Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: This is the love candle today. Psalms 136:1 5.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of Gods. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of Lords. His love endures forever. To him who alone does great wonders, his love endures forever. Who by his understanding made the heavens, his love endures forever.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: John 1. John 3:16.
This is how we know what love is. Jesus laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Let us pray.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Dear Jesus, today we remember and celebrate the great love that you have for us and that you showed us. Thank you for coming to this earth, for living a perfect life and for dying in our place.
Thank you for the continual love you show us each day. It is in your love that we can find great joy and peace today in your name. Amen.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:01:45] Speaker D: Over in Bethlehem One is clear and starry all of the stars were out but one was especially bright for it was shining down over that little tail where baby Jesus lay there on a bed of hay Jesus came to love us like we are right now Glad or sad, good or bad Tall and wide will bow to your size he can love us anyhow.
Over in Bethlehem Stars still shine above Children still laugh and play Protected by the Savior's love.
We have a special guest with us today. He was with us yesterday as well and privileged to have him not only for the 9 o' clock hour this morning, but also sharing with you. I won't say much about him other than we're privileged to have him. A wealth of experience, so knowledgeable and just a great guy. Would you warmly welcome Dr. Gary Byers for the message today.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: So my privilege to be here.
And I can see all the good ones are still in the room, so I'm fine.
You have a wonderful music team here.
They did great.
I love violin girl back over here.
And you know, at my church, our drummer is in the back in a cage. He's so dangerous.
And your drummer was right out front. Calm. Cool. This is really cool. What a neat church.
Really.
Okay, well, it's a joy. You know what? My.
I forgot about this. Let me make this. I have to give my bio. Look into my computer for it to come back on. Ok, we're back on and we're ready to do this, I think.
Okay. It's coming.
It's coming. All right, so today with the second candle, Bethlehem is at this sort of at the centerpiece of God's love demonstrated at Bethlehem was the big deal. And so we're going to talk a little bit. It's just perfect for me because this is a topic that is very special to my heart. The archeology, the history of Bethlehem.
I love that as an archaeologist, but can never. The love of God displayed at Bethlehem can never be forgotten and overruled. All right, so there we are. Thank you very much. So, in the fullness of time, Bethlehem, and we're going to talk a couple about different passages related to that, but let me just give you a little tidbit of stuff. So this is the modern city of Bethlehem. It is a Palestinian city. It has been a Palestinian community for centuries.
It was one of the Christian towns of the Holy Land. I will be honest with you. It's not so Christian today.
Gail and I actually support two young men that are native Palestinians in Bethlehem, and they met Jesus over a decade ago.
They are so on fire for Jesus that the local Baptist pastor asked them to cool it a little bit because they might make it difficult for the rest of them.
And the two young men told me and Gail their response was, how can we not tell people about what Jesus has done for us and he would do for them?
And I don't guess the pastor had much of an answer for that.
But they actually face challenges in their family and in their community every day.
But the God that we know who watches over us, watches over them and maybe even some extra special ways, I don't know. But they were going on for Jesus. And their names are Noor and Ibrahim.
And if you want to remember those two guys in your prayers in the future, they would be honored for such.
So this is Bethlehem in the background. Let me just point out.
We're going to go to this spot closer in a minute. But this is Herodian.
Anybody ever been to Herodian?
All right, I see that hand.
So it's the place where Herod built one of his palace fortresses.
And it's the place where he was buried when he died. And his tomb was discovered, oh, maybe 20 years ago now. And you can see it. It's a pretty amazing situation. And set up so he. Herod's tomb overlooks Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
And of course, Herod died just. Just around the time just before the period of Jesus birth. So we're going to. We're going to spend a little time in Bethlehem today. So this is what we were focusing. What we want to focus on. Right there, that is the Church of the Nativity with manger square in front of it. So the front entrance is here, and the altar is facing east.
Back over there, here's just a little more close up. The church is what we call cruciform, meaning it's in the form of a cross. And so you can see that look pretty good in this picture.
Right beneath the center where these two intersect. Right beneath that there is a subterranean cave.
And that cave is where the tradition is that Jesus was born.
Anybody visited there?
Yeah, it's a wonderful. My wife cannot stand the incense in the church. When we get down in that cave, I got to get out of here. But it's a very moving place to visit. Well, whether it's the right spot or not, it's just a moving place. First off, when you go there, you're in the footprints, following the footsteps of millions of Christian pilgrims to that site since about 350ad.
So you're in good company when you make a visit there. And whether it's the right side or not, we remember.
We can go there and remember what this was really all about.
So on this particular shot, that circle represents where the Old Testament city of Bethlehem was, and that would be the walled city that King David was born in and lived and knew. And the gate of Bethlehem is mentioned once in scripture. And if you have a gate, that means you got a wall. So it's a walled city. It wasn't a big important one, but it was a walled city nonetheless. But New Testament Bethlehem seems to be more in this area. But because it's a living community for over 2000 years, not a lot of archeology is done. So we don't know a lot of exact specific places because there's just not much to know other than the church itself being built in about 350 A.D.
so there's.
Yeah, that was another look at that.
So in the fullness of time, Bethlehem, this is what we want to talk about today. Sorry, that went back on me. So here's my deal.
I don't really do.
Outline's very good.
So Pastor Duba schooled me on this.
I got some emergency training, and so this is what he sent me so I could do it right.
And I still didn't get it quite right, Pastor Duba. But he said to me, now, you can do this any way you want to. You can. As you go through, you can point out where these spots are, or you could have them Wait till the end, so they have to pay attention the whole time. And then you could tell them what they are.
Well, here they are.
So those.
I'm going to hit each one of these passages and talk about those things, because this is all about scripture. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus in Bethlehem. And so he's the Savior, he's the Messiah, the Christ. He is God's son to redeem us.
And Jesus will save his people from his sins. And he is Emmanuel, as we sang God with us. We're going to talk about those passages, but those should reasonably fit into the outline, if you care. So we're going to go through the verses now. Now, this is the passage that I put on the screen for today. So let's just run through this quickly. In the days of Caesar Augustus, he was the first true emperor of Rome. And an emperor has an empire, so he's the first true emperor of Rome. Before that, they weren't the. They weren't called emperors. There wasn't an empire, but he was that guy.
And so he issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And this was the first census that took place while Canarius was governor of Syria.
Now, we know about Caesar Augustus, we know about Canarius, and we know about him ruling in Syria.
We know about similar censuses, but we don't quite have any record of this particular one outside of Luke.
It might.
And that's part of the problem is we don't know quite when King Herod died. This is all stuff, but the Bible says it, so we have no doubt it happened.
And we just haven't gotten all that data together yet.
But this is the time when all this took place.
King Herod, of course, was still king, and everyone went to their own town to register. Now, Mary, Joseph and Mary, his spoused or betrothed wife, and just simply, that means that they were legally, by paperwork, they were married, but they did not live together yet.
And so they had not cohabitated together yet.
They were living separately, but they were legally married. In fact, in Matthew, chapter one, when Joseph realized she was with child, he wanted to divorce her. And that's the right Greek word, he wanted to divorce. They were legally married, but they weren't together yet.
And so Mary and Joseph together come. That might have been a little bit of a consternation for family.
When they were legally married, they hadn't come together yet.
And yet now she's with child. In fact, great with child. She was. She Was about to give birth. So that may have made some family members uncomfortable, but they were going to.
And maybe getting away from Nazareth was a pleasant diversion, but going to Bethlehem because Joseph was of King David's family.
So he went up from the town of Nazareth, and you always go up to Jerusalem area. So went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he was David's family. They went to register for the census. We're not sure that there was taxes involved here, but, you know, government. It will ultimately lead to some taxes. Whether they had to pay something then or not, that isn't clear. And Mary, who was pledged or betrothed to him to be married to him, and I don't really like that translation, pledged to be married. They were legally bound to each other. He needed to get a divorcement paper to get out of this. They were legally together, but. But they had not come together as husband and wife yet while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born. And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths, placed him in a manger. And a manger is a feeding trough.
Archaeologically, when we see a manger, it could have also been used for something else. But historically we.
We assume that they would have been used at least part of the time as a feeding trough for animals.
Placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them. Now, this is the NIV In 2011, the NIV changed the word in to guest room.
And I think it's because they read some of the stuff I wrote and they realized they were wrong and I was right, so they've changed it.
The fact is, the word could be used for an inn, but it could be used for a guest room.
And Joseph and Mary were going to Joseph's hometown.
Joseph was a direct descendant from King David.
Do you think King David's family wasn't. It was called the city of David three times in the passage.
This was the city of King David and they were proud of it.
And so Joseph, a direct descendant of King David, comes to town and there's no place for him. I don't think so.
So I think there's an ancestral home. Mary and Joseph went to the ancestral home, but the special guest room in the house was full.
People got there earlier.
Older aunts and uncles were there, whoever. And so when Mary and Joseph got there, there was no room in the guest room of Joseph's ancestral home, I think.
And so now maybe some Said, oh, well, she's with child. We'll move. We'll be glad to get out. And maybe. She said, maybe the guest room was on the upper floor. And she said, I'm not climbing those stairs.
And maybe she was just. She just needed to get away from people.
So where there's a guest room, maybe on the second level, but somewhere in the compound house. And then she says, there's a stable area with mangers. And she says, joe, go clean out the straw.
Get the animals out of there. Clean out the straw. That'll be just fine. Thank you. Get away from everybody. Just get.
We don't know. I can only speculate, but the fact is I have no doubt when I get to heaven and I check it out with Joseph, he'll say, absolutely, we went to my family's house, not some hotel outside that had no room for us.
Okay? So if you get there first, you can check with him, you know, and tell me when I come.
All right? And if I get there first, I will be sure to let you know when you get there. Especially if I'm right. Especially if I'm right. Okay? So. But verse 11 is one of one of our verses.
Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord.
So in the fullness of time, at Bethlehem, there was the Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord.
So that's what Christmas is all about. The Savior. Savior of what?
Us. The world.
He's our Savior because of our sins, our bad decisions, our bad choices.
He's the Savior of the world and for all of us. And he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one that was promised to Israel by God way back early.
And he is the Lord.
And the Word Lord is the boss.
He is the main guy.
And this little baby, the angels said to shepherds, you need to get in town, because he's the Savior.
He's the Christ.
He's the Lord.
It happened at Bethlehem that first Christmas, and the world was changed from that point on.
Now, the real question is, have you met the Savior, the Christ, the Lord, and has he changed you? And if you've met him, there's supposed to be some changes, and I'm not hating, but if there's no changes, you probably ought to think about this and maybe make some adjustments.
Because if Jesus is within you, if you know him and he knows you, he does know you. But if you know him, then he should be making some differences. None of us are perfect.
The only people that are in heaven are the people that know they don't deserve to be there.
Anybody who thinks they're good enough ain't going.
It's just only ones are there. Those of us, you and me, we say I'm a dirty, rotten, stinking sinner and I don't deserve to go to heaven. And God says, I can work with you.
And so that's the deal.
So Luke 2, verse 11.
A Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord, in the fullness of time, showed up at Bethlehem.
Then I got. And of course this is the fullness of time verse, that's the old King James, but this is that verse that refers to that. Galatians 4, 4 and 5.
But when the fullness of time had come, or this is a good translation, when the set time had, had fully come, God sent his son.
And you know, if you just think about what that really means, God has a special relationship with Jesus that the Bible describes best to us as a father with a son.
And the Father willingly chose to send his son to. He knew what. He knew what this meant. That was the whole reason he was going was because he needed to be the savior of a bunch of people that desperately needed salvation.
And so the Father sent his son. So this is God's Son in the fullness of time. At Bethlehem, he was born of a virgin, born of a woman, born under the law.
And of course, this is the law of Moses. And so the law of Moses.
Did you grow up thinking if you could keep all the laws, you could be good enough to go to heaven?
Some of us grew up with that kind of a background, and even our church has taught it to us. Well, just if you can be good enough, if you can keep most of the big ten, most of the time, you'll probably be okay.
No, no, we can't. We don't. We won't.
We need a Savior.
And Jesus saved Jews from under the law.
And then he saved us non Jews who had none of that law, but we were just as lost as they were. And so he came and fulfilled the law in every way for all of us. And then said, I gotcha. Trust me. And that was the deal.
He came born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship.
Now you're redeemed.
You redeemed something. In the Bible world, we use the word. Today, not so much. But you redeemed something. Something has value to you, and you are willing to pay what it takes.
Get it?
Jesus redeemed you.
He redeemed me.
I honestly, I really don't know why he redeemed.
I know me and my attitudes.
And sometimes my actions usually switch to attitudes.
They seem right.
And there are times I go, lord, I'm so sorry. I have to ask you again, but please forgive me and please help me. And I know I'm asking you this a lot, but I don't know what else to do.
And you know what is so wonderful? He works with me and he'll work with you in this stuff.
So in the fullness of time, God's Son, to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship.
So then we go to Matthew talking about the birth of Jesus.
And this is, this is Matthew's version. Matthew doesn't talk about Bethlehem at all, but he talks about the event. So she gave birth to a son, and this was what the angel said. And you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.
Jesus, the Greek form of the word Joshua, or in Hebrew you would say Yeshua.
And Yeshua means the Lord or Jehovah saves. The Yahu is the Lord Jehovah and Shua is salvation.
So the Lord saves.
So you're going to name him Jesus.
The Lord saves because he is going to save his people from their sins.
That's who he is. That's why he came. That's the whole plan.
And God the Father willingly sent him.
And God the Son willingly came, knowing what this was going to lead to. And of course, we remember that night in the garden of Gethsemane. It got really tough.
And he said, he even said to the Father, if there's any other way.
But then he says, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And off to the cross he went.
So verse 21 says, Jesus to save his people from his sins.
It all happens in the fullness of time, starting in Bethlehem.
And then in verse 23, quoting the Old Testament, Isaiah 7:14, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son. They will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us in Hebrew, Immanu is with us and El is God. God with us.
God came down to be with us, hang out with us, like we are in spite of us.
You have relationships with people and you sometimes feel like, or they love me in spite of me.
I know how I am and they know how I am.
But somehow they're willing to work with me and put up with me. Well, that's our Heavenly Father. He knows us, but he loves us and he wants to be with Us, the Tabernacle. Yesterday we talked about it. The Tabernacle.
God chose to live among the Israelite people. In the Exodus, he chose to make his house. And he stayed there, right there in the midst of them. And you know, they were a pretty stinky lot. Sometimes they did some dumb stuff and God did whoop them a few times, but he was willing. In fact, he did tell Moses one time, get away from him, because I'm going to kill them all.
And Moses said, no, no, no, you promised. Remember what you said.
But God puts up with us. He wants to be with us. God with us. What a great truth. And especially since the day of Pentecost, as Christian believers and followers of Jesus, God is with us in a general sense as our special protector and even uses some angels, I guess.
But the Holy Spirit of God, the third member of the Godhead, the Trinity, lives within me.
And he allows me, the Holy Spirit allows me supernatural powers to do some stuff that I find myself incapable and unable to do.
Do you know what it is to get in a spot? And you just don't know what else to do?
And so you just call on God.
And sometimes it's out of desperation, sometimes it's out of conscious decision, oh, I know who can help me. And Lord, I'm sorry I didn't get with you on this before, but here's the deal.
Of course he knows it, but he wants us to come to him and acknowledge our own needs and acknowledge that we believe he's the one with the answers that we need.
And I can't believe, first off, I can't believe it takes me so long to get to that point. Sometimes I'm embarrassed that it takes me. I've been in ministry for 1975. How long is that?
50 years. I've been in ministry 50 years. And sometimes I go, why does it take me so long to finally turn to God and ask him to help me with this?
I keep thinking I'm supposed to do this on my own.
And he knows me and I know me. Why do I do that? Well, good news is, Emmanuel, God with us, and it started at Bethlehem.
So that's the story.
That's the deal.
That also should fill out the outline. I think maybe Hope has all that in there.
Now, let me just show you a couple more pictures and then we'll stop. But I got a few more minutes here.
How many of you been to the Church of the Nativity?
So you would remember, and those of you that haven't, we would sure hope someday you can get there.
Pastor Carl hadn't taken a trip for a while. Ask him to take another trip, lead another group.
So this is Manger Square. This is out front.
So the altar is at the other end of the church.
This is extra church buildings, later church buildings. But this is the doorway into the church. This is that cruciform church. You actually can get a sense of it a little bit.
And so you go in that way. The altar is at the far end. So this is the west side. The altar is traditionally on the east side of these churches. And I will just tell you that this, this doorway is purposefully low on purpose. And it was apparently made low.
Well, there's two possible reasons. One was because enemy armies would invade the Holy Land. And sometimes one of the things they like to do is ride their horses inside big public buildings to desecrate them.
And so that may have been part of the thinking, but I think for sure, part of the thinking was when you're going to go in, you are going to bow.
The only way you can get in this building is to bow. And they make it extra hard because you've got to step over the threshold and bow at the same time. And some of us can't do that very well. But that's why you have friends and family. And so that's how you get in. And then you go straight on down and you get ultimately to the other end is where the cave is. So this is. So we're looking.
The entrance is down here and the special entrance, these are all blocked up. There's only one entrance in now. And you walk through. These are pillars. These pillars go back to the very first church, the cruciform shape that came with Emperor Justinian in about 600.
Prior to that, it was just the straight church, but then he added those that side part to make it a cruciform kind of church. So then you go down. Here's the altar area.
Like this is the altar area.
We don't.
In our churches, we don't treat it quite so like many, like old churches did, like many churches do today, but we're a little less formal. But this would be the altar area. And then beneath it there's this cave. Now there's a series of caves. There's some more, but there's caves. There's stairway down this way and a stairway down this way. And you go into this cave and there's a way out.
Not out of the. Not back up, but way into other caves and they actually go out of the building.
So this spot right There we're going to see a picture of it that's called the Star of Bethlehem.
You know, we know about star Bethlehem, but that's what they call that. And then right there is where the manger was located, according to tradition.
So we go to the other end of the church, we go down the stairs, and this lady has just come down those stairs and she turns to her right and that is what they call today the Star of Bethlehem.
And that is in all those are incense pots and lights, candles, and those are designed, that was said to be the place where baby Jesus was born.
So Mary gave birth on the ground right there.
And then of course, this is tradition. I'm not saying this is where it happened. In fact, I don't really think it did, but it's close enough to satisfy me. Then instead of coming down the stairs and going right to look at the star, you go left. And this is where they say the manger used to be.
Now the manger, there's just no sense of a manger there at all. If it was a wooden manger, which it could have been, of course it wouldn't have lasted at all. But a stone manger either built of stone, cemented in together with mortar as a manger, or probably just carved out. That's what we usually see. By the way, Pastor Carl needs one of those in his museum. Right, Pastor Carl, you know, we could maybe get one of those somewhere.
Build one of those somewhere. Okay, so this is where the manger, the tradition is all down in this cave down below. And then finally, this is not in Bethlehem. This is in Galilee. This is in Capernaum, right on the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is where Peter lived. That's where Jesus came to Peter's house with Peter, his wife and his mother in law, Peter's brother Andrew.
And then James and John were also there in the community.
And of course there was a centurion that was there. And just a whole number of Bible characters wander in and out of Capernaum. Well, this is an illustration of a 1st 2nd century AD house. This is New Testament time.
And this is the floor plan of the house.
And this is what it was reconstructed to look like. So this is, we would call this house a compound.
Now probably in big cities like Jerusalem it wouldn't. They'd have to be more compact than this.
So here's the outside door and maybe even a second one. But outside we come in and there's a roof, but there's an open courtyard, another open courtyard, another open courtyard. They Call it the triple courtyard house.
And so you've got steps that go up. It could have been a second floor or it could have been just to the roof. And then you've got this pillared structure.
Now the pillars not on the outside of the house. I grew up in Eastern, in the east coast, Maryland.
Pillars in the front porch, you know, these big old houses. And that's, you know, when I read about pillars in the houses in the Bible, that's what I was looking for. But in fact the pillars were always on the inside of the houses. Temples had pillars, but on the inside of houses to be for interior walls. So this is an exterior wall, but in a courtyard. And though when you find something like that archaeologically, and I excavated one at one of my dig sites in Israel, we understand those to be in fact to be stables where there would be mangers, wooden or stone used by the animals. So these people in Capernaum, they kept animals. They probably fished as well, fishermen as well. And they might even have been working fields out in the area, but this would be it. Now the Bible says that Jesus Mary laid him in a manger because there was no room in the inn.
Manger meant stable.
Inn I don't think was a hotel. But inn meant guest room of the house. It could be on any one of these spaces or on a second floor level, I suppose even over that one. But probably that's got a stairway. Maybe that one, we don't know.
But that was the first night of Jesus life on earth.
The last night of Jesus life on earth.
He spent in an un upper room.
And the Bible calls it the guest room of a house. It's the same word that Luke used in Luke 2. 7, the inn.
So isn't that interesting? Jesus is in one of these rooms on the first night of his life.
The word is kataluma, Translated in Luke 2. 7, except in the NIV and others have changed too.
But then he was also in a kataluma, a guest room of another house in Jerusalem on the last night of his life.
I'm pretty sure, as Luke wrote about both of them, I'm pretty sure Luke probably meant that on purpose. That was supposed to be some kind of a spiritual meaning for all that book ends to Jesus life.
Jesus came to make a difference in the world and he came to do it one life at a time.
You know, my wife and I, two elections back, we just quit listening to the news.
I just get so. I get mad, just flat out angry at stuff I was hearing.
And we just decided we couldn't. For my own spiritual well being, I can't hear all that stuff, so. So I turned it off.
One thing, it really did help calm me down when it came to that kind of stuff.
But the other thing was I decided I was going to. It didn't matter to me. This goes back to election year. Didn't matter to me what Biden or Putin were doing.
I was not going to be concerned because I wasn't going to pay attention to what they were doing.
And when I stopped paying attention to that, not even a plan, but I started paying more attention to what God was doing in the world than what Biden or Putin were doing in the world.
And, man, did that change everything for me.
You know, I started paying attention to all the work God is doing all over the world through all kinds of different people. Well, every time I go to the Holy Land, every time, and I go, I've probably been there 50 times and I've been going twice a year recently.
Every time I go, I meet another Christian person who God called to that place to do ministry quietly.
No big organization behind him, just felt called of God to be there. And they are quietly making an impact among Jews and Palestinians.
And I tell you what, when I start looking around, God's doing that all over the world.
He is.
God is not worried about what the President of the United States or the President of Russia or the what's his name in China.
He's not worried about them for a minute. He is just quietly doing his work one person at a time.
He came to be the Savior of the world, but he came to be your Savior and my Savior.
It started at Bethlehem.
Hallelujah.
Bow with me, would you please?
Lord, I really thank you that this is all true.
Jesus really did come, and he came with that specific purpose in mind and so willingly gave of himself for us.
Now we don't know exactly where it all happened and it doesn't really matter, but we just know for sure it happened because we think we can trust the Bible for history.
But we also are sure it happened because we've made a decision to surrender to Jesus and he has done great things in our lives.
Lord, I pray for every brother and sister in Christ in this room.
I know we all got struggles and challenges. I pray for each one in their own situation that you help them and empower them today and this holiday season.
I know this is not an easy season for some for a variety of reasons, but your grace and presence and empowerment is just as accessible to them at this time as anyone else at any other time.
May they find in you comfort and encouragement and empowerment.
And then for those that are sitting in here and just aren't really sure about that Jesus connection in their personal lives, they hope it's true. They want it to be true. Or they've been fighting it. Whatever.
Lord, I pray that you would move in their heart today and that they would be able to hear it and go, okay, God, I hear you. I surrender.
I want what you know is best for my life.
And Lord, any of us that are just as believers, we have a relationship with Jesus. But man, we're struggling with stuff.
May today we recognize again who we are, who you are, and may we make the necessary adjustments even as we sit here in the quietness of this moment, as well as when we leave here and even in the hustle bustle of life. May we be committed to following up on all this stuff.
Lord, I thank you for your goodness, for your blessings, for your forgiveness, for your patience, your gentleness and kindness.
I thank you also for your holiness and justice and righteousness.
Because of that, you're not going to let us get away with stuff that's not right.
You're going to deal with us only to make us better.
May we be surrendered to the best of our ability just each day. May we be the surrendered servant that you've called us to be.
I thank you for who Jesus is, for what he came to do for us, and all of this I pray in his name.
Amen.
