well hey everybody man we're so glad you're here we just extend a special
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welcome you to you today and uh we are in the Book of Psalms last week Pastor
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James did an amazing job uh I think his message it stirred the hearts of so many
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of you uh all week long I've been receiving emails and Facebook messages
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about where you are thinking in your own life in this relationship as God being
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your father and my loved one James said I loved his illustrations and uh I I
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want to sort of build on where James left off last week and I want to talk to
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you today on this concept of God being our father so I want to welcome all of
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you here no matter if you're one of our in-person locations on vacation in your
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living room over in Chapel Cafe country wherever you are today I just want you
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to understand you're not listening by mistake I think God has a word for you today I think he wants to challenge all
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of us to be more like him and so let's get right into it remember we're going to look at Psalms but remember what
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Jesus taught Jesus in teaching us how to pray in Matthew's gospel he says in
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chapter 6 verse 9 he said this is how you should pray Our Father in heaven
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now when Jesus made that statement when we hear it today it's no big deal to us right because we sort of are used to
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being in the concept of God as our father in the culture in which we live
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today it's nothing new we hear that all the time but when Jesus shared those words two thousand years ago I'm going
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to tell you guys it was Radical stuff I mean it truly was and the hearers that
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Jesus shared this with I think they had to be absolutely shocked when he said hey when you pray God wants you to call
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him father now why was that so radical well it's real interesting because in
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the entire Old Testament God is only referred to as father seven times
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and the reason that I wanted to deal with this is because in the Book of Psalms out of all the books in the Old
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Testament this is where the case is built through a lot of David's writings that we have the opportunity to call God
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our Father so we're going to study that today from The Book of Psalms you're going to look at it we're going to dig a
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little deeper into it I want to try to address many of the emails and questions that you ask because when we go over to
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the New Testament we see that God has called our father over 150 times and
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then today again in our culture we just assume God is our father well the good
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news is that since God is a father then we
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know that he's a person you know our God that we worship and praise he's not some
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power uh you know God is not some kind of force or some kind of energy that we
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are called to relate to no we know that he is a person he is our father and when
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I think about this I can have a relationship with a father I mean I don't have a relationship with a power or energy or those kind of things but we
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can all have a true genuine relationship with a God who wants us to call him
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father however what James sort of stirred up in you last week was that when many of you
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hear that word father it conjures up within your mind lots of painful memories
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and some of you when you think of your Earthly father you have some deep resentment because you had a dad who was
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neglectful or you had a father who was abusive either verbally or physically you had a father who wasn't there in
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your life on those important occasions and you think you know if God is like my
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father then no thanks God okay I am out on that because I don't need a God like
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my dad well the truth is is that God is very very different from Human fathers
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I'm a human Dad I'm a human father and here's the truth about all of us we're very imperfect and god is perfect none
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of us as human fathers are perfect no matter the best that we try to do we're going to make mistakes we're going to
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blow it but God has never blown it you know it's sort of easy in the culture in
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which we live today to sort of come up with these distorted ideas about God
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and we look at the world in which we live and we look at all the things that are happening we don't understand that
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make no sense to us and I get it if you're not a Believer today you're not a Christian you would not identify as such
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then I think you can easily come up when you look at the world in which we live that God if he is truly real then surely
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he's unreasonable and if I were to give my life to God all that God's going to
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do what the world says is what he's going to take away all my fun he's going to take away all my enjoyment he's going
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to take away all my happiness God's just unreasonable or you might think he's unreliable you've had some things that
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have happened in your past this is what many of you wrote to me about and and and you prayed about it and even though
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you weren't a Christian you had never invited Christ into your life and and the Lord didn't he didn't answer your
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prayer you still felt like he owed you that answer to your prayer and because God didn't move in the situation you
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were asking him to move in and you just came to the conclusion he's unreliable or some of you think that God is just
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unconcerned you know why the world if there is a God who created all the
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things we see why in the world would he be concerned about me he's too busy to be concerned about me he don't have time
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to deal with my little puny life surely he's got bigger things to take care of than me he's just you know he's just
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unconcerned well I believe that there are many of you who
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come to Highlands or who actually watch on TV and and you think no matter how
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hard I try I can never please God I can never be
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good enough in his eyes and what I think the Holy Spirit stirred within me is to
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try to teach you this idea from scripture today and to open up your mind
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that God really is concerned about you God really is reliable when we trust him
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and actually God is so loving to us that
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he wants us to understand that he is a father that once we truly know him we
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would run to him to desire him to be our father and so that's what I want to talk
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to you today I want to try to go against some of the things misconceptions that maybe you have put on God that were
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never God in the first place from maybe the situations and past that you've lived in and I want us to look at the
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Bible today and I want us to see from The Book of Psalms what is God really like what does
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the psalmist teach us that our God that we desire for you here at Highlands to
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have a relationship personally with what is he really like I want to give you four things today here's the first one
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he is compassionate God is a compassionate God he is loving he is
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gracious he cares about you in fact he loves you more than you will ever know
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he loves you more than you're actually able to experience we just are unable as
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his created beings to understand how much he loves us because our brains just
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aren't big enough for them we just cannot fathom the capacity within our mindset the true amazing love of God in
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Psalm chapter 104 is what it says as a father has compassion on his children
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so the Lord has compassion on those who honor him God is a compassionate God he
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is a caring God you remember over the New Testament story I love this story
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because I've been there and and I've been out on the Sea of Galilee and I've been in one of these little boats and
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you remember the story where Jesus and his disciples are out on Sea of Galilee
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scripture says while they're out there a storm comes up and you know this God who
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had us out on Sea Gal he teaches us on how this could actually happen and as
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these storms come over the mountains down into the sea of Galileo they can be ferocious and these guys knew the sea
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like the back of their hand but they were in they were experiencing a storm there's Thunder and there's lightning
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their little boat begins to be rocked by all this storm damage that's coming and it's about to capsize and what's Jesus
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doing he is asleep at the other end of the boat he's not concerned about it at
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all and the disciples go over to Jesus and they wake him up and they ask the question that many of you ask and this
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is a question they ask Lord don't you care that we're dying
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this is one of the most profound questions in human existence does God
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actually care about my problems does God care about my hurts the things I'm going
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through the things that I'm feeling the stress that I'm dealing with the worries that I'm experiencing does God care what
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actually is happening in my life and here's the truth guys until you settle that issue you're not going to get to
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know God because if you think he doesn't care about you and why in the world would you want to get to know him does
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God care about the details of your life absolutely 100 the answer is yes and he
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says it over and over and over all throughout the Bible but we're in Psalms to look at Psalm 34 one idea one
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instance here in verse 18. it says the Lord is close to the Brokenhearted he
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saves those who are crushed in spirit he's a compassionate father you have a
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heavenly father that cares about all the details of your life in fact God cares
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about every detail of your life the Bible says he knows every hair on your head now I've said before you know for
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some of us it's not that big a deal but for some of you you know man that's a big deal and God knows the original
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color of your hair your hairdresser and you might have the rest of us fooled but God knows what the color of your hair
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actually is he takes care of even those small minute details in our life he
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knows something about God he doesn't want you worrying about your needs either I mean worry doesn't change
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what's going to happen in our life anyway and whenever we start to worry about anything in life it's sort of a
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warning sign that we're doubting the love that God has for us that's really what worry is it's doubting that God's
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in control and that God is compassionate he's caring you don't realize how much he loves you and how much he cares for
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you and how he's committed to take care of your needs if you'll just trust him so Point number one when you're
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considering God being a father he's a compassionate father here's the second thing God is a consistent father he's
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consistent you can count on him every time this is neat about our God he never
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lets you down he's always Dependable he's entirely consistent in who he is
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and because of that he's worthy of our trust because we lose trust with people
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who over promise and under deliver right and a lot of us do that that's that's never the case with God again here in
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Psalm 18 look at verse 31 that's what it says for who is God besides the Lord and
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who is The Rock except our God the truth is we as Earthly fathers we can be
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pretty unpredictable we can be inconsistent from time to time and inconsistent fathers produce insecure
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kids God is a consistent father he's never Moody he never has a bad day
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always consistent and the great news his consistency and his dependability does
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not depend on my consistency and my dependability this is what Paul teaches
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Timothy over in second Timothy he says even if we're faithless he remains faithful because God will never disown
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himself I'm so glad that even on days that that I'm down and I'm in a bad mood
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and things aren't going my way God's still up he's still caring for us he's
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still consistent even on days when I'm struggling God's still Victorious he hasn't lost a victory he is always
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consistent you know one of the greatest causes of resentment and rebellion in
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children's lives and James alluded to this a little bit last week is broken promises and some of you still have
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memories and his message last week sort of stirred a couple of you who messaged
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me and you said you know my Earthly father let me down because he promised this and he never followed through and
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those can leave deep wounds well here's the good news about God he always 100 I
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taught on this a few weeks ago keeps his promises we find this in Psalm 49 10
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says my God is changeless in his love for me in a word to those of you who grew up
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with a father that was far from perfect and Truth is the more imperfect your
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father on Earth is or was the more imperfect you realize that he truly was
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as he raised you then honestly the more difficult it's going to be
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to see the kind of relationship that God the father wants to have with you
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and some of you had a father that you know he loves you the best he could he wasn't perfect but he tried to do the
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best he could as he raised you and if you had a dad like that just be thankful
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so God is a compassionate father he's a consistent father
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here's the third thing God is always available he's an available father that means he's close to you all the
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time that God is right there with you every time you need him you know I can't
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even say that about Brendan and she's the closest person on Earth that I am too you know but there's times when I've
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needed her and she's not there not so with God he's not distant I love what
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Psalm 46 verse 1 says it says God is our refuge our strength he is an Ever
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present help and trouble those two Hebrew words ever present means that he
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is with us 24 7. 24 7. and God wants you to know that he's on call and you can
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always find him so he wants you to know him because he's always available many of you
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um in your emails to me this past week sort of shared that you grew up with an absentee dad that you loved your dad but
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he missed so many important events in your life your dad was just never around he he may have been doing good things
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out making money trying to provide for the family you know he wasn't doing bad things but in your heart you felt a
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disconnect because there were certain things in your life that you wanted to look out and see your dad and he was
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absent he was never home and um you know he had reasons maybe he was on some
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important trip or maybe he was off on a business deal or you know for some of you you know you said he was just sort
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of hanging out with the guys and you felt like he would rather be with his friends and be with his family he was just never around when you were growing
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up he was distant well I just want to help you here I want to encourage you
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God our heavenly father is always available he's never going to leave you
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he's never going to forsake you always available for you here's a few things
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about God being available that I want you to get because this seemed to be sort of an issue with many of you God
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I want you to remember this about God God is never too busy for you now you
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may feel like that he is and you may have come to the conclusion that you know God shouldn't be concerned without
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your puny little details about your life but uh he's never too busy for you maybe
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your dad was but God is never too busy for you and and here's the second thing
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God actually loves to meet our needs did you know that he truly does he he is not
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a God who wants to keep things from you you know he's not a God who doesn't want to bless you he's a God who desires to
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meet our needs he says well how do you know that well notice Matthew chapter 7 verse 11 it says you know how to give
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good gifts to your children he's telling the Earthly fathers how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to
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those who ask him so I want to give good gifts to my kids I love my kids right I want my kids to
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enjoy life you know I'm going to discipline him as well but at the same time you know God disciplines those who
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he loves but just like we give good gifts to our kids God wants to give great gifts to us
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and also once you understand that God he truly is sympathetic to our hurts he
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really is when I come to God with pain and when I come to God with hurt and things I don't understand God doesn't
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say no no come on here get over it you know just uh you know just get up and and put a smile on your face and just
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fake it till you make it that's not God I love what Psalm 34 verse 19 says this
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the righteous person may have many troubles but the Lord delivers him from
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them all from them all it was a we as God's children may have some trouble
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we're going to but if we stay focused on a compassionate consistent available God
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he will Deliver Us from them all I have no doubt as I'm speaking to those of you
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today whether you're on TV or whether you're at home or on vacation or one of our in-person locations there's somebody
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here today that has a troubled heart so what do you do well you you've got to turn to God and
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he's sympathetic to your hurt he loves to meet your needs he's never too busy for you he is and desires to be your
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heavenly father and he loves you pretty amazing here's the last thing God is
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Almighty you know even uh we talk about his love for us his compassion his
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consistency and his availability I also want you to know he's Almighty he is powerful God can handle any problem that
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you will ever have nothing scripture says is beyond his ability nothing is
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beyond his resources either he owns it all Psalm chapter 89 verse 8. he says
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who is like you Lord God Almighty you Lord are Mighty he's Almighty and your
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faithfulness surrounds you so what the psalmist is saying is that God is faithful
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and nothing is impossible for him we see this Jesus says this in the New
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Testament right nothing is impossible with God he can handle it because he is
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Almighty now this is hard for us to grasp because
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uh even on our best days you know even think even those days when we think that
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we can just handle about anything that comes at us every now and then we think
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we can do more than we are actually capable of doing this happened to me uh
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recently this was last year last mowing season I'm one of the few people it's still mow my yard in my neighborhood and
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I've got a you know a little John Deere lawnmower I told you I love that thing I mean I just love I call him little
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Johnny and he's just he's just the best thing ever it took me almost till I was 58 years old to Ford one but I go out
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and get it and uh it takes me a long time to mow my yard and and here's here's sort of what
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happened to me uh everybody else in the neighborhood except for a couple guys they bring in the professionals and
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these guys will and if you're a professional lawnmower I'm a little envious of you okay because what you do
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in our neighborhoods you wheel up in your big truck that I really like and
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you pull you're pulling a big trailer and you've got the mowers of all mowers
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right and you got the Zero Turns you've got and they're decked out you've got
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everything you need on it and then you know what you do in our neighborhood is you come up and and when I'm just
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putting around out there uh you you guys uh you you you mowed my neighbor's yard
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and and you mow it in such a way that you mow up and you those things are so
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powerful you're you're you're throwing grass like 50 feet over in my yard and when I look over at you you give me this
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I'm not sure what even that means but I'm thinking you're saying You're great
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and I'm a dud it's sort of how I'm thinking that you know so I I get a little envious and then you know you mow
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those yards in like an hour you load those things back up you put your backpack blower on you blow off the
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sidewalks in two seconds and you're out of there and I'm still you know half a
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day uh still left them on my yard I couldn't take it finally I just couldn't take because one day we'd gone out for
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ice cream and Brenda comes back and we're driving through our neighborhood and these guys are so good I mean they
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got checkerboard yards and they got all the stripes and everybody said you think you think our yard could ever look like
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that and that was just the Tipping Point right so I started I start I'm gonna get me one of those dead blame zero turn
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more so I started looking on Facebook Marketplace because you can't afford one right I mean they're I mean it's like
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you know you can buy a house or something so after a six-month search I
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finally found one that had my name on I was willing to go for a little trip you know I called my buddy it's somewhere
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between Knoxville and Chattanooga we load up the trailer we go down there we load that I mean I'm telling you guys it
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is the Beast of Zero Turns I got a great deal on it I come back I watch some
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YouTube videos on how to run one and I'm just thinking I'd watch my professional
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guys I'm thinking I'm educated it's no big deal surely I can I can I can run
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this thing and so I decided I'm not going to practice I'm just going to wait
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till the pros pull up and then I'm going to get my zero turn out and I'm gonna go
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and I'm going to try to blow grass on where they've made their little checkerboards right while they're there
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and I'd sort of practice this too I was going to give them the move and so I back out of the garage finally you know
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two or three days later I hear them come up in their big diesel trucks and they're like bees I mean they're just
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everywhere over the yard and so I I said all right Chris today's the day you know he was excited for me and I go out and
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and all I did our yard sort of flat in the back and then it goes over the seal
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and I waited until the professional guy so he could see me you know because I
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I'm proud of this moment and so I pushed these two handles forward and and I do a
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little wheelie you know I'm thinking that's pretty cool but man I am mowing I've got my headphones on like he does I
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got my glasses I'm listening to my music I make one straight row it's going great
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and I'm waving at him and then I go over our heel and I notice there's there's a
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tree that's getting you know it's coming up before me and I'm going probably fastest I've ever been on any kind of
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mower in my life I mean I'm thinking I'm going 20 miles an hour or something and so I'm thinking in all my YouTube
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educational how to run one of these I've never seen anybody use breaks the pros don't use brakes I have no idea where
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the brakes are so I think well maybe what I should do is just pull these handles back so I pull them back as hard
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as I can and that just made me go faster I mean the wheels are spinning like this
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and I'm headed straight for the tree crash into that tree my maiden voyage I
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mean it was a crash it was such a crash that Chris runs down as it threw me over the handlebar dad are you okay I said no
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I'm not okay the professional guy comes over and he says son you okay he said you know what you're doing I'm like you
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know I dust myself off and I'm like well no not really and then I realized I'm
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stuck I had wrecked so hard into the tree that somehow the whole tree went in
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between my front wheel and my mowing deck and I I can't get it out and so he
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tries to help me and he's even the pro couldn't get it out and I said what should I do and he said well do you like
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that tree and I said yeah I love that train he said you have to cut it down you're gonna have to cut the tree down and sure enough the only way that I
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could get that stupid mower out was to cut my tree down so to cut the tree down
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so I'm just saying there are times in our life when we think we are Almighty
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and then God reminds us through often humble means that we are not nearly
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great as we are cracked up to be that there are times in our life where we
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just can't do things that are reserved that only God can do you know I I I I
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think sometimes about you dads know this James mentioned this last week just a
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bit on on the things that my kids think I can fix it's it's pretty crazy isn't it
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I mean my kids think that I can just about fix anything the other day Chris
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said that can you fix the rain can you make the rain I want to build a fire tonight can you take care of this I was like no you know Martha I remember she'd
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bring these little dolls that were decapitated instead can you put the head back no uh Bella you know she she
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thought I could fix a broken heart you know some things dad just can't fix
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and when you're growing up and you think your dad is Superman you know as a
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little kid I remember thinking my dad can do anything but as you grow older you realize it's your father
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he had limits to his resources to his allowance there were limits to his
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wisdom every limits in every way possible sometimes he was just giving it his best
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guess but your heavenly father really can do anything that's pretty amazing he can do
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anything nothing is impossible there God I love
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what Paul says to the Ephesian Believers in chapter 3 verse 20. he says God is
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able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even
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dream of infinitely beyond our highest prayers our desires our thoughts our
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hopes this is what God says God says you think of the biggest dream for your life
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and God says I can top that think of the biggest goal for your life and God says
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I can top that the biggest problem you think you can never conquer God says I
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can solve it the biggest hurt that you'll ever have God says I can soothe it because our God can handle it all he
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says I'm your heavenly father I'm compassionate I am consistent I am
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available and I'm Almighty and if you'll trust me things will get a whole lot better in
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your life so here's my question for you as we wrap this up what what are you
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struggling with today that you're trying to carry and it's it's just weighing you down well I won't
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say God can carry it for you you were never designed to carry the burdens that
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this life brings the bottom line is God will always take care of his children
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and he does when we trust him so the obvious question is you know will
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God take care of everybody's needs does God meet everybody's needs well
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is he is the father of everyone he created every one of us
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but in order for God to really care and meet all of our needs and actually come to
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the response of answering our prayers he wants you to be his child he wants
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you to come to him and Trust what he did for you by sending his son Jesus Christ on the cross
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and when you accept what Christ did for you and you asked Jesus Christ to come
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into your life and forgive you of your sin and you become a child of God and a
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part of his family then I want to tell you man God is going to be consistent for you he loves you
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already he's going to take care of you in such an incredible way I love what the scripture says over in
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John 16 or John 14 verse 6 and 7. this is what it says what Jesus said he says
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I'm the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me
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and if you really knew me you know my father's well so if you want to know God as your
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father the way to do that is through Jesus Christ that's why I came to Earth so that we could be forgiven because of
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our imperfections that he could rescue us and we could be a part of his family
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you know I saw somebody the other day told me this and I thought this is really good
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everything in our world today it seems to be going up in price
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inflation is out of control but Salvation is still free it'll always be
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free and all you have to do is open the gift of Jesus Christ hey would you pray with
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me let's pray God I thank you so much that you are a compassionate father you love us
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beyond our comprehension you're consistent what you say you do Lord You're always available you'll
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never leave us you'll never forsake us and God's your Almighty nothing is
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impossible with you and so father I just pray today for those of us that know you just remind us
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of those truths even though we may have had a father on Earth that didn't do any
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of those things was never even a part of our life or heard us or physically or
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verbally abused us but God just remind us that the kind of father you are
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you're amazing and I pray today God that some of you who have really struggled in
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giving your heart to a relationship with Jesus that you would understand that God
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loved you so much that he gave sacrificed his son for you and Jesus
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came and he suffered and he bled and he was crucified and through his shed blood
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the scripture says we can find forgiveness of our sins there had to be a sacrifice to pay for our sins it was
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Jesus and if you will but open your heart's door and ask Christ to come into your
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life today he will and he will be your lord and your savior now here's the deal
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you have to open the door you have to make the ask you have to admit that
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you've made mistakes and that you need a savior and today
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with a simple prayer you can have Jesus Christ as Lord and savior of your life so those of you online if you're praying
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that prayer right now just click that little raised hand button those of you in person if you prayed a prayer like that today hey go out let somebody know
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and your next step would be baptism Lord thank you for being an awesome father
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and may you continue to remind us of those truths day in and day out of our lives in Jesus name we pray
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amen