A Simple Life (Romans 12:1), Part 3

Romans, Chapter 12. You will remember that we are preaching a series of sermons that I have called horizontal sermons, referring to those simple, everyday practices of life—not very sensational, but part of a blessed and healthy life. This is the second Sunday, and in fact we still have not entered the most practical part of all. We have remained in the prelude, where, in Chapter 12, in the first two verses, Paul calls us—and this is like the foundational text. Those first two verses are the basis for what he will then go on to develop in the following verses.

He speaks to us about presenting our lives to the Lord as a sacrifice, which constitutes true worship. The worship that truly pleases the Lord is a life surrendered to Him, a life permeated by His principles, a life of obedience, a life that reflects the lordship of Jesus Christ. And Paul calls us not to conform to the customs of the society and culture in which we live, but to live a life of transformation through the continual renewal of the mind, of our understanding and thoughts. In that way, he says, you will be able to experience God’s good will, the intentions God has for you; you will verify and experience them as you surrender your lives and refuse to conform to the way the world lives.

I always think of the Book of Jeremiah, where the Lord says to the captives in Babylon, “For I know the thoughts that I have toward you, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you the end you hope for.” Those are the Lord’s intentions. He says, I know what they are; do not tell Me what they are. Some of us live in guilt; we live expecting disaster; we live feeling as though God does not love us; we live always trying to do something so that God will love us. God already loves you. He says, I know the thoughts I have toward you; they are thoughts of good. Do not worry; I am going to take you where you want to go, and even beyond, because My desires toward you are good.

And Paul says, if you want to verify that in your lives, give your lives to the Lord and surrender them to the Lord. In one way or another, we have been lingering over these verses and circling like an airplane wanting to land, but that is good, because the word of the Lord is so profound that one can linger over it and always draw something different from it.

Verse 3 says: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think of himself with sound judgment, according to the measure of faith God has distributed to each one. For just as we have many members in one body, but not all the members have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Therefore, having different gifts according to the grace given to us, if prophecy, let it be used according to the measure of faith; or if service, in serving; or the one who teaches, in teaching; the one who exhorts, in exhortation; the one who gives, with generosity; the one who leads, with diligence; the one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Let us leave it there at verse 8. I do not know whether I will get to all of that, but let us break it down as much as possible. I believe we touched on some of this last Sunday, but now I want to do it systematically. Paul says: “For I say, through the grace given to me.” That expression of Paul’s is revealing and significant because it relates to what he will continue developing later. When he says, “through the grace given to me,” the word for grace here is charisma or caritas, from which the word charity comes. Through the grace, through the gift, through the provision that I have received from God—that is, Paul even acknowledges that what he is saying, as well as his ministry and his function as an apostle and exhorter, as he exhorts the Romans, he is doing with the energy God has provided him, with the gift of spirituality God had provided him.

Paul always knew that what he had did not come from him, but was a gift from God, a provision from God. Indeed, he felt undeserving of the high place he occupied in the Kingdom of God, and he spoke of himself as the greatest sinner of all. He was the most undeserving because he persecuted the church, and it always pained Paul to remember that he had once persecuted the church. Even so, Christ called him, and he felt undeserving of what he had received.

That concept of grace, of caritas, is so important in the Christian life because everything we have and everything we are, we have received from the Lord. We must always handle the gifts and positions we occupy with that sense of indebtedness to the Lord, recognizing that we have them because it pleased God for it to be so. And that is going to play a very important role in everything Paul develops throughout the rest of that text. In fact, I would call this sermon “Serving with Simplicity.” Serving the Lord with simplicity, with humility. All of that is there.

When he says, through the grace given to me, I tell you: serve and relate to one another in the same way, also with that sense of gratitude to the Lord. To everyone who is among you—that is, you and me, all of us who are here—he is referring to Christians, to the community of faith, to the Christian community. “To everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.”

What is translated as thinking more highly of oneself is sofronein; it means not thinking of oneself with a lofty mind, with an overly optimistic view. Brothers and sisters, this idea that we should see ourselves soberly is so important: instead, let each one think of himself with sound judgment. Sofronein means with modesty, fairness, accuracy, and sobriety—in a just manner, neither more nor less. God is not pleased with people who have too high an opinion of themselves, but neither is He pleased with one that is too low; do not sell yourself too short. False modesty is not good either, nor are inferiority complexes. Paul was a man who knew what he had; he was a self-confident man.

I believe that to serve the Lord, one must have a healthy ego. How many say amen to that? Some of us have healthier ones than others. If you do not have a healthy ego, forget it, because people will make sure to crush it and trample it in no time at all. But first of all, you need to know that you have a gift. How can I stand here as a pastor or preach if I do not think I have anything to say? It would be a contradiction; it would be a lie. In other words, one must have a healthy ego. Never allow inferiority complexes to rule your life. Rebuke them and exorcise them from your life in the name of the Lord, because you are worth something. Say: “I am worth something.” “I am worth a great deal.”

If God created you, you are worth something. Someone has said that God does not make junk; God makes the things He makes good. All of us have something that validates us, that gives us value as human beings, and we must think with sound judgment. That led me into a series of very important thoughts. One of the things I draw from this is that we must know ourselves. How important it is for us to know ourselves!

In the Greek Areopagus, there was an inscription in marble that said: “Know yourself.” Someone has said that the unexamined life is not worth living. It is important for us to know ourselves, to examine ourselves. I see clearly that personal lucidity is necessary in life. People who do not know themselves will make many mistakes in life, and they will appraise themselves improperly. How difficult it is, brothers and sisters, to see a person behaving in a self-destructive way, destructive toward their family and themselves, stumbling left and right, and then hear them speak as though they were spiritual giants. And you say, where is this person’s ability to see themselves?

A person continually commits acts of injustice against others, oppressing and deceiving them, and says, “I am a person of integrity.” And one says, “Where are this person’s brains? How can this person fail to understand, have no lucidity?” No matter how much you talk to them, they have a loose wire in their mind that prevents them from thinking with sound judgment.

That is why, brothers and sisters, I encourage you in the name of Jesus: read the Bible. The Bible is a great source of wisdom and self-knowledge. By seeing all the mistakes made by all the great men and women of God, you can learn. There are principles for life there that help us see ourselves objectively. Little by little, as you read the Bible, the word of God enters your mind and gives you that sound judgment of which the Apostle Paul speaks. Then you can assess human beings, life, and yourself fairly, precisely, and accurately. Read the Bible. There are texts in the Bible that are excellent. The Book of Proverbs is a wonderful book containing much simple, practical wisdom. The Book of Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book; so is the beautiful Book of Job, and the Psalms are very important. The Bible is full of knowledge about ourselves, and there are good books written by men and women of God. Bookstores carry many of them on emotions, human relationships, and counseling. Read books on psychology. All those things help us exercise ourselves in the art of discerning ourselves, of evaluating our family past and how it affects us.

Many of us live our lives playing a recording that began in childhood: parents who abused us or did not love us, a boyfriend who left us, a girlfriend who betrayed us, a dream that did not come true, a project that failed and closed the door on our vision and our desire to better ourselves. We do not understand how those things are impacting us and affecting our present. But as we ask the Lord for wisdom and understanding, exercise ourselves in the art of knowing ourselves, and read good material—which, incidentally, renews our minds, connecting this with the preceding verse, and leads to personal transformation—then we begin acquiring wisdom for life.

We must know ourselves, our faults, and our virtues. Let us not be afraid to look carefully at our family past. That is important as well.

Our parents were not perfect, and they did the best they could. Sometimes they made terrible mistakes with us in our upbringing, and we must understand these things while also looking at our parents so that we can surpass them and behave better than they did. Many of us do not allow ourselves to see our parents accurately, both the good and the bad, because we are afraid of being disrespectful and irreverent. But that is not necessary. You can see your loved ones correctly—the strengths and the weaknesses, the good and the bad—and still continue loving, venerating, and respecting them. But that will help you understand how it affects your marriage. The way your father treated your mother may be the way you treat your wife, and the way you see your wife may be the way you saw your father look at his wife. And your father did it because he saw your grandfather—or his father, who is your grandfather—do the same thing. So those things are there, unexamined, and then we do certain things and behave in a certain way without understanding why we do it, because we believe that is just how life is. No, you are simply following the most immediate and influential model you received. But when you stop, observe it, and analyze it, you can say: Wait, this is right, but that is not. So I am going to imitate this, but I am going to discard that and go one step further.

It is important for us to examine the world with sound judgment, to examine ourselves, and to know ourselves. Knowing ourselves is a lifelong project. Skeletons will always come out of the closet, along with beings you did not even know you had inside you. And that is part of the discovery. A man or woman who knows themselves can conquer a nation. A man or woman who knows themselves is an extraordinarily gifted person, a very powerful person. We must see ourselves accurately; we must see ourselves modestly. Many people see themselves as greater than they are. They do not know themselves, and they believe they have more than they actually have. It is very important for us always to add water to the soup to dilute it a little. Because if you think you have more than you have, that will lead you to distort the way you act. It is important for you to see the world modestly and to see yourself modestly.

One of the most painful experiences of my life—but one that helped me greatly to see myself with a certain degree of sound judgment, and I still have much to learn—happened years ago when I was a student. And that is the experience of almost every student who goes to a university like Harvard or Princeton. It is a very painful experience because students arrive at those great universities thinking they are super-titans. You come from a school where you shone and stood out, and everyone saw you as the greatest sensation of recent years, but then you arrive at this university and, you know, everyone is a superstar, and many are much better than you, and many are athletes and musicians and renowned minds, and by the age of 20 or 18 they have already reached places that many 50-year-olds would like to reach. And when you move in that environment, you feel like a tadpole. I thought I was the last Coca-Cola in the desert, and now I discover that I am just one more among many. And it deflates your ego, and many students become depressed because the contrast is so great. But it is a great lesson, because you learn one thing: no matter how high you go, there is always someone higher than you. And that, brothers and sisters, is very important for us to understand so that we can live life with sound judgment, without thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. You must always know your flaws and your virtues and see yourself with that equanimity, that balance.

There in the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Lord led me to a very important text in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 8. It says: “If you see the oppression of the poor and the perversion of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be amazed at it, for one higher official watches over another, and there are still higher ones over them. Moreover, the profit of the land is for everyone; the king himself is subject to the fields.”

That is why I tell you that the Bible contains great wisdom. It is so important: President Bush, one of the most powerful men on earth, must know that there is One who is even higher than Bush. And on the day when, God forbid, he trips while getting off his plane and someone has to catch him and take him by the elbow to steady him, he must realize right then that there is One higher than he is. And every time he goes to the bathroom, he must know that there is One higher than he is as well. We must understand that in life, and it is true in the church and everywhere else. We must conduct ourselves with that humility, knowing ourselves—what we have and what we do not have, our highs and our lows. Because that helps us live life with sobriety and simplicity of heart, and it is not that we are humble; it is simply that we are accurate and honest. It is not even humility; it is simply that, if you are going to look at life with sound judgment, you know that, after all, you are not such a big deal and that you are a fallible being like anyone else.

Another passage says that time and chance happen to everyone. Everyone has their high season and their low season, and that is part of life on earth. Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book in that regard, so remember this: know yourself honestly and with sound judgment. That is very important.

There is something else that follows from this as well, and it is important that we accept ourselves just as we are. How important that is! Accept yourself just as you are. If God made you short, rejoice in it. Buy yourself some lifts if you want, but it is better simply to carry yourself comfortably at your own height. If God made you thinner and did not give you Arnold Schwarzenegger-type muscle fibers, well, that is fine; thank the Lord and learn to play the piano. Perhaps you will not become a football player, but there are other things you can do. There are human beings who live their lives embittered, brothers and sisters, because they did not receive a certain thing from the Creator, and they envy others who have it, and then they cannot enjoy what God has given them.

Brothers and sisters, do you know how many qualities make up a human being? Thousands of them: eye color, eye size, eye shape, eyelash length. In the eyes alone there are about 50 different categories, and if you multiply that by the nose, the mouth, the cheeks, and everything else, how many thousands of traits does a human being have? Some have certain good things and others have other good things; those who do not have the physique have brains, those who do not have brains have artistic talent, those who do not have artistic talent have athletic talent, and there are so many ways in which you can find something good that you have inside you. Accept yourself. But what happens, brothers and sisters, is that we often focus on one thing: “I want that.” And we become like spoiled children who want that one thing, and then we miss the opportunity to see other beautiful things that God has placed within us, and sometimes we do not develop them because we are fixated on that other thing. Instead, one should accept oneself. That is the idea of thinking of oneself with sound judgment and within the context of the body, with all the other talents that exist in a community. If God did not give you great gifts, there are other roles you can fulfill in a community.

The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that the seemingly least significant organs and members are often clothed with greater dignity. There are tiny parts of your body that are invisible; no one sees them, they are extremely small, and yet, if you lacked them or if they malfunctioned, they would make your life miserable. In the ear there is a bone so small and so deeply hidden that you do not even know you have it, and yet, if that little thing becomes unbalanced, it gives rise to vertigo, dizziness, fainting, falls, accidents, and all sorts of things, because that little bone serves as a kind of reference point, a reference axis, for the body’s balance. It is so tiny and so hidden that it can neither be seen nor felt, and if it functions properly, you do not even know it is there. Do you know when you become aware that it is there? When it malfunctions. But if it works properly, it goes unnoticed. And there are so many things like that in the human body, many of which sometimes do not seem very dignified. The intestines—I do not think there is anything beautiful about them; I have never heard a poem dedicated to the intestines—and yet what an important function they perform! There are poisons in the body that are necessary for its proper functioning; there are poisonous substances that, in minute quantities, are necessary. Even that has a function. In the body, in society, in the world, each one of us plays an important role in human ecology. If you were missing from the world, the world would be crippled. The world would be lacking something if you were not here. God placed you here; you are not an accident, you are not superfluous. God knew that you would play an important role.

One of my favorite movies is “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart, made in the 1950s, I believe. It is in black and white, but it is one of the great movies in American history. Jimmy Stewart plays a man who decides to sacrifice his dreams of greatness in order to care for his family and remain faithful to the little town in middle America where he lives. Jimmy Stewart watches other friends achieve great success and attain accomplishments and wealth, and a moment comes when everything seems to be going wrong for him, to the point that he wants to commit suicide. And just before committing suicide, he has an encounter. Through that encounter, Jimmy Stewart discovers—because he is allowed to see his life—what the world would be like if he were not there, what his town would be like if he had never lived. And suddenly Jimmy Stewart’s character discovers that his life is absolutely essential, because without him that town would have declined and been destroyed, and now he understands.

Many of us cannot understand because we do not have the privilege that this character has of seeing what the world would be like without us. But that would be interesting. God has given us children; I was saying that to a mother this week. You have played such an important role. Your children are beautiful people; God is blessing them. They are becoming interesting, respectable, educated human beings, and God’s grace is reflected in them. You are a blessing to many people who look at you and see an example in you, and who see in you a person who adorns this church with her presence, who blesses it, and who is an element of stability in this congregation—yet you have never stood at the pulpit to give a testimony, preach, evangelize, or even pray in public. Nevertheless, I know that by her presence, that substance she possesses adds something to this community. There are many like that among you here who are needed and who play an important role. Perhaps you have never spoken a single word, but your presence blesses this community. And you have been a blessing in some way.

Soon I am going to hold a memorial service here. I believe it will be the only memorial service ever held here for a Dominican man who had cognitive problems, a person who was, rather, mentally disabled, let us put it that way. And yet, when he died in his little town in the Dominican Republic, the entire town poured into the streets. I am told that not even prominent citizens or prominent politicians received the kind of funeral that this simple, humble, mentally disabled man received. I asked another person who knew him, “Why? What did he do?” He said, “Well, I’m not sure, but he was a person who always treated people humbly, who never crossed a line with anyone. He was sweet and kind.” And I believe this man’s genius was allowing himself to be loved and being someone who did not ask for much or demand much, so that people could connect with him without feeling greatly threatened and without much pretense. That awakened in people the capacity for love that a community needs: to love someone in a simple way.

That is a virtue; that is a gift. When we human beings become more mentally sophisticated and more complex, our little spikes begin to stick out, and then people have to be somewhat careful when they embrace us. Those who perhaps do not have as much mental sophistication have the ability to evoke in others a simple, unguarded affection, and we instinctively appreciate that. I do not believe that man wrote an important philosophical treatise or did anything great, except bless a community through his ability to evoke love from others and by not being very demanding. Look, as the Lord Jesus Christ said: consider the lilies of the field, which neither spin nor work, and yet not even Solomon was dressed like one of them. Look at the birds of the field; they do not have much, but God simply provides their food and blesses them. How beautiful a little bird is!

I was sitting in my house when a cardinal came and perched about 10 feet away from me, and I was dazzled, and I blessed the Lord for that alone throughout the rest of the day. How beautiful a cardinal is—that red color, like a spark that suddenly appears and lights up the air. It delighted my eyes. That cardinal will not do much more; it will not preach a sermon, it will not enlighten the world with a philosophical concept, but it has a place, and it blessed me there for a moment—and how many others will it bless?

That is to say, brother or sister, you have value. God made you. If God cares for the birds, will He not care for you, who are the pinnacle of creation? How wonderful a human being is! Simply by walking upon the earth, a human being declares glory to God, because there is nothing more sublime, nothing more beautiful, than a man or a woman walking upon the earth. That requires the coordination of so many things at once and is something so complex that it declares, “God exists.” And that alone justifies your existence. So you have something to give; you have worth; you are important. Do not let anyone take that sense of worth away from you. Your worth is not given to you by a husband. Your worth is not given to you by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Your worth is not even given to you by a community. Your worth is given to you by God, who created you. That is where your worth resides. There are young women who go through life seeking their worth in a man who will cover and love them, and they go from man to man, hoping for one who will cover them as Boaz covered Ruth and give them validity. No man is going to give you worth, nor will even children. It is God in you and you in God. It is that identity God gave you; that is what makes you valuable, whether you are a woman or a man. It is seeing yourself precisely for who you are.

There are many people, brothers and sisters, who harm themselves in life because they do not have that self-acceptance. They keep seeking acceptance in something they can do. For example, they think, “If I attain a prominent position in the church or in society, that will kill this gnawing insecurity I have inside me.” And so they compulsively pursue a position, and they destroy people and things, betray and scheme, and always live with a private agenda inside, trying to obtain it. Because they believe that it will kill the insecurity that is eating away at them. Forget it. Once you obtain it, that insecurity will rise up again. It is like those fungi in carpets: you clean the carpets, but the fungi remain underneath and rise to the surface again after three days, because they are embedded in the very structure of the thing. You can cover it on the surface with cosmetics; you can put a great deal of deodorant on your flesh, but if you do not bathe very, very well, the smell will come out sooner or later.

The important thing is for us to heal our concept of ourselves and see ourselves as accepted by God. That is why so many marriages fail: two insecure people meet and believe that each one will satisfy the other’s hunger for validation. Or an insecure person meets someone who is quite secure, and the insecure person wants that secure person to cover him, heal his wound, and tell him, “You have worth,” and to see through that person’s eyes, bring him his slippers at the end of the day when he comes home from work, and make his favorite meal every day; he wants to turn that person into his worshiper because an insecurity is killing him, because he does not accept himself.

For a couple to be happy, it takes two healthy people. People talk about the idea of my other half—what you need is two whole oranges making juice together. Because if you try to join two orange halves, no two oranges are made exactly alike; if you try to join them, the seam will show. I believe that two healthy, whole oranges must come into a marriage, blessing each other through their health. Two oranges: a man and a woman who are secure in God, solid in God, with a healed, healthy ego that says, “I am who I am, and God loves me this way. I may be misshapen, perhaps a little unattractive, shorter than I would like, or thinner, but God loves me”; and then, through his health, he blesses his wife, and his wife blesses him.

We have to ask the Lord, “Lord, heal me emotionally. Let me accept myself as I am, with my virtues and my flaws, with my past, my mistakes, my imperfections, the things that were done to me, and my wounds, and let me say: that is what makes a life.” No one in this place can tell me that they have not been wounded in life, that they have not been mistreated, that they have not made serious mistakes, or that they have no physical, emotional, or spiritual flaws. We are all in the same situation, and the only difference is that some find balance in it while others live distorted and unbalanced lives because they have not found that ability to accept themselves as God accepts them. That is why our human relationships are so often continually wounded and distorted, because an unbalanced, unhealthy person damages everything he touches. That insecurity then causes us, whenever our friends commit the slightest offense or error, to immediately see it as something unforgivably enormous, and we become hypersensitive. We are always expecting someone to stab us in the back because that is how we see people, and that causes the prophecy to fulfill itself because, sooner or later, they do to us what we expect them to do. But when a person approaches relationships with ease, with health, with an expectation of blessing, and naturally, people discover that there are many good things in others.

Why do so many people fail in human relationships? Because they expect to fail. Or because there is some insecurity in them that leads them to hurt others and hurt themselves. Yet there are others who approach life naturally and interact with others, emerging unscathed from the worst situations because they are healthy inside; life knocks them down, but they get back up because they are made of rubber. They are like those strong little children who jump into a game and get elbowed, scrape their elbows, but then go right back and start jumping around again because they are healthy.

Accept yourself; seek your health in God. Seek your validation in God; seek your worth in the Lord. Accept yourself; think of yourself with sound judgment. It is important for us to accept ourselves just as we are.

There is much more we could talk about, but I do not want those two very important concepts to be lost. We will continue, God willing, next Sunday, and we will probably have to return to this passage. How many of you know that the word of the Lord is good, that we must chew it, savor it, and go deeply into it because it has practical value for life and contains many important teachings for us?

Brother, bow your head, please. I had forgotten something as important as Holy Communion. Let us take a moment this morning to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Bow your head, think about what you have received this morning, and ask the Lord—as I ask Him every day—to give us sound judgment, to give us wisdom in the way we see ourselves, and to help us accept ourselves just as we are, not so that we remain there, but so that we may go where God wants to take us. But know that God has accepted you; God has already received you; God is already pleased with you. If you are in Christ, all hostility between you and God has already passed away; every controversy has already ceased.

Your Father has said to you, “Come now, just as you are. I accept you, I love you, I receive you, I validate you, and now you and I are going to work together to continue this project that is you—this wonderful project—until I form you as My child, according to the image of My Son Jesus Christ.” Ask the Lord to heal you for myself and for myself and for my brothers and my sisters. Lord, we reveal ourselves before You, although You already know it all; we confess our faults. I confess my faults, my sins, my flaws, my weaknesses, my imperfections, Lord; I place them before You. Forgive us for living with that hidden agenda, trying to use others and have others serve us, have others heal us, have others minister to us, when You are the only One who can fill that emptiness within us, Lord. Help us focus on You this morning, Father. If anyone has come with insecurities, with wounds from the past, allow us to lay them at Your feet today. May we not live focused on what life did to us or what others did to us, Lord; may we find freedom in Christ Jesus, in that new creation You have declared us to be. Heal us, Lord; heal our marriages, heal our leadership in the church, heal our social relationships. We worship You, Lord; we bless You. Our healing God, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with favor and mercy, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. That God says to you, “I love you, I accept you, I want to take you to another level. You are not perfect, but that is precisely why I love you and why I am working in you. Lay down your weapons, set aside your agenda, and let Me take you, in My time and in My way, where I am to take you. Do not try to build your own business, your own life, your own prosperity, your own happiness. I want to build it; if I build it, it will last and will be far better than anything you can create.” Thank You, Lord; You accept us.

I want to take this opportunity: if there is anyone here this morning who wants to give their life to Jesus Christ in light of the word that has been preached, who wants to surrender their life to Jesus, and has not done so before, I would like to pray for you. God bless you, brother. Is there anyone else who wants to give their life to Jesus, who wants to say to the Lord, “Lord, I want to find that sense of validation in You, that sense of belonging in You”? Come to the altar.

It all begins when you learn to see God as that benevolent Being who remembers that you are dust. It says, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him, for He knows our condition.” He knows our condition; that is, God sees us with sound judgment, God sees us exactly as we are. He knows our condition and remembers that we are dust, and that is why He loves us. He does not use that to despise us; quite the contrary, He uses it to love us. If there is anyone else who wants to find their meaning in Jesus Christ, come here, if you have not done so before. We are going to pray for you; we are going to bless your life. Thank You, Father; we worship You. I bless these men and this woman who have come forward.

Say with me: “Lord Jesus Christ, I receive You as my Lord and Savior. I give You my life. Thank You for saving me and for dying on the cross for my sins. I confess my sins and ask You to forgive me, cleanse me, and make me Your child. I renounce the works of evil and embrace the Kingdom of God. Thank You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Thank You, Lord; we worship You, we bless You.