- Well, hey everybody, men, I wanna welcome you to Highlands today, wherever you are. And I wanna say a special shout out to all you folks over in Grundy, Virginia, you guys have been incredible, I know you watch us on TV. Thanks so much for all your encouragement and kindness and your feedback. And wherever you're listening from today, whether it's one of our in-person gatherings at one of our locations or TV or online, hey, thanks so much for being with us today. And I love feedback whether it's good or what do you want me to improve in some way, feedback is my friend. So always give us an email or shoot us a text, or go to the hub and get all the notes. Some of you have you been asking about this booklet that we've been sharing. So the book is available on our website, you can just go to the website and go to highlandsfellowship/hub and you'll get all these message notes and you can have a small group, even with your family. Lots and lots of people have joined a small group through the series. It's been really fun to see you take your next step spiritually, and so I'm excited for you. So we're in this series today is week four on thrive. And some of you said, how did you get the name of that? Because I began asking people all over this pandemic season in the last 20 months, how you doing? And the response was always, well, pastor, I'm surviving, I'm surviving. But we know when we study the word of God that he wants us to do more than survive, before we're his kids, right? He wants us to thrive. So we laid the foundation in week one, we looked at how to be spiritually healthy. Then we looked at what stressed us, our physical bodies, we looked at how to be physically healthy. Hey, last week we talked about managing our mind so we can be mentally healthy. And today I wanna give sort of the twin brother of last week's message. I wanna look at how to manage our emotions, manage our feelings. I want you to be emotionally healthy, it's where we're going today. So the scriptures that we've looked at through this series have all been very familiar scriptures to you. Today I wanna look at one that I think sets up for the message. And it's what Jesus told us was the greatest commandment of all. So look at this passage with me, this is what Jesus says in Mark 12:29-30. This is what he says. He says, "The most important commandment of everything he said, this is what our mission here at Highlands is built on is you must love the Lord your God catch this with all your heart." So the heart is the seat of our emotions, right? So we have a heart relationship with Jesus. He wants us to love him with all of our heart. He wants us to love him with all your soul, all of our mind that we looked at last week and all of your strength. I think that covers everything right? Jesus wants us to have a real, emotional feeling relationship with him. He just doesn't want us had knowledge about our relationship with him, right? He wants us to have a personal relationship with Jesus it's a heart thing. And he wants you to be reminded of that today. So, what's the big idea? Here's the big idea today's message. If I can actually understand my emotions, then I can actually manage my emotions. Now we think my goodness, that's so simple. It may be simple and it may sound simple, but I will tell you it's hard to do. And before we get into the why and the how, let me get, let's just a little bonus today all right I wanna give you a few facts about our emotions. Here's the first thing. Did you know that God has emotions? God has feelings. Many people don't realize this, but our God is an emotional God. And the only reason that you have emotions is because why? We are made in God's image. If because God has the ability to feel he's given us the ability to feel. So the second thing is that the ability to feel is really a gift from God. You know, when you feel love and when you feel kindness and when you're able to encourage and you're generous and you're faithful, all those emotions that you have are a gift to you from a God who actually has similar emotions. And because he has those emotions and we're made in his image, then we have those emotions. So God has feelings and he's given us the gift to have emotions as well. Now there's a couple of extremes, when we talk about our emotions that I want us to at least discuss today all right? You may find yourself in one of these, not that bad, I just wanna help you not to get to the extreme level. Here they are. There's two extremes we need to avoid. The first one is, is emotionalism all right? And when our life is all about emotionalism, we think all it really matters in my life is how I feel right? And if it feels good, doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, if I've got this feeling then I'm gonna do it. And that's the extreme of emotionalism. And so many people, especially during this pandemic season are actually being controlled by how they feel. And when we're controlled, by how we feel, we've gone to this extreme level where it's all based on my emotions. And we can allow our emotions to control our lives, dominate our life. They can actually run our life if I'm an extremely emotional person. So, hey, it's good to have emotions, we just don't need to be extreme by it. And here's the other side of that, stoicism. Stoicism actually means that there's people in our worlds, that feelings aren't important at all. They're not important at all. If you're a stoic, you're gonna give all of your allegiance to the mind and the intellect and your will. And you're gonna completely avoid feeling any kind of emotions at all, because you don't think they matter. Now, what's really funny to me, and there's a lot of research on this is that often when we get to talking about marriage, that Stoics often choose to marry people who are extremely emotional people and the opposite, right? Emotional people, they actually marry Stoics, it's really about 80% of the time, it's so crazy. And when you get this in a marriage, then you know what happens? Well, you have one who is a stuffer and you got one who's a gusher. And stuffers always get frustrated with gushers because they think, oh my goodness, you're so emotional, it's all about your feelings. And gushers get so frustrated with stuffers because they think you have no emotion at all. You completely closed down. You have no feelings. Well, it's pretty funny when you think about it, so much of marriage counseling that we've done in the past, we see this over and over and over. These are extreme positions where our feelings are concerned. And I just wanna encourage you, they're both good, you just need to be somewhere in the middle of that, all right? You don't need to be extreme on either side of that. Again, just bonus before we really get into the message. This is so interesting to me that there are entire Christian denominations that have been built on these two extremes. You probably know some other Christians who have decided that it doesn't really matter how you feel, please don't bring feelings into this. The only thing that really matters is the black and the white of the truth of the word of God. And they downplay emotions all together. You know, they don't wanna have anything in any of their gatherings or services that resemble emotions, our feelings at all, complete Christian denominations built on this. And then we also know that there are other Christians that say emotionalism is all that matters, when they come to church, they're looking for emotion. When they worship, they want an ocean of emotion. Matter of fact, they think, hey if my mind and my heart has not been massaged in some way, when I have that moment of worship, then I've wasted my time. I might as well as staying home today. Well, both of those honestly are extreme positions from what the word of God teaches. God gave you both a mind and he gave you emotion and they're both important. So last week we talked about how to manage our mind, today I wanna answer the same two questions of why and how we should manage our emotion? So let's get into this. Why should I manage my emotions? Why do I need to do that? Well, here's let me give you four things. Here's the first one, because I can't trust my feelings, I just can't. They can lead you often in the wrong direction. How many times have you thought I know this is the right thing. I know I'm feeling this thing. I just feel it deep down in my gut, and you act on it, you make the decision, it turns out to be a very, very bad decision. Anybody done that? I think every one of us have done that. Here's the problem, your gut is often wrong, you can't depend on what you feel. Now is a biblical principle notice here in Proverbs 14:12 see what it says, he says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Now, maybe the decisions you've made, obviously you're here, it hadn't led to death, but we've made some boneheaded decisions, When we just rely on our feelings 'cause we can't trust our feelings. Just because you feel it doesn't make it true, and oftentimes our feelings are wrong and our feelings can take us and guide us in the wrong direction, so We need to learn. We can't trust our feelings. Here's the second reason we needed to manage our emotions because I don't wanna be falsely controlled. And I don't think you wanna be falsely controlled. If you don't control your emotions, you know what happens? They control you. And then you know what? You'll be referred to as anybody ever called you, he's just a moody person, she's just moody. Now I struggle with moody people more than anything, I'm just being transparent with you. And you're moody if one day you're just exuberant and you're on top of the world, and the next day you don't speak. Like we all know people like this, right? I mean, you never know what you're gonna get. And one day they'll say, oh my goodness you just must like man I feel like I'm their best friend and the next day, well, they hate my guts you know, because they're controlled by their moods. And if you allow your emotions to control you rather than doing what's right, then you're always gonna be falsely manipulated by your feelings. And you know what happens, honestly, it allows other people to take advantage of you. In fact, advertisers are actually trained to stir up your emotions because they know if they can get you hooked emotionally that you're gonna buy the product, they're trying to get you to buy. So, hey, intentionally, you know the color of the packaging, the music in the commercial, what they say is extremely scripted. And they have these details on how to get an emotional response from you. And all of a sudden, we all made decisions where we buy based on emotion, what do we call that? Impulse buying, when you buy stuff you really don't need. You probably may not even want. We've all done that, right? Most of us have anyway, and you go home and now you've got this new thing and you think, oh my goodness, why did I buy that? I can't afford it, I don't even need it. Oh, this is terrible. Why? Because the guy or the lady somehow got your emotions stirred up and you impulse bought something. That's how you can be falsely manipulated by incorrect feelings. What's the scripture say about it? Proverbs 25:28 says, "If you're this way that here, like a city whose walls are broken through is the person who lacks self-control." Self-control is all about our emotions. You have no check on your feelings. You have no manager on your feelings. You then are like a city that is completely defenseless, you have no defense whatsoever. Worst of all, when we looked at this last week, we know one of our enemies is Satan, right? And Satan's favorite tool is negative emotions. And what he does is he bombard you with fear and resentment and jealousy and he brings all this stuff against you. He'll cause you to be bitter, and he says, you need to worry and you need to be anxious, he'll stir up panic within you. Satan loves to use shame of our past mistakes. His favorite tool against you is negative emotions. And guys, if you don't know how to manage your emotions, if you don't understand why this is so important, you can allow the enemy to rob you of the joy and the ability to thrive in your life. We have an enemy. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 he says, "Be self-controlled control your emotions and be alert because your enemy the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." If you don't manage your emotions, dude I wanna tell you the devil will eat you for lunch. He will, because you can be falsely manipulated by all these negative feelings he pours into your life. Why I need to manage my emotions? These are so important, here's third reason, because I wanna honor God with my life. I think you're here, you're watching online, you're somewhere watching the message today. You wanna get a handle on your emotions because you truly desire deep down to honor God with your life. And yet I know my feelings are often unreliable and God cannot be God in my life, if my emotions are God in my life, right? I mean, God can't rule my life, if I allow my emotions to rule my life. Jesus, can't be Lord of my life, if my emotions are Lord of my life. If I make all my decisions, simply based on how I feel, then I've made feelings, my God is my idol. So notice what Paul says here in Romans chapter eight, look at verse six, he says, "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the spirit control your mind actually will lead to life and peace." For the sinful nature again we looked at that last week, if you missed it go back is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, it never will. That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. So you can't honor God if you are allowing your feelings, your emotions to dominate your life, they'll ruin your life every time. And your decisions are made based on how you feel rather than what God's word says. It's so important to manage your emotions. Here's the fourth reason that I've got to manage my emotions because I actually want my life to be a success. God wants your life to be a success, he really does. And I think this is the number one predictor of success are actually failure in your life. Do you know how to manage your mood? I mean, do you? Do you know how to manage your mood? Do you know how to deal with your feelings? Do you know, have you actually learned how to control your emotions? Because the truth is friends, if you don't learn how to do this, you're never gonna be the success that God wants you to be and honestly that you wanna be. Notice what the Bible says here in Proverbs chapter five, look at verse 23. This is what the scripture says. People get lost, now he's talking about just lost in life, okay? Just without direction, without vision. "People get lost and they actually die, this is to themselves of their foolishness and lack of self-control." How many people do you know who have actually ruin their reputation because they had a lack of self-control? How many people do you know that actually ruined a job opportunity because they did something stupid, said something stupid act in some stupid way, and because of their ability to control their emotions, they've ruined a great opportunity? When you give your heart to Jesus, it actually includes your emotions. Did you know that? He wants all of you, because the heart is the seat of your emotions. And Jesus wants to be Lord of your emotions. Over in 1 Peter 4, Peter says this in verse two, he says, "From now on, you must live the rest of your earthly lives, catch what Peter says controlled by God's will and not human desires." Those two words, human desires, actually the translation is actually by your feelings. Don't live your life controlled by your feelings, the desires of your feelings. So what are human desires? Your emotions, right? It's your affections, it's how you feel. So he says, hey, the rest of your life. If you're a believer, if you claim the name of Christ and you call yourself a Christian, your life is to actually be controlled by God's will and his Spirit, not by how you feel, not by how you feel. So that's the why these four reasons there could be many more actually, I have so much trouble in these messages of actually narrowing down what we wanna teach on because I could do a series on almost every one of these right? Emotional health and mental health, it's crazy. But I wanna give you four good reasons as to why you need to learn how to manage your emotions. Now, how do you do it? How do you manage your emotions? Well, again, this is really important because I wanna spend the rest of our time together on this, on how to take an unmanageable, unwanted feeling and how to manage that. So last week we talked about how to manage our mind this week I wanna talk to you about how to manage your heart, okay? And if you wanna succeed in life, here's the deal. You have to learn how to master your moods, you just do. And when you have a mood, when you have an emotion and you know, in your life, it's not getting you where you wanna go, all right? I mean maybe sometimes we wake up, we're on the wrong side of the bed you know and sometimes we don't wanna talk to anybody. And sometimes we've got this mood going on, we've not managed our feelings correctly. We're not the person that we know God wants us to be. You've got this unmanageable feeling, this negative feeling in your life, how do you manage it? Well, I wanna give you two things all right? And these I think will really work. You can either change it or you can channel it, change it or channel it. So what do I mean by that? Sometimes you just need to change what you're feeling. It's you gotta change it. Some emotions are so destructive, they're so hurtful that the only thing you can do, the only option you have when you get into that mess is you gotta change it. You just have to change well you know, it sounds easy for you, but you don't know the shoes I've been walking in. You don't know the path I've been led to go down. You stay change it, oh, it sounds so simple. Let's look at the scripture. Notice what Paul says here in Philippians two, look at verse five. He says, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ." So let's think about this just for a second. If you're a child of God, Paul has he's wrestled with these unmanageable destructive emotions, right? He said so many negative feelings from his past and he had a terrible past. All of the things he did against Christians, you know think about this. And yet Paul, while he's in a prison sale has an attitude, and he writes a book. The book of Philippians that's, the theme is joy. How in the world did Paul go from a killer of Christians to being in a prison sale and have the joy of God in his life? It is in his attitude all right? He learned how to manage destructive feelings. And basically he says I had changed those. When I had these destructive feelings that come over my life, I had to change those. When the enemy would throw my past, back in front of me, I just had to change it. And God has given me by the Holy Spirit's power within me to actually change my attitude that I can have the same attitude. My goal every day, every hour is to have the same attitude as Jesus Christ. So when we find ourselves in situations where we were in a mood, you know, our emotions have tanked, we're upset or whatever you have to ask yourself, how would Jesus handle this situation? Would Jesus be irritated at the waitress or the waiter because they didn't do everything me, me, me wanting? No. Would Jesus be yelling at the person? No. Would Jesus be up wringing his hands and worrying that oh, it's just not gonna work out, I'm not gonna have what I need here, I see gloom and doom. No. Would Jesus be fearful? No. Would he be worried? No. So let's think about this just for a second, because I know some of you push back on me, I get this and you just think, oh, you don't know how bad I wanna change these crazy emotions I have. Well how do you do it? Well, these aren't in your notes, but man, you might wanna think about this. Here's a real idea of how you change, when you have these unwanted feelings. The first thing you gotta do, you just gotta call attention to it. And we know it's an unwanted feeling, right? We know that's not where we want our mind to go. We know we don't wanna be thinking on, so now you got admitted, you just gotta call attention to it. And then the second thing, I think you got to recognize, hey, this is exactly the opposite of how Jesus would be handling this, when I start getting angry about something, right? Then I gotta call attention to that. I have to say, I have to recognize my anger is about to get out of control here. I gotta recognize that I'm going to a place I don't need to go, and then just gotta call it out. I'll just have to say, it's not where I wanna go, I just call it out, this is not how Jesus wants me to be all right? This is the attitude of myself, it's what the enemy wants, it is not what he wants. And then the Holy Spirit, actually gives us the power to replace it, when we call the attention to it, we've recognized it, we called it out. We replace it then with how Jesus would respond and we're able to do that. We can change the way that we feel. Just refuse to let that attitude define you, refuse to do it. Sometimes when you talk about friends or family or whoever it is and their name comes up, we're a lot of times we're known by something you know and hopefully it's something good, but sometimes it's not. And sometimes the person's name will come up and you'll go, oh man, they just seemed to be always angry. They seem to be always upset. They're so negative, they're never positive. They are always down in the dumps. They're always gloom and doom. Well, if you've ever had those things said about you on a consistent basis, feedback is your friend. And guys just look through this, you can actually, if you're a child of God, you actually have the power to change what you're feeling. Your attitude needs to be the same as the attitude of Jesus. So just dismiss any feeling that's negative from him and just learn that Jesus wouldn't be prideful. Jesus is not gonna be envious. Jesus is not gonna allow himself to get bitter. Jesus is not gonna be enraged with anger because something happened to him. No, he's not gonna be in those ways. He's gonna instantly drop the attitude, his gonna change it. The first thing you do is change it. Here's the second thing on how to manage your emotions. You can actually channel it. You can just channel it. What you're feeling, you can actually sometimes even when it's negative or even when it's a feeling that you're about to go, I'm not really sure this is a good thing for me. Well, rather than act on it and rather than changing it, just channel it. You say what does it mean? Well, you decide that you're gonna use this feeling for good. Now stay with me here. For instance, let's say that you've been the victim of injustice all right? You've experienced prejudice, maybe racial profiling to some degree, or you've experienced something unfair that has happened to you in the classroom or in the workplace, wherever it might be. You had something unfair happened in your life. Well, what happens? I mean, just by our human nature, there is a feeling there is an emotion that begins to rise within you. And what is it's anger, right? We're getting mad here, it's a legitimate response. So I have to ask, is my anger gonna get me what I want? No, probably not. Almost always your anger is not gonna get you what you want. But can my anger be used to help other people? Well, yes it can. And all of a sudden you become a champion for justice because you know what it means to have experienced injustice. And does that make sense? I mean, you just channel it. So when you take a negative emotion, much like anger, and when you use your anger, not for your benefit, 'cause that's selfish anger, it's a sin. But when you use your anger for the benefit of other people, it has the potential to be what the Bible calls, righteous anger. Notice what Paul says in Ephesians 4, look at verse 26. He says, "In your anger don't sin, don't sin" So, it's what you do with your anger, and it's the reason you're angry that causes it to be sin or not. But you can get angry, God got angry. The only reason you have the ability to get angry and you have this feeling is because again, you're made in God's image. God gets angry at so many things. He gets angry at sin. He gets angry at evil. God gets angry when people are abused and misused, God hates injustice. So those of you that are unbelievers, you must why God hates that and this is happening. Why in the world, if he's God, why don't he put a stop to it? Because we learned last week that God gave us an amazing gift, he gave us a free choice. God could have eliminated it in one instant, but you have a free choice, every one of us do. And with a free choice, we can either do good, or we can do bad. God could have made us robots if he had wanted to do that. But he gave us this amazing gift of a free choice. So God says, you can actually take a negative emotion and you can rechannel it and you can use it in a very positive way. Let me a couple of other examples here. Let's say some of you you've emailed me over this series and you said, hey, I really wanna be married, I'm single, I have so much love to give. And I just can't find the right partner, it just hasn't happened for you. So you know, what I think is happening in your life, your love is blocked, right? I mean, you have love to give, but you just hadn't found the right person, or some of you are married and you've just said pastor we know we'd be great parents, we truly want children and we're unable to have children, it just hasn't happened. And so you have all this love for kids, but your love is sort of blocked to date. So what do you do with a blocked love? I mean, what do you do that? I mean do you this is what sometimes it's what the enemy wants you to do. He wants you to pull yourself back into a prison he wants you to lock the door, pull up the draw bridge, fill the moat with alligators and say, I am never, I am never gonna let anybody hurt me again. This is what you do? No, no, you don't, that's not what you wanna do. What do you do with the blocked love? You rechannel it. Maybe you didn't get to love the person that you wanted to love, but here's the truth guys. The world is in need of the love you have to offer. There are so many other places and people that you could experience love, and you could share love with in a world that is desperate for that. Well, maybe you didn't get to have children and you wanted to have kids, hey, rechannel it, because this is what we know, there's 137 million orphans in our world today. Think about that 137 million. And there are children not out there in Africa and all these places that seem so far away from us. Hey guys, there are hundreds of kids in Southwest Virginia and upper East Tennessee that need a family to love them. So many of you Highlander's man, you guys, I'm so proud of you because you've taken the step and you wanna read one of these injustices that's right here in our back door. And now we have almost a hundred families that have fostered and have adopted in our church. Guys, we're truly making a difference. You just rechannel a blocked love and you use it for good. Because if you don't change the emotion, you're gonna let that emotion ruin you put you in a bad mood and cause you not to be the person God wanted you to be. So what pain are you experiencing in your life? Because I think what God does is your greatest ministry often comes from your deepest pain. So take that huge emptiness, that huge pain that you have and just rechannel it, just rechannel it. How do you let the Holy Spirit change an emotion that's hurting you or maybe hurting other people in your life? This is what I wanna wind up with, all right? So, let me give you three ways to it, here's the first one. Everyday just ask God to fill you with his Spirit. A long, long time ago, I learned this at a leadership conference that I went to, that was really sort of one of those things I look back on in my life, it was one of those defining moments. And there was a gentleman, a guy from Kenya, Africa who was teaching about mentoring young leaders. And he said, one of the most successful things he ever did was he learned that before his feet ever touched the floor, that every morning he just said, Holy Spirit, fill me today. I need your Spirit in my life because it's not by my might or power, but by your Spirit. And he said, then I began to learn that the fruit of the Holy Spirit became the emotions and the moods that I was having. What's fruit of the spirit? Well Galatians five tells us look, 22 and 23. Paul says when the holy spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us Love. Is this how you would describe yourself? This is what you're giving to other people, your family, your friends, your workplace. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, I hope so. Just every morning you wanna manage your emotions before you start your day, God, Holy Spirit fill me. Second thing, I think so important everyday, I just asked God to help me manage my mouth. Because my emotions, when I start going in a negative way from where God wants me to be what I usually do, I usually engage my mouth before I engage my mind. And often I'll say things that are hurtful to other people. And I say God, your Holy Spirit can help me here. Help me to manage my mouth. In Proverbs 13:3, it says this, "Self-control means controlling the tongue." It's so just simple. Hey God, help me not say something stupid today. And then the last thing, and I've shared this with you every week. Usually I start with it today, I wanna end with it. I make God's word my word. It's so important to get into God's word everyday. You say man, you always say that, I don't know if I believe it or not, we'll just start doing it and see, see if your life doesn't change. Memorize challenge yourself to memorize a few verses, and when you don't have the Bible with you, you don't have the phone app close to you or whatever. You'll be amazed at how the Holy Spirit will just bring up a verse that you've committed to memory to help you change or rechannel a negative emotion. Just put God's word, make it your word. I love what Psalm 119:11 says, says, "I have hidden your word in my heart the sea of emotions that I might not sin against you." Man, it's a powerful way to end. I know that managing emotions is difficult, who we've looked at the why, and we've looked at the how. And there's probably other ways that you can manage your emotions, but hey, God wants you to succeed in life. God has a plan and purpose for your life. And when you experience life with Jesus, I stay some there your life is gonna thrive and you're gonna thrive. That's what I want for you, that's what our church wants for you. That's what Jesus wants for you. So I wanna pray with you as we wrap this up and I wanna just pray that you know, that you can begin to put these things into place. Like many of you are and you're seeing your life changed from being in the valley, into a place where you're beginning to really grow in your Christian journey. So would you pray with me. God, thank you so much that we don't have to be controlled by our feelings. But Lord, it's so important that we understand feelings come from you. Our emotions, the reason we have the ability to feel it's from you, we are created in your image. And so God help us to truly manage our emotions in a way that would honor you. And for those of us that are struggling with all this negative junk, God just help us to change it. Help us to call it out, to bring attention to it. Lord help us to replace it with how you would want us to receive, and you would want us to act. Help us if we're a moody person to become a godly person. That whatever we are, we're consistent day in and day out with the same person, all the time controlled by your Spirit. So many of us when you've talked to me or you've called me out in the mall, or you've emailed me and you've shared with me, you really are hurting. A lot of you have this blocked love, that life the plan that you had hasn't really worked out yet. I would just say rechannel that love and whatever it is, that's caused you to be negative and in a valley and distrusting of the God who loves you, God may actually use your deepest hurt to become your greatest ministry. And just go make a difference for our Lord in this world. What an opportunity he's given us to do that. Lord, I pray if there's one that's watching online or on TV or one of our other locations, and you've never actually put your faith and hope in Jesus Christ. You know the scripture says today is the day of salvation. I would just encourage you to pray this prayer with me, just say, dear Jesus, I'm a sinner and I've made so many mistakes but today I confess my sin. I turn from it and I invite the Holy Spirit into my life. I ask you to save me. I surrender my life to you, Jesus. Today I join the family of God. And hey, if you prayed that prayer, we'd love to know about it. Online, just click that little box that says raised hand at one of our locations or on TV. How about emailing me or texting that number that you see there that you've just made this decision to receive Jesus. And for all of us that are children of God, Lord, may we know that we have the ability and the power because of God in us to actually manage and control our emotions. May we use that to bring other people to know you we ask it all in the name of Jesus. Amen.