What I'm doing during this season, the Lenten season, which is a traditional time for self-examination, is a sermon series on the idea of discovering God's will for your life, discerning what God's plan for you is, His purpose is for you, and we're also listening to some scripture readings that pertain to the Lenten season. This morning, Dr. Young Kim will be reading for us, and I just want to remind you that listen to those to the Word of God, and then we'll respond together at the end of the reading. Let me lead us first in prayer. Almighty God, we thank you that the one who has formed the universe has spoken, and that we, though rebels and sinners, can hear that word and receive life, and that is what we pray in the midst of all the changing words of our generation. Help us now to hear the eternal word that doesn't change, and to respond to you as we ought, with faith, understanding given by your Spirit and obedience, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Isaiah 43, this is what the Lord says, he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick. Take the former things, do not dwell on the past, see I am doing a new thing, now it springs up, do you not perceive it, I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me the jackals and the owls because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise. John 12, six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at death and he where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus's honor, Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him, the Mary took a pint, a pure nard, an extensive perfume, deported on Jesus's feet and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of this perfume, but one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him objective, why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief, as keeper of the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it. Leave her alone, Jesus replied, it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you but you will not always have me, the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God in our text, this morning, the sermon, Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will. There are so many decisions that the people in this room have to make and there's an amazing amount of pressure when it comes to those decisions and you know what those kind of decisions are. Should I marry? Whom should I marry? Will this marriage work if I marry this person? How many children should we have? What should we do if we can't have children? How much debt should I go into? How should I educate my children and I help and create a little sense of pressure with you? And as we face those decisions, one of the nagging questions frankly is how do I know when I make a decision that it is the right decision? When I make a decision, how do I know it's the right decision? And if I may speak very pointedly to those in the audience who, the congregation this morning, who think of themselves as evangelical Christians, how do I know that I'm making the perfect decision? Now I say that because for many people there has been in recent years a lot of concern because of the due diligence you've given to TV preachers to know what the perfect will of God is. You want to be in God's perfect will. And what has happened is as you try to penetrate what God's purposes are, you find very often that you're frozen with fear and ignorance when it's time to make a decision because you don't know what his perfect will is. Imagine a darkboard if you will. For a Christian to think about a decision, you look at that darkboard and you see the outer ring, the inner ring, the rings and the bullseye, there's a sense in which many Christians know that I look at the scriptures to find out what God's will is, his moral will, his preceptive will, what his precepts are, and I'm sure I can throw the dart of my life at the board and in a sense I'm okay as long as I'm inside the rings. And as long as I go somewhere inside the rings, I want to make sure I hit the bullseye of the perfect will. I want to make sure I get the perfect spouse. I want to make sure that we have our children at the perfect time and I want to make sure that we get them into the perfect school. Where's the bullseye? Now I'm going to say this because my wife's coming to the second service. There is no perfect spouse. There is no perfect time to have children. There are no perfect schools. And guess what, you're not perfect either. Now I think this kind of twisting of scriptures like Romans 12-2, which talks about discerning the perfect will of God, and we'll talk about what that means in a few minutes, comes because we simply fail to understand what the Bible tells us about the will of God. Now that word, the will of God, is used as a few different ways in scripture. On the one hand, theologians will speak Bible scholars will talk about the perceptive will of God. That is the precepts, the truths. That is when we look at the stories, we look at the promises, we look at the propositions of the Holy Scriptures. Please believe that that's how we know what God thinks, that these are, this is the word of God. And so there's the precepts of God's will, but there's also God's sovereign will. That is God's providence, by which he works out his purposes in all things. He decrees whatsoever comes to pass. The Bible teaches that there is a sovereign plan for your life that God will oversee. The book of Ephesians chapter 1 teaches that God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. Look at something as simple as DNA. You know, if you, as simple as DNA, look at something as complex as DNA, right? You know, it's obvious as DNA. And the more we find out the more we realize that right there it's encoded. Your Creator has already determined the color of your hair, the color of the eyes, how long you will keep your hair, it's all in there. And that's just a, in a sense, that's just a sign. The Bible says some things that are frankly very difficult to swallow. Your days are numbered and written in his book. And as a plan for you, and guess what, God will accomplish his purpose in your life. Now, thank you. Now, here know this, know this. At the same time, and this is where, you know, Augustine said, if you can't understand it, if you can understand it, it's definitely not God. At the same time, the Bible invites us to pray. It invites us to struggle and to think and seek wisdom and to make decisions and know that our decision-making process is meaningful and yet behind it there's this mystery of the providence of God, which teaches us that while God is not the author of sin or the author of evil, nonetheless, he uses it for his glory. He uses your wisdom and he uses your mistakes to accomplish his will in the world. Look at the greatest story of all, the story of Jesus Christ, of the redemption of the world. He manages to weave in Judas and his evil. Now is Judas evil? Yes. It's his decision, a bad one, yes. And yet before time, we're told that Judas was a key player in how the redemption of the world could take place. Now, see, this is, again, how God works that all out is, well, that's God. Yes, Judas is responsible. Yet God can weave Judas into his purposes. How much more can he weave, not only your well-researched decisions, those things you veiled very clearly about and as of the same time be wevened together? Those areas of decision-making, those areas of life where, frankly, you have very little sense of what it is you ought to be doing. God is sovereign over at all. Now I was recently reading about a situation that I'd heard about and then I learned a little more about it recently. In London, you'll see, every now and then, if you're ever there in that city, you'll see these guys riding around on mothids, just riding up and down the streets. And if you notice them, you'll notice they kind of, they'll go up the street and they'll turn and they turn and they go very circuitously around the streets. Now what these guys are doing, it's a thing that the English know about. It's called doing the knowledge, doing the knowledge. Now what doing a lot knowledge is, is if you want to be a city of London taxi driver, which by the way, you can make quite a lot of money doing. You want to be, if you ever take a taxi in London, admire this guy, or this woman, because what that person has to do is get out and do the knowledge, to get their bill and badge, to be able to be a licensed taxi driver in London, you have to know all 18,000 streets in that city. And not only that, you have to know exactly what the best routes are to get to wear in that city. It takes years. So you get out on your moped and you do the knowledge until you get the city down. Now that is exactly, now you hear that and you go, that's crazy, I agree. And yet there are many of you who are trying to do the knowledge in your own life. You want to know exactly all the shortcuts, all the pathways, all the mechanisms of exactly what it is, that Almighty God has determined for your life. And so with your anxiety and your fear and your questioning, you just moped around thinking somehow you're going to hit every circuit and let me just tell you, you're never going to crack in. You're never going to crack into the providence of God. You're never going to find in an ultimately taken and know what all of God's purposes are and all of God's plans. That is the domain of Almighty God. We read in Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 29, it's an easy one to remember, a passage that I think gives us very clear wisdom here. It says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. But the revealed things belong to us and to our children. Now what is the scripture telling you there? It's telling you there are secret things that belong to God. There are God's purposes for the world, there are God's purposes for your life. And guess who those belong to? They belong to the Lord your God, and you need to trust Him with those things. But the revealed things belong. I love that. They belong to us and to our children. Now what does that passage tell you? It's saying, focused on the revealed truths. You want to know God's will for your life? You need to make a decision, focus on what has been revealed. Because I think the scriptures do teach us that as we learn God's ways, as we gain His wisdom, as the spirit works in us so that we become more and more like Christ. We actually begin to see how that wisdom applies to our circumstances and how it applies to our situations so that we can discern what is best, so that we can discern what is good. I think that's a promise of scripture, but you focus on the revealed. Now how do you do it? Somebody says, you know, great, okay, help me here. What do I do? If I wanted to discern what is best, I need to make a decision. What do I do? And that's where I want to focus on this short passage from Romans 12. Because I think there are two basic principles here that will help you, and I'll guide you. First of all, this passage Romans 12 1 and 2 teaches you that you need to offer your life to God. If you're just looking for a fortune cookie or a genie, Christianity is not the path for you. It won't help you. It begins with consecration as we see in this first verse. I urge you brothers and you of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your act of spiritual worship. Now let me unpack that very briefly. First of all, this means to offer yourself to God means, first of all, that you always remember who God is. Now, this, again, this may feel like backtracking to some of you who are ready to make a decision that you can't miss this. To offer yourself to God, first of all, means you must remember who he is. He says, therefore, in view of God's mercy, which means when it comes to my life and looking at a decision, anything that is before me, I have to know who God is, and that is, God is the God who, though holy, nonetheless, in Jesus Christ has demonstrated his mercy toward me, that he would forgive my sin, and not only that, take the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, a righteousness that is alien to me and yet offer it to me by faith so that when God sees me, he welcomes and joys and delights in me in the beauty that is Jesus. To this God is, and I don't know if you notice, this is kind of awkward when we begin with this verse, it begins with the therefore, therefore, friends, it says, right, therefore brothers and the therefore, obviously it's referring to Romans 1 through 11. Here's a guy who warms up over a long period of time, a long-winded preacher, that's what the apostle Paul is, and basically to summarize, Romans 1 through 11, he says, you're a sinner. In fact, it's worse than you think, but God has shown mercy in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus, there's no condemnation, there's no condemnation, there are amazing purposes, impenetrable purposes, but know this, God will have mercy, that's what Romans 1 through 11 says, therefore, in view of these mercies, offer your bodies to come as a living sacrifice, and that's the second thing. You've got to get the gospel, you've got to see who he is, but the one I'm dealing with is one who has sent Jesus, because he knows I'm a sinner, but he wants to have mercy on me. He knows I've made horrible mistakes, but he can and will, show mercy to me. I've got to see that, and that in view, that never goes away, you never take your eyes off the cross, you never take your eyes off the empty tomb, and when you feel anxiety in a situation, it's because you're not keeping God's mercy in view, and you're not keeping God's promises in view, therefore, in view of the mercies of God, offer your bodies to him as a living sacrifice, and I think what we're being taught here, secondly, is that we offer him our entire life. Often we hear about sacrifices, we think about the sin offering, you know, offerings that are offered for the guilt of your sin, and I don't think that's what's in view here, because he says, offer your bodies. In the Old Testament, when a body of an animal, the entire body of an animal was offered, what was in view there was what's called the whole burnt offering. And there were some very specific things about the whole burnt offering. When the whole burnt offering was given, you couldn't get that sheep that you wanted to kill anyway, you know, the one that kind of lent and, you know, the wall was kind of, falling out, and, you know, let's sacrifice this one, the law forbade it. The law said, find the sheep that is absolutely without blemish, find the best one, and offer that to God. And what's the point there, you give them all of you, you give them all of you, you give your best, you give the what is most costly, that beautiful story we read about Mary, what did Jesus say when she took the most expensive thing in her house, cracked it open, and poured over his feet? Remember, we just read it, and Jesus said, she gets it, she gets it. Take your best, no leftovers, and this, this obviously, when you talk about your bodies, that means everything pertaining to you. This is talking about your money, it's talking about your time, it's talking about your values, and your priorities, you offer all of that to God, and to offer all of that to Him means, very simply, I'll just put it to you simply, it means that you commit to obey Him in every area where you know the Scripture speak to you. You commit to obey Him in everything, you know, you're going to fail, but that's your commitment. You want to know Him, you want to know His purposes, commit to obey Him, and secondly, you receive whatever He sends your way with thanks. You commit, what does it mean to be a whole burn offering to the Lord? Everything I've got, I obey you actively, and everything I can understand, and discern, and whatever you providentially burn my way, I will not be afraid, I'll receive it with thanks. A living sacrifice, and by the way, that's an oxymoron, because the word sacrifice there in the originals, the word to kill, a living killing, and what is in view here is, yes, on the one hand, you're constantly remembering who God is in the gospel, and at the same time, you're remembering who you are as a sinner, and so as a living killing, there's a constant war, there's a constant sense in which you're killing your desire to be your own God. You're killing your own desire to have control over your circumstances, to have total knowledge and total power over your life. You kill that, and you offer your life to Him, and you offer yourself to His purposes. Do you see what's in view here? A living killing, offer yourself to God. And that is fine, just in that verse, what He says, He says, now this is your spiritual act of worship. The word spiritual there is the Greek word logicon. I don't know why they translated it as spiritual actually, because the word means reasonable. The Old King James actually got it a lot better than the NIV. This is your reasonable act of worship, and that's exactly what it means, logic, reason. And it's saying, listen, obey the gospel. If the gospel's true, the only sensible way to live your life is to give Him everything. This is the insanity of it, you know, the atheist and the fanatic both understand the deal. And yet all in the middle, there are many, many fools who halfway will leave the gospel. And I think this is just getting at the absolute insanity of that. Either, Jesus is who He said He was and is, and you follow Him, and you give yourself to Him or do something else. It's pursue the reasonable thing, pursue the logical thing. If He's God, if His mercy is true, if this is the plan, then make His purposes, your purposes. Make His agenda, your agenda. Make His kingdom, the kingdom that you're committed to, that's the only reasonable thing to do. And then the second point is this, offer yourself to Him's the first point. Offer yourself to God. In view of who He is in the gospel, offer yourself to Him as a whole, we're not offering everything about you to Him because that's the only thing that makes sense if this stuff's true. But secondly, there's a second command here, and it's in the second verse, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good pleasing and perfect will. There are two things you're told to do, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. And secondly, be transformed, and I would make the point this way, you're to offer yourself to God and secondly, you're to be transformed into someone who knows God's will. That's simple. Offer yourself to God and be transformed into someone who knows God's will. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world. He has a great thing in the book of Nehemiah. There's a wonderful story about what happened when Nehemiah was sent to rebuild the walls. He goes back to Jerusalem, Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Babylonians, and his task is to lead a return party and to rebuild these destroyed walls. And yet there's opposition, and so in the midst of opposition, we're told that the people who carry the materials, carry materials in one hand, and they carry a sword in the other hand. And frankly, that's a pretty good picture of exactly what Paul's painting first here. That a person who's learning to know what God's mind is and what God's will is, is somebody who understands that I've got materials in one hand and a sword on the other. All right. So what I'm sure is this, to understand that the culture around you, that you absorb in one, you know, there's so many wonderful things around us. The arts, entertainment, politics, the bags of our culture, there's so many wonderful things about culture. Don't hear this as an absolute assault against culture, but understand this in this world and in all human cultures and in all enterprise, there will always be a spiritual, cultural principle that there are always alternatives to God's ways, always around you, always, always. If you just listen and look and chameleon-like, try to reflect what the culture says, you will be in odds with the will of God and the kingdom of God. That's what this text is saying. JB Phillips and his translation just says, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. There's always a squeezing, there's always an alternative, and by the way, there's alternatives coming, right wing and left wing varieties. Don't just always look at the left and go, aha, the world, trust me, it's everywhere. It could be alternatives about your money, it could be alternatives about your lifestyle, it could be alternatives about your gender, it could be alternatives about your sexuality, it could be alternatives about what you, the way you want to spend your time, there's always an alternative out there. This text is saying, don't let that drive you, but rather than that, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now right here Paul doesn't tell us how to renew your mind, but all over the place he tells you how to ruin your mind and other places and other texts. The renewing of the mind, very simply, has to do with, I would say, three things in Scripture. It has to do with that principle we heard in the assurance of pardon that the Lord who is the Spirit is transforming you into the image of Christ, so first of all it means coming into a living relationship with Jesus Christ so that His Spirit is within you, so that you are becoming like Him, so that you have eyes to see the kingdom of God, so that you have eyes to discern that the alternatives are lies, and that the kingdom of God is real. So it begins by knowing Him spiritually through faith, but secondly it begins, you renew your mind as you begin to know God's mind through where God speaks in the Scriptures, so that the word of God is, as we spoke about last week, begins to dwell in you ritually, so that the truths of God become your truths, even though on your own the Bible says your thoughts are not like His thoughts, your instinct is not like His instinct, you are not like God. And yet as Jesus comes into your life, as the word of God becomes your bread, Jesus says you don't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, as that becomes your bread and your food, guess what? You begin to transform, you begin to think differently, you begin to live for different things, and this kingdom of God becomes what fills your imagination, it becomes the reality you live for because it's all of them are reality. And thirdly that's done in the community of the church of God's people. This isn't just an individualistic, pietistic exercise, but it's something that you do in the community with God's people because whenever two are more gathered there's a unique way in which Jesus shows up to be present in our lives. So knowing Him, knowing His word, and knowing His people, there's a unique sense in which you become transformed as someone who knows God's will. And notice that He says here that it is His perfect will, you will be able to test and approve what His perfect will is, well listen, don't you understand what He's saying there? The will of God, there is no unperfect will of God, that's just describing the will of God as it's revealed to us in Jesus. Jesus revealed to us the will of God, which is summarized in the law. You should love the Lord your God with your whole heart, that's perfect, and you love your neighbor as yourself, that's perfect, be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. What does that mean? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, that's what's perfect because Jesus is perfect, that's who Jesus is. And He's describing the act of living, as you live and you grow in this reality of who Jesus is, you begin to grow as you test and discern things to see how to love, how to love Him perfectly, how to love others perfectly, that becomes a reality for you, as you live in this community, as this word becomes your food, in this community, God will begin to show you what His ways are, what His ways are like. So when it's time to make a decision, that's why it's important to pray, it's why it's important to be in community so that you can seek the counsel of people who know Him better than you do, and who can give you the wisdom of the Word of God so that you're able to test discern and grow in what is perfect. You know, Augustine summarized this beautifully, he said, you want to know God's will, love God, and do what you will, that's not flip, all right, that makes a lot of sense, you want to know God's will, why don't you love Him, focus on that, and make your decisions based on that truth, and trust Him, why don't God's will, love God, do what you will. Imagine if you will, three circles, the first circle, this is when it comes to decision-making, is the circle of things that are prohibited. You look in there and there's scripture saying, you shall not commit adultery, there's someone here today and you're wrestling with a decision or whether or not you should have an affair, I'm going to go out on a whim here and say, no, that's what it means to be a Christian. When the scriptures say no, they mean no, and some of the pressure and pain in your life right now is because there's something you want that you know your loving father has said no to, and somehow you're hoping through sophistication or some kind of way, you don't understand, you're hoping somehow that you can hang on to that thing that your father has said no. So you need to turn away from it, it's that simple, turn away, stop, say no. The grace of God that has appeared in this world has given us the power to say no to ungodliness. The gospel will give you the power you made to turn away from it, but there's a second circle, and that's that circle of positive commands where we look at what the scriptures tell us how to love God and how to love our neighbor and how to be wise, and that's where we spin the vast majority of our time, turning away from things we know the scriptures forbid, turning toward the things God tells us to be doing. And as we live in that circle of obedience, as we live in that circle of learning as ways we grow in wisdom, we grow in Christ's likeness. But I want to conclude because there's a third circle, and that's third circle is where we get into areas where we're no longer dealing with disobedience, but there are several options in front of you that could be equally, from all you can tell, equally valid options for you in a decision. So that, for example, you become a Christian, you want to marry a Christian woman, there are three women who are all really attractive to you, who you really alike, you're in love with all three of them, and you're trying to make a decision, it happens. And you say, how do I know God's will, what am I supposed to do here? And I think it is here that the left hand of guidance, apologies to people who are left handed, but the left hand of guidance comes in, which is providence. You see, you've got the right hand of guidance, the capital G of guidance, the reveal that you're supposed to focus on, and many, many mistakes happen when you start trying to focus on the left hand of guidance, trying to discern what am I supposed to be doing, trying to do the knowledge, and yet there's a place for these things. Remember I talked to you about this, this is where people say, what about coincidences? What about holy henshes, you know, just that sense that, oh, this is what I'm supposed to do, or amazing coincidences? How has God at work in those things, do you believe God's at work, and this is where you've got to navigate between two Christian extremes out there? You've got the deists, all right, particularly among the reform people, we have deists, people who go avoid all these things, la, la, la, la, la, somebody says, you know, God's guiding me, you go, la, la, la, la, but I want to hear that. I want to hear you that spooky stuff, and on the other hand, you've got the mystics, you know, the person who wants to live their life by the amazing miracles that are happening all the time. I think I'm supposed to go to the mission field, I'm supposed to get married and go to the mission field. I feel led to go to the Marshall Islands because I felt the call while I was shopping at Marshall's, and then I met this guy in his name Marshall, and he's from Marshall, Texas, and you want to live your life that way. As though this is, yeah, this is how God works, trust me. God's Providence is one of the ways He works and helps you make decisions. You think you're going to go on vacation in Miami, and there's a hurricane, okay, God's kind of cleared that up for you, didn't he? Okay, God works in your feelings and in your hunches all the time. There's a number of this church two weeks ago who ordinarily, because of his job, sleeps late, and he had sleeplessness, could not sleep, got up to make a pot of coffee, and a tree limb fell through his roof and speared his bed right in the place where he sleeps. Now that he goes, woo, what luck, no, no, of course not. The only response of a person's faith is to say, God, thank you, thank you for not letting me sleep because you have a purpose for me to be alive. All right there, when I break a window that does happen, someone wants to say it. All right, yes, God works in amazing ways, however, if you come to a decision and you feel uneasy, you have profound distress. That isn't necessarily me, and how has, you know, he's got it work in your unease? Of course he's at work, but what are you supposed to do with it? Go back to what's revealed. You feel uneasy about getting married, you feel uneasy about a job, that it means stop being lazy and wanting a fortune cookie, pray about the decision. Look at the scriptures to find wisdom, go to wise counselors, get some input from people who know you, who know the situation so that you make an informed decision, use the providence, use the experience, but don't live by it. Same way, if you feel just great about this decision, that is not an excuse for laziness. You still need to seek God's face and prayer. You still need to seek the wisdom of the scriptures. You still need the wisdom and advice of other people. Use whichever providence you receive to go down the path God calls you on. Now, if you're here today and you said, I just want to tell you something, I put out a fleece. That's a euphemism people will use to say, you know, God, I need to know your will for my wife. So I'll tell you what, Lord, the first Brunette who walks in this room, I'm going to pursue her and marry her as a sign from you, and pastor, that is what I did, and now I'm the most happily married person in the world, so there. And what I would say to you is all this proof is that God's mercy far exceeds your stupidity and your disobedience to seek to test God when the scriptures have told you not to put into the test. I love that passage in Isaiah 43 that we were read, that told the exiles coming back, you know, that's the thing that God is going to do, the plan and prophecy has for their lives. He says, don't worry, this new thing I'm going to do, you can't miss it. That's what it means to trust the God who's in control of it all, to know that He is going to work through, even my mistakes, you know that there are mistakes God wants you to make so that He can humble you, so that He can show you what really matters and that that's part of the plan too. I said I can conclude, I really will. One of my favorite passages in the whole Bible is from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 1, and I think it's verse, I have to look in, it's verse 6, and it says this, it's talking about Jesus the son of David who would come into the world, the savior of the world, and it says this, David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been your Ryah's wife. Do you know I love about that passage, do you see it? It's taking one of the greatest mistakes ever made, the sinful adultery and murder of David, and yet God even taking that mistake, and we've even get into his plan to bring Jesus into the world as the true son of David, the king who would order all things. What does that mean? It means for the Christian who knows that Jesus has died for you, has risen for you, and is coming back for you, and some day you will reign with Him. It means there is no plan B, there is no plan G, did not fear. Our Father, we seek You, we seek Your wisdom. There are many of us who have perplexing issues, perplexing questions on our lives, and we need You. We need Your guidance, we need Your wisdom, but above all, Lord, we need to know that if You are for us, who can be against us, we need to know the truths that will lead us above all to trust Christ and to trust You with our lives. We need us to Him, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.