Praise God, there is a Man in the glory.
As you look at that hymn, one reason it was on my heart this morning is that, at the end, there is a progression throughout the hymn. The last phrase starts off: “His life in the glory, my life must be.”
The more we see that Man in glory, it goes on to, “My life and His life in the glory, my life may be,” in verse three. Not just must be, but, “His life, my life may be.”
But praise God, in the end: “His life in the glory, lived out in me.” That is the desire of all of our hearts. We have a Man in the glory, and we are thankful for that. But He has it upon His heart that the very life that is within Him in glory would be lived out among us in the days in which we live.
So may His life truly be lived out in us.
I would like for us to turn this morning to Romans 12:1-2. Reading from the New American Standard, Paul is writing to these dear saints:
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are so thankful that we can be in Your presence together. We are thankful for the fresh reminder of Your great love and for the fresh reminder of the price that You paid so that we could enter into that love.
Lord, as we come before You now in prayer, prayer in and of itself is a confession of dependence upon the One to whom we are praying. We are not sufficient in ourselves to speak or to hear. Lord, we come dependent upon You.
We thank You for the Holy Spirit, who enables us in all things. Lord, we are thankful that we can bring this time under Your government and authority, that You would continue to be exalted as we break this bread of life now. In Your precious name, amen.
In recent months and weeks, we have been hearing through Brother Kong a series of messages on spiritual exercise. Last fall, he began with spiritual exercise related to our spirit—the matters of conscience, intuition, and communion.
Recently, he continued on the matter of spiritual exercise for our minds, our wills, our emotions, and even our physical bodies. As we listened to those messages, I think we were all encouraged, and there was a hope ringing within our hearts.
As you were listening to those messages, there was a consistent thread, or a consistent key, within each of them concerning how we enter into that aspect of spiritual exercise. In fact, it is the first spiritual exercise: this matter of consecration.
My brother reminded us over and over again of the essential nature of consecration. Last week, our brother Kenny shared concerning being conformed to His image. The very first step in this whole conforming process brings us back to this key and essential matter of consecration.
Brothers and sisters, we have it within our hearts that we would be conformed into His image. What is the purpose of spiritual exercise? It is that the life of Christ would be lived out within us.
We are being conformed into His image—not that we would be trophies for our Lord to look at, but that we would be a people testifying of the One who first loved us and called us according to His purpose.
In the days in which we are living, we will all be conformed. The choice set before each one of us is this: are we going to be conformed into the image of Christ, or, as Romans 12 says, are we going to be conformed to the image of this world?
We are going to be conformed. That is a settled issue. The issue before us is what we are going to be conformed to, or whom we are going to be conformed to. I think we have it within our hearts that we would be conformed unto the image of Christ.
But unless we can enter into this matter and touch the very heart and spirit of consecration, we can allow ourselves, through passivity and other means, to find ourselves being conformed to the spirit of this age. Some translations say, “fashioned according to the spirit of this age.”
So what I would like for us to look at this morning is this matter of consecration. I know that we hear much about it. At times, when we hear a lot about something, we can begin automatically to tune it out and say, “Well, I have already heard about consecration.”
May the Lord open the ears of all our hearts today to hear in a fresh way. May familiarity with it, our knowledge of it, and even our experience with it not be a hindrance to the Lord speaking further into our hearts today.
I would like for us to approach it with three points:
This morning, we will probably look only at the principle and process of consecration. Lord willing, next week we will look at the purpose of it.
It is good for us to begin by reminding ourselves: What is consecration?
In a simple way, consecration is settling the issue within our lives of who is Lord. Who is in charge of our lives? We use terms such as the headship of Christ, Lord, and Master. Consecration is simply settling that issue: are you in charge of your life, or is He in charge of your life?
If we look in the Old Testament, the word for consecration, quite often in the margin, uses the term to have your hands full. I love that expression, because it speaks of having your hands full of Christ.
Everything that the priest had, as you look back in Leviticus 8, spoke of Christ. Brothers and sisters, most of us have Christ within our hands, we could say. But the question is: what else is there?
We have room for Christ, but then do we find room for other things that we like or enjoy—our stuff, our own little space? We have God’s space, and then we have our space. We try to have a peaceful coexistence, but they are not going to coexist.
The Spirit is going to war against the flesh. There is a jealousy within the Spirit of God to manifest Himself within our lives.
This whole matter of consecration is one of the most essential and important elements within our Christian life. Actually, most of the problems and difficulties we encounter in life can be traced right back to the matter of consecration: who is in charge of your life?
Are you living for yourself, or are you living for Him?
We saw a great example of this Friday night in Genesis 13. There is a great contrast between Abraham and Lot. Abraham is given to the Lord; he is living for the Lord. Lot is living for himself.
Lot chose for himself what his eyes liked. He chose, and we see the consequences in both of them: the blessing of one and the catastrophe of the other.
Even though Lot was in the presence of God, and Lot had experienced and seen all that the Lord was doing in Abraham’s life, it does not rub off through osmosis. As we touched on Friday night, Lot had to make a choice. He made the wrong choice.
God still pursued him. But, brothers and sisters, as we come to this matter of who is in charge of our lives, the Lord sets before us Himself in a beautiful way.
Often, we hear people encourage us, “Consecrate yourself to the Lord to do something for Him. Consecrate yourself to the Lord so you can be useful to Him. Consecrate yourself and be active. Do something for God.”
But, brothers and sisters, if we really look at the heart of the issue of consecration, it is not giving ourselves to the Lord to do something, as though we bring something that will add to His benefit. It is simply giving ourselves unto Him for Him to be in charge and for Him to do with us what He desires.
As we give ourselves unto Him, He will use us. He will do things through us. But the origin of it is not our doing; the origin is within His heart, coming from the Head and leading on.
It is giving Him freedom within our lives. Paul says, “For me to live is Christ.” It is really for Him to live in us, for Him to live out His life within us.
If we could summarize the principle of consecration, the principle of consecration is life. Consecration is life: His life being lived out within us.
It is not a thing. It is not a teaching or a doctrine. It is a life. That is what He is so jealous for in this day and time.
It is also good to stop for a moment and ask: Who is consecration for? Sometimes we can think it is for special people, certain servants of the Lord, or workers of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, consecration is for each and every believer. When you come to Romans 12:1-2, Paul says, “I urge you therefore, brethren.” That is an all-inclusive term.
He does not say, “I urge you therefore, prophets,” or, “I urge you therefore, apostles,” or, “I urge you therefore, teachers.” He says, “I urge you, brethren.” That is all of us.
He is calling out to each and every one of us. He has a yearning and a desire within His heart to express His life and for His life to be lived out within us. So, as we look at this principle of consecration, it is a principle of life—His life being lived out among His people.
What was more upon my heart today is this whole matter of process: the process of consecration. It is important to ask: Who starts the process? Where does the process of consecration start?
We are so self-centered in our ways that we often think it starts with us. We think, “I am going to give myself to the Lord.” No. The process of consecration starts from His call unto us.
He beseeches us. He cries out to us to yield ourselves unto Him. He starts the process by calling out to us. It is a call of love.
If you look at the Greek in Romans 12:1, where it says, “I urge you,” or, “I beseech you,” it is really a crying out; it is a pleading.
Can you imagine God, the Creator of the universe, pleading and crying out for us to respond to Him? We speak about the humility of Christ. This is actually one of the most humble Scriptures that you will find.
He humbles Himself to the point of pleading with those for whom He has given Himself, that they would respond unto His great love.
He pleads with us: “By the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice.” By the mercies of God. Do we know the mercies of God? Have the mercies of God captured our hearts?
We have been reminded of those mercies. Jeffrey has been sharing through the book of Romans—that glorious gospel within Romans—of so great a salvation, so great a justification, and so great a sanctification.
We have been set free from under the law and brought into the spirit of grace. We are not under the law, but under the grace of life and the Spirit of grace. We see these mercies.
Think back upon what has gone before Romans 12. We see His great love manifested in Romans 5:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
What a mercy of God.
Even in Romans 8, Kenny reminded us of the security we have in the love of Christ. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. There is a place of security there.
Do we know that mercy which has been poured out for us? As we take this table every Sunday, is that fresh unto us?
The process of consecration starts with the mercies of God and His great call unto us. Then the process begins within us as we respond to His call.
As we see those mercies of God, the process of consecration begins within us as we respond to His call. It is a free-will response to the love of Christ.
As He shows us His great love and His great mercy, we respond. We say, “You are Lord, and I no longer live for myself. I am living for You.”
This was Paul’s testimony. Hold your finger in Romans and turn over to 2 Corinthians 5 for a moment.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15:
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that One died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
What was it that controlled Paul’s life? It was the love of Christ. Yes, Paul had a love for Christ, but this is not speaking of Paul’s love for Christ. This is speaking of Christ’s love for Paul.
We are to have a love for Christ, but our love for Him is limited. It can only go so far. His love is without end. It is boundless. What a love!
As Paul touched that love, he said, “I am no longer living for myself. I am living for Him.” This is the whole spirit of consecration: living for Him.
As we respond to this mercy and this great love, what we are doing is giving the Holy Spirit permission to begin this conforming work within us. We are giving the Holy Spirit permission to begin this process within us.
This is one of the great contrasts between the Lord and the enemy. The Lord waits for permission to conform us to His image. He is not going to force Himself upon us. He waits for that permission.
As we yield to Him and give Him permission to work within our lives, He responds. The enemy never asks permission. The enemy just goes at it. He is working day and night, relentlessly, to conform us to the spirit of this age and to this world.
But our Lord, in many ways, we could say, is a southern gentleman. He was from Judah, from the south—not Northern Israel. I will just keep you awake on that one.
But we have to see that He is such a gentleman. As we give Him permission, then He comes in. He waits for that response.
He has purchased us and redeemed us. Even though He owns us, He does not force us into anything, even though He has a legal right.
We remember the story Stephen shared about that little slave girl. That man purchased her; he owned her and had a legal right to her. But he set her free.
Our Lord is our new Owner. He has a legal right to demand things of us, but He does not. He has such a heart of love. He shows us His mercies and His love with the desire that we would respond.
He does not come to us and force us, in some legalistic way, to serve Him. He operates on the basis of love, not on the basis of legalism and law.
He does not operate out of guilt: “Oh, you ought to be doing this. Look what everybody else is doing.” That can make you feel guilty and push you into service.
No, He says, “Look at My great love. Look what I have done,” and you respond. He does not pressure or manipulate us.
Our Lord, in His wonderful love and mercy, never forces us, and He never violates our will. That is why it is encouraging to remember the F. B. Meyer story.
When the Lord was working in his life in an area in which he was unwilling, he prayed, “Lord, make me willing to be willing.”
Do we see the extent of His great love? If we can be touched in a fresh way by the love of Christ, there will be a response to Him.
We are not going to turn our lives over to someone we do not know and do not trust. If we do not know Him, if we are not assured of that love, we are not going to yield ourselves to Him.
Have we seen those mercies? Are those mercies fresh within our hearts?
We can pray, “Lord, show us Your mercies. Show us Your great love. Show us Yourself.” As we see Him, we are captured in a fresh way. We are captured by His love.
As we said, it is His love that captures us. It is not our love. Our love has limitations, but His love has captured us.
There is a wonderful story concerning Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission. As he interviewed different candidates to go to China, he would ask them why they were going.
Some would share that they had such a burden for the lost, such a desire that the gospel would go forth, or such a love for the Chinese people. There were many different testimonies, all of which were good.
Hudson Taylor would encourage them, but he would also warn them: “Unless you are going constrained and controlled by the love of Christ, your other loves will fail you.”
The love of Christ never fails us.
As we see the love of Christ, we are thankful that we have this fresh reminder every Lord’s Day to come and respond unto Him. We have an opportunity to gather together and worship, to respond to His great love, and to abide in that love.
As we said, the principle of consecration is a principle of life. The process of consecration is a living process too.
Presenting our bodies is being that living sacrifice, putting ourselves at His disposal. It is giving ourselves up to Him, no longer living for ourselves, responding to His great love, and allowing this living process to be worked out within us.
This is really spiritual exercise. This is how we are conformed unto His image. It is a life process.
Now, is consecration a one-time event? We can ask: Is life a one-time event? That gives us the answer.
We are born; there is a beginning to life. Yes, there is a beginning to consecration. But then we live out life every day. There is a continual progression in life, and consecration is similar.
There can be a one-time event in consecration, when the Lord touches us in a fresh way—perhaps when we are young believers, or perhaps when we have been believers but have been living for ourselves.
The Lord touches us in that fresh way, and there is a moment when we come and yield ourselves to Him. We say, “Lord, I do not want to live any longer for myself. I want to live for You.”
Praise God, but it does not stop there. It is a continual process. Romans 12 speaks of being a living sacrifice.
This draws us back to the Old Testament, where there was the continual burnt offering morning and evening. But our consecration, if it is life, goes beyond two times a day.
It is not merely giving ourselves to Him in the morning, which is good, and then giving ourselves to Him at the end of the day, which is good too. It is living that life throughout the whole day: a continual living process of enjoying His life and allowing His life to be lived out within us.
As we give all of ourselves to Him—as much as we are aware of—and give ourselves to Him for His life to be lived out within us, He begins that process. Step by step, He brings us into the reality of it.
The life of consecration is not only a one-time thing, and it is not only continual; it is progressive. At times, the progressive nature of consecration can cause us to stumble, because He does not do it all at once. He does it bit by bit.
If we go back to the Old Testament for an illustration, we see how, when the Lord brought Israel into the promised land, He told them in Exodus that He would not drive out all the enemy in one day.
He was going to take His time. As their life increased and they became more fruitful, step by step He would drive out the enemy, and they would fully possess all that they had.
The whole land was their inheritance, but they did not experience its fullness until, step by step, they went through this progression of taking possession of the land.
This is how it is within our Christian lives. When we are saved, we have all of Christ. Then we spend the rest of our Christian lives discovering the riches and all the blessings that we have in Him. We begin to enter into the reality of it.
It is very much like salvation. When we are saved, the past is concluded. All our sins are forgiven. Everything that we have gone through in the past is concluded.
There is a hymn, And Can It Be, and I love the fourth verse:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
We were all in a prison. We all had shackles. When we came to the Lord, our chains fell off. We were set free. Those prison doors were opened wide, and everything we had experienced before that was a settled issue.
The blood of the Lamb had settled it once and for all, and we had a new life.
We immediately begin to experience some of the freedom that we have in Christ. We experience sins forgiven. But there may be other aspects of our lives in which we do not enter into the reality of the freedom we have until a year or two later, or even later in our Christian lives.
To us, in our experience, it can feel like, “Five years later, now I am set free.” No, you are entering into your freedom, but you were set free at Calvary, the day you were saved.
All the curses, sins, and things of the past were shattered. There is a new life that we have. But in the progression of this life, we sometimes enter into the reality and experience of it later on.
What a glorious life we have. There is more that we can experience. Brothers and sisters, everything was concluded at Calvary. That is the preciousness of this table.
May we enter into more and more of the glorious freedom and liberty that we have in Christ as sons of God, that we may be conformed to His image.
It is like baptism too. When we are baptized, most of us do not have a clue what all that means. We think we do.
I look back at my baptism and at what I knew thirty-seven years ago, compared with what I know about baptism now, and I say, “Wow, that was a great thing that happened that day.”
I appreciate it more and more today than I did back then. The issue in being baptized was that I was a believer, not merely the measure of my understanding at that time.
The progressive reality of baptism is something into which we enter more and more. It is the same with consecration. As we have given ourselves to the Lord, there is a progression into which we enter.
As He deals with us, layer by layer and step by step, we do not really know all that is involved when we begin this process. We do not know what will happen.
We have simply been touched by His love, and we respond: “Lord, I want to live for You, and I give my whole life to You.” Then He says, “Okay. Let us begin this progression of life.”
He starts to touch very specific things. Praise God, when we first consecrate ourselves to Him to live for Him, there are some things that fall off immediately.
Maybe we will choose the obvious things: smoking, drinking, cussing, chewing, and all that stuff. Somehow, as you gave yourself to the Lord, those things fell off right away.
Maybe you had a tongue that loved to gossip, and suddenly you found that you began to look at people in a completely different way.
There are some things in our lives where, as we give ourselves to Him to live for Him, there is an immediate change. We are free, and we experience it.
But there are other things in our lives where we wonder whether we will ever really be free of them. We begin to go through a working-out process. He touches something; we struggle; we fail.
By His grace, we keep going through that. We come back to Him, and by His grace we eventually break through. The enemy will try to condemn us with our failures, but praise God for the blood of the Lamb. It cleanses us from all our sins and unrighteousness.
This consecrated Christian life is a progression, not a sinlessly perfect life. There is a progression of life. He touches things, and we wrestle through them.
A little personal testimony: one of the things I had to wrestle through the most—and, in many ways, one of the most difficult things—was the whole matter of sports.
Growing up, through junior high, high school, college, and when I was in the military, my identity was tied up in sports: football, track, and baseball. I tried basketball, but I always fouled out too quickly.
My whole identity was in sports. After I finally finished university, after a couple of trials, I was working for a company that had a softball team. That softball team played on Wednesday nights.
You know what happens in Christianity in the South on Wednesday nights: they have prayer meetings.
At first, it did not bother me a bit. I went on playing and enjoying my softball. But after I had played one whole year, I started softball again in my second year with the company, and all of a sudden, the Lord began touching me.
He began touching my heart and saying, “Mac, I want you to give up softball. You need to go to prayer meeting.”
Then the rationalization begins: “But Lord, I am here as a testimony to You. What kind of testimony would I be if I quit? They would say I was a quitter. It would ruin my whole testimony.”
“I can be there. I can share the gospel.” We use that line with the Lord all the time. “I can share the gospel. I can be such a testimony, Lord. I want to be faithful and diligent. I committed to this, and I want to fulfill it.”
I wrestled for months, it seemed. The Lord was so patient, and Stella was patient too. I say that to the glory of God, because she told me at the beginning what her thought was, and then she did not nag me. She won me in silence.
The Lord was working within me. I started praying—you know how we try to manipulate things. I said, “Lord, let me have a bad season. Let me start playing badly so they will not miss me.”
Well, I would get up there and try to swing and just poke it. I remember one time I hit the ball to right field. There were no fences on the softball field, and the ball just kept rolling. I got a home run while trying merely to flip it over the first baseman’s head.
I was batting close to .600. Now, in softball, that is average—do not compare that with baseball. But I was having a great year. I said, “Oh, Lord.” Yet I was miserable. I knew what I had to do.
Finally, long story short, I came and said, “Okay, I have got to quit.” I told them, and they were upset. They tried to reason with me, but I knew.
The next Wednesday night, I went to prayer meeting. I was sitting in that prayer meeting, but do you know where my heart was? My heart was on the softball field.
But praise God, after a couple of weeks, I was set free. I came on, and I enjoyed it.
I look back now and hear people talk about paying the cost. I look back and say, “What cost? What have I gained?” There is such a gain. You gain more of Christ. You gain fellowship with brothers and sisters.
In one sense, it cost me something. But from the perspective I have now, it did not cost me anything. I am thankful.
That is how the Lord works with us in His patience. There is this whole process through which we go.
I compare the Christian life to an onion. The Lord peels off a layer, and every time He peels off a layer, the next layer looks shiny.
You start peeling those layers of onion, and you think, “Wow, I have finally arrived.” Then the Lord says, “No, that next layer has to come off too.”
He begins peeling that off, and eventually you get to the very core. That is the sweetest part: Christ. Christ in you. That is what He wants to have lived out.
In ourselves, we are just stinky onions that may look good on the outside. But in the heart of that onion, there is the sweetness of Christ. That is what He is after.
This progressive process is lifelong. We yield ourselves to Him, and with sincerity we yield everything that we are aware of. Then He touches something else, and He keeps working.
The Holy Spirit shines into another area of which we may not have been aware. As we go on and get a few years in the Lord, there may be some things we could do when we were younger.
Then the Lord, by His Holy Spirit, comes in and says, “You need to let go of that.” Maybe there is somewhere you could go, something you could buy, something you could wear, or something you could do.
For years, you may have done that with a clear conscience. But then the Holy Spirit begins to touch that and says, “Maybe you should not be doing that anymore. Maybe you should not be wearing that anymore. Maybe you should not be going there anymore.”
Immediately, we say, “That is legalistic. I am free in the Lord.” Yes, you are free, but are you going to be like those in Galatians and serve your own flesh?
Are we using our freedom for ourselves, or are we using our freedom for His glory?
He touches those areas. Once that area is yielded—where we thought we were free earlier in our Christian lives—then we know true freedom. It is more of Christ. It is more of His life.
Are we willing to be continually trained and conformed? As we yield, His grace begins this whole process of consecration, and we slowly enter into the purpose of consecration.
We will touch more on that next week, but we can see that if the principle of consecration is life, and the process of consecration is life, then the purpose of consecration is life—life more abundant, and a life together. This is what He is after.
This is not a sinless life of which we are speaking. It is not a life without problems or a life without tests.
Sometimes we can create a great misunderstanding. We give ourselves to the Lord, and then we really mess up. The enemy immediately comes in and says, “See? Your consecration was not real at all. That was a big lie.”
No. It was true. It was genuine. But in our weakness, we continue to be dependent upon Him to lead us through.
As we go through this process, it begins to become a little easier—not easy—but a little easier to agree with the Lord and say no to the world and to self.
Things that drew us strongly in the past become things to which it is a little easier to say no, and to say yes to Him.
Another way of saying this is simply that it is the working of the cross within our lives. You can never separate the cross from any aspect of our Christian lives.
Every aspect of our Christian lives that leads us to more of Christ involves the cross. If we separate the cross from any aspect of our Christian lives, we end up with a counterfeit life.
It may look the same on the outside, but the spirit within it is counterfeit. The spirit within a counterfeit life to Christ is the spirit of antichrist.
The spirit of antichrist is simply trying to present another Christ and draw us to that. It is Christianity without a cross, drawing us to ourselves.
This whole process and progression of consecration is lifelong. We are in it for our whole lives. Those of us who are a little older need to be aware of this.
As we get a few years under our belts, and think we have been serving the Lord and have been given to Him, we can begin to develop an entitlement mentality.
“Well, I have served thirty years. Therefore, I am entitled to sit back and coast now. I have been a believer. I have been serving. Look at all I have done. I taught Sunday school for twenty years. Now I am entitled to coast.”
There is no entitlement within the Christian life. There is no entitlement in the wrong way to what the Lord has for us.
But as we say no to ourselves and yes to Him, He gives us more and more of those riches that we already have. We are not entitled to them because we already have them.
He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. Because of that, we can enter into the goodness of it.
As we allow the working of the cross within our lives, we experience more and more of the goodness of the Lord, as the psalmist said, the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
It is a life unto which we have been called, as we respond to His love.
This is really what Romans 12 calls our spiritual service of worship: responding to Him and making a conscious response.
I love how some define worship: worship is putting God in His proper place and us being in our proper place.
God is in the proper place within our lives, and we are in our proper place. That is worship and adoration.
As we look afresh at this whole matter of consecration, if we have never really surrendered our lives to the Lord, may we stop and take that time, that moment, that opportunity, to yield ourselves to Him.
Where our consecration has waned, or where we were not aware that this was a life and a continual progression, may we in a fresh way allow the mercies of God to draw us unto Himself.
For some of us who have been around a while, and of whom it says, “You have need of endurance,” may the mercies of God touch our hearts afresh, that we could allow the fullness of His life to be expressed together as the people of God.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are thankful for so great a salvation. Lord, we are thankful for how all of Your precious and magnificent promises lead us unto Yourself, and how all of Your precious and magnificent promises reveal more of Christ unto us.
Lord, as we are before You, as we see the days in which we are living, and as we see the pressures both within and without, we come back and say: You alone have the word of life.
Lord, we pray that word of life, that word of love, would touch our hearts in a fresh way.
Lord, where You are touching us and working in specific areas within our lives, we want to hang in there with You and allow Your great, enduring love to lead us all the way through.
Lord, we are thankful for this process that You have us in. We know that it is leading us more and more unto a fuller measure of Yourself.
Lord, we would be jealous for You as You are jealous for us. In Your precious name, amen.