Pastors; June 24, 2020

Posted on June 26, 2020 by jgarrott

Jeremiah 3:15 Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.

The Bible mentions bad shepherds and false prophets in quite a few places, so it is actually very comforting to run across this verse – particularly when I’ve been assigned duty as a shepherd! There are indeed faithless shepherds, in it for twisted motives, but they are a small minority, just as there are bad law enforcement officers, such as have been grabbing the headlines recently, when they too are a small minority. In most countries pastors (which is how we usually say shepherds in this context) are very respected members of society, but in places like China and India, being a pastor makes you a target for all sorts of abuse. Because of their severe trials, such people often have faith that puts pastors in other countries to shame! The point is, it is God who makes a good pastor, and not the right school or organization. There are denominations that require academic tests before someone is acknowledged as a pastor, when that has nothing to do with it. Yes, “wisdom and understanding” are important, but those aren’t the same as intellectual knowledge. I’ve talked with one pastor of such a denomination who confessed that he was more familiar with the works of Carl Barth that he was with the Bible! (Fortunately, in the years that I’ve known him, he has dived into the Bible and now shows much more wisdom and understanding.) Knowledge of the Bible is indeed a high priority, but if that knowledge doesn’t make it from the head to the heart, it doesn’t produce wisdom and understanding. Many large churches in the US practically require a doctoral degree to consider someone as a pastor, but I am reminded of A. T. Robertson, who is still considered one of the greatest Greek scholars ever to have lived, who never got a doctorate. Ignorance is never desirable, but the primary qualification and requirement is a heart after the Lord.

I resisted being a pastor a good bit, not because I didn’t enjoy digging into the Word and sharing it with others, but because I wasn’t enthused about the day-to-day business of caring for the sheep. I still don’t think I’m very good at that, but by the grace of God I’ve come this far. Frankly, it can get really messy, and I quickly run out of my own resources. However, God is able to do everything whether I can or not, so I’ve got to rely on Him. I have had people walk out of this church for a variety of reasons, many of them connected with me, and I’m certainly not proud of that. However, God is my Judge, and my first accountability is to Him. I am to receive the wisdom and understanding He offers for each situation, not relying on what I feel I already have in that area, so that the people may indeed be nurtured as He intends, for their blessing and His glory.

Father, You’ve had to call me down for my complaining about my lack of “pastoral gifting.” Help me not complain, but rather rejoice that my weaknesses allow You opportunities to display Your strength, for the blessing of many and for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Focus; June 23, 2020

Posted on June 26, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 58:8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

To me, this whole chapter is about one thing: getting your focus off of yourself and putting it on God and your fellow man. The whole thing is Isaiah speaking directly for God, and he is remarkably direct. There are lots of wonderful promises in this chapter, but they are thoroughly intermingled with the conditions necessary for their fulfillment. The early part of the chapter mentions people complaining that they have done the proper religious things, but God has not kept up His end of the deal. God’s response is that when we ignore the needs of the people around us, we can’t expect Him to do anything about our needs. Motive is essentially everything. Right now we are in the middle of a lot of people making a lot of noise about injustice. Some of them are genuinely sincere, but a lot seem motivated largely by material and political gain. The raw thirst for power can be downright revolting. We all want this verse to be true for us, but it is meaningless for many in the current turmoil because they have nothing to do with righteousness, and the glory of the Lord would be an absolute terror for them. In this chapter the Lord goes on to speak of honoring the Sabbath, which is a bedrock of His plan for us to acknowledge Him every day of the week. Practically the whole of society today considers that very “quaint,” an outmoded idea from ancient times. Conversely, Orthodox Jews take it very legalistically, and still manage to miss the gracious, loving Lord who instituted the Sabbath for our benefit. Being self-centered gets in the way of every one of the blessings God has prepared for us.

I am fundamentally as self-centered as anyone, and I have missed a lot of blessings because of it. God has been incredibly gracious to me, but I sometimes wonder how things would be if I had responded properly to everything, instead of being focused on I-my-me-mine. I see people around me who are constantly wounding themselves and those around them by their very self-centeredness, and it is tragic. The Japanese for this verse says, “Your wounds will quickly be healed.” We seldom realize how many of our wounds are self-inflicted! We all go through a lot of junk in life, just as Jesus cautioned us, (John 16:33) but what wounds us isn’t so much what we go through as how we respond to it. When we indeed “Fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:2) we will see the needs around us and be His agents in meeting those needs, and nothing will be able to do us any lasting damage.

Father, thank You for this strong reminder. I am bombarded with requests for money, and some of them seem to be very noble causes indeed, but I turn them all off because of the sheer volume. Help me be available to You to meet the needs You want me to be involved in, and not shy away from giving money, either. Help me be so focused on You that I can see clearly what You want me to do as Your agent, for the blessing of many and for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Repentance; June 22, 2020

Posted on June 25, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 57:21 “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

We love the many gracious promises in the Bible but we tend to ignore the conditional statements. We love, “Peace, peace, to those far and near,” in verse 19 and try to claim it for ourselves, However, verse 19 refers to “mourners,” that is, those genuinely repentant. What this verse is saying is, “No repentance, no peace.” It is worth noting that Japanese distinguishes between external peace and internal peace, and this whole section is talking about internal peace. If you want to be at peace with your conscience, then repent! Actually, the possibility of repentance is a major element of God’s grace. John Newton didn’t write the lyrics to Amazing Grace until after he had repented of a life that definitely put him in the category of “the wicked.” However, we often take repentance too lightly, equating it with saying, “I’m sorry” when you’re not really sorry. We tend to enjoy sin, or we wouldn’t do it so much! The Japanese term for repentance is very clear and accurate. Broken down, it means, “regret and start over.” It does no good to say, “My bad,” with no intention of never doing it again. In our human weakness we are prone to indeed doing it again, but repentance is first of all a matter of heart attitude. It does no good to think, “That was wrong, but boy was it fun!” That attitude is unfortunately all too common. This verse is warning us that such an attitude will certainly not give us the peace that we need far more than we need any momentary thrill.

This certainly applies to me, as I can say from experience. Growing up in a strongly moral and loving home, my conscience was well established from an early age, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t give it quite a beating! I couldn’t begin to list all the willful sins I’ve committed, not to mention the unintentional ones. However, God has taught me about repentance and forgiveness, and I am deeply grateful. It was quite a few years ago now that He taught me something I have found to be very important: to get free of sin, I need to believe and understand that I’ve been forgiven. The verse that opened my eyes is one that Peter wrote after writing about the characteristics of what we would call a good Christian, someone who accurately represents Christ. What he said was, “But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.” (2 Peter 1:9) I discovered that the more I thought about the sin I had committed, the more likely I was to commit it again! As John said, when we confess our sins to God in repentance, they are genuinely cleansed, so they don’t hang onto us any more. (1 John 1:9) Getting free requires that we believe that!

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me communicate this truth effectively to all who are open to receive it. I don’t want to bash people over the head with REPENT! because that would certainly be counterproductive in most situations, but I don’t want to miss any opportunities You give me to speak to those whose hearts are ready, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Yeshua the Messiah; June 21, 2020

Posted on June 25, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 53:5-6 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

In many ways Isaiah 53 is the climax of the whole Old Testament, and certainly of Messianic prophecy. Even so, sadly many Jews today are unaware of it. That is very much by the devil’s design. Recently I have discovered OneForIsrael.org and the many video testimonies they have online, particularly of Jews who have come to faith in Yeshua but also of former Muslims and others who have discovered Him. A very frequent feature among the testimonies of Jews is their discovery of this chapter, and their realization that it could only apply to Yeshua, better known to Gentiles as Jesus. The imagery is very striking, with this verse saying that we are like sheep, and the next verse saying that the Messiah was “led like a lamb to the slaughter.” The reality of God becoming man and taking the penalty for man’s sin on Himself is so incredible that even with the facts laid out in front of us it’s hard to grasp. However, when we open the door of our heart just a crack, God will pour His revelation into our heart to enable us to grasp it and believe. It’s that first crack that makes all the difference! Sad to say, sometimes we try to shut the door again, saying that’s enough, because the more revelation we have of Christ, the more we are accountable to live like Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s scary, and sometimes we run from it. However, that fear is a lie of the devil, intended to rob us of the infinite riches of glory in Christ Jesus. We need to continually open our hearts for more of the Lord of Glory.

I first memorized this verse in elementary school as a part of Royal Ambassadors, a Southern Baptist group for boys, and I’m glad I did. Frankly, Scripture memorization was never a favorite activity, but it is certainly valuable! This passage of course also forms the lyrics of some of the well-known songs of Handel’s The Messiah, and I can hardly read it without the music running through my head. That too is a good thing, because music is an excellent way to implant Scripture in our hearts. The question remains, however, of how much I have allowed this verse, and all the others, to change my heart and make me more like Christ. He is the ultimate judge of that, but I rejoice in every indication of progress in that area. I am to make myself fully available to Him for however He wants to use me, drawing others to likewise open their heart to Him, so that the purpose of His suffering may be fulfilled more and more, for His satisfaction and glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for what You did yesterday, and for allowing me to be a part of that. I pray that today too I may flow with Your Spirit so that people may be freed from the lies of the enemy and brought to the fullness of Your salvation, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Language; June 20, 2020

Posted on June 22, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 38:16-17 Lord, by such things men live;
and my spirit finds life in them too.
You restored me to health
and let me live.
Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish.

Comparing different Bible translations, it’s easy to see the theological bent of the translators. Whereas it is true that by God’s grace we sometimes say things beyond what we know, it is also true that translations can make people “say” things they never intended, and that may or may not have been what God wanted to communicate in having that included in the Bible. One Hebrew word that can complicate that is ruach, which can variously mean breath, wind, or spirit. Here, where the NIV says, “my spirit finds life in them too,” the Japanese says, “the life of my breath follows/obeys all of this.” When Hezekiah obviously had very little concept of eternal life, it seems doubtful that he would have intentionally written about his spirit being alive. That said, the experience of suffering to the point of death and then recovering obviously changed him for the better. I am guessing that in verse 17 he said, “It was for my shalom that I suffered such anguish,” since the Japanese translates it as “inner peace.” Different languages add different things to the richness of human experience. God has brought some good out of the confusion of Babel! (Genesis 11:1-9) That said, any time we read the Bible we need to ask the Holy Spirit to be our guide, to speak to our heart what God is saying to us right now, rather than what translators wanted us to hear.

I’ve not been a student of Biblical languages, though my father was, but being bilingual in such different languages as English and Japanese has given me a real appreciation for this issue. Discussions of such things are fairly frequent in a Facebook group for adult Missionary Kids that I participate in. I have a Mexican friend who speaks not only Spanish, English, and Japanese, but also Latin, Italian, French, German, and Russian, and I think another language, since I have the total of nine in my memory. And he does it all so well that he interpreted both for Pope John-Paul II and Michael Gorbachov when they visited Nagasaki! (Maybe his other language is Polish, but then, the Pope could have spoken in any of a number of languages himself.) All of this gives me another reason to look forward to heaven, where all barriers to communication will be gone. I can’t know for sure, but somehow I think the richness of all the languages will be preserved, and we will enjoy every one of them in praising God. I am constantly faced with the challenge of communicating the richness of God’s grace and love, which is beyond all human language. I need to ask God’s anointing both on my mouth and my hearers’ ears, so that what He is saying may get through, whatever the language or the specific words used.

Father, thank You for language, and for what You have placed in me in relation to it. May I use it as You intend, building up and not tearing down, speaking Your words after You whatever language I’m using, so that Your will may be accomplished for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Last Days; June 19, 2020

Posted on June 22, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 30:28 He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;
he places in the jaws of the peoples
a bit that leads them astray.

This is certainly not a verse I had underlined previously! We like to overlook the Bible’s many statements of judgment, or else think they apply to other people, not us. We also forget that when the Bible speaks of nations it means people-groups, much more than political entities. The thing that grabbed my attention as I read this was the “bit (the Japanese says, reins) that leads them astray.” Several times in the Old Testament the Lord tells people, “If you’re going to be that way, then be that way, and suffer the consequences.” It’s like when he “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” after each succeeding plague, all the way up to the climactic death angel. Two recent decisions of the US Supreme Court, with its much-vaunted “conservative majority,” seem to fly in the face of natural law and common sense. I find myself wondering if God didn’t direct that to bring on America the judgment she has been earning, particularly in recent years. Many things seem to point to the Lord’s soon return, and the judgment that will happen then. The point for every believer is to examine their own life and discard everything that is not pleasing to God, just as is referenced in verse 22, and renew their commitment to the Lord of Glory. We don’t know God’s timetable, but we do have the Holy Spirit to show us how we ourselves are to live. We need to wake up and pay attention.

I find myself with very mixed feelings. For most of my life I have somewhat looked down on people who seemed obsessed with prophecies of the End Times. However, as the prospects for my own “natural life” have shrunk with each year, I am sharply aware that for me at any rate, the end will come in less than 30 years. That puts a point on living each day in obedience to God! Humanly, I am very pleased and even excited at various advances in science, medicine, and engineering, but at the same time I see the spiritual blight that seems so widespread, and I know that it is all totally insignificant compared to the glory of God. I am not to let my heart be troubled, (John 14:1) but rather seek God’s purpose for my every moment of physical life, doing His will on His schedule for His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. I do grieve at people’s rebellion against You, but certainly no more than You do. Help me indeed rest, relax, and rejoice in You, just as You have told me to do, so that I will be available for every task You have planned for me, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Suffering; June 18, 2020

Posted on June 21, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 19:22 The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

This prophecy is very interesting in light of the current pandemic! The Japanese doesn’t specify “a plague,” but with the repeated references to healing, that doesn’t seem an unreasonable translation. The most interesting thing about the whole passage is that it deals with Egypt and Assyria, Israel’s perennial enemies, and says that God will accept them as His people, His worshipers. This verse simply references what He will do to bring that about. Sometimes enemies turn into best friends, because at least they care. What is most difficult is when there is genuine indifference. I well remember one of my seminary professors talking about going door-to-door tracting/witnessing and having a man spit phlegm in his face. He didn’t give up, and later that man was not only saved, he became a deacon in the church! An adamant atheist could very well be just a step away from becoming a committed disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of the God they insisted didn’t exist. Their vehemence shows that they care about such things and think about them. God indeed uses such things as disease to get through to people, not at all because He’s mean, but because eternal life is far more important than physical life. If something, anything, causes you to repent and turn to God it’s a blessing, however horrible it might seem in the moment.

My mother had a frequent prayer that has stuck with me: “Keep them from unnecessary pain.” My mother had seen that sometimes pain is indeed necessary, to get our attention and cut us lose from what keeps us from God. Peter said, “He who has suffered in his body is done with sin.” (1 Peter 4:1) That’s a very desirable thing indeed! It’s not at all that we are to seek suffering, or fail to be good stewards of the body we’ve been given, but it is to say that we are to seek God for His purpose in allowing suffering, so that we won’t miss the blessing He intends. I’m reminded of Andrae Crouch’s beautiful song, Through it All. It deals with precisely this issue, and says, “If I’d never had a problem I wouldn’t know that He could solve them; I wouldn’t know what faith in God can do.” I have been accused of being uncaring because of having this perspective, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. I just see that God’s purposes are always higher than ours, and sometimes we really need some things we don’t want. That’s not to say that I don’t sometimes complain about my own circumstances! I’ve got to keep growing too, but along the way, I desire to help those around me recognize God’s love for what it is, and respond accordingly.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Looking back, You have been amazingly gentle and gracious with me! Help me communicate Your grace and love to all around me, so that they too may repent and believe, for their blessing and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Serving God; June 17, 2020

Posted on June 21, 2020 by jgarrott

Isaiah 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

I have lost track of how many messages I’ve heard preached on this verse, and I may have done a few myself. Some people might think that Isaiah’s response to God here is conceited, but this verse is the complete opposite of conceit. It’s not at all that Isaiah is saying, “I’m competent. Who better than me?” Rather, it is Isaiah being so overwhelmed by his vision of God in His glory that his response is total surrender, with no thought of what it might mean for him personally. (As a matter of fact, tradition tells us that Isaiah was martyred by being sawed apart.) There is no telling how many missionary careers were sparked by this verse, and probably some of those too ended in martyrdom. However, countless more people have ignored God’s call on their life, either because of various distractions or because they felt they were incapable of doing what they felt God was asking them to do. Actually, no one is capable of doing what God asks them to do, apart from the grace and power of God! However, God always supplies what He asks of us. So if you think, “I can’t do that,” you’re right, but if you will submit to God, He will do it through you. As I said, many people are simply distracted from God’s call on their life. We fail to obey Jesus’ instructions to seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, (Matthew 6:33) and in seeking after other things, lose sight of God. How tragic! However, repentance is always an option. We may have missed God’s original timing, but it’s never too late to make full commitment to Him so that He may do whatever He desires through us.

I went through various steps to get to where I am now, and I expect Isaiah had times of renewing his commitment as well, because it had been dulled by circumstances. Jeremiah is famous for his times of questioning God! As a small child I loved Jesus, and my decision to be baptized at age seven was a real one, but my commitment to God went all over the place, only occasionally intersecting with the line that He had drawn out for my life. I was 24 when God showed me the state of my heart and I repented in tears, but even then my walk with Him was not that steady. I have had various other moments of repentance and re-commitment, but God has been faithful. The more and better I realize that I can do absolutely nothing right on my own, the more available I am for God to use me. It’s exactly as He told Paul: “My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) The moment I think, “I’ve got this,” I’m in deep trouble. I don’t ever have it, on my own. However, He’s more than able to take care of it, even using me. As an illustration, just a few minutes ago I realized that somehow I got distracted before I was finished creating the June Scripture list, and from today, the Japanese side of the paper has the wrong verse numbers. I create the list in English, then go through and list the appropriate books of the Bible in Japanese, and then copy the verse numbers from the English to the Japanese. Somehow I did it right through the 16th, and then from today the numbers are from whatever the reading was last month. I can’t even do paperwork right on my own! However, I can telephone the people I know do use the list for their devotions and tell them to use the numbers from the English side of the paper. Serving God requires humility, and every blow to my pride is a good thing.

Father, thank You for causing me to realize my mistake this morning, rather than being called short on it by a very confused church member! (I can easily picture who would do it!) Guide me in getting through to everyone this morning, and help me not make this mistake again. May I always be fully available to You, not taking anything for granted or falling into conceit, so that Your will alone may be done through me, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Beauty; June 16, 2020

Posted on June 18, 2020 by jgarrott

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.

This is a very famous snippet of Scripture, made into a well-loved song, but the Japanese translation puts a different slant on it. It says, “Everything God does is beautiful in its time.” Frankly, not everything man does is beautiful, ever. Riots and murder and theft and a whole host of other things are ugly whenever and however they occur. The twist is that God can use even very ugly things for blessing, if they are released to Him. (Romans 8:28) The thing itself can be ugly indeed, but God can bring beautiful things out of it if we will trust Him fully. In the middle of the ugliness, that level of trust can be very difficult. Right now America is in the middle of a very trying time, to put it mildly. The ugliness of the slow, deliberate murder of George Floyd, captured on video, is something you can’t unsee, however much you might want to. I had to turn the playback off after only a few seconds because I already knew the outcome, and it was too horrible to keep watching. Frankly, the video of Sadaam Hussein being hung was much easier to watch, though that too was ugly indeed. The bigger tragedy comes, however, when ugliness begets more ugliness. Demonstrations on behalf of justice can be beautiful, but rioting, looting, and arson are without excuse. God can bring good and beautiful things out of the current mess, but only as people turn to Him in humility and repentance. If they – we – will do that, He will indeed give us “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” (Isaiah 61:3)

For many years my counseling has included the statement, “God can use even this for good, if you will release it to Him.” Sometimes that’s been believed and received, and sometimes not. I have seen God do amazing things in some pretty horrible situations. I have seen people be healed, and I have seen people die in peace, with the assurance that their death was just physical. I have seen relationships restored, and I have seen hurts released. Often, the good that God has worked has not been what I expected or even wanted, but He alone sees the end from the beginning and knows all the potential side effects of everything. Recently there have been prophecies that have been exciting, and prophecies that have tested my faith. I am to be faithful in my moment-by-moment obedience, so that the result will be God’s beauty and nothing less. I have loved Jesus’ statement that “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33) for many years, and God has told me personally to rest, relax, and rejoice, but following through with that can really stretch my faith at times. I am to choose to trust and obey, whatever is going on, because as the hymn says, “There’s no other way to be happy in Jesus.”

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for all that You are doing, even in the middle of the ugliness. Help me see Your beauty and rejoice, whatever the devil and my flesh are telling me, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Self-control; June 15, 2020

Posted on June 17, 2020 by jgarrott

Proverbs 16:32 Better a patient man than a warrior,
a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

The overall impact is the same, but it’s interesting to see that the Japanese renders this verse as, “He who slows his anger is better than a warrior, he who rules his heart is better than he who takes a city.” Countless people down through the ages have ruined their lives by impatience and lack of self-control of all sorts. It is hardly accidental that Paul told Timothy, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7) Likewise, the last fruit of the Spirit he listed was self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) When we are tempted to run wild in any way, the best course is always to choose to hand control over to the Holy Spirit and submit to Him. That applies in times when we’re too scared to move, too! Right now unbridled emotion and lack of self-control are being splashed over our screens with depressing frequency, and they are being applauded and even egged on by some in positions of authority. That is really sad. The Bible is clear that justice is of great concern to God, and we are to be agents of justice, but it is certainly true that “Man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” (James 1:20) God is the only one who is both wise enough and strong enough to keep it all together, so when we’re losing it, we need to turn things over to Him. It is indeed a major problem when those people charged with maintaining justice, either on the streets or in the courts, act contrary to justice, and we’ve seen and are seeing some horrible examples of that. However, listening to God to hear what He wants us to do about it is always the best course. Even those on the front lines in this battle aren’t to let their emotions or base motives control what they say and do. Modern technology gives us a front row seat, even if we aren’t directly involved in the conflict, so we have all we need to be prayer warriors, submitting our will so that God’s kingdom may come as His will is done.

As I wrote just yesterday, the flood of bad news can be overwhelming at times, but there too the answer is the Holy Spirit, just as Paul told Timothy. I am to live each moment in fellowship with God by His Spirit, submitting both my emotions and my impulses to Him, and acting on the impulses He gives me. His appointments are exciting, fun, and enormously productive! I am to remember that the reason for my existence is to fellowship with my Creator and please Him, and so delight to do just that. I know that He desires the absolute best for me, so I am to trust Him enough to give my absolute all to Him. My self-control is imperfect, so I need to replace it with God.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for all You did yesterday. I do pray that we would see the healings and the harvest that You are indicating You have planned for us, so that indeed Your kingdom may come as Your will is done, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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