Response to Persecution; September 22, 2023

Posted on September 23, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 8:4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

This is the true, Godly response to persecution: you don’t just sit and take it, but you don’t shut up, either. They got out of town so they wouldn’t be arrested, but they didn’t stop the very activity for which they were being persecuted. Such a contrast to the majority of Christians today, who don’t proclaim God’s Word even though they aren’t being persecuted! The pattern given here has been followed countless times over the past 2,000 years, but there was one exception. When persecution started in Japan about 400 years ago, some believers were martyred and some were scattered, becoming what has been called the “Hidden Christians,” but what they didn’t do was keep evangelizing. Why that was is a mystery. Even today, I know of pastors who don’t require their families to attend church, because they “don’t want to press faith on them.” That is incredible to me. I feel the much more natural, actually, response is what Peter and John said to the Sanhedrin when they were arrested: “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20) I find myself wondering about the experience of those who claim Christ as their Savior and Lord, yet won’t talk about Him with others. The Church would never have grown the way it did if the believers had responded to persecution by shutting up. Social persecution has indeed started in the US, but believers must not let it shut them up. We aren’t to offend needlessly, and we are always to speak the truth in love, but the point is, we must keep speaking the truth, or it will disappear from society.

Having written that, I am reminded that the confirmation that I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit was that I was talking to a total stranger about Jesus for the first time in my life, even though I had been a Christian since childhood. I’m not a “natural” evangelist, but if I am yielded to Holy Spirit, allowing Him full control, I will certainly be making use of the opportunities God gives me to share the Gospel. My “comfort zone” is reading and playing with machines, but I must not stay in my comfort zone to the exclusion of proclaiming Christ. As Paul told Timothy, I am to “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction.” (2 Timothy 4:2) In all of that I am not to fail to listen to people, because if I won’t listen to them, they won’t listen to me. However, I am never to hold back from sharing Christ because of convenience or fear of rejection.

Father, thank You for this strong reminder. I ask You to enable me to communicate this message not just to this congregation but widely, so that Japanese believers may wake up to be the sort of disciples You desire, for the salvation of multitudes and for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Stephen; September 21, 2023

Posted on September 22, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 6:8 Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.

Stephen is an excellent example of how God will expand the “job description” of someone who is totally dedicated to Him. He had been chosen as one of the first deacons and given responsibility for what we might call the mechanics of the Church, the smooth and equitable functioning of the social welfare program. However, the next time his name comes up, in this verse, we find he is doing “great wonders and miraculous signs.” That sounds like a promotion to me! He was obviously faithful in the first task he was given, so God moved him “up the ladder” so to speak. That fits perfectly with Jesus’ words in the famous Parable of the Talents: “You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” (Matthew 25:21) That might sound attractive, humanly speaking, but we need to remember that Stephen’s next “promotion” was to Martyr! We have trouble accepting that as a promotion, but in God’s kingdom it genuinely was. It is worth noting that there is nothing negative recorded about Stephen. He was a superb role model, and it got him stoned to death. However, his ultimate reward made that seem like no more than a blip, a bump in the road, so to speak. His perspective made him fully faithful in things of this life, but kept his values and his goals firmly anchored in eternity.

I honestly haven’t thought about Stephen all that much, but he is certainly a worthy role model. People have talked about my faithfulness in being in Omura for 42 years, but I’ll leave the evaluation of that to my Lord. I haven’t done “great wonders and miraculous signs,” but I have interacted with lots of people and communicated the Gospel in a variety of ways. I am at an inflexion point in my life, with retirement from secular teaching coming up in a few months, and possibilities appearing for a broader ministry, but my future is truly known only to God. The probability of martyrdom seems slim, but I am open to whatever the Lord has planned. What is clear is that I’m not to be so focused on what might be coming that I fail to discharge faithfully the tasks God has for me right now. Actually, there are a few things that I have been hanging back from, and that’s not good. I need to be fully involved in “waiting tables,” if that’s what the Lord has for me in the moment.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for yesterday and all it held. I have another day today with nothing written on my schedule, but that’s only from my viewpoint. Help me recognize Your schedule for me and follow it to the letter, so that Your purposes may be accomplished in Your timing for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Obedience; September 20, 2023

Posted on September 21, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 5:21, 42 At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

What strikes me about this is that the apostles were obedient to what God told them, regardless of what human authorities said. As Peter said, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29) If this were just rebellion against authority, which is actually pretty common all around us, then there would be no benefit. After all, God is the ultimate Authority, and plenty of people rebel against Him! It isn’t rebellion, but a recognition of priorities, of genuine authority. As Martin Luther declared, when on trial in the Diet of Worms (that sounds really strange in English, but a Diet is a major legal conference, and Worms is the German city in which it was held), “Here I stand. I can do no other.” Many, many saints down through the centuries have made that choice, regardless of the consequences. When we understand the difference between time and eternity, and that God has opened a way for us to spend eternity with Him, delivered from the consequences of our sin, then the choice becomes both clearer and easier to make. The problem is, our understanding becomes clouded at times, and our flesh and the world loom big in our awareness. As the chorus of a hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” When we are rightly fixed on Jesus, then obedience becomes our first choice all the time, and the results are glorious.

I am both preaching to myself and speaking from experience here. I haven’t been faced with martyrdom or even imprisonment, but I have encountered social censure and financial hardship because of my obedience to God. The social censure showed me who was listening to God and who wasn’t, and the financial hardship showed me what I genuinely needed and what I didn’t. Sadly, there have been times when my obedience has been far less than perfect, and I have encountered the consequences of that. Thankfully, repentance is always available! I think my biggest failures have been in failing to speak out what the Lord was saying, because of fearing people’s responses more than I feared God. That’s certainly foolish! This morning I have the privilege of speaking to an interdenominational prayer meeting, and the message I have been given is a strong challenge to personal openness to the Holy Spirit, so that He may pour revival out on this region and this nation. By no means are all of the participants Pentecostal/Charismatic! I am to speak in love, but I am in no way to draw back from speaking the truth as God speaks it to me. Today and every day I am to obey God above and before any other obedience.

Father, thank You for this clear reminder. Help me indeed be fully obedient in all things at all times, so that Your will may be done for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Body Life; September 19, 2023

Posted on September 20, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 5:13-14 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

I don’t remember when, but certainly a long time ago this passage struck me very strongly. The Church didn’t grow through evangelistic meetings or “crusades,” but rather through the daily interaction of believers with their neighbors. There was certainly the factor of supernatural healings, but they didn’t hold “healing meetings,” they just lived life and made use of the opportunities the Lord opened up for them to share Christ. (Ephesians 5:16, Colossians 3:5) We try to organize and program everything, forgetting that the Body of Christ is an organism, not an organization. The New Testament has many references to Christ being the Head, but in practical terms we tend to forget it, reducing His status to figurehead, rather than the true source of all authority and direction. That’s not to say the Church doesn’t have organization because it does, just as our biological bodies do, but it is to say that we need to stop trying to take the place of the Head, and instead focus on obedience. We’ve all experienced times of our physical bodies not doing what we tell them to. Such times increase with various diseases, or simply age, but the point is, they aren’t indicative of health. In a truly healthy body each part cooperates with the others, and all are obedient to what the Head tells them to do. If we will live like that, then more and more people will be convicted of their own disobedience to God and so repent and believe the Gospel, and society as a whole will be changed because God’s children will start acting like citizens of His kingdom, instead of slaves to sin and to human government.

I didn’t expect this to go in this direction! There is indeed a lot of junk going on in the world, and I get worked up over it at times. I need to focus on my Head, listen to Him and do what He says, not being anxious about anything else. There are countless people I would like to bring into God’s kingdom, but I certainly can’t do it myself. God has made me a pastor/teacher, and I am to fulfill that calling with all His strength that works in me. (Colossians 1:29) I am to teach the believers to live as God’s children, and all that that means. If we will do that, then indeed, miracles will happen.

Father, thank You for this encouraging Word. Help me not just accept it as objective truth, but live it out in daily faithfulness. I feel like I have taken far too long to get to this point, but nothing is too difficult, or too late, for You. After all, Moses started his ministry at 80! May I be the servant, the instrument, that You desire, so that Your kingdom may come as Your will is done, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Being Filled with the Spirit; September 18, 2023

Posted on September 19, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

This is another very famous passage when it comes to the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement. It is part of the basis for what is called the “one baptism, many fillings” doctrine. Jesus spoke several times of believers being “baptized” in the Holy Spirit, but otherwise, “filled” is by far the more common expression. We forget that ritual bathing was very much part of normal Jewish practice in those days. I keep seeing reports of archaeologists locating another ritual bath. The Essenes, a very devout group of which John the Baptist was probably a member, stressed it, which is why it was natural for him to stress baptism. On the face of it, it would seem that baptism would be immersion in the Spirit, but that would be external, requiring that we also open up to be filled. That’s why Paul would tell the Ephesian believers, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18) The tense of the Greek verb there would perhaps be better rendered, “keep on being filled.” In any case, the result of the believers in this verse being filled with the Holy Spirit wasn’t necessarily foreign languages, but that they spoke the Word of God boldly. Going back to what Paul said, alcohol is noted for removing inhibitions, which can make us bold to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do. One American expression for that is “Dutch courage,” but I doubt the Dutch drink any more than Americans do! When we remove inhibitions with alcohol we can be very foolish indeed, but removing inhibitions by the Holy Spirit makes us wise indeed, following God and acting as His agent and His spokesperson, for His glory.

I’ve never been big on alcohol, and indeed, the one time I tried to get drunk, just for the experience, I didn’t succeed. However, I have had times of being “drunk out of my mind,” so to speak, on the Holy Spirit. It’s glorious, and no hangover! The thing is, I don’t stay filled with the Spirit, any more than someone would stay drunk on one glass of alcohol. Like Paul said, I need to keep on being filled with the Spirit. I’m not a bottle, I’m a pipe. The volume, the flow, of the Spirit varies from time to time, and I need to be aware of that, and not be satisfied with just a trickle. The Bill Gaither song, “Fill My Cup,” is nice, but it’s entirely inadequate. I don’t want a cup full, I want to be connected to the water main! In all fairness, Bill Gaither was writing from the story in John 4 of the Samaritan woman at the well, so his imagery is not out of place. However, I don’t want to stop with that, but rather have a continuous connection to the unlimited supply that is available.

Father, thank You for this very clear Word. You have started me on a series of messages about Your Spirit, and I was wondering where it would go next. Help me express this in words that people can understand and genuinely receive, so that Your Word may work in them to transform them into the children, the disciples, that You desire, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Elites; September 17, 2023

Posted on September 18, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 4:19-20 But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

This was a society-shaking declaration. These men, as had been duly noted, were unschooled fishermen. (verse 13) They were certainly not members of “the elite,” yet here they were boldly standing up to the equivalent of the US Senate, and the “elites” had no idea what to do with them. That has increasingly been the situation in the US, ever since Barak Obama made his remarks about those who “cling to their guns and religion,” and Hillary Clinton compounded that by talking about “deplorables.” God has quite a habit of the sort of thing He did here. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are not–to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29) God is so far above us in every way that any notion of “elite” is completely laughable. The problem is, we like to be “elite.” We like to think of ourselves as big by thinking of others as small, and it takes a conscious effort to overcome that. Bill Whittle.com pokes fun at that by inviting people to “joint our elite group of anti-elitists,” but it’s not really a laughing matter. Like Peter and John, we need to realize that the standard is God, and by that standard we’re all equally nobodies. When God speaks to us, it should be out of the question to obey anything else. Just yesterday I saw a very pointed short video in which a man was describing how he had talked with a teenager about the kind of music he was listening to. The teenager was a professed Christian, and the man asked him, “If God told you only to listen to polka music, would you do it?” The teenager responded, “I’d have to think about that one.” The man pointed out to the teenager that they had a divided heart, and that’s dangerous. The problem is, we all have that tendency, placing our own opinions, and those of the people around us, above that of God. Little children haven’t developed the “elite” mentality, and that’s why Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15) We aren’t elites who are entitled to God’s blessings, we are little children who are totally dependent on Him.

This hits very close to home. As I have written many times before, pride has always been a snare to me. People have told me I was “the cream of the cream,” and I have believed them! I can spot other people being elitest, and at the same time be blind to my own tendencies. I need to be so fixated on my Lord Jesus that I really don’t see rank to any degree. Frankly, I can’t accomplish that on my own, but God can do anything at all, and I ask Him to do it in me. Being His child is the ultimate “elite” category, and it is open to all who will receive it in repentance and faith. That is the message I am called and commissioned to communicate, and I need to give myself totally to that task.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the messages You have been speaking through me. I pray that this morning also I would speak Your heart into the hearts of all who hear, and may we respond with joy and obedience, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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The Object of Our Faith; September 16, 2023

Posted on September 17, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 3:12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”

This is a superb example of giving all the glory to God, but there is one difference in translation that just caught my eye. Where the NIV says “godliness,” the Japanese says “depth of faith.” These days we call people who operate in the Gift of Healing “faith healers,” and run around comparing one person’s level of faith to that of another. Peter is saying very clearly that the question is Who you believe in. God does give faith, (Ephesians 2:8-9) and faith that is exercised does grow, but the question is always the object of our faith. Some people seem to have faith in faith! It is true that “without faith it is impossible to please God,” (Hebrews 11:6) but too often we try to attach our faith to things that are less than God. There is a Japanese proverb that says, “Even a sardine’s head can be an object of faith,” but no one has ever been saved by faith in a sardine’s head! Peter couldn’t have been more clear that this was all because of Jesus, and he and John were no more than incidental instruments. I think the reason Jesus repeatedly used expressions like “faith as small as a mustard seed” (Luke 17:6) is because it isn’t a matter of the quantity of our faith, but rather the object of our faith. We’ve got to be very clear that whereas we can’t do anything right on our own, Jesus can and does do everything right, even using us.

This is an area where I am continuing to grow. Various people have commented on my level of faith, but I certainly haven’t been a “miracle worker” to this point. However, I do have full assurance that if He wanted to, Jesus could heal every person I touched, starting today. At the same time, I certainly know I can’t do that on my own. I need to be like Peter, walking in such assurance of my risen Lord that He is able to do anything at all through me. I have long desired that the Lord would confirm His word through me by signs and wonders, (Mark 16:20) but the danger of that swelling my head is immense. I am to walk in daily, humble faithfulness, knowing that God’s plans are perfect, and that He is big enough and strong enough to use even me in fulfilling them.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for Your plans, and that You include me in them. Thank You that my birthday is past, and all the emotional baggage of entering “the latter period of old age.” May I indeed keep my eyes on Jesus and so be fully available at all times for You to use me or not use me as You please, whatever that might mean, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Repentance; September 15, 2023

Posted on September 16, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 2:38-39 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off–for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

This is the invitation culminating the first sermon in the newly born Church, and as such it deserves every bit of the attention it’s gotten over the centuries. We need to remember what sort of a sermon it followed. This definitely wasn’t a “Your Best Life Now” sermon! Peter, and by extension Holy Spirit, pulled no punches, but boldly proclaimed that the people’s sins had sent the Son of God to the cross. Many churches today seem to have forgotten that when Jesus started His ministry His message was, “Repent and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15) It’s fitting that Mark’s Gospel is the record of Peter’s experiences, for the most part. Peter not only remembered that Jesus had said that, he said it himself here. Today, even people who recognize they need to be saved often don’t believe, or at least acknowledge, that they got themselves into that situation. I have heard so many people say that they can’t believe a loving God would send people to hell. He doesn’t. We earn our own tickets to hell! We want God to pour all His blessings out on us without clearing out the junk we have accumulated in our hearts by ignoring and/or disobeying Him. That doesn’t work! The good news is that repentance is always available to us, if we will only do it. Materially affluent societies seem to have the most trouble with this, because we become satisfied with our lives and lose sight of where we’re headed. The vast majority of people in the world just try to ignore the terror of being on the precipice of death without a right relationship with their Creator. That might make for fun in the short term, but it never pans out. Like Peter, we need to trumpet the need and the invitation to repent, to turn as many as will accept the invitation away from the gates of hell and to the path to life. Some preachers make a big deal of Peter having said, “and be baptized” here. Baptism isn’t necessary for salvation, as witness the thief on the cross next to Jesus, (Luke 23:39-43) but repentance and obedience are. As James pointed out strongly, faith without obedience can’t really be called faith. We are to call people to repentance and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be sure we’re following that road ourselves.

Since I am a pastor in Japan, this is absolutely central to my existence. I have no hope for myself apart from the grace of God in Christ Jesus, and my commission is to call people to receive that grace for themselves. I haven’t been terribly effective in doing that to this point, but God isn’t through with me, despite this being my 75th birthday. I am to ask God for the words and the anointing to get His message through to all who will hear, and I am to make full use of every opportunity He gives me to proclaim it, because He “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)

Father, thank You for this reminder and renewal of my commission. Help me fulfill it in Your wisdom and power, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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The Miracles of Pentecost; September 14, 2023

Posted on September 15, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 2:14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.”

Various miracles happened on Pentecost. In the first place, God’s Spirit was poured out on the assembled believers. This is the one we all associate with the occasion. They spoke as the Holy Spirit enabled them to do so, (verse 4) but verse 6 says that each outsider heard the believers speaking in their (the outsider’s) language. As my Garrott grandfather (also a pastor) wrote in the margin of a commentary he owned that was passed down to me, was this not a miracle of hearing, rather than speaking? There are countless verified testimonies of people speaking in languages they had not learned, but at the same time, every pastor has experienced people in the congregation speaking of what they got from the message, when it wasn’t anything the pastor remembered saying at all. God can control both sides of that transaction! Another miracle was the way that Peter got up and addressed the crowd. He had been totally devastated by his own failure in denying three times that he even knew Jesus, but here he gets up and projects his voice to the point that over 3000 people can hear him and proclaims the divinity and Lordship of Jesus. (I personally find that impressive because I’ve taught vocal production to speech therapists for over 30 years, and I know what is involved.) And the last miracle is that Peter, an ignorant fisherman and not some rabbinical scholar, quoted quantities of very applicable Scripture in his remarks. To me, all of this points up the fact that God can do anything and use anyone He pleases. That’s why there’s no room for personal pride on the part of anyone who is involved, only gratitude that God would include them.

Of course this applies to me. I’ve been ministering in Omura for 42 years now, and God has done various things through me in that interval. There are other things I wish He would do, but that’s not mine to dictate. I am by no means a robot, but I do desire to be an available, willing vessel for Him to use any way He would like. At the moment that seems to include writing my autobiography, but it’s certainly not limited to that. Turning 75 tomorrow, my perspective has certainly changed as to what I expect God to do through me, but actually, nothing whatsoever has changed as to what He could do through me. The point is, it’s not me, but Him. Being in the position of Peter would get me a lot of attention, but being an anonymous member of the group of believers would be just as glorious. I am to strive to keep my eyes off of myself and fix them on Jesus, (Hebrews 12:2) because only then will I be fully available and not hold back from whatever He wants to do through me.

Father, thank You for this reminder. For whatever reasons, 75 is looming very big in my awareness. I’ve chosen to retire from secular teaching at this age, and I have the strong feeling that You have plans for me that I currently can’t see. Help me keep growing as Your child so that I may be fully useful to You for whatever You desire to do, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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People Being Restored; September 13, 2023

Posted on September 14, 2023 by jgarrott

Acts 1:14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

This is in a way a very comforting verse to me, because it marks the point from which Jesus’ whole physical family was included among the believers. It had to be a pretty rough paradigm shift for them, because they felt they were too familiar with His humanity to believe His divinity. They had famously come to fetch Him from His ministry, thinking He had flipped out, (Luke 8:19-21) but now they were among those willing to risk arrest or even execution for associating themselves with Him. None of us view anyone with complete accuracy the way God does, but by His grace we do come to see each other more and more fully and accurately. I think that comes from a growing awareness of God’s grace toward us, which causes us to extend grace toward others. That’s why we aren’t to write anyone off. Paul is an excellent example of that, having been a stalwart persecutor of the believers but then being transformed by his encounter with Christ, as is recorded in Acts 9. The Church as a whole took quite a while before they could accept his changed status! We too need to understand that if God could save us, He can save anybody! That’s one reason Jesus famously told us in the Sermon on the Mount to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors; He might very well turn them into brothers and sisters in faith!

I haven’t been very big on making enemies, but I will confess to having essentially written some people off. That’s not to say that I’m to keep thinking about them and what they have done, but it is to say I should pray for them any time they come to mind, and believe that God might indeed transform them into a close brother or sister, what­ever our relationship might have been in the past. After all, He’s far bigger and more powerful than all their mistakes, or mine. Paul speaks of “having nothing to do with” people who make problems in the Church, (2 Timothy 3:5, Titus 3:10) but he also spoke of forgiving someone who was repentant. (2 Corinthians 2:10) I am not to write people off, but I am to submit them to God and refuse to carry unforgiveness in my own heart. That’s too heavy a burden to bear, whether I realize it or not.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for Your overwhelming grace toward me. Help me be a joyful channel of that grace toward others, remembering that if You could save and use me, You can certainly save and use them. Thank You. Praise God!

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