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This is the first message of a series called "The Beloved". The reason for these messages is God dealings with me about getting off track and losing spiritual focus. We get saved and we get on fire for God, we meet Jesus Christ, we fall in love with Him, but because of our human nature - our flesh, we are easily distracted, we are very easily distracted, especially in spiritual things. Then the enemy comes along and he has a way of distracting us and always causing turmoil and confusion if we let him; and it keeps us from staying on the main track. The main thing is Jesus Christ and knowing Him. So many times we end up just religious - I’ve done this many, many times myself. In fact, I regret many months and sometimes years I’ve wasted by settling for religion when I could have had the Lord. This is the theme that I am teaching on. Maybe it will help someone stay on track, and be like Jesus by the end of their lives – this is a lifetime thing in case you didn’t notice this – you weren’t saved and filled with the Holy Spirit and perfected the first day you were saved. There is a growing in the Lord. What I want to address in the next few weeks is: why does God put so much stock in His Son? Why does He love him so much? Why is He so proud of His Son? Why does He carry on so much about Him? When Jesus was in this world God spoke out of heaven audibly several times. Audibly. But the very first one I talked about and what I am basing this series on, The Beloved or the Beloved Son, is His baptism - when Jesus came out of the water. One of my all time favorite pictures was one my grandmother had above her couch in the living room. She would tell me stories about Jesus Christ and I would remember that picture. This probably is not how Jesus really looked but we know whom it represents. God measures everything by His Son. There is no other measuring stick God has. It is just His Son. God only considers and he judges the value of everything by how it conforms to His Son. He judges us by how much of Christ is manifested in us. This is going to be the measuring stick. This is God’s yardstick. Jesus is God’s measure. You have to remember that in everything we talk about. He has no other measure. I don’t want anyone to accuse me of heresy, so pay close attention. It is not so much a matter of being judged about sin. Sin is not being Christ-like. So what he is going to judge us by is Christ and everything that is not like Christ has to go, and will go. People who have no Christ at all will go to hell. There is nothing God can do with that. If there is no Christ in them, if there is no manifestation of His Son, there is nothing God can work with. They cannot go to heaven; there is no entrance into heaven for them because the new creation is only one person – Jesus Christ. That is all that is in creation. He is the first born of all creation and he is going to bring many sons into glory. There is an old humanity and there is a new humanity, and I mean men, women, and not just men. The old humanity, the old creation has been done away with. Judgment has been pronounced on it, it has to go, and it will go. It will be burned up with fervent heat. Everything man has touched and made will be burned up with fervent heat, the whole world is going to be cleansed, and all that will be left is Christ and everything that is in Christ. As I tried to illustrate Sunday night if I am in Christ I am safe. If I am in Christ God loves me. If I believe and trust in Christ, I am accepted in the Beloved. But I can’t get outside of Christ, but unfortunately the way we human beings are anything to do with God - when we get our hands on it, we mess it up. We make it mean, bad, cruel, or ugly. That’s why you see all religions where they are killing each other and rejoicing. When 911 happened we saw pictures of Middle Eastern countries, (some of them but not all of them) they were dancing and rejoicing in the streets because 2000+ people were killed. That’s not normal. Even rank heathen sinners don’t act like that. But when we try to touch religion or touch divine things or things to do with God, we always mess it up and make it something that is perverted or deformed. God is always going to get us back to this. To His Son. Every time we try to get away, He has to cause something to happen, put us in a corner, or hit us on the head with a two by four. Have to get back to this. If you want to know why God does things in your life you don’t understand sometimes - please listen to me - everything He is doing is to get you back to Christ. All of His dealings are so that you will know His Son. God has revealed Himself through His Son. There is a Father in heaven, Almighty God. I don’t understand how, but He didn’t create His Son, He didn’t adopt His Son - He had a Son. His very nature is in Jesus Christ. God took everything He had, all of His divine perfections, all of His glory, everything that is wonderful about God and He wrapped it up in a person called Jesus Christ. He sent him into this world for one purpose – well, many purposes but one of the main purposes was to reveal Himself. Jesus said to Phillip and his disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”. Remember I talked about the things Paul wrote, we are still trying to understand them 2000 years later, and they are so big and comprehensive. Look in Colossians 1:15-19. This is one of the deepest passages of the Bible. It is almost incomprehensible because it is so deep and vast. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. He is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have pre-eminence.” How many understand the word “all?” That means everything. “For it pleased the father that in Him all the fullness should dwell.” After all of the things Paul wrote, all the things he suffered and went through, after all that he knew about the Lord, even caught up to the 3rd heaven, he was still saying the same thing, at the end of his life in Philippians 3, “I want to know Him. I want to be one with Him.” It is not just information about the Lord. You could go to seminary. I had a friend tell me he went to a certain seminary up north and took a class on Bible prophesy. The first class the professor came out smoking a cigar, had a long beard, and he looked at the students in his class, their first class and said, “Second coming of Christ - First of all, it is not the second. Second of all, He’s not coming.” That was his introduction to prophecy. In other words, it is not true. It is not going to come to pass. Well, I got news for all of us who think God’s word will not come to pass. There is nothing you can do about it. It is going to happen whether you believe it or not. Do you believe the moon is made out of green cheese? If you do, it doesn’t make it so. If I believe this chair is not real and is not here, that does not change anything. When we get into spiritual things there is only one guide – the Word of God, revealed by the Holy Spirit. I do not understand people who say, “I don’t believe the bible. I don’t believe it is God’s word, but I am a Christian.” Where did you get what you know? Everything we know about God except for the sun and the moon and stars, we get from this book. God revealed Himself in this book. What we know about Jesus is in this book and it is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit - out of this book. This must be the guide. When we stat going through the Bible, and the passage we just read, “He’s got to be number one … that in all things He may have the pre-eminence.” If you are a Christian, a believer and He is not number one in your life, God is going to start working on this very point. He must have the pre-eminence in your life. You can’t just tack Jesus on to your life. You can’t be a homosexual for Jesus, or an alcoholic for Jesus. You can’t just tack Him on to your sin. He took over your life and one of the most powerful passages in the Bible is right here. Look in Colossians 1:27. “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ in you the hope of glory. God is dealing with us on two things in regard to His Son - first, that we know Him. The word know doesn’t mean to just have mental knowledge. That is what you can get in Bible schools and teaching. It is not just teaching or mental knowledge, it is revelation. It is personal experience with the Lord. One time I was in a church (my wife, Nancy, and I took our oldest son, when he was two or three.) We were sitting on the back row, we were visiting, and this guy came in dressed like Colonel Sanders. I told Nancy, “This guy thinks he is Colonel Sanders. It is ridiculous to come into church looking like that. Little white suit, little goatee.” The pastor looked back and said, “We are glad to have Col. Harlan Sanders here this morning.” It was Col. Sanders. After church I actually got to meet him and he autographed a little picture for Micah. I have personally talked to and met Colonel Sanders. Has anyone else in this room ever met him or talked to him. I have personal experience you don’t have. You have seen him on the billboards and signs and cartoons, but I have met him and talked to him and shook his hand. You don’t have that experience. You don’t have that knowledge. There are many Christians who sit in church and don’t personally know the Lord. That is miserable because He is what is exciting about being a Christian. It is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, and knowing Him. That is God’s first goal. And number two, that you be conformed to His image. “Christ in you the hope of glory.” Not my training, not my education but how much of Christ I have in me. That is my hope of glory. Not just being a religious person or learning stuff, but Christ in me. Then Paul says in Galatians, “I travail and birth until Christ be formed in you”. Romans 8:29. This is the will of God, that you be conformed into the image of His Son.” So if this is God’s measure, and God’s measuring stick and his yardstick, we better learn as much about him as we can through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, because we are going to be judged by this pattern. When we stand before God, He is not going to say, “Did you give up chewing tobacco?” It’s like the church up in Kentucky. The pastor was preaching and he said, “Men, you need to quit smoking cigars.” Everybody said, “Amen!” “You need to quit smoking cigarettes.” Everybody said, “Amen!” “You need to quit drinking whiskey.” Everybody said, “Amen!” “You need to quit dipping snuff.” It got very quiet and one lady said, “He’s quit preaching and done gone to meddling!” That was their sin. That is not the main thing that God will be interested, in although that will be some of it, I am sure. That’s not what He is looking for. Did you give up stuff? That is not what He is looking at. Yes, I gave up some things to know the Lord. Paul said in Philippians 2, he said he gave up everything. He said he gave up everything and counted it all loss, for the surpassing privilege of knowing Jesus Christ the Lord. This is what God is going to look for in us, and this is what scares me with a good fear of God. I don’t want to stand there and not look anything like Jesus. That is going to be embarrassing. We are going to be tried by fire and what is gold, silver and precious stone will remain and shine even brighter. That is our foundation which is Jesus Christ and the wood, hay and stubble is going to be burned up. This is what God’s going to look at in every single one of us. Did you have Him? Did you know Him? What’s amazing to me is after all Paul went though, he is still crying out, “I want to know Him!” Remember the parables? Jesus told the parable of the people who cried out, “Lord, Lord we prophesied in your name; we cast out demons in your name. We did wonderful miracles in your name.” This sounds like pretty powerful people. Our generation is the same way. We are looking for a sign. People are running all over America looking for a sign. God gave us a sign. This is it. I like everything else, but I want Him. When we realize that the point of that parable - that you can do all that and not know the Lord. That is pretty scary! You can cast out demons and prophesy. The Greek says, “worked powerful miracles in your name”. In Jesus’ name. What does He say? “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. I never knew you.” That is pretty shocking. Let me show you what I think Jesus was talking about. Before I forget, I want to share this quotation. This quotation changed my view of all Christian ministry for good. I was reading an old book called, “Preaching the Power” and I ran across this little paragraph – “We need an experience of Christ in which we think everything about Christ, and nothing about the experience.” That is pretty deep. We are an experience seeking generation and we will do almost anything to have an experience instead of Jesus. This old preacher said, we need an experience of Christ. In other words we need to experience Him to such a degree that we do not care about the experience, we just care about Christ. We need to experience of Christ not fall in love with the experience. And then he went on to say this: “We need preachers who won’t keep demanding a faith or a love that we cannot rise to, but who will preach Jesus so wonderfully and so powerfully that He will produce and compel both.” In other words, that’s why Paul said, “You know why I can get shipwrecked, and why I get beaten and it doesn’t faze me – it’s because I love Jesus Christ so much”. You can preach love and faith and no one can do it. But if you preach Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, He produces faith and love. That is the picture I want to draw. I was talking about dissecting a pig Sunday night. We had to dissect a baby pig in high school. We try to separate spiritual things from the Lord. When He came up out of the Jordan River, it was His introduction to the world. Here is God’s secret. Paul said it was hidden in ages past. God had a secret, a mystery that was hidden in Himself that He never told anyone about... And then at the Jordan River, when He came up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and the Father thundered out of Heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I have always been delighted.” In other words, this did not just start at the Jordan River when Jesus came up out of the water, this started in eternity past. There is a deep, love relationship between the Father and the Son. This is a mystery, the Bible says, a deep mystery. Great is the mystery of godliness that Christ as manifested in the flesh. That God was willing to share. How many of you have ever had something really cool or something really great and you don’t want to share it. I just want to keep it for a while. In other words, if I bought a $100,000 car. I saw a car a while back that cost $4 million dollars … if I had that car you wouldn’t get to drive it. I wouldn’t be sharing that with you. I couldn’t even afford the insurance on it. Sometimes we get a little selfish. God is not selfish - He knew the pain and the heartbreak and agony that He would have to go through Himself, to watch his Son die. The thing that always breaks my heart, is how Jesus stepped out and totally committed Himself to the Father’s hand and the Father’s will - not knowing what was going to happen. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He said, “Father, I trust you - and I give my life into your hands and whatever comes I am going to stay true and faithful to you”. The Bible says we have not resisted unto blood like Jesus did, who resisted sinners coming against his mind and attacking him. All the demons of hell. We quit if one little tiny demon, a newborn baby demon, (I don’t know if this is theologically correct), but a tiny demon who has never even tormented a mouse, comes to you and says, “Why don’t you just quit. It is too hard.” We immediately give in. Can you imagine if every demon in hell, the dragon, the devil, the serpent and Satan attacked you constantly? They hated your whole life. And every religious person hated you so much they wanted to kill you. You know why? They were so jealous. He had power and they didn’t. They came to hear Jesus and they said, “He speaks with authority. He has authority. He is not like the Pharisees.” It is like a pastor I heard about. His church went way down hill. It started out at 3,000 people and it got down to 50 in just six months. The denomination said, “We’ve got to check this out. What are you doing wrong?” They sent an expert. The expert came up to the pastor at the close of the first service and said, “Well, I think I know what you are doing wrong.” “Really, what is it?” “It’s what you say at the end of every sermon. When you get to the end of every sermon you stop and look at everybody and say ‘But then, what do I know?’” That is the way the Pharisees taught. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. But then, what do I know? Jesus came along, and the Bible says He taught with authority. When He was faced with a demon he didn’t play around. Some of these demon caster-outers just crack me up, because it takes so long to cast out a demon. You know they work and they work and they ask, “What’s your name?” Jesus just walked up and said, “Get out!” With authority He commands the unclean spirits. Not like the Pharisees. And because of His reality and His power and His authority, was a constant rebuke to their hypocrisy and unreality and lack of power - they wanted to kill him. They plotted all the time to kill him. The relationship back in eternity past between the Father and the Son has been going since eternity past. I know that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. I really like what John goes on to say, “And we beheld His glory”. Did you know that by the time John was an old man on the isle of Patmos, the church had already begun going down hill. Think about this, the church was born on the day of Pentecost and they went out with power. Peter’s shadow healed people on the way to church. For 8 years the apostles preached at the church in Jerusalem and some scholars think there were 20,000 in that church. 20,000 meeting behind the temple on Solomon’s porch and the apostles were preaching the Word with power and authority and praying all the time and in the word all the time and they came out and can you imagine, they’d announce, “Tonight Peter is preaching on when I walked on the water to Jesus”. A pretty powerful message. “Tomorrow night John is preaching on what I saw on the Mount of Transfiguration.” It was pretty exciting. It got so exciting that people got full of Jesus – and then God sent persecution to scatter them all over the world. Go back and read the book of Acts looking at Jesus in that book, not the apostles. All of a sudden there was something changed in Jerusalem because the disciples were healing people at the Gate Beautiful in the name of Jesus. There is a story about Martin Luther that the pope took him into the church treasury and opened the door into a huge room full of gold and silver and precious jewels, and the pope looked at Martin Luther and said, “The church can no longer say silver and gold have I none.” Martin Luther said, “And the church can no longer say in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk”. Within seventy five years the church started declining. They started losing their power. I believe this is what God has shown me, you don’t have to agree with me, but I believe it is the truth – we quit making Jesus number one - the all in all. As soon as we do that God is going to remove His power. We can fake it. We can get little ear pieces and pretend we are getting words of knowledge. But you don’t have to fake it when you are preaching Jesus and that He is the all in all. The Bible says they went everywhere preaching the Word, and the Lord working with them, confirming the Word with signs following. You don’t have to go seeking signs; they follow you when you are preaching Jesus. They were so Jesus-focused that they said in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Rise up and Walk. And then they took them in, questioned them, and said you are going to have to quit preaching Jesus and they said, “Well, we can’t do that because God told us to do it. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Jesus’ sake. Can you see us if we were beaten? “Call 911.” “This is horrible and I am missing my favorite TV program, too, on top of everything else!” They walked with Jesus for three and a half years. They saw Him on the Mountain of Transfiguration, three of them did, and they saw Him walk on the water. They saw him stand at Lazarus’ tomb and say, “Lazarus, come forth” and he walked out of the tomb. They saw him cleanse the temple and talked with Him for three and ½ years. Then on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit put Jesus inside of them. That same Jesus was inside of them with power and authority and glory and the Bible says, “With great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. He appeared in the room with them. He appeared on the road to Emmaus. They were so wrapped up in Jesus Christ that they turned the world upside down. That is what God wants us to get back to. Maybe you are already there. I want to be there more and more every day. God had this relationship with His Son that had been going on for ages and ages in eternity past, it will always be going on, and God said, “This is just too good. I want to share this. So he created us and He said, “You know, I will let you share my secret. I will let you share my relationship I have with My Son. One of God’s goals is that He is making himself a family and the firstborn is called Jesus Christ. He is the only begotten Son. Some of the modern translations have tried to soften that down. I did a major Greek study of that word and it means only begotten. They have tried to tone that down. If you want to encourage yourself look in the book of Acts look for Jesus. Then realize when John was an old man on the Isle of Patmos the church had already declined. When the church starts declining and losing authority in the world, then God has a plan. He gets us back to His Son. He reveals His Son afresh and anew. John through the Holy Spirit wrote the Gospel of John at the end of his life around A.D. 85 or 90. It is not an early gospel. It is what God brought back them back to, to bring the church back to Jesus Christ, His Son. In the first chapter he says we beheld His glory, the gory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In I John 1, he said, “We declare that which are eyes have seen and our hands have handled. The Word of life.” John is saying, “We touched him. I leaned on His shoulder. I am telling you things I saw personally and I know.” Then he wrote the book of Revelation, which the unveiling of Jesus Christ for all eternity. What is God doing? Getting us back to His son. The last books written were John and Revelation - so He is saying, “Here is where I want you. Back here.” What happens is we get all fragmented. Let me think of some doctrines – salvation – we try to make it something by itself. God doesn’t save us just to be saving us or because He didn’t have anything better to do. He is building the body of Christ, His son. The church. We want to take the church and make it a separate thing. It is not. The church is Jesus Christ. It is called His body. If you start looking in the Word - everything God does is wrapped up in His Son. The Bible says that some day His fullness is going to fill the whole universe. I could go to Pluto or Jupiter and pick up a rock and that rock is going to be full of Jesus Christ. He is so big and so significant, and so immense. This is something you should never forget. It took me a long time to learn this and I wish I knew it better. The kind of Christian you are is determined by how much you know Jesus Christ. How much I have comprehended Him. How much I have laid hold of Him. How much I have apprehended Christ in my personal experience. I am sorry to say this, but sometimes they are painful experiences. We go along saying la la la la la; it is all in the church. Or it’s all in tongues or prophecy. You see that a lot. Prophesy. Prophesy is everything. Prophetic prayer meeting. This is a prophetic microphone. I literally have seen it that bad. I have seen Christians going around with notebooks trying to get a word from everybody. It’s great if God gives you a word. Sometimes you need it and He knows it, but He already gave us a big word. He has spoken to us, finally and fully, by and in His Son – according to Hebrews 1. Sometimes we want to take a short cut and not fast and pray and study. We think that is too hard. What we do is take all these things and divorce them, or cut them off and make them a separate thing. When it becomes a thing, you have missed it. When I look back on my Christian life, the ministry is one of the biggest enemies you have to knowing Christ. Unbelievably, you will focus on the ministry rather than Christ, and you will get off. I like Edward Payson’s approach. He died when he was in his thirties. If you look in secular history books, you will see that in the 1820s the town of Portland, Maine, experienced continual revival under the ministry of Edward Payson. His nickname was Praying Payson. He would be waling down the street, and would start leaping for joy and clapping his hands, exclaiming, “Thank you, Father! I am a minister of Christ. I get to preach Jesus” He was so excited to be a minister of Christ. He would tell his church, “I am not a minister. I am a minister of Christ.” “ I am not a preacher. I am a preacher of Christ.” Let’s say that you are a Sunday School teacher or a musician in church … I used to be a musician in church … and you get wrapped up in that to where it becomes an idol in your life and replaces Christ, God has to say, “I am going to have to take your toys away until I can get your attention again.” I wish God didn’t have to do that to me so much. George MacDonald, an old Victorian preacher said, “God takes our toys, and puts them away for a while, and we beg and we plead and we cry for them. Then, when we’ve learned our lesson, He gives them back to us.” When you get away from Christ – the Father moves in - if you don’t understand God’s dealing in your life, this is it. You have lost Christ. You can be a Christian in church, the main member, and lose Christ. The Pharisees looked at Christ and all they saw was somebody they hated and were jealous of. As far as God’s concerned this is all there is. This is the foundation. Where we are concerned, we keep trying to build something else there and God says, “Okay, let me take that.” He’ll take your reputation; He’ll take your friends if he has to. I am not saying He will, but if He has to, He will. If He left it up to us we would never make it. He’ll take your finances. Whatever it takes to get you back on your knees and saying, “Lord, what are you trying to say to me?” “You have forgotten My Son, you’ve left Him out. He is all there is. He is all I am looking at. He is all I can see. I can’t see you, I can only see him. If you are not in Him and knowing Him, then I can’t help you, I can’t bless you. I can’t be with you.” The greatest eternal blessing is knowing the Lord and being like Him. This is the battle; the devil is always trying to get in here. He does this in many different ways, but he always tried to come between Jesus and His Father. That’s the way he does us. The first little thing that happens, the enemy comes and says, “God’s left you. He doesn’t love you anymore. Look what happened. This is it, pal. This is the one. You have messed up too big this time. This is unforgivable. This is worse than blaspheming the Holy Spirit.” That’s the way you feel and the devil just beats you up. What is he doing? This may be a blow to our pride, but the devil doesn’t care about us. He is not even interested in us. He is only against Christ and if you will stay away from Christ he will leave you alone. He will even help you. He will bless you. He will give you sinner friends to come, encourage you, and take you out partying. But if you get around Christ, then he notices you because he hates Jesus Christ. The battle of this whole universe is over one issue and that’s The Heir getting what He deserves. What’s it going to be? Everything. Even Satan is going to get on his knees and confess at the top of his voice, “I don’t want to and I hate this, but the truth is that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. The whole universe will fall on its knees. We may not know Him in this world but someday we will wish we had. That is what I want to urge you to do, to cry out to God day and night, fast, and pray. “I want to know you, Lord. Don’t let me get off track. Don’t let me miss it.” The battle for this whole universe is on this ground, whether the Heir is going to get His inheritance. I have news for you, He will and He will get it with glory and power and everything that is in Him is going to shine like the Son (Sun), and the moon, and the stars from the reflected glory off God’s Son. God’s Son is so glorious that in the ages to come, we won’t even need light. His glory is going to light the universe. Don’t you think we ought to get to know someone so glorious that God says, “That is the only thing I can see… My Son.” Every day, this is where the battle is, and this is where you are going to have a battle when you get on that ground and say, “I am going to stand”. Jesus told the parable of the man who had a vineyard and he went away and he sent back workers to collect it and they killed the workers and then he said, “They’ll respect my son.” He sent his son and they said, “This is the heir…” Jesus was talking about Israel and the Pharisees, they said, “This is the heir. Let’s kill him and then we will get the inheritance.” When Satan sinned and fell, it wasn’t just an act of sin. A spirit entered this universe and filled it from one end to the other. Have you ever noticed, sin seems to spread everywhere easily? You can go anywhere and someone is sinning. Righteousness seems like a flickering candle that is about to go out, but it is not - because God always has a remnant people where Jesus is real and alive in them and they are going to exist in this world whether the devil likes it or not - because God defends them with the very powers of heaven and the hosts of heaven. The battle is - will the heir receive His inheritance? Yes, He will - including His bride and His honeymoon and all of His eternal inheritance. He will receive it and in Romans 8, Paul goes on to say, “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation? Distress?” That is what the enemy tries to do - to separate you from the love of God. Some tribulation, some distress, peril, famine, nakedness, sword. All these things. “Neither height, nor death nor creatures, nor demons, nor powers … nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ my Lord. So what is your anchor? If we are going to stand on this ground and say, “I want to know you, Lord. I want to be conformed to you. When I stand before you, Father, I want to look like Your Son. Whatever it takes, do that in me. Don’t listen to my whining. It took me about 30 years to get out of pre-school, spiritually. Every time God started to graduate me, I started whining and crying “It’s too hard”. When I stand before the Lord, I want him to say, “That’s My son, too. That’s My daughter, too. He or she looks like My Son.” That’s where the issue is, where the fight is. Paul said, “Nothing can separate us.” The anchor is that God loves us because we are in Christ. He doesn’t stop loving us when we mess up or when you do good. He loves His Son eternally. Unchangeably.

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