally means 'to inaugurate'. The tense 'to inaugurate', is employed as a decisive tense, as a deliberate act. In other words, because God at some time in your history has deliberately and completely saved you. God began a good work. And it was true. It is always true.

Salvation is God’s work. He is the initiator of it. This is something that Paul emphasizes over and over. Think of Ephesians 2:1, 5, “For you were dead in your trespasses and sins..But God made you alive in Jesus Christ.” Who took the initiative in that salvation? You? No! You were dead. Dead people are notoriously bad initiators! But God took the initiative and did what? Made you alive in Christ! Listen to John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God even to those who believe on His name...listen...who were born, born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God."

Salvation is God's work. He makes the first move, and if he didn’t make the first move, we would make no move at all. Perhaps you’ve heard of the country preacher who was being examined for ordination to the ministry. When asked how he had become a Christian, the preacher replied, "I did my part and God did his." That sounded questionable, so the learned brethren on the council asked the preacher to explain "his part in salvation." "My part was to run from God as fast as I could," the preacher answered. "God’s part was to run after me and catch me and bring me into his family." All of us were born running from God, and unless God took the initiative to find us, we would still be running away from him. He was the seeker. He was the mover. He was the initiator. Salvation is always of God. We love because He first loved us.

Paul also says that this good work was begun “in you”. God works for us, He works with us, He works through us, He works by us, but before He will or can work for us, with us, through us, and by us, He must work "in us." Becoming a Christian is the deepest and most wonderful change that a person can ever know. It is not a superficial and temporary change. It is a powerful work of God in the very center of our being. Henry Scougal called it, "the life of God in the soul of man."

The Prophet Ezekiel describes it beautifully. Ezekiel 36:25-27: "I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws”. God performs a spiritual heart transplant. He removes our hard old heart and gives us a new heart -- a heart that loves Him and desires Him and wants to follow His ways and obey His commandments and is able to follow His ways and do His commandments. You can have joy and confidence because:

This salvation, this good work, is unfinished work here- He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” It’s vital for us to remember that. The Apostle Paul is telling us that the work of grace is but begun in this life, but it is never ever finished here. The Christian life is not one uninterrupted climb heavenward, nor is it some catapulting to perfection and then a continuous experience of perfection in this life. It is a life filled with peaks and valleys, and sometimes the valleys are so deep that we never ever think that we’re going to climb out of them. This word is one of the most encouraging words in all of Scripture. I remember hearing someone say, "Please be patient with me, God isn’t finished with me yet. We are all under construction! We all are a work in progress. I may not look like much—but God isn’t finished with me yet. And when you look in the mirror—and even deeper into your own soul, you may not like what you see, but no matter. God isn’t finished with you yet.

There is good news and bad news in this truth. The good news is that since God isn’t finished yet, we have great hope for the future. The bad news is that since God isn’t finished yet, he won’t let us stay as we are today. Romans 8:29 tells us, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” He’s going to keep chipping away at us until we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Most of us have a long way to go—and some of us have an enormous distance to travel. But it doesn’t matter. John Newton put it this way when he said: “I am not what I ought to be – ah, how imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor the evil in me, and I would cleave to that which is good. I am not what I hope to be; soon, soon, I will put off with mortality both sin and imperfection; but though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. And so, therefore, I can heartily join with the Apostle Paul and say, ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am.’”

That’s where Christians live, right there. And that’s what the Apostle Paul is saying. We read in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." Our lives are being transformed, as the King James Version has it, from "glory to glory." Paul says in Philippians 2:13,“It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” The Apostle Paul is emphasizing that God is at work in you now.

God always finishes what He starts- “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Yes, God began it, yes you are not perfect yet; but it is a certain work. It is absolutely certain that He will complete it. Because God finishes what He starts. He inaugurates it, He continues it, and what a blessing today for you child: the outcome is guaranteed - do you know why? Because God's working to a schedule. He is working to the day of Christ Jesus, a day on His calendar marked when He's going to make you perfect! He has begun in you. Everything and everyone will be ready in time for that day.

Paul, in Romans 8:29-30 tells us, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” The word “glorified” is in the aorist tense. Paul is not saying that one day we will be glorified but right now we are seen as glorified in the Father’s eyes. The reality is, that is how God sees you, the finished project, a finished work of art, a masterpiece of grace! That is how certain our glorification is, 100%! As one person put it, “The Lord always looks at His people as they will be when they are done.” We will be brought to safety, not by our own efforts or our own devices, but solely by the faithfulness of our heavenly Father. God's purpose in the salvation of his people is invincible—it cannot fail. I Thessalonians 5:23-24, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” (Read 1 Cor.1:8; Jude 24, 25)

God is working and He will set us apart, completely, for His glory, He will finish the work! We can resist the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can reject what He is doing, but God will keep working because in the end, John tells us, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” ( I John 3:2-3). Someday you and I will stand before Jesus Christ as redeemed children of God—holy, blameless, and complete in every way. We’re a far sight from that today. But a better day is coming for the people of God. What is incomplete will be made complete. What is unfinished will be finished. What is lacking will be made full. What is partial will be made whole. What is less than enough will be far more than adequate. What is broken will be fixed. What is hurt will be healed. What is weak will be made strong. What is temporary will be made permanent. We are saved by grace; kept by grace and eternally secured by grace. God will preserve us and persevere with us so that we will stand at the end. That was the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah 32:40, “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

Once there was an artist who had conceived in his mind a great picture, which he meant to be the masterpiece of his life. He was working on a large canvas, putting in the drabs and grays that were to compose the background, when a friend entered, unnoticed. The artist worked on with enthusiasm not aware of the onlooker’s presence. But, finally happening to turn, he saw him, and exclaimed, “What do you think of this? I intend it to be the greatest work I have ever done.” His friend burst into a laugh, and exclaimed, “Why, to be frank, I don’t think much of it. It seems to me to be only a great daub.” “Ah,” replied the artist, at once sensing the situation, “you cannot see what is going to be there. I can.” And so it is with God our Father. He sees in every believer the finished product of His masterpiece of the work of grace that He began in each of His children and, and He is working on right now toward that end.

Oh the assurance of God’s sovereign grace over our shaky, fickle, and frail lives! How many times have I not felt saved since I've been a Christian? How many times have I felt that the performance of my life did not measure up to what I profess? How many times did I not feel that I was sincere enough? How many times of I feel like I have not been trying hard enough? Well, the grace of God triumphs over the flaws of men.



Remember that “God’s grace was, is, and shall always be sufficient for you” (2 Cor.12:9). Let your assurance rest firmly on the faithfulness of God and His word over your own weakness and proneness to wander. Arm yourself with the truths of God’s word such as John 6:37-40; John 10:27-30; Romans 8:35-39; and 2 Timothy 4:16-17. You will not fall away because He will keep you. If you ask me how I will know tomorrow that I will still believe in Christ, my answer is not that I am a disciplined, strong, man of faith, or that I finish what I start, or that my will is reliable, or that the benefits far out way the costs. My answer is God’s sovereign grace over my fickle will is my only hope to persevering till the end. It is not the intensity of my faith that saves me, it is the object of my faith that saves me.

I put my trust in nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness's. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly on Lord Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Oh Christian, you can testify this day like John Newton that “I am not what I ought to be – ah, how imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor the evil in me, and I would cleave to that which is good. I am not what I hope to be; soon, soon, I will put off with mortality both sin and imperfection; but though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. And so, therefore, I can heartily join with the Apostle Paul and say, ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am.’”
Therefore I am not discouraged by my weakness, sins, and flaws that I wont go to  heaven and be with Jesus!. I am not doomed by my limitations and flaws. Instead, I ,embrace the grace of God that triumphs over each and every flaw in my life. I see that God has, is, and will triumph over ever area of my flawed life. Why? Because I am convinced by the word of God and my own experience thus far that "the faithfulness of God triumphs over the flaws of men!"

I pray like Paul that you will gain confidence in it; that you will understand it and believe it; that you will be amazed and exult in it; and that you will revel in the security and joy of it. What can be sweeter than to be “Kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5)? John Newton also wrote: “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures”.

Joyful in full assurance, Pastor Bill

LESSONS ON RELATING TO FLAWED PEOPLE FROM A KIND MAN

Recently with the controversy surrounding Mark Driscoll, I thought about our attitudes towards others fault, shortcomings, and sins. My mind was full of how merciless, judgmental, harsh, mean spirited I and some of my fellow Christians can be at times towards others.

Sometimes God uses biographies to awaken me and call me to a higher way of being and living. One of my favorite Christians is the great 18th century English pastor John Newton. He once said, "All I know is that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great savior". Do you believe that? What does belief in my utter depravity and corruption and God's sovereign grace and mercy purchased by the blood of Jesus have upon my life and how I live? What affect does believing that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a great savior mean to have upon the way I relate to others?

Oh let us learn from John Newton! Born in 1725 and died in 1807, he is best know as the hymn writer of the great hymn Amazing Grace. He pastored two churches; Olney, for 16 years, and London, for 27 years. He was a contemporary and friend of John Wesley, George Whitefield, William Wilberforce, Henry Martyn, and Charles Simeon in the 18th century.

In my opinion he was one of the greatest pastors in the history of the church. I can honestly say, next to Jesus and Paul, he is the man I most desire to be like. The reason that I feel this is because of what John Piper calls his habitual tenderness of spirit. In scripture we are told to "not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and endurance inherit the promises" ( Hebrews 6:12). "Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their life and imitate their faith" (Hebrews 13:7). John Newton was a leader exceedingly worthy for us to study and to imitate. He was a was a man who truly testified to the mercy of God towards him. He was throughout his life a man truly amazed by grace.

At the end of his life his last will and testament reads: I commit my soul to my gracious God and Savior, who mercifully spared and preserved me, when I was an apostate, a blasphemer, and an infidel, and delivered me from the state of misery on the coast of Africa into which my obstinate wickedness had plunged me; and who has been pleased to admit me (though most unworthy) to preach his glorious gospel. " Have you, like Newton, gotten over the sheer wonder of Jesus Christ's amazing triumphant grace? Newton reminds us that a believer who has been shown such grace and mercy should be characterized by a life of habitual tenderness. In writing to a friend he describes the believer's life: "He believes and feels his own weakness and unworthiness, and lives upon the grace and pardoning love of his Lord. This gives him a habitual tenderness and gentleness of spirit. "

Sometimes in my own life and in other Christians I have been appalled at the lack of tenderness and grace extended towards others. Oh how easily we forget don't we? I call it spiritual amnesia! One of the reasons that we fail to love God and others as we ought is because of spiritual amnesia. That is to say, we forget who God is and we forget who we are. The effect of knowing God's love and grace should be lavish love, generous kindness, and unlimited mercy towards others. Newton says, "Humble under a sense of much forgiveness to himself; he finds it easy to forgive others." Do you?

Another time Newton wrote, “Whoever has tasted of the love Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, yes, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight.” He puts it in a picture: "A company of travelers fall into a pit: one of them gets a passenger to draw him out. Now he should not be angry with the rest for falling in; nor because they are not yet out, as he is. He did not pull himself out: instead, therefore, of reproaching them, he should show them pity. . . . A man, truly illuminated, will no more despise others, then Bartimeus, after his own eyes were opened, would take a stick, and beat every blind man he met."

The default response of those who have been shown God's inimitable grace is to love and be merciful to all people. When Newton speaks to unbelievers he speaks like this: A well-wisher to your soul assures you, that whether you know these things or not, they are important realities. . . . Oh hear the warning voice! Flee from the wrath to come. Pray thee that the eyes of your mind may be opened, then you will see your danger, and gladly follow the shining light of the Word. "

Newton had a firm grip on doctrine but he also knew how important it was to live and feel and speak what he knew and believed. What we believe can be discredited by failing to live and speak in the spirit of what we believe. Therefore, he says, "The Scripture, which . . . teaches us what we are to say, is equally explicit as to the temper and Spirit in which we are to speak. Though I had knowledge of all mysteries, and the tongue of an angel to declare them, I could hope for little acceptance or usefulness, unless I was to speak 'in love."

John Newton had drunk deeply from the fountain of grace, the cross of Jesus Christ. Have you? He was filled with joy and overflowing for those who weren't. His own self description of how he lived is days says: "Two heaps of happiness and misery; now if I can take the smallest bit from one heap and add to the other, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its tears, I feel that I have done something. I should be glad to do greater things, but I will not neglect this" The cross of Jesus is the source of all love, mercy, and tenderness of spirit towards others. We all need to live our lives in very close proximity to the shadow of the blessed cross. For when we live beneath its shadow gratitude, amazement, and humility will be pervasive in our souls.

Listen to the amazement that Newton felt at the age of seventy-two: "such a wretch should not only be spared and pardoned, but reserved to the honor of preaching thy Gospel, which he had blasphemed and renounced . . . this is wonderful indeed! The more thou hast exalted me, the more I ought to abase myself."

He wrote his own epitaph:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk, Once an Infidel and Libertine,  A Servant of Slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST, Preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the Faith He had long labored to destroy, Near 16 years at Olney in Bucks; and [28] years in this church.

Glad-hearted, grateful lowliness and brokenness as a saved "wretch" was probably the most prominent root of Newton's habitual tenderness with people. The hymn we know as Amazing Grace was written to accompany a New Year's sermon based on 1 Chronicles 17:16, "Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far?"

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see." May amazement and habitual tenderness of spirit characterize your life as you see and savor the restoration and pardon that was blood bought and freely given to you by the undeserved grace of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we be able to say like Newton

"I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

Awakened to love and mercy,
Pastor Bill

TWENTY THINGS I'D DO DIFFERENTLY IF I WAS STILL A PASTOR

Recently a read a blog post titled "10 Things I’d Do Differently if I Weren’t a Pastor Today"'written by Ron Edmondson. It inspired me to write this post today from an opposite perspective, as a former pastor now sitting in the pew..

I was privileged to be an assistant pastor for 11 years and a senior pastor for 26 years, planting two churches. So, I have spent most of my adult life in the pastoral ministry. I have been out of the pastoral ministry for the past year and a half working in a gym and as a security guard with a BA and Masters degree. It has been a strange, humbling, eye opening, and at times very sad and discouraging experience for me. I miss the pastoral and congregational life immensely. 

One thing my experience has done for me, especially since currently I am not involved in pastoral ministry, is to help me realize how much I didn’t understand about life for the average church attender who are is involved in pastoral ministry. I also have come to terms with the many mistakes I have made in those 36 years.

So, if I were ever on the other side again — and I was back “in the pulpit" — I’d change a few things about myself.

Here are 20 things I’d do differently if I were a pastor today:

1. I would remember that shepherding over precious people is a great honor and privilege, never to be taken for granted. It can easily be taken away as it was given. I would hold what I do very loosely and with reverence before God.

2. I would thank the Lord every day for the kindness of God allowing a sinner like me to lead people who are often more godly, loving, and God centered than I am.

3. I would let the congregation regularly know how grateful I am to be a pastor and their pastor. 

4. I would always let the congregation know that I love and appreciate them.  If I did not feel love for them I would ask the Lord to forgive me and restore that love so that could earnestly lead them.

5. I would let the leadership always know their value, worth, and my appreciation for them privately and publicly, especially all who volunteer their time. 

6. I would realize how hard people work, how busy they are, how tired they can be, and how many responsibilities and obligations that they have outside of the church that weigh upon them. This would give me great grace, mercy, and compassion in my expectations of them. Not everyone who misses a Sunday are carnal, backslidden, or uncommitted. Maybe they are just tired! 

7. I would never try to keep people busy but instead would teach them how to slow down, be quiet, enjoy nature, silence, and simplicity. 

8. I would not have revved up, loud, noisy, busy, distracting, and entertaining services but would long to create a centered, quiet, welcoming environment to meet, hear, and experience God in all His glory, power, and presence. 

9.  I would be just glad anyone shows up to hear someone like me preach and have a grateful heart rather than rising and falling emotionaly on attendance and giving.

10. I would never use the pulpit to take out my anger, frustrations, disappointments, or unfulfilled expectations on the church. I would never use the pulpit to elevate or exalt myself. I would never use the pulpit to manipulate, coerce, or fulfill my own personal agendas. The pulpit is meant to exalt Jesus Christ and His purposes, greatness, beauty, and glory. It's not about me!

11.  I would preach shorter sermons no longer than 40 minutes. I would strive for less verbiage, personal anecdotes, illustrations, and stay God and word centered. Too many pastors do not evaluate their speaking and what they afflict upon the congregations with their verbosity. Most pastors are not Piper, Spurgeon, or Whitefield and cannot get away with wordy, longwinded  sermons. People get tired and have only so long of attention spans.  I would get to the point. I would avoid long drawn out introductions before I even get to the text. I would be sensitive to my audience and their attention spans. I would remind myself that people need the Word and not my opinions. I would actually observe my hearers and find out if I'm reaching them or boring them and putting them to sleep.

12. I would truly remember that my marriage and family come first, live in that reality, and create impenetrable boundaries that communicate that to others. I would take two days off a week like everyone else and devote more time to the things that matter.

13. I would let my wife and kids know by my actions that they are more important to me than the ministry and church.

14.  I would spend more time with the Lord. Not just morning devotions hurriedly done because so much study, counseling, administrative, and sermon prep needs to be done. It only  benefits everyone around me. I would think about the person I bring to the table and I am blessing or afflicting others with. I would be more contemplative, quiet, and prayerful about my life and strive to bring peace and calm and quietness in the presence of others. This means I would practice the presence of God and people by listening more and speaking less. 

15. I would pray more with others, especially leadership and spend less time just praying alone. 

16. I would honestly, openly, and really make myself, my marriage, my ministry, my conduct, and my life accountable to others. I would not isolate myself and think I only need to be accountable to God. I would find godly men to counsel me, confess my sins and struggles to,  to speak over me and into my life, and be willing to listen and submit to their correction and wisdom. I would not isolate myself from others. 

17.I would take the time to have real friends both inside my local church and outside. Many times I have seen the closeness between people and their spending time together and realize how much precious time I missed investing in long term friendships because of my pastoral drive and ambition. I am a lonely man.

18. I would prepare my  people to face suffering, loss, disappointment, discouragement,tribulation, grief, and death. I would want to help them tether their lives in the love and absolute sovereignty and purposes of God so that they endure to the end.

19. I would repeatedly emphasize and demonstrate the love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy and grace of God in my teaching, words, relationships, and actions. 

20.  I would not waste my time, my life, my family, my church, my relationships, and ministry ever again! 

AMEN

SORROWFUL BUT ALWAYS REJOICING

Two days ago a precious girl I have known all her life died tragically and prematurely. I cannot even imagine the inconsolable grief that her family and friends must feel at this moment,

It caused me to think about how the very things in this life itself that make you happy, will eventually make you sad. The birth of this girl, the pleasure of her company, watching her grow into such a good and decent woman are among many things that brought such joy to her family and friends, and now her death has brought so much sorrow.  Oh how I have discovered this the past four years in my own life as I get older and have experienced my own loss of so many things that once made me so happy. Nothing that brings happiness on this earth can sustain itself.

Nevertheless Paul makes the astonishing statement in 2 Corinthians 6:10 that what marks his life and can mark ours as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Perhaps there are those of you reading this right now who resonate in your own experience what the apostle Paul was speaking of. Only a Christian can actually be happy and sad at the same time. I call it happy sadness or sad happiness. It seems so paradoxical, but oh what a precious experience for the believer! 

I do  not glibly claim that this experience is simple or that we can even put it into adequate words, what it means to be joyful in sorrow; but in our experience we know it can ring true. Much like the Macedonian Christians, who in loss of property, mopersecution, extreme hardship and poverty, "their abundance of joy...overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part"(2 Corinthians 8:9-10). 

I think we all who are believers understand and have experienced this. When I lost all that mattered to me and weeping with sobs of inconsolable grief with all the loss I can certainly tell you that did not look or feel any way like joy.  But, the joy that has manifest and endured through my sorrow is the foretaste of a future joy in God which I hope. We are promised that there will someday be an experience of joy in its complete fullness, John writes that it will be an experience that we will know where "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). 

Jesus Himself, who suffered incomparable grief and loss, was sustained by “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). This does not mean that he felt in the garden or on the cross all that he would feel in the resurrection. But it does mean that He hoped in it and that this hope was an experienced foretaste of that joy. 

I have learned that true joy does not come in the experience of sorrow in itself . Is it no wonder why so many of us have a huge disconnect when some preacher or Christian glibly tells us to rejoice when we are so sad, hurt, broken, lonely, grief stricken, and depressed. They expect us to put on a happy face and find joy somehow in the sorrow itself. At least for me, it always has been unrealistic, shallow, it has never worked, nor is it helpful. But I have learned a secret; the only way that joy can come in my sorrow is  in the anticipation of future joy. 

When I am suffering I have many times looked to the Word of God, the promises of God, the person of Jesus with my future hope in Him and His promises and His grace to lift me with joy out of and above my present sorrows. Oh how often doing this in my tears and it has for brought joy to me. 

The best example I can give is when my father went to war twice in Vietnam when I was a little boy. He was gone for over a year each time. Whenever I would get sad, scared about him getting killed, or lonely about his absence, I would think about his future return, and the thought of his return would bring me present joy in my sorrow. So I was able to be sorrowful but rejoicing at the same time. 

The fact is that we groan here in this life and in this world, waiting for the redemption of our bodies and for the removal of all our sins (Romans 8:23). This groaning and grieving is godly if it is molded by our joy in hope of future glory (Romans 5:2-3). The delight is subdued by all the pain, but it is there in seed form. It will one day grow into a great vine that yields wine of undiluted delight. 

So let us learn to embrace whatever sorrow God appoints for us with joy. 

Let us not be ashamed of tears. After all, God says that He keeps our tears in a bottle "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.Are they not in your book? " (Psalm 56:8). 

Let us sow our seeds in tears and do our work in tears. 

"Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping,bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy,bringing his sheaves with him."(Psalm 16:6-8). 

Let the promise encourage you in your present sorrows that joy will come with the morning "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5). 

Let us learn to be looking not only at our sorrows, but looking to Jesus and remembering his kind, merciful, and loving nature and promises in order to be, 

“sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” (2 Corinthians 6:10) 

Let us through our tears, the comfort, and joy God brings us, serve others in their sorrow by giving them comfort and joyful hope. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."(2 Corinthians 1:3-4) 

May God help you to sustain and shape your grief with His joy, His power, and His goodness this day and every day in your present sorrows. 

Sorrowful but always rejoicing, 

Pastor Bill 

THE SEEMING SILENCE AND DARKNESS OF GOD

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you which shall be the darkness of God...I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
 T.S. Elliot
The speaking God can be maddeningly silent at times.  Often times when I have been the most desirous to hear Him, the silence has been deafening!  There have been times where His voice seems so loud and clear to me and His presence so real. Those moments I can say like the hymn writer that "He walks with me and talks with me". But, other times I have seen, felt, or heard nothing and I have cried to God in my confused anguish and He just seems silent and seems absent.

All of God’s saints, if allowed to live long enough, are led into the lonely, disorienting, weary wilderness. It has been called the dark night of the soul. And while there, we deeply and mournfully lament. Job and David sang deep laments.

Job: “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20)

King David: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” (Psalm 22:1–2)

 

What we experience as God’s absence or distance or silence is phenomenological. It’s how we see and perceive it. It’s how at some point it looks and feels to us but it isn’t how it really is. If you never knew, you would look out at the horizon and determine that the world was flat, so likewise, we can deduce because of what we see, feel, or experience that God is not present or does not exist.  Just like we can experience the world as flat when in fact we are walking on a huge spinning ball, we can experience God as absent or distant when like Paul says, “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Yes, Job, King David, and I have felt God's absence, silence, or indifference; but in reality, God wasn’t absent or silent or indifferent at all toward Job,King David, or me, it’s just how it felt to them at the time. Yes, those feelings are deeply and painfully real. When we feel forsaken by God the fact is that we are not forsaken (Hebrews 13:5). We are simply called to trust what God promises more than our perceptions.

But why does God seem silent? Why the perceived silence? Why can it seem like God is just standing aloof there looking at us when we cry to him for help?

I don’t claim to understand all the mysteries of this experience. No doubt we underestimate the effects of remaining sin on us and our need for this discipline in order to share God’s holiness (Hebrews 12:10). But I believe there are clues for another purpose as well. I’ll phrase them as questions.

Why is it that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” but “familiarity breeds contempt”?

Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty?

Why am I almost never satisfied with what I have, but always longing for more?

Why can the thought of being denied some dream create in us a desperation we previously didn’t have?

Why is the pursuit of earthly achievement often more enjoyable than the achievement itself?

Why do deprivation, adversity, scarcity, and suffering often produce the best character qualities in us while prosperity, ease, and abundance often produce the worst?

Do you see it? There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: Deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning that will know the joy of comfort (Matthew 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty that will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).

Deprivation is in the design of this age. We live mainly in the age of anticipation, not gratification. We live in the dim mirror age, not the face-to-face age (1 Corinthians 13:12). We deeply groan with all creation for the consummation of the ages. (Romans 8:22-23). The paradox is that what satisfies us most in this age is not what we receive, but what we are promised. The chase is better than the catch in this age because the Catch we’re designed to be satisfied with is in the age to come.

And so Fredrick William Faber wrote in his poem, “The Desire of God”:

Yes, pine for thy God, fainting soul! ever pine;


 Oh languish mid all that life brings thee of mirth;

Famished, thirsty, and restless — let such life be thine—


 For what sight is to heaven, desire is to earth.

 

So you desire God and ask for more of Him and what do you get? Stuck in a desert feeling deserted. You feel disoriented and desperate. You feel blind and lost. Dear reader, don’t despair. The silence, the absence is phenomenological. It’s how it feels, it’s not how it really is. You are not alone. God is with you (Psalm 23:4). And He is speaking all the time in the priceless gift of His objective Word so you don’t need to rely on the subjective impressions of your fluctuating emotions. I personally, in times of silence and darkness do not know what I would have done without the Word to anchor and sustain my wandering, clueless, lost soul.

If desire is to earth what sight is to heaven, then God answers our prayer with more desire. It’s the desert that awakens and sustains desire. It’s the desert that dries up our infatuation with worldliness. And it’s the desert that draws us to the well of the world to come. C.S. Lewis said that our greatest "havings" are our "longings"

“In the path of your judgments,O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.My soul yearns for you in the night;my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.For when your judgments are in the earth,the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” Isaiah 26:8-9"Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”Luke 6:21
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”Psalm 90:14
"My soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."Psalm 84:2

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water…as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… " (Psalm 63:1; 42:1)

Pastor Bill (Much of this was taken from Jon Bloom "When God Seems Silent")

MORE, MORE, MORE,LORD!

Several times a year God brings me to a place where I am utterly dissatisfied with my life, my walk with Christ, and the levels of intimacy and experience of Christ in my life. Do you feel this way as well? Most of all, I find myself longing to experience and show more of the love of God in my life. That is where I am at this week in my life. There is this insatiable desire for love that causes me to cry out "MORE LOVE!" The apostle Paul prayed for more in his life both because of his need, but also because of God's offer (See Ephesians 1:15-22; 3:16,18).

This is especially important. The Bible tells us that God Himself actively pursues a love-relationship with you. He wants us to experience and feel His love, and that He has taken all the necessary steps to see that we do. I want to explore with you several texts of Scripture that affirm this truth.

Our first is perhaps the most important one of all. It is found in Romans 5:5. The N.I.V. translates it, “God has poured out his love into our hearts.” The New Living Bible translates it, “For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” 

Romans 5:5 says that there is an experience of God's love for us that is  something poured out. It is something felt in the heart. Known in the way the heart knows. God takes great initiative in His relationship with us. Paul tells us that God "poured out" His love "Into our hearts." The verb poured out is used elsewhere of the spilling of wine (Luke 5:37), the shedding of Christ's blood (Matthew 26:28), and of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 10:45). More graphic still is its use in Acts 1:18 of the fate of Judas: "With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out" (emphasis added).

Paul is emphasizing the unstinting lavishness with which God has flooded our hearts with a sense of His love for us. Like an overflowing stream in a thirsty land, so is the rich flood of divine love poured out and shed abroad in the heart.

This is an exuberant communication of God's love. The love of God, writes Charles Hodge, "does not descend upon us as dew drops, but as a stream which spreads itself abroad through the whole soul, filling it with the consciousness of His presence and favor."' The Holy Spirit works to evoke and stimulate in your heart the overwhelming conviction that God loves you. The splendor and immensity of God's devotion is not abstract and generic, but concrete and personal; not for everyone in general but for you in particular. GOD WANTS YOU TO EXPERIENCE MORE OF HIS LOVE!

Now this experience varies from time to time and person to person and can be (and should be) pursued in ever-fuller measures. Why do I say this? Because the tenses of the verbs are different in verse 5 between the outpouring of God's love and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Notice: "The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." The difference here is that the first tense "has been poured out"  (perfect indicative) implies in the original Greek that there was a past act for all believers but there is also and ongoing effect or an ongoing act as well right at this moment!. But the tense of "was given to us"(aorist participle) implies a completed and once for all action. In other words, “the love of God that was poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit in the past is being presently poured into your hearts as well at this very moment.

The thought is that knowledge of the love of God, having flooded our hearts, jilts them now, just as a valley once flooded remains full of water and enjoys its present refreshment. Paul assumes that all his readers, like himself, will be living in the enjoyment of a strong and abiding sense of God's love for them. In other words, God's love doesn't leak! Unlike the waters of Noah that receded after a time, God's love remains perpetually at flood stage in our souls!

Do we always feel it now? No. Yes, we were given the Holy Spirit in the past, but the outpouring seems to have ongoing and varied expressions in the present. So, how are we to seek the fullness of this experience? There are several verses in the New testament that help us..

I.  2 Thessalonians 3:5

"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ."

Here we have Paul praying that God would do something right now for the Thessalonians and for you and I. What does he want God to do now? He wants God to "direct their hearts." This is a remarkable phrase! The heart has directions. It moves toward one thing or another. It moves toward what it regards as attractive and satisfying and valuable.

"The soul is measured by its heights, some high and others low; but the heart is measured by its delights and its pleasures never lie."

Paul is praying that God would give the heart a sight of the love of God as more attractive and satisfying and valuable than ordinary earthly things. "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." What would this be other than an experience of God's love? And it must be that, even though we are Christians, this movement from where we are into the love of God is needed. Otherwise Paul would not pray it. Therefore, the experience of the love of God is different from time to time and from person to person. Here we are as Christians. We have all tasted of God's love for us and have been drawn into trusting all that God is for us in Christ. But our hearts are not always steadfast. They drift and they waver. As the Puritans used to say, "There is much insensibility to divine things among Christians." This is why we need to be renewed and directed back to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:13, to the greatest thing there is: LOVE!  Oh we need love to master us in order to minister through us both to God and others. "We love, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).The more of his love in our life, the more we will love. Revival is first the answer to Paul's prayer in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Oh may the Lord take hold of your heart and direct it into the love of God. May you experience the outpouring of the love of God through the Holy Spirit. 

II. 2 Corinthians 13:14

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"

Paul is closing his epistle to the Corinthians. He ends with a benediction. Here he calls on God, in the presence of the people, to make his love manifestly present and real to them. "The love of God be with you!". Make it manifestly present to you!

What do I mean by "manifestly" present? For Christians, isn't the love of God always present with us? Romans 8:35 and 39 tell us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. So if nothing can separate us from the love of God, why does Paul pray, "The love of God be with you"? The reason is because, even though the love of God is always present with believers, we do not always experience the love of God as present. Many of us at times feel the opposite, that we are not loved by God. Therefore, we want God to make his love more manifestly known. More obviously. More experientially. We sing that song, “More love, more power, more of you in my life.” This is why. Paul is calling for in 2 Corinthians 13:14 the love of God to be poured out more fully and more consciously in our hearts.

III. Jude 21

"keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

Jude exhorts, do what you must, to avail yourself of the unparalleled joy of receiving the love of God. That this experience is ultimately a work of God the Father, through the Holy Spirit, is confirmed by Paul's prayer in 2 Thessalonians 3:5

In the final analysis, if we are to "feel" loved of the Father it is the Father Himself who must (and will) act to remove every obstacle and clear away every encumbrance to that inexpressible experience. I can’t do it. Hearing teaching on the Father's love can’t alone do it. Reading these scriptures can't do it. God must do it.

The obstacles to this are very real indeed for us all. that is why Paul prays and we can pray that God would Himself act to obliterate such obstacles to the enjoyment of being loved and manifest, pour out, direct, our hearts into an ongoing full, deep, personal, and intimate experience into His love.

Surely, then, we must begin to pray for ourselves and for one another even as Paul prayed for the Thessalonians. Experiencing the love of God, not just thinking about it, is something we should desire with all our hearts.

IV. Ephesians 3:14-19.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

No passage in the Bible can fill you with longings in prayer for an experience of God's love like this one. Consider what Paul is asking for as we read the prayer backward. In verse 19, he is asking that we be filled with all the fullness of God. That is an experience. We don't always have that. We want it. We pursue it. How does it come? In comes through an experiential knowing of the incomprehensible love of Christ - "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge." And how does that experiential knowing of the love of Christ come? In verse 17, Paul asks that they be "rooted and grounded in love" so that they "may be able to comprehend" this incomprehensible love. Well, how does that rooting and grounding in love happen? Paul prays for it to happen (in verses 16-17) by the strengthening of the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ dwells (manifestly) in the heart by faith.

So here we are at the work of the Holy Spirit again. And is not all this astonishing experience in Ephesians 3:14-19 simply an unfolding of the simple sentence in Romans 5:5 that the love of God be poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us?

Oh dear reader, I pray that you and I would seek a deeper experience of the love of God. First, that you would be reflective and thoughtful on these verses I have shared and with the truth of Christ's love and and the demonstration of his love for us when he came and lived and died and rose. Second, pray for it. Really pray for it! Pray these four verses daily! Third, that you would receive it right now in Jesus Name.

Praying to see, experience, savor, and show the love of God in my life,

Pastor Bill