Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

His Way, Our Way, No Way

I want to thank everybody for praying for us. The Lord has really touched my body, a true miracle. I just thank God for intercession and for all of you. I know the folks have been praying for us in Africa, and God has touched me. I am at a place where all of the history of this thing says I should be getting worse, but I am getting better. I am just thankful for that. I appreciate your prayers. I believe the Lord is going to finish the work so that we can head over to Africa in a few days. A lot needs to be done there. Some things have come up that really demand some attention right now in all of the great work that is going forth. The enemy, as always, doesn't just lie down and let us honor God. Be prayerful that we would have wisdom, and Father will make the wherewithal for us to carry out that ministry. I do appreciate your prayers. (Somebody went home and told somebody else to "pray for Pastor because his shutters fell off." They knew it was something about a house!) It is pretty bad when your roof is caving in and your shingles need to be replaced. But God has touched us and He is building this house, praise God. We are thankful for that.

Turn to the book of Ephesians. Tonight we are going to have a great time. The mission team will show some of the skits and ministry that they are going to be sharing in Africa. I am looking forward to that. I would like to take a look this morning (and we will be looking again on Wednesday) at the necessity for us to really come to the place of embracing God's will and God's way for our lives.

A lot of us want God's will and our way. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? We really do want God's will to be done--our way. In a way that is pleasing, acceptable, understandable, and comprehensible to us. We will come to a great peace when we finally realize that God's ways are incomprehensible.

An infinite God--stop and think with me for just a moment--an infinite God, omniscient, is working all things in every one of our lives, individually, uniquely, for His ultimate good. How are you going to understand that? All the lives of every man that has ever lived are intertwined and orchestrated by God. Do you want me to throw a little bit of a wrench into this thing? A sovereign God has chosen to give man free will, and yet He remains sovereign. Some of you are looking at me like, "What do you mean?" A sovereign God.

Some theologians say He is sovereign to the point where He demands, initiates, and purposes everything that happens in everything. I don't believe that. I don't believe that God authored sin. I don't believe that God is the originator of sin. I don't believe that is why Lucifer was created. I don't believe that God made Eve sin. I believe that we serve a sovereign God who is so sovereign, so omniscient, so omnipotent, and so pure that He created man (and His creatures before: the living beings, the angels, the cherubim, the seraphim) with a free will; and in His infinite wisdom, He is able through foreknowledge to orchestrate, having foreknown all the choices, this whole scenario, to ultimately reach His divine purpose. And you are going to figure that out? Why don't you just relax and believe simply that the steps of the good man are ordered by God. I don't know why our lives have been thrown together. I don't know why that rock flew up off that truck and broke the windshield in my new car. Did God throw that rock? Well, ultimately, we have to say "yes," because God is able to initiate or prevent anything that does happen, but God also just allows evil to run its course. His rain falls upon the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), and there is no formula. There is no way that you will ever comprehend what God is doing momentarily in your life. You can never, in this moment, comprehend His eternal purposes. So what do we do? We walk by faith and not by sight. What we do is walk with what we do understand, and that is that God is good and that the Judge of all the earth does right (Genesis 18:25). We delight in that, and we delight in God's way.

There are two passages I want us to look at: Ephesians, Chapter 6, and Psalm 143. Let's start off the study with those two passages and see if we can come up with a relaxed walk of faith in trusting in God's working in our lives. I want to title this, "His Way (Our Way? No Way!)" God has a plan for your life and He has predestined those of us who choose the lordship of Jesus to be conformed to His image; but God does not predestine us to become sons of God, nor have we been predestined to be rejected of God. We are predestined, having made free choice to become the sons of God, to be conformed to His image. If you're regenerated, if you are a child of God, if you continue to pursue the kingdom of God, if you continue to pursue God's will and not your own, guess what? You are going to be a victor. At the end of this race, we will see Him, we will be like Him, and we will be raised up and seated with Him in heavenly places. We will rule and reign with Him, and every promise is sure to a thousand generations.

If we demand an understanding, if we demand things being our way, if we are arrogant and begin to judge God for His goodness and His mercies toward men, that they are not being exhibited in the way that we think they should, then we have endangered ourselves to the judgment and justice of God rather than the mercy of God. All the time, people stand up and say, "I'll never serve a God who allows wars. I'll never serve a God who allows innocent children to die and to suffer." The other day, we were ministering to a young man. Another fellow had been witnessing to him for months, and he had finally accepted the Lord as his Savior. Then his friend married the love of his life, and on their honeymoon, they were both killed in an accident. This man immediately lost his faith. He defies God to this very day saying, "I will never serve a God who would do something like that." What arrogance! If that man was here just long enough to reach you it was a good thing. How do we know? How do we know what God is doing eternally while we live in the momentary, the finite, time and space? What arrogance, to stand as creatures and pass judgment on the Creator! How dare the vessel say to the Potter, "Why hast thou made me thus?" (Romans 9:20)

Do you understand that as the vessel of God, He is not through with you yet? Many of us have passed judgment on God's working in our lives. Guess what? He is not done yet. Some of us who are clay pots wish we were made of finest gold. We are not satisfied with just the molding of the clay. We want the fine engraving of the gold, and we want to sit on the king's table. How about just being thankful for being used of God? Are you satisfied being a container that sits in the garage holding God's glory, not having to be the finery on the banqueting table? Whose glory are we talking about, man's or God's? What are we living for? The whole duty of man is to love God and keep His commandments.

In Ephesians, Chapter 6, verse 6, Paul talks about the need to serve God with our whole hearts. Tragically, many of us serve God out of our heads. We know what is required of us, we do it, and--if we are really honest with ourselves--we do it because it is required of us. That type of obedience is better than none at all, but Paul says this in the sixth verse of the sixth chapter, "[Don't serve with] eyeservice, as menpleasers; [Don't just do your duty to be able to co-exist, to have the right status or stature in the eyes of men. Don't do it just because it is required of you.] but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God [say it with me] from the heart."

How many of you want to do the will of God from the heart? I do. I don't always do it, do you? Tragically, I think I do more just because it was required of me than really wanting to do it. I do it because I know I am supposed to. I do it because I have enough knowledge and I have done it that way habitually enough, but in me, there is still that strong desire to have my way. I haven't come to that place yet where I really, from the heart, enjoy dying to myself. I would like to, but I'm not there. I catch glimpses of it. I do it every once in awhile by mistake, but daily I have to war with that power of self. Just like adults and children in the natural, so mature Christians the same as immature Christians, we are able to refine our selfness. We can conduct ourselves as mature, selfless individuals when raging within us is still the desire to have our way, to want God to answer to us, to know more than we need to know.

One of the things psychologists and sociologists tell us today is that we need to sit down and explain to our children why we're doing this: "Now, son, we're going to do this, and here is why." You do it because you're told. The old ways are not all that bad. We think that's horrible, that somebody in authority, like Dad, would just say, "Do it!" and we would do it with no questions asked. "Well, Dad, why don't you justify your reasoning to me?" "Why don't you explain to me why I'm not able to get these baseball cards with the stale gum in them right now?" How many of you remember the baseball cards? You would get those Topps baseball cards, and you couldn't wait to open them. The gum was like shoe leather. It was so brittle it would break up, and you could chew it for weeks! They even wrote a song about it, right? "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?" That's for all of you people who enjoy good music. You need to get that in your collection.

"Well, son, you need to understand Dad is working hard. I'm working twelve jobs. We have rent to pay. And son, you think I make three dollars an hour, but really there are taxes taken out, and I am trying to save up for your college fund. Then there's the personal property tax bill coming...." "No!" That is all he needs to hear. "Can I have the gum?" "No!" He doesn't need all that explanation. Why do we think we need that explanation? It is the spirit that is on us today, beloved. We seem to think it is just a sociological or psychological thing, but it's not--it's rebellion. It's a spirit that wants to bring everyone to equality, that believes everyone has a right to equal expression; and it carries over to the kingdom. The fact of the matter is God doesn't need to explain to us why we don't have what that person has, why we're involved in this trial, why this happened in our life, why the business was lost, the child died, and the loved one went on to be with the Lord. You don't need an explanation if you know that God is good.

The problem in most of our lives, the reason we can't do God's will without an explanation is we are not really too sure He's not out to get us or that He has our best interest in mind. "God really is that God that likes to crush people like a bug. He is that mean kid with the magnifying glass and the ants." How many of you know what I'm talking about? Wasn't that fun, frying all those ants? I loved cooking those things. I used to love to catch a bumblebee, a yellow jacket, and a wasp. I'd try to get some spiders, put them in a jar too, and watch them duke it out. We think God has us all in a jar, and we're duking it out, everybody trying to get to the top--survival of the fittest. I want you to understand something this morning: God loves you, and His purposes for you are good. But in the midst of all this, we are living in a world that is under the judgment of sin. It is wracked with sin. There is a god of this world's system. He goes about to kill, to steal, and to destroy. He is going about seeking who in the family of God he can destroy.

We are at war on a continual basis, and God has made great promises to us that would abide in Him. He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). He has told us that our best protection is to put on the full armor of God. Many of us get partly dressed and then ask God why we are getting beaten up. Frankly, it is because we are spending more time trying to provide for ourselves than appropriating God's method for protection, the armor of God. We are spending more time in self-will, self-ability, and self-pursuit than we are in the pursuit of godliness, than we are in putting on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, having our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, having the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit. We are seduced and caught up with the temporal, and then we wonder why God isn't taking care of all of these things that He promised would be added to us. Are we seeking first the kingdom in our hearts? I am not asking if we are keeping the rules. We have tougher rules than a lot of churches. We have rules, we have traditions here, we have things set up that we, as God's undershepherds, believe would best get you and your children to heaven. All the requirements we have are for your good. Some of you look at me the same way you look at God. You think we are here trying to spoil your fun, control your lives, to keep you from going to the park and having a picnic. We are trying to get you to heaven! We are doing what we think would help you bring your flesh under control, discipline you to pursue the spiritual instead of the temporal, and every one of you think you know better. That is what we are dealing with. We have to see that God's way and our ways are continually in conflict.

Paul said it this way (look at Ephesians 6:6), "Doing the will of God from the heart." We are going to look at what God's will is as we go on in the study a little bit. When we talk about the will of God, one of the main problems we have is that we start trying to perceive it from the temporal. The will of God: "Is it God's will for me to live in this neighborhood, buy this house, drive this car, marry this person?"

We talked the other day--I won't get into it in any depth--in the panel about the different teachings that are out there, every wind of doctrine that causes people to be tossed to and fro. As we shared with you, we are not in any way implying that we know everything or that we are the greatest exegetes on the planet. We are not even close! I would never put myself off as knowing everything, the expert on all subjects. But I have said this many times, and I will say it again: I know what I know. What I mean by that is I know what God wants me to do. I know the course that I'm on. I know what He has asked me to do, and I don't feel any need to do anything else. I don't feel a need to get caught up in politics. I don't feel a need to get caught up in all of the other spiritual carnivals that are going on or even good things, good doctrines, good ministries that are taking place that emphasize other aspects of the kingdom of God. I know that God has called us here to be a people that emphasize personal holiness, raising up a godly seed, that emphasize the next generation and not living for ourselves, leaving something, should Jesus tarry, that will carry it to another generation and not living for the momentary, the immediate. That is what God has called us to do.

The other night, we were talking about these other teachers and people that are getting excited about other teachings for their lives personally. "I heard this teacher and it blessed me." Well, praise God, that blessed you. That's for your life. All we were saying is don't try to set course for this ministry. That's my job; it's not yours.

The reason we were sharing that has to do with this very thing: What is God's will for us? So many people get caught up in God's will: "God's will is for us to run and involve ourselves in this." Let's not major on the minors. You want to know God's will for you? Here is God's will: the whole duty of man is to love God and keep His commandments. Are you doing that yet? Have you exhausted that yet? Can you say, "You know what? I'm an expert in that category." Then maybe we can get a little more diverse in understanding the will of God. Why don't we do well what we already know to do instead of continually trying to learn more, find out more, and get involved in more? Can I ask you something? Are you the perfect husband yet? Wife? Teenager? Are you obeying the will of God from the heart? If you are not obeying God in your role of teenager from the heart (not legislation, not authority holding you under), then why would you presume to try to usurp and assume the role of head of the house and think you know more?

There is a Bible principle: if you have not proven yourself faithful in the small things, how can God make you a ruler in the great ones? How are you doing where God has put you? That is the will of God. You are not going to receive more revelation. Anything that you hear as "the will of God" if you are not readily doing what you know to do, is not the voice of God or the will of God: it's your own ambition, your own flesh. That voice that you think is God is you unless you have obeyed from the heart in the place that you have been put. You know that is what God has called you to do, but you see something more glamorous, more palatable, and then you label that "the will of God" for your life; and it is just your ambition, your lust.

We have so cheapened the will of God. We throw that phrase "the will of God" around just like the latest whim that we might have. Do you understand the sacredness of that phrase, "the will of God"? That is the heart of God, the mind of God, the infinite wisdom of God, the eternal purpose, glory, and goodness of God. Maybe we ought to be careful before we label something "God's will" for our life. We usually put that on there as a tag to give credibility to our own will. The fact of the matter is most of us are afraid of absolute surrender of will. That is what we want to talk about.

Look at Psalm 143, verse 10 for just a moment. Kids, do you one-hundred percent absolutely trust your parents? We hear people say this all the time, "I'd trust that guy with my life." Really? Wives, do you trust your husbands, absolutely, unconditionally? Husbands, do you trust your wives? Would you, do you, put your life in their hands? Are you one-hundred percent vulnerable? Since the original sin, the tendency of man has been to hide from God. We know the need of redemption. We want to come and receive the benefits of redemption (eternal life). We want to receive the blessings of God (peace, joy, and wholeness in the Holy Ghost). We want to be prosperous; we want to be healed--our way.

I was listening the other day to Frank Sinatra singing, "My Way." I remember a story, and I would assume that it's true. I have no reason to doubt its validity. Albie Pearson was telling me--how many of you know the name Albie Pearson, baseball player? He played for the San Francisco Seals, a Triple-A team, and then went on to play for the Angels. He had the glory of being the shortest major leaguer that had a true career. Albie was born again, and had the opportunity at one of the events in LA to escort Marilyn Monroe to a function. The Lord spoke to him and said, "I want you to share with her what I have done in your life." He said because of the circumstances, because of all of the glamour and environment, "Lord, I will, but I'm going to choose a better time. I'm going to do your will, Lord, but this just doesn't seem to be the place, the right environment." How many of you know what happened in her life shortly after that?

He said having learned that, it had such an effect on his life that he was in a place one time and encountered Frank Sinatra. He said he began to share the gospel with him, and he said the man's visage changed. His face actually began to contort, and he went into the corner and actually hid himself and started screaming, "Get out of my presence!" So full of demonic power. Albie said you could cut the demonic presence with a knife. "...and did it my way?" There is no such thing as man's way. It is either God's or Satan's. Your will is not your will. All humanity lost its will in the garden. There is a god of this world who has come to kill, steal, and destroy; and then there is the kingdom of light with its burden that is light, its yoke that is easy. The lie continues from generation to generation: "Your eyes will be open. You will be as gods. You can have your will. You can have understanding. You know best."

What are you holding back from Father? I'm talking about absolute surrender. I'm talking about obeying from the heart, believing truly that everything in your life is best for you right now, that God has you where He wants you this morning to take you where you need to be. You're not there yet. It's not over. We are in a journey, and this isn't it. He is not through with you yet.

Those of you who are suffering, I have some good news for you: it's going to get worse. You say, "That's not exactly what I wanted to hear this morning!" Well, you wouldn't be suffering if it wasn't good for you. The Captain of our Salvation learned obedience by the things that He [say it] suffered, endured (Hebrews 2:10). He did it willingly. He didn't have to. He chose to, to deliver you from yourself, to deliver you from yourself.

The Captain of our Salvation prayed, "Lord, if it be possible let this cup pass from me." You know, there is nothing wrong with that. You may find yourself in a situation and think, "Man, this is not enjoyable at all!" "I really don't enjoy these boils on my feet" (I'm speaking for Job right now). Whenever you have a problem, just think about Job. That was a bad week! A man of renown, a man of power, and he lost his reputation, his wealth, his family, and his health. One thing that he would probably have liked to get rid of was still hanging around--his wife. She was giving him advice: "Just curse God and die." In the midst of this, the man said, "I'd heard about God, but now I've seen Him. He has been revealed to me in the midst of this."

What do you think it is going to take to get you to see God? What do you think it is going to take to get us beyond religion, beyond the pursuit of well being, beyond just looking for eternal life, beyond just having our sins forgiven? What is it going to take to get us to do the will of God from the heart, just because we want to please God? How badly do you want to be free from self? Do you have any confidence in yourself?

As I analyze myself--sometimes self-analysis can be dangerous, and most of us know just enough to be dangerous--as I have come to know myself and the deception, the self-deception that I have walked in for years, the man that I trusted in instead of God didn't exist, he was a man I created in my own mind. Do any of you know you or just the man you have created? Most of us are afraid to see ourselves, and most of us are so deluded that we don't really know who we are, only who we have created. We know what we have made ourselves to be in our own minds, we know what we have convinced other people we are, but we don't want to deal with what we really are. Until you do, you are never going to be free. If you ever came to really see yourself, you'd never trust in that guy. Can anybody say amen to that? Who was that who said "amen," you or the other guy? The man of the heart or the man of the head? The one who knows how to say the right thing, or the real comprehension of who we are without Him?

Job says, "I have a glimpse of God." You can never see God until all of the façade of that man that we create is removed, and the real us is there in our total helplessness. In that place where we can say (not doctrinally, but with absolute, full, one-hundred percent persuasion), "Without Him, I can do nothing. I don't know how to go out or come in." "When you were small in your own eyes, I could use you," God said (1 Samuel 15:17). Will that self-confidence, ambition, self-will, and pride ever go away? No, it will never go away. It will always be there. We are talking about how to recognize it readily, how to keep it under, how to subdue it, and how to destroy that old man. It is accomplished by developing a jealousy for God's glory in your life; by not warring with the old man all the time, but just looking to see Him with the eye, to press on and touch the hem of His garment, to hide in the cleft of the rock and catch the glory of His hinder parts as He passes by; when your life's ambition is just to get a glimpse of God that will change you forever.

The psalmist says in Psalm 143, verse 10, "Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: [I love this next phrase, look] thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness." This is a process, to do the will of God. "Teach me to do Thy will." God's will is not an end, it's a journey. You don't just say, "Okay, now I'm in God's will." You are never fully in God's will. It's a process, a life's journey. Where I am right now in the will of God, I'm just passing through to the will of God. When I get to that place of the will of God, I'm still passing through to get to the will of God; because ultimately God's will is that I be like Him. I will see Him as He is and I will be like Him. As 1 John says, "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:1-2).

I want to be like Him. I don't like what I see when I look in the mirror. There is still too much of me. Actually, it's not me, but that guy I created. It's the person the devil told me I am, not who I really am. It's the one that told me that I'm special, that I know more, that I deserve more, that I'm strong, that I'm brave, that I'm invincible. All those are lies because really, I am weak and scared, I have been defeated, and I need Jesus' lordship in my life because I don't know how to go out or come in. I don't know what is best for me, and I don't know what is right. I don't know how to finish this day off best for God.

So my prayer is, with the psalmist, "Teach me to do Your will. I want to be a student, I want to be molded, conformed into Your image. Lord, how can this happen?" "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your [spiritual] service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed [metamorphosis] by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:1-2). Where are you right now in the metamorphosis from carnal to spiritual, from flesh to spirit, from self to God? Is it ongoing? Is there change taking place? Tragically, some of us are reverting. What would cause us not to continue to know? Jesus said, "Those that do My will shall know My will." In other words, the more we obey, the more He will reveal to us, and the more He will strengthen us and give us grace to do more. The only way to continue in this thing is to be obedient, to do what you know to do. Have you done the last thing God told you to do? Has that been dealt with? Is that finished, or did you get distracted? Did you hear some other voice that said, "No, this is really what you need to do"? What have you done with the voice that you heard last that you knew was God? Until we do that, we can't go on to know. We will hear other voices, other teachers, receive other revelations, and just get further and further away from the purpose of God in our lives. Ironically, most of us have never come to figure this thing out yet. That voice always says, "No, this is really what God has," and it's always to promote me, to make life easier, or to make me better.

I shared with you about one preacher in all of the years that I watched growing up as a young man. Every man that I ever heard said, "Well, you know, God spoke to me, and God told me that I was to take this church." It was always the bigger church that had more fame and more money. As a young man, I was looking at that and I thought, "Well, that's interesting." Then one day I ran into Kenny Schmidt as I was a Bible school student at Bethany.

What a place to go to school! Bethany Bible College sits in the redwoods on the California coast. If any of you have been to the sequoias or the redwood forest with its coastal redwoods, as you walk through those trees, you sense the majesty of those trees. The redwoods are, of course, the tallest trees in the world. One there on the California coast is over 300 feet high. The Giant Sequoias are the largest living things. The General Sherman tree is 26 feet in diameter. That is bigger than this area up here. That's a big plant! Imagine dropping a Bible college in the middle of all that. It was great.

I can still remember as a young man just walking out through the trees with my Bible, sitting there, hearing the wind blow, and hearing the voice of God, "You're going to be great, the greatest preacher that ever lived." I knew it was God. That was back when I thought God was smart. I mean, He knew. One day I sat to speak with Kenny Schmidt. He had the first super-church in the Assemblies of God. His church at that time--I can't remember exactly--. The average membership in an Assembly of God church at that time (1970) was 70. The average Wednesday night attendance at an Assembly of God church was like 12. Most churches didn't even have Wednesday night services, so that was pretty good, to have 12 people out. At that time, I think Kenny was running a little over 2,000. God told him to leave that church, the biggest church in the nation, to take a church that had just split. They were fighting each other, a couple hundred people, and I thought, "This is a guy that can hear from God. I want to learn something from this man." That wasn't self that told him to do that. Everybody else goes to bigger churches. God told somebody to go take Kenny's church. There were a lot of volunteers--"Here am I, Lord, send me."

What about that voice that goes against what you want to do in the natural, what you think is best, what you know, where you are comfortable, or what will be great in the eyes of men? Are we even ready to hear the voice of God? Could we hear it if He spoke, or is our receiver tuned in to WKR-SELF? One channel.

"Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good..." Two things are being implied here. We will finish with this for this morning. The statement, "Thou art my God," seems basic, but in so many minds today, God has been so diminished and dethroned through technology and through our super-abundance. An average home here in Loudoun County is worth $600,000. Did you see that in the paper? It's the same house you lived in when it was $200,000! What made it worth $600,000? Money isn't worth as much; that's what it was. It didn't change anything. I would love to see real estate cut by 90 percent and interest go up to 40 percent. That is selfish on my part. I would benefit, but who do we think we are?

I talked about the false image to many of you a few years ago when guys were getting hired for $80,000 and didn't even know what they were doing, or didn't have to do anything but show up. Dot-coms and guys were millionaires on paper. "Look at this! I'm a millionaire!" Then the next day, they're broke. What is man? We need to come to that place of saying, "Thou art my God. I trust in You, and I believe that Your Spirit is good."

We will end with this for this morning. Are you, in your heart, from the heart, one-hundred percent persuaded that God has nothing but good for you? Are you confident that if you would absolutely trust Him, become agenda-free, covet the voice of God, covet to do and obey His will, covet to be a profitable servant, to see Him with the eye and not just know Him through the hearing of the ear, that He is good, that His ways are right; and that you would be able to delight in one thing, living for His glory and not your own? That is what it means to be a doer of the word and not a hearer (James 1:23).

Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning. As we continue in this pursuit of the will of God, and we follow it into the topic of spiritual guidance (how to know where God wants us, what ministry, what vocation, what marriage), the first thing that has to happen is to recognize that You are our God. You are in charge, You're Lord. Your Spirit is good. Your ways are right and not ours. We don't know what we're doing. We don't know what is best for us. Bring us to that place of living for Your glory, we ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Let's stand before the Lord this morning.

As Gary plays for us, we'll take just a moment. What a great day we are living in for the glory of God! How brightly we shine as the light of the world because of the abject darkness that we live in. "Though He slay me...." Job wasn't saying God was out to get him; he was saying that God knows best. How do you see Him this morning? Do you see Him as Someone who is out to wreck your life, to spoil your fun, to keep you down, a god that says, "What is it you really want? I will see to it you don't get that"? How do you see your Father? He wants to give us exceeding abundant above anything that we could ask or think. He has chosen to share His glory with us as He causes us to be raised up and seated with Him. There is a path, there is a process, there is a price, but His intention is your good and His glory. Help us to understand that we ask, Father, in Jesus' name.

Let's sing it together and just honor Him this morning. You are so good to us, Lord. "Oh, Lord, You have been good...." You are so good to us, Father, and we just give You all of the glory, all the praise, and the honor for what You are doing in our lives. Finish the work in us, Father. Help us to honor You, in Jesus' name, amen.

Again, I appreciate your prayers. Continue to pray. This is the most I have exerted myself in the last week, and the Lord has really touched my body. I am thankful for that. Those of you who don't know what we're talking about, when it started out, I thought I had pulled a muscle real bad here in my pec [pectoral muscle], and then I noticed it was in my lats [latisimus dorsi], and then in my back, and then it kept hurting worse. I thought, "What did I do?" I thought I had pulled a muscle loading the trailer. Then it started hurting down in my organs (and the organ went bad, hitting some bad notes). I thought, "This isn't right." Then I got the rash and all of that junk. The only way I could explain it--somebody was asking me what it feels like--I said, "Well, if you can imagine just pulling your pec, and your lats, and your back, a real bad muscle pull, and then having your kidneys aching and your lungs kind of like a pneumonia-type feeling, and then get the worst sunburn that you've ever had, and get poison ivy on top of that, that's kind of what it feels like." It's a burning, itching, surface, deep pain--and the Lord is good, amen? I just thank Him for touching my body and am believing to get better every day, praise God.

We have seen the hand of God. Just continue to pray and believe with us. We want to be strong enough to head over to Africa and be there for the guys. They need us at this juncture over there, and we want to be there. I believe that Father will make a way for us, praise God. Well, before you go, just turn to somebody next to you and say, "Your way stinks." God in peace; God's love go with you.

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