Lord, we come this morning as Your children. Lord, we come because it was Your determined will that we become Your children—children of God, children of the Creator of the whole universe.
Oh Lord, thank You this morning. We have now been brought into a realm far greater than this natural one that we operate in every day. Lord, we also live in that spiritual realm, where things are so real, eternal in nature. It is all because of the work of Jesus Christ, Your Son, and we thank You this morning.
Lord, we come before You, and we have to say, Lord, who can speak for the Lord? Who can utter a word? Who can really, Lord Jesus, take Your Word and expound it? Lord, we are convinced that only the Holy Spirit can do that, and we ask that this morning He would indeed be the One sharing and speaking.
Lord, give me grace that I might share what is on my heart that You have given to me. Lord, we pray that today we will go away—oh, how do I want to say it?—more glorious in Christ. Lord, we just ask You to really bless this time. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, saints, I am a little melancholy this morning. I had two memorial services this weekend for those that I was reasonably close to who passed away. Memorial services are a time of reflection. We all think about our lives and the value of our lives. Is our life meaningful?
This matter of passing the torch of testimony has been on our hearts for a number of months now. It was on my heart, and I said, “Well, Lord, what is it that I would like to pass on?” Young people here, all my brothers and sisters, I can only share, I guess, the burden on my heart and the things that have meant so much to me.
Young people, when I was going to college, I was one of the shyest kids you could want to be. I know what self-consciousness is. I know what it is to be bound by self-consciousness—terribly bound. I was an extremely shy kid in college.
It really bothered me a lot because I felt like I was missing out on so much just because of my shyness, and I did not seem to be able to do anything about it. But I remember one night before the Lord, I was just weeping.
I do not weep a lot. I really do not cry much. I wish I cried more sometimes; I know it is good for you. But I was weeping in my bunk in college, and the Lord spoke to me. He said, “You do not have to be that way. You do not have to be that way. Just look to Me.”
And, you know, my life changed that night. Now, overnight I did not become exuberant and all outgoing. But over the years, there has been quite a difference. You do not know me as I was when I was a child, so it is hard for you to understand. But I understand self-consciousness, and I understand what it is to be shy.
I only say that because when we come to the Lord’s Table, it is your meeting. You are here with us. You are family. It is okay to speak your heart before your brothers and sisters. Do not let self-consciousness bind you up so that you cannot be free before the Lord.
And for us older ones, I also know what it is to want to keep my life personal, to keep things kind of between me and the Lord. But when we come to this table, boy, it is a family table.
When we were a family sitting around the table, we did not just silently eat. We expressed and talked about things to one another. I guess those days are mostly gone, but I do still remember them and appreciate them. I only say that because I know the Lord wants to hear our voice. I know that.
I have a son who lives in California. He will be coming over the holidays, and I am so grateful. He left about fifteen years ago and has been in California all that time. You know what thrills me? Every once in a while, we get a phone call and I hear his voice. That really means a lot to me as a dad.
And I just know that the Father and the Lord Jesus are so thrilled when They hear our voice. Now, I know the Lord knows our heart. He knows what is in it, and we can worship Him in our hearts—and we should, even as we gather together at the table. But I think it is marvelous when, occasionally, you just verbalize it, for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of your brothers and sisters.
The other thing is, I remember in the early days, I was about twenty-seven years old and working for the city of Richmond. Kenny Pittman was working as a summer student. He was going to college and worked during the summer so that he could pay to go to school.
I remember encountering Kenny. Kenny is eight years younger than I am, so he would have been about nineteen or twenty. The first time I saw him, he was actually in another unit. I asked him about the Lord, and he shook his head no.
I said, “Well, do you believe in the Bible?” He said no. He said, “It is written by men, you know.” Absolutely not.
The next summer, when he showed up, I was kind of stunned when I overheard Kenny sharing the gospel with somebody at work. He was just sharing the Lord, and he was beaming. He had been saved just a few weeks or months.
So I went up to him and said, “Hey, do you believe in the Word of God?” He said, “Every word in that Bible is God-breathed.” I said, “Amen, brother.”
The Lord had really touched him, and I saw the life of the Lord in this young brother. Of course, I was young at that time as well. So we started getting together at lunch.
Now, I was a fundamental Baptist, and he was Assembly of God, Pentecostal-type. We were not familiar with each other, but the Lord just drew us to each other. I could see the life of the Lord in my brother. I knew that I might not agree with all that he felt, and I do not know how much he knew at that time, but I saw the Lord in my brother, and we were able to fellowship.
I gave to Kenny a book that meant so much to me, and meant so much to Jim Bach: The Normal Christian Life.
Kenny read that book, and he came back to me and said, “Jerry, it is Christ, isn’t it? It is all about Christ, right? It is just Christ. Everything is Christ.”
I said, “Yes, brother.” Kenny’s eyes were opened to see the greatness of Christ. He already knew Him as his Savior, but that day somehow God gave him revelation, through reading that book, of how great and immense our Christ is.
That is a fundamental thing that is needed in every life. We love the Lord. We know He is our Savior. We thank Him for that. But somewhere, somehow—it might be gradual, it may be instantaneous—but one day our eyes are opened to see how great this Christ is.
Oh, how necessary, how fundamental that is. Actually, all I am sharing is fundamentals, because fundamentals are so needed.
I remember, as a student, my favorite subject was math because it was fundamental. You know what I discovered? If you could add and subtract, multiply and divide, you could just about do anything. It is really true.
You know how they got a man on the moon? I know they had a powerful rocket, but there was a lot of mathematical engineering that went into figuring how much thrust was needed, how close they needed to get to the moon, how to shoot around it, and all those things. It took mathematics.
Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Of course, I know there is calculus and all these things; I studied them. But the fundamental thing is adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. In fact, the computer world is built on binary code. It is mathematical.
Fundamentals are important. This matter of seeing God and the greatness of Christ is so fundamental and necessary.
Did you know that Christ was God? All of us would say yes. But do you know that Christ is God?
God—the invisible, the Almighty God, the unknowable, unsearchable God—came to this earth in the form of Jesus Christ. God came to this earth as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He wanted no longer to remain invisible and unknowable. He wanted us to know Him.
This God, who is uncreated life, created us. That is what we are. We are creatures of creation, and yet that is Who He is. That is Who Christ is. He is God. He is God manifested to us.
And how much He wants to share all that He is with us, brothers and sisters. The Lord Himself said, “You need to know this: I am the beginning, and I am the end.”
I do not know what you young people’s purpose in life is. I do not know if it is just to get through college or high school, family, college, marriage, a house, a garage with a car in it. I do not know.
But I know one thing. Christ says, “I am the beginning of your life, and I am the end of your life. I am the beginning of your purpose in life, and I am the end of your purpose in life. Me. I am God, and you are My child.”
That is Who He is. He said, “Behold, I was dead, and I am alive.” He is a living God. We know His death was necessary to save us from our sins and from sin, to raise us up into new life, and to make us sons of the kingdom of God.
The great work that He did through His death and resurrection: “I was dead, but I am alive.” This is the Christ that you are fortunate enough to know, to live with, and to share in each day. He says, “I have the keys of hell and death.”
Brothers and sisters, I think most of us realize it. The Word of God and the Psalms say that we were born in sin, even in our mother’s womb. We were condemned to death and hell.
But the Lord, on Calvary’s cross, when He went down into that great depth, took the keys of death from Satan. He has the keys of hell and death. This is the greatness of our Christ. He has been victor over everything that is opposed to God Himself.
The Word says that He is the image of the invisible God. If you want to know Who God is, you are going to have to know Who Jesus Christ is. He is the only way.
He says:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life:
no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
Regardless of what your professors might tell you in college—that there are many ways to God, many ways to heaven, or that there is no hell—let me tell you: Christ, Who is God, said very plainly that He is the only way you will ever know God. He is the only way you can ever come into the kingdom of God. It is in Jesus Christ.
It says all things were created by Him and for Him. Brothers and sisters, I think oftentimes when I hear this Scripture of an artist or an architect. When they decide to paint something or build something, it is a part of them.
In fact, the only paintings that seem to be of value are those that somehow reflect the character and nature of the painter himself. That is true in the field of architecture as well. There is something of the architect in everything that he builds. And that is true of the creation. God is trying to manifest Himself in His creation.
All the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:6 says that you are accepted in Christ. Colossians 2:10 says that you are complete in Christ. What does that mean? That means that God already has a plan. God already has completed us in Christ.
Through the work of His Son on Calvary’s cross, we are in the process of becoming what we already are in Jesus Christ. God sees who we are in Christ, and He says, “I am transforming you into that very thing.”
It is Christ. It is because you are in Christ that it is possible. You are accepted in Christ—not because of good works, not because you think you are a good person, but because, by accepting Christ, God sees you in Christ.
And He says, “I will accept you because you are in Christ. You can come into My presence because you are in Christ.”
Your redemption is in Christ. Your righteousness is in Christ. Ours is as filthy rags, but His righteousness is pure, and He has put a golden robe of righteousness on all who have accepted Jesus Christ. So, in Christ, you have righteousness.
You are sanctified in Christ—set apart for God in Christ. Your hope is in Christ. Do you know that without Christ, you have no hope? You may be hoping for a lot of things, but you have no hope that is secure.
But our hope in Jesus Christ is secure. Thank the Lord, we have a living hope in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:3 says that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. Why? In Christ.
The greatness of Christ. Ephesians 3:11 says the eternal purpose of God is found in Christ. The new creation is in Christ. There is no condemnation in Christ. The one body is in Christ. Our life is in Christ.
I could probably stand up here for two weeks and try to share, but only the Holy Spirit can really open our hearts to see the greatness of Christ and the greatness of what has happened to you and me because God has put us in Christ, because we have accepted Christ into our life.
I think that day when Kenny read The Normal Christian Life and came back to me, and his eyes were opened to this great Christ, he opened my eyes as well, brothers and sisters.
I saw something through my brother of the greatness of Christ, of what it meant to have revelation of the greatness of Christ. I saw it through my brother. Yes, I knew Christ. I had accepted Christ at the age of twelve. But that day, my brother’s revelation became my revelation.
I am so thankful the Lord brought my brother my way, that we were able to share Christ together. That was thrilling. Every day at lunch, we had the opportunity to go out and share Christ with one another.
It is so amazing. That book, The Normal Christian Life—you know where I got it from? I got it from my mother-in-law.
Dear precious saint in the Lord, she passed away at fifty years of age. But before she passed away, she passed something on to me, and that was her love for the Lord. I call her my spiritual mother.
I was a Christian before I met her, but boy, I did not know what a Christian was until I met her. She was that kind of woman. She meant a lot to me. Her passing away was so difficult.
But I have always felt that the little glimpse of revelation given to my mother-in-law was passed on to me. It was through the book, The Normal Christian Life, that I began to see that Christianity was a living faith, not a set of doctrines.
That is because that was the way I was brought up. I was steeped in the doctrines of being in the fundamental Baptist church. But I saw the life in my mother-in-law, and then in Kenny.
She got that book from Mary Ann Mash. You all know Mary Ann. She is not able to come as much as she would like to, but my mother-in-law and Mary Ann were friends up in Ashland.
Mary Ann gave it to her friend, and I have that book. I see the little notes she made in there. I say, “Lord, thank God. I can tell from her notes that You really showed her something.” And she passed it on to me.
All we can do is share what the Lord has given to us, what the Lord has shown to us, and occasionally it seems to light a flame somewhere else. That is carrying the torch. That is passing the torch on. I am so glad that these things were passed on in my life.
You know, Ephesians 1:10 says that God’s purpose is to sum up all things in Christ. Now, do you know what that means? Everything is going to be summed up in Christ.
What that says to me is that, in the end, you are going to tell me something, and I will say, “Yes, that is Christ.” You will say something else, and I will say, “Yes, that is Christ.” What about your life? “Yes, I did this and that.” And I will say, “Yes, Christ.”
Let me say it another way. The Lord Jesus said, “I can sum up the law—all that the Law and the Prophets have said: love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.” He said, “That sums it all up.”
If you get that, you have got all that the Law and the Prophets have said. That is the way it is. In the end, we will be saying, “Yes, that is Christ.” It is Christ. He is the great One.
My only heart is that, in these few moments of sharing with you all, once again that spark of light would touch our hearts, and we would appreciate once again the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ—how great He is.
God so loved His Son that He created everything for Him. It says in the Word:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth His handiwork.
God’s whole creation is set up to show forth His glory and the work of His hands. I went to a marine museum when I was out in California. It was amazing.
One of the most amazing things I saw was a display of jellyfish from all over the world—living jellyfish, not pictures. I was amazed at how delicate those things were, and yet some of them were enormous. I was amazed at God’s creation, and I knew it was God. Man could never have brought up a jellyfish, I do not think.
His creation should show us that He is trying to speak to us. This is the great God that we have.
But after God created the heavens and the earth and all these stars, we know the discord that entered in and the darkness that came upon it all. In the Genesis account, we see it all being restored and made ready for man.
Now, in God’s creation, man is special. God had a special purpose in mind for man in His creation. He could show forth His glory through all these animals and everything else, but He had something in mind with man that was going to be really special.
That is why the Word of God says that man was made in His image and after His likeness. Man was to be a special manifestation of God Himself—a special expression, a way in which God could express Himself in fullness.
That is what He wanted to do. That is why, brothers and sisters, He did not just speak man into being as He did the other animals. With the plants and the animals, He spoke the word. But when it came to man, He took the clay, the dust of the earth, and formed it into the shape of a man.
Then it says that He—God—breathed life into that clay, and it became a living soul.
That is so interesting to me. The greatest sculptor in the whole universe has got to be God. I do not know how He sculptured this man out of clay, but He did.
When the breath of life began to flow into that clay, it was transformed. It was transformed into bones, muscles, blood vessels, organs, eyes, ears, and more than that.
Not only did God give man a living body, but He gave him a living soul, because He gave to man mind, will, and emotion. He was being conformed to the image of God Himself.
And He gave man a spirit. The spirit was not yet quickened, but the mind, will, and emotions were very alive.
Man in the garden was intended to be God’s testimony—a testimony of Who God is. He was to reflect all the character and nature of God. That includes His love, His mercy, all of His grace, and truth.
All of that was to be seen through man. That is why we were created, brothers and sisters. A lot of people in this world have no idea why they are here. But we, as Christians, should not be unwise.
We were created to be a vessel of testimony of the living God—of His character and nature—to be able to express God in this universe in a way that no other creature, no other element of this earth, can do. That is what our high calling is in Jesus Christ.
God was invisible, but He intended to make Himself visible through man.
Man had created life at that point, but he was still not able to carry out God’s divine purpose or intention. His spirit was not yet quickened. Or, let me put it another way: if it was alive at that time in Adam, if possible, I do not know. I should have asked Stephen before I had this message.
But we do know that his spirit became darkened as soon as he sinned, because he was fellowshipping with God in the garden.
How did the Lord make provision that man could have eternal life—divine life? Not divine in the sense of becoming God, but having the character and nature of God in man. How was that going to be possible?
What was God’s provision? I am going to wait here until somebody tells me. I want to see if you listened to what I said in the beginning.
For all those listening on tape, I am getting silence. What was God’s provision? You know it, do you not? Tell me.
It is Christ in what form? What form was Christ in in the garden? Well, you should know: it is the tree of life. I will not wait any longer. It is the tree of life.
The tree of life was God’s provision. It was God’s intention for Adam to take of the tree of life and begin to feed on Christ, which the tree of life was. Feed on Christ, and he would grow spiritually and mature and become a reflection of the image of Christ.
Man would not only be a living soul, but he would be a living spirit. Brothers and sisters, the soul was to become subordinate to the spirit.
But what happened on the day that Adam sinned? God gave him a choice. There were two trees, right? One was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then there was the tree of life.
He needed to partake of the tree of life. Then the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would have some use. Well, God gave Adam a choice, and I think that is critical, brothers and sisters, to understand why we are so unique. He gave us a choice.
The Lord did not want robots or humanoids. He did not pre-program man so that he could only obey God. He gave man a marvelous gift, I think: the gift of choice. And I think that makes us like God, because God has a choice.
What you do with that choice is extremely critical, because Adam made a wrong choice. We know that.
I was amazed about something about a year or two ago. My grandson had one of those Apple devices, and I asked him a question. He said, “Well, Pop, I do not know, but I will ask Siri.” I said, “Who is Siri?” He said, “Siri is the woman on the computer.”
We were looking for a pizza place to eat in the area. He said, “Siri, tell me where the pizza places are in my area.” And she told him, and we found it.
But that was not the point. He kept asking Siri questions, and then he asked her, “Siri, how about a date? Let’s go on a date.” He was twelve years old. Siri answered, “We do not know each other well enough.”
I said, “Wow. What have they done with computers?” I could not believe it. It actually gave a reasonable answer.
Well, God could have made us like that, could He not? Just some program that He stuck in us, in our minds, that would feed back and take all this information in. I have to say, I am really amazed at Siri and her knowledge. She is quite amazing. I have heard some people actually get attached to these things, you know.
But God’s love for His Son, and His love for man, meant that His thought for man came out of a love relationship. Those of us who would become many sons—it was a love relationship. It was a heart relationship.
God wanted a relationship not based on responding to a program, or having a programmed response like Siri, but a heart that could make choices and could choose to love, could choose to respond to Him in fellowship with Him.
A living soul—a mind, a will, and emotion—and a spirit alive to Him through which to communicate with Him. He gave man that choice.
Man could respond to God and to God’s love, take of the tree of life, grow spiritually, and pass it on to his sons. But that did not happen. Adam failed, and we are born in sin.
We take on the nature and character of a fallen Adamic life when we are born. We are born that way. It is almost as if we have no choice any longer. We are born that way because of the sin of Adam.
And we find that the fundamental part of Adam’s sin nature, which we take on, is self-centeredness. We are just self-centered. Being self-centered should tell us that we are sinners. It does not always do that, but it should.
Man, in a sense, had lost the choice. It was hopeless. He was born this way.
But brothers and sisters, Christ has made a way. God made a way that we could once again have a choice: to choose life or to choose death, to choose eternal life or to choose eternal death.
That is through Jesus Christ and His work on Calvary’s cross, as He died for our sins. In His death, He took the sinner with Him, and sin has been set aside because the old man has been crucified.
Not only that, He says you have been raised in newness of life. You are a new creation when you accept Jesus Christ. But that decision is yours. It is a choice you make.
If you choose not Christ, then you have chosen eternal death, not eternal life. You have not chosen Christ.
Let me just speak to this a moment. I would like for all people to be saved and drawn to the Lord by seeing His great love on Calvary’s cross and His dying for our sins. But I was saved because I was scared.
I was saved because Mother made hell almost visible to me. When she caught me in sins, she said, “Jerry, you are going to hell.” And I looked at her, and I believed her. I mean, there was fire in her eyes.
She said, “You have sinned against me, but that is not the problem. You have sinned against God. If you do not get straight with God, you cannot get straight with me.”
She left the room. Boy, I fell down on my knees. I was not a saved kid at that time. I fell down on my knees and said, “Lord, I have sinned.” The Lord convicted me of my sin. There was no doubt about it. I asked for forgiveness, and He forgave me that day.
I only say that because we do not talk much about hell, but it is real. There is not a lot in the Bible about it because God does not want to emphasize that, but neither does He hide the truth of it—that it is real.
Let us look at Matthew 25. Boy, I am not getting very far.
Matthew 25:41. This was the Lord speaking:
Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire
which is prepared for the devil and his angels.
First of all, you need to know that hell really was not designed for man. It was designed for Satan and the fallen angels. We know that happened, though we do not know how many years ago. But that is what hell was designed for.
Those who choose to follow Satan and his ways will go with him. It says, “Ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.”
A lot of people think that the grave is the end, but it is not. There is everlasting life, and there is everlasting death, brothers and sisters.
The same chapter, Matthew 25:46:
And these shall go away into eternal punishment:
but the righteous into eternal life.
Death does not end the soul. It is amazing. When we think of eternal life, we think of living forever. But there is a forever death, and there is a forever life—an everlasting life.
That life is for those in Christ, those associated with Christ, those who know Christ, those who are the children of God by birth through the work of the cross. They are in Christ, and they will be with Christ.
But those who choose to say no to God and His Christ will live in everlasting torment. We do not know exactly what the torment is, but part of it, I think, will be having to live in hell, apart and totally obscured from the presence of Christ Himself, Who is the light of the world.
Total darkness, and all those grieving souls with them. That is a terrible thing to think about. It really is.
But I would not dare end on a note like that, because the point is this: out of love, God knows our condition. He knows that we will follow Satan into the eternal fires of hell unless we choose His Son. And He loves us.
He did not just say, “Choose My Son.” He said, “My Son will have to die for your sin. He will have to recover you through His own death. He will have to come as a man.”
God Himself came in the form of a man and allowed Himself to be crucified by man, that He might free man from his sin and his sinful nature, in order that the redeemed would have the life of Christ within them and be able to manifest the glory of Christ and God.
To manifest something of His character and nature—that is our calling. That is our beginning. That is what we were created for, and that is our end: that Christ might be glorified, that God might be recognized throughout the universe and the world, and that we might become a testimony to God and to Who He is.
That is why we have been talking about carrying the torch of testimony. It is the responsibility of every saint.
Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Brothers and sisters, we have a hope—a hope of glory.
At the memorial service yesterday for Pete, my boss at work and Kenny’s boss and partner, he ended on that note: we have a living hope in Jesus Christ.
We have another choice. Man is given that choice now: to choose life by choosing Jesus Christ.
John 1:12 says:
But as many as received Him,
to them gave He the right to become children of God,
even to them that believe on His name.
You are not born a son of God. You have to be reborn to become a son of God. You are a part of His creation when you are born, but to become His son, you have to be reborn in spirit.
Brothers and sisters, today we want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ that He has given us a choice. But we need to be so very careful about the choice we make, because the choices will continue to come to us even once we accept Jesus Christ.
Every day, we will have to make a choice: Is it for me or for Christ? Do I live for myself, or do I live because I am to be a testimony of Christ on this earth?
I am going to end in a second here. I can see that I need to stop shortly.
God—and I want everybody to know it—it really gets back to those early days when the Lord opened my eyes to see that I was to be a testimony of Christ on this earth.
Not just to be a Christian who loves the Lord and prays and such things, but to actually reflect something of the character and nature of Christ on this earth. We all have that responsibility: to be a testimony of Christ. That is what we were born for.
Yet where I have come this morning is mostly individual. We know that, as individuals, we have been called to be a testimony and to carry that torch high, that the flame of Christ might burn brightly in our lives.
But when you think about it, how limited we are in being able to share Christ and express Christ. We can only express what reality we have of Christ.
You can share the Bible and things with people, and I hope it touches their heart. But what they are really going to listen to is when they look at you, look in your eyes, and see that there is reality there. When they look at our lives and see the reality of Christ.
Even unbelievers can sense if there is something different.
It says in Ecclesiastes that God has put eternity in the hearts of all men. So there is that sense that man senses this matter of eternity, even though in his mind he says, “No, I am going to end at the grave.” There is that sense of eternity there.
The point I am making is that we are to be a testimony to Christ, but we are very limited in being able to show forth even a little bit of the immensity of Christ that I talked about earlier.
Even if you look at all the millions of Christians as individuals, they are so limited in sharing the testimony of Who God really is.
Next time, I would like to share with you—I do not know whether to call it the second part or what—the thing that the Lord showed me and us, brothers and sisters, in those early days about the testimony of Christ in the church.
The church is the vessel that God has designed to carry the testimony of Christ. We are all to do that, but as individuals we are very limited. But in the church, it is very possible—and will be possible in the end—to carry the fullness of the testimony of Christ.
I would like to share more about that next week.
Lord, I just come to You. I know my thoughts may have been a little scattered this morning, but Lord, my heart is that we see how great You are and what a great privilege it has been given to us to carry the testimony of Christ.
Lord, that our whole purpose in life is that Christ might be magnified and seen and glorified in our lives. Lord Jesus, I know that we get away from that.
But I am so very thankful for the cross that draws us back. I am so thankful for the blood of Christ, through which God the Father can forgive us and restore us.
And Lord, I want to particularly pray that You would really draw us all back to Yourself. Lord, cause us to reflect on what life is really all about and where we are in the midst of it all.
That, Lord, we once again might turn our eyes to Jesus and follow Him, take up our cross and follow Him.
Lord, I also pray that You will prepare all of our hearts, that we might see the greatness of the testimony that can be expressed through Your body, the church, in the house of God.
I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.