Committing Your Body to the Plane

Committing Your Body to the Plane

by Bill Godfrey

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Thank You, Lord. We thank You for this day. Thank You for the bright blue sky with no clouds. Just a little one now. I think it’s gonna work. Praise the Lord. Before I get started, I want to tell you one of my favorite jokes. It’s about the Irish priest who hated the English. Have you ever heard this story? Oh, he was about 80 years old and should have been retired and he was in County Cork there in a little parish. So every time he had this diatribe against the English people, he hated them. And the congregation, he never speak on the homily from the gospel or anything. And so they finally went to the bishop. They complained and the bishop hauled him in. And he looked at him and he says, “You’ll no more be preaching against the English people. The time of the trouble was 40 years ago.” And he said, “We’re at peace with the English people. From now on out, you’re going to preach from the gospel. And to make sure that you do, I will be in the back of your church in Lifty.” And so the priest, the next Sunday morning, he peeks around there and looks. There’s the bishop sitting at the back. So he knows he’s in trouble.

And he said, this subject of his sermon this morning will be the Lord’s Supper. And so, oh boy, they hallelujah when they hear something. And he gets warmed up and he didn’t tell the story. And finally he says, “And then Jesus says to him, ‘One of yez will be betraying me.’” And I saw, anyway, why Matthew speaks up and says, “Lord, it isn’t I, is it?” He’s on a fine mind like you would never be betraying me. And John spoke up and said, “Lord, it isn’t you, is it?” And He said, “Oh no, a fine broth of a lad like you would never be betraying me.” And Judas spoke up and said, “I’ll say, Governor, it ain’t me.” I said, how to disobey the bishop.

Oh, me, oh, me, oh, me. Oh, something. I’d like to talk this morning about the fourth step. I’d like to talk first about the reason for the fourth step. The scriptures tell us that you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. And it’s the only thing that will set you free. Jesus is the truth. But we were so good at denial. And just think about it for a minute. We all practice denial in every form that you can imagine. I present to you only my good side, that which I want you to see. I don’t let you see inside like that what I might be thinking and feeling. I just present to you. Now, my problem is I compare what I know to be me inside with what I see about you. And I think more highly of you than I do about me, you see. And that’s where the poor self-image comes from. And you never really let me see into you. And I never let you see into me. And that’s lying, isn’t it? Well, there’s a scripture for that, too. Hezekiah 3:16. A lying tongue is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in time of need. Now, you won’t find that in the Bible like there is in the book of Hezekiah.

Hezekiah 3:17 is when they’re now shalt not use an air conditioner in your church. And things like that. But anyway, that is the human condition. A lying tongue is an abomination unto the Lord, but it’s a very present help in time of need. And we do it. And we do it in many, many, many ways that we deceive ourselves. And as we deceive ourselves like that, we begin to believe that this is true. This starts early in our life. When we first come into this world, we’re a baby, and we don’t really understand that the world is separate from us. Our mama and us are all one entity. And the people around us are all one thing. There’s not this, what they call the I-thou separation. This takes place sometime, I don’t know what, 18 months or so, a year, 18 months. And the baby knows now that it’s here and other things are there. They’ve done experiments on six months old where they use some toys down there. And then they’ll put just a piece of paper like that in front to block it off, and they can’t see the toy anymore. So it doesn’t exist anymore like that. It just, that’s the way it is.

Anyway, reality for us when we come in is we’re the center of attraction. All right. And we’re king of the universe because everybody’s oogie-googging around the baby and everything else. And we are the center. And anytime we need something, all we do is cry. And mama comes and takes care of us. And a little while, we get up to round two of the terrible twos, and we’ve learned that there’s a word called no. And we can say no to things. And then we begin to become into the terrible twos. And what happens is that reality, and we can’t control reality, and we can’t control what’s going on out there anymore. And some things happen that we don’t want to happen. And so we alter our perception of reality. It’s simple. I did it when I was about six years old. I went over to a boy’s house to play with him next door in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Don Godson’s his name. And he was eight and I was six. And I went over there and went up to his room like little kids running into the house like do. And I went up and banged on his door. And he wouldn’t come out at his door lock. He didn’t want to play with me that day.

He had something he was trying to do in his room. And I got mad. And I kicked the door and I yelled at him. And I said, “You’re not my friend. And what’s more, I never will have another friend. And I didn’t want to play with you anyway.” Now see, that’s a lie. And I did want to play. That’s why I went over there. And then, I didn’t want to play with him anyway. See how he changed perception of reality? As I grew older, I got more sophisticated in this. Think about your own… you start thinking about what you have done to alter your perception of reality. You see what I’m saying? Now, I found and discovered at age 13 a marvelous chemical called alcohol. And it would solve all my problems, take away all my fears and everything else. And I was a knobby-kneed little kid and very skinny and very self-conscious about it. And I got tongue-tied around girls when I was about 13 or 14. And I just… I wanted to talk to them, but I couldn’t. And so I would take a drink of alcohol and in about five minutes I grew about six inches in height and 40 pounds in weight and was ten times as good looking. And I had the Blarney Stone. I’d kissed it. And boy, I could talk to any girl, dance and everything else.

And so it altered my perception of reality. But unfortunately, while the alcohol wears off, reality comes back. And what we’re trying to do is discover in this is a fact-finding and fact-facing thing. When you take an inventory in a business, what you’re trying to find out? You’re trying to find out what’s on the shelf right now. Isn’t that right? All right, now you look at some of these items, they don’t sell very well. What do you do? You discount them and get rid of them. And that’s what we’re going to do in this first step, inventory. It’s a very simple process. I doubt very seriously, to be honest with you, that very many of you will actually do this. And this is only for a few. It’s for everybody, but you probably won’t do it. Because it’s going to require a little more moral courage than you have, and you’re not hurting bad enough. Now, you come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and you’re in real pain. And this thing is to relieve pain, and to get you to feel good about yourself. So for those of you who don’t really feel good about yourself, now listen to me. And I’ll tell you how to feel good. That’s what the steps are for, to make you feel good.

We had a fellow named Sam, and I agree, he’s going to be with the Lord now. And he said, “You gave me a selfish motive, and I’ll do anything.” And they told him, he said, “If you do the steps, you’ll feel good.” He said, “That’s it, I’ll try it.” So he did it. Now, the fourth step is we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This is what we’re doing. We’re looking at us morally. This is not a confession of all of our sins. This is not a dredging up of all the things that we’ve done and things like that. What we’re looking for is what’s in there right now. It’s not necessarily what we did in the past. It’s what we are doing now. What is our problem now?

The easiest way to do this is to get it on the paper. And the easiest way to get it on the paper is get a notebook somewhat similar to this. And I’ll just open it up. And you draw a line down the middle of this page. You draw a line down the middle of this page, and that leaves you four columns, right? And we’re going to start with the negative emotions of resentment, anger, and fear. Resentment and anger we put together. Resentment is just anger that you had yesterday. That’s really what it is. It’s just something that’s gone in. Resentment will come down, and if you bury it and play like it’s not there, it’ll lead you to depression. And if you bury that, it’ll lead you to death and suicide. This is serious stuff. So you get your… and you write down in that first column, you write down everybody and everything that you’re mad at. Just write the thing down. And just, there it is. Write it. And leave a little space between each one. Because from the next column, you’re going to have to write a little bit more. When you have done that… Now, you do on more than one page. So you just turn the page over. You’ve…

You’ve written here. Now, you just turn that next page over. Right there. Make… Draw the lines again. And right there. And do this for as many pages as you need to. And now you’ll have three or four or five pages of resentments that you have. And angers. Written down. Have you all followed me so far? Okay. Now, let’s move to the second column. You do not go across the page at any time. Never go across the page. This is not what would… This will not work this way. Because you will say, “I resent so-and-so because they did this,” and you get all wrapped up in it. You see? And so what you do is you… Name them all. Everyone. We’re looking for a pattern. Do you understand that? We’re looking for the principle. We’re looking for the nature of what is going on with you. We’re not looking for individual symptoms and things like this. Although we’re writing those down. But what we’re looking for in that fourth column. The second column, you write down why. Why am I angry? And do that in 12 words or less. Write more than 12 words. You could write a whole book. But just boil it down to 12 words. Like that. Name a person. I’m angry because he did this and so.

Period. That’s all you need. Just write that down. Then you go all the way down that column through all those pages until you’ve done all that. And learn why that this person angry me. Or that principle does. Or that government entity. Or whatever it is that you’re angry at. And so you go on down through there. And then in the third column, you come and say, what does it affect? Now, does it affect my self-esteem? My finances? My sex life? My relationships? There’s just a whole slew of things. God will show you what to do. What does it affect? Then you go down through that column all the way through and get all those. What does it affect? And so now, the first column is what I call the reflections column. You have… When you’ve been through this and got it in paper and you’ve got three or four pages of this stuff down there, then when you go through there, you will have already discovered there’s a pattern. You see the pattern in the third do. You see what it affects. And you’ll see what touches you. What… Bring in. There’s where your fears come in. That’s how you get rid of your fears. Because in that third column, you’re going to discover what it is that you fear.

You fear economic insecurity. You fear rejection. You fear… Because that’s what made you mad, see? And whatever it is, you’ll find these things. And you’re afraid that your self-esteem is going to be, you know, put down. You’re going to be put down. Your self-esteem is threatened. And you’re fine with these things. That means you’re afraid of that, aren’t you? You’re afraid of people’s disapproval. You see? Maybe you didn’t think you were. But anyway, you’ll see that. And that’s what you do in the fourth column. You’ll see then, you reflect on, and what you will see is a pattern. And that’s how I discovered that little thing that I told you about, is that resentment is I didn’t get my way in the past. And anger is I’m not getting it right now. And fear is I suspect I’m not going to get it in the future, get my way in the future. And that’s what it is. It’s all my will. And I found that out how egotistical and arrogant I am. That’s the principle that I understood. This was a defense mechanism that doesn’t excuse it. That doesn’t mean I have to keep on doing it either, you see? I’m not a victim. That’s the last thing I’m going to ever put up. I had enough of that victim stuff.

And I’m through with it. I am not a victim. And don’t you be a victim. You’re a child of God. You’re made in the image of likeness of God. I’ll just have to do this. That’s it. I’m going to start now. I’ve really given an outline on the thing. And if you paid attention, you’ll be able to go and do it. And I hope you do.

I recommend to everybody who has poor self-esteem that they get into their Bibles and get to Ephesians. And I want you to get to it. Ephesians. And this is who we are. There was a wonderful book years ago written by Watchman Nee called Sit, Walk, and Stand. You all read that book? I call it a little bit different. Instead of sit, walk, and stand, I call the three divisions of this thing. Our position in Christ, our way of life in Christ, and our victory in Christ. That’s the way I look at it. Who are we and what are we in Jesus Christ? Those of us who have given our hearts to Him and have invited Him in and said, Lord, take over my life. We’re in Christ. Now, who are we? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before Him. In love He destined us for adoption to Himself through Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of His will, for the praise of the glory of His grace that He granted in the beloved. That’s where we are.

We have every spiritual blessing in the heavens is ours. Now, why do you feel sorry for yourself? How do you think you’re a victim? I mean, I have a hard time understanding this. I really do. Do you really believe this word? Do you believe what God is saying to us in there? That it says, in Him we have redemption by His blood. It’s by His death and His resurrection that we have this redemption, the forgiveness of our transgressions. Okay, so all sins are forgiven. So all that crap, that junk that is in your past that’s rating you down has been forgiven. Let go of it. Give it to God. Get rid of it. It isn’t yours. You don’t need it. In Him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the one who accomplishes all things according to the intention of His will, so that we might exist for the praise of His glory. Praise the Lord. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Exist for the praise of His glory. We who first hoped in Christ. In Him you also, that’s us, Paul says, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance towards the redemption of God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.

We were dead in our transgressions, it goes on to say in chapter 2. You were dead in your transgressions and sin, but God who is rich in mercy, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ, by grace you have been saved, raised us up with Him, and seated us at the right hand of God. That’s where we are right now. Did you know that? Do you live that? That’s what we live. I don’t live it all the time, I’ll tell you. But I strive to. And we’ve been saved through grace. It’s not a… We didn’t choose it. We didn’t do it. God did it. It’s His pure grace. We responded. That was our only act that we had to do was respond to God. We don’t initiate things. That’s what Gene was saying. We don’t create like that. We respond. We respond. We respond to God. Do you see? And the way we respond, if He says something in His word, we say amen to it. So be it. And say it out loud. And so we hear it. And anyway, why? And then He finally says, for we are His handiwork created in Christ Jesus, for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.

I always give a little illustration here. I’m God the Father, right now for a minute. And this is Jesus Christ, the Word. And this is us. So I put us in here. And now we’re in Jesus Christ, are we not? Okay? Now what happens if I take this book and nail it to a tree? Where are we? We’re nailed together. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I. But the life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. Not only one faith. And it’s by His faith that I live. And then I take this thing down from the cross and put it in the tomb. And all of our sins were in there. Our sins were laid upon Him. And so then Jesus came back out of the tomb. Where were we? Out of the tomb. Where were our sins? Boom. They’re still in the tomb. They’re left down there. That’s all. He brought that out. He doesn’t resurrect those sins. God doesn’t do that. He resurrects pure, holy people. And that’s who we are. Then we go and we sit at the right hand of God. And we have with us all authority and power. I’ve got a really friendly fly here.

But that’s who we are in Christ. And what we do in Christ is outlined in many Ephesians. And it will tell you how to live your life. There are many things. Ephesians is the best book, I think, in the Bible for this kind of thing. And all books have different reasons. But this is one of the best. They’re persistent. They’re pretty little feathers. And anyway, then our victory in Christ is when we stand. We have, you know, putting the armor of God on. This is where it is. Our fight is not against flesh and blood and this sort of thing. And then, but stand. You know. And King James said, having done all, stand. Stand. Like that. Stand with your belt of truth girded and go like that. And he goes on and gives the armor of God. We’ll find this real quickly. I’ll show you. I had some old notes. I’ve been on this. And I, hmm. It’s there. I know I saw it this morning. And, what? Well, 6:10. But I’m fine. Oh, here’s what I wanted. What I did is I had a person one time say that every morning they got up and visually put on the armor of God. That just doesn’t cut it with me somehow or another. And that didn’t ring true.

I don’t like that. I don’t like that sort of thing. Because you go through a little funny act and then you go about and do your own business. So, I said, God, show me the truth of this. What is it I’m supposed to do? How do I put on the belt of truth? Well, He gave me the idea of a synonym for truth. It’s honesty. So, today, I’m going to be honest with everybody that I meet today. That’s the way I put the belt of truth on. You understand me? I put some feet to it. I understand it. Okay, justice. Justice. Okay. That’s the breastplate of righteousness or justice, I guess. And I’m going to be fair with everybody that I meet. I’m not going to be unfair to anybody today. And then I’m going to have enthusiasm. That’s the zeal to propagate the gospel, the shoes. I’m going to have enthusiasm today. I’m going to enter into this day with enthusiasm. Yes. So, I’m going to be honest and fair and enthusiastic so far. And then the shield of faith is I’m going to trust God throughout this whole day. Do you see? Because faith is trust. If you don’t trust Jesus, you don’t really have faith. You see? You don’t have faith in Him if you don’t trust Him.

Then the helmet of salvation is just mental health. I’m going to guard my thoughts. I’m going to keep my thoughts from going… When they go astray, I’m going to guard them. This is the way that I use this helmet of salvation. And then the word is a sword. But, you know, in the beginning was the Word, logos. And the logos was with God. And the logos was God. And that’s what this word says is logos. And it’s not… This is not… The logos of God. This is the written word about the logos of God. Please understand that. And so if I’m going to use that as a sword of the Spirit, I’m not going to use it to hit people over the head where they’re stabbing with individual scriptures or stuff like that. A lot of people do this. They say, you got your sword with you? You know, that sort of thing. No. Jesus is the sword. And if I’m going to be Christ-like today, if I’m going to deal with people as Jesus would, then I’m using the sword of the Spirit. Do you see me? See what I’m saying? Now, what is it that I do? This is all that I put on, and this is my attitude, and what I’m going to have.

Well, what do I do? And it says, pray. Pray without ceasing. Everybody forgets that. That’s our action, is praying. That’s how we fight. We fight with prayer, not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and spirits of the air. That’s what we fight against.

If you will meditate on these scriptures, like I have done, when I did a meditation on this, and it’s our way of life in Christ. This is the center part. But the most part of the chapter, it’s talking about chapter 2 or something, going through to about, I think, chapter 6. But it’s profess the truth in love, live spiritually, not carnally, follow the way of love, live in the light, discern the will of God, submit one to another, and draw your strength from the Lord. And then finally, our victory in Christ is stand firm, put on God’s armor, and then, as I said like that, instead of putting on a visually mental armor and seeing yourself and all this stuff, why not try to be honest and fair and enthusiastic and trust Jesus and watch your thoughts and be Christ-like and pray without ceasing. That’s the way you put the armor on. Does that make sense to you? It’s something you do. It’s not something that you… Well, I don’t know. There’s so much of this visual stuff that goes on. I mean, a lot of it’s good. And it’s a good thing to visualize things, but it’s also not very good if that’s all you do. I can visualize till the world looks level.

I’m going to give you a good example. A couple of them. I stand outside an elevator. Now, I look at this thing and I see the lights go up and down and the doors open and people come in and out and everything else. And I can visualize myself getting in that elevator and going to any floor I wanted to and I have perfect faith that that elevator will take me to the 10th floor or wherever I want. Isn’t that true? But what must I do? I must commit my body to that elevator and trust it to take me there. Do you see? And this is what… In the Spanish Bible, when people believe in Jesus, it says, “Trust Jesus.” They trusted Jesus for salvation. They trusted Jesus. That’s the word… It’s translated that way in Spanish. I love that. That we trust Jesus for salvation. I fly an airplane and I can get in the airplane and start the engine and everything… The engine is turning over. Everything’s fine. And I’m sitting just outside my hangar and I have perfect faith that I can get in that airplane and fly anywhere I want to. And there’s no restrictions just about. I can fly into any major airport or anything I want to because I’ve got the communication and the skills and everything to do it.

But I can sit there with perfect faith that that airplane will take me where it’s going. And I can wiggle the controls and I can look at that and they work fine. I can pull them back and forth and the plane still sits there. And until I commit the power of that plane and take over, I have to push forward about four or five ounces worth of pressure on my throttle. And when I push it forward, I get about 600 pounds of thrust back that way. And my plane rolls down the runway and takes off. You see? And what I did is the same thing with the elevator. I trusted my body to the airplane. I trusted the airplane to do its thing. And I’m getting some funny looks and maybe I said a bad word. I do that every once in a while. My airplane just went over. Yeah, that’s it.

There’s many illustrations of this, but… Yeah, right. And boy, that’ll be something. But do you understand that this is… The book of James is something that you should read over and over and over again. Very good. And because Martin Luther, you know, tried to throw that out because he said it was a doctrine of works. And he said, “You say you have faith, like that, and show me your faith without works, and I’ll show you my faith by the works that I do. What is it then, brothers, if someone comes to you in need and he needs clothing and food, and you say, ‘Bless you, brother. Be warm and well-fed,’ but you don’t give him anything like that. What good is that?” You see? So, I will demonstrate my faith that work comes out of the works that come out of my faith. You see? But they have to have some works. God is so good. He does all these wonderful things, but He does require that we respond. You see? Now, think of all the energy it takes to fly that airplane. I don’t have to do that. I’m sitting there in perfect peace, just floating along and everything, and all I did was apply a little bit of power to something that I had faith in, and, boy, all this power comes in.

Isn’t that the way we do in a Christian life? Do we try to pull ourselves up or do I get on the end of the runway and flap my wings and arms and try to fly? No, you can’t do that. That’s about as foolish as what most of us try to do. We try to live the Christian life in our own strength. It can’t be done. Please don’t try it. I did it, and I tried it as hard as anybody that I know of, and I’m real hard-headed, and I didn’t make it. It didn’t even come close. And then I gave up, and I found that the Christian life was lived out through me by the power of the Holy Spirit in me. And Jesus lives His life. You know, this is the Spirit of Christ. It says so in the Bible, too. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all one. And we tend to separate them and think of them three. Please don’t do that. Jesus is the Father. He is the Holy Spirit. It’s the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God. And they’re all synonymous. It’s just different ways of saying it. And I don’t know why I’m doing all this silly stuff. I’m trying to get you to understand that what we need is truth and not what I call religiosity.

Now, there’s just an awful lot of that in the body of Christ. Piety and religiosity. Let’s get real, as the kids say. And one of the reasons a lot of people are turned off and kids don’t go to church is because they don’t see reality in what we do. They don’t see us right down where they are. And they ask honest questions. And we don’t give them that. We give them pious platitudes and stuff. And hear people say, oh, I’ve been a new creation in Christ. Well, what’s new about you? Show me what you… the change of behavior. How has your behavior been changed now since you’re new in Christ? Oh, I don’t know. Right up here. Wonderful. Scripture says that, you know, any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things are new. Well, that didn’t work with me. What I had to do was work that out a little bit. Paul does say, work out your salvation, your healing, in fear and trembling. And so, we have something to do. God could do everything for us. But He chooses not to. He chooses to include us in His love. He loves us so much. He includes us and says, I want you to cooperate with me in bringing the kingdom of God here on earth.

That’s exactly what He’s trying to tell us. And that’s all that’s been the message all the time. Jesus came to show us the kingdom, to bring the kingdom to us so that we have the kingdom within us. The kingdom is not out here. It isn’t. It’s not in the world or of the world. It’s in the world in us, but it’s not in the air, in the surroundings. The kingdom is in us. He said, the kingdom of God is within you, and it’s also among you when we’re together. And so, He’s trying to get us to live the kingdom of God. That’s what CFO originally started out to be, is to live the kingdom of God for a week or so, or two weeks. I think the camps were two weeks in those days. And to really experience Jesus and the kingdom of God, because He brought and showed us to us like that. If I was talking to Gene this morning, and I said, if I want to see the Father, I absolutely must look to Jesus. He said, “Philip, have I been with you so long, you know, that you don’t recognize me? I am the Father and one. I’m the Father.” That’s what He said. So, look at Jesus, you see the Father.

And as Catholics, we Catholics, we can see the Holy Spirit. Did you know that? All we have to do is look to Mary. She is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, and she manifests the attributes in fleshly form of the Holy Spirit. That’s all you have to do, is look at Virgin Mary. What has she done? She said, “Be unto me according to your word.” Perfect obedience. And she said to the people, “Do whatever He tells you to do.” And she always points to Jesus. She never points to herself. She’s all in the background. Isn’t that what the Holy Spirit does? He comes to bring us into all truth. So if I have to visualize or picture the Holy Spirit, I picture the Holy Spirit as another heart of God. That’s the feminine part of God. God is feminine, you know, and masculine. He said, “Let us create.” He said, “Let us.” No, no, no. Funny, isn’t it? “Let us.” And that’s Hebrew. And let us create man in our image, in our likeness. Male and female, He created them. And He didn’t, as a second thought, create a female that’s unlike God. So therefore, part of God’s nature is feminine. Has to be. You understand that? Yeah. Okay, so the loving, brooding heart of God.

So the Spirit of God brooded over the waters. Like that. And the word in Hebrew means brooded like a hen broods a chicken. See, it’s a mother hen. The Spirit is feminine. Wisdom is feminine, too. And in Greek, Sophia. And this, the idea of God being totally masculine is something that I cannot grasp. I can’t do it all. You look to Jesus, you see the Father. And you look to Mary, you’ll see the Holy Spirit. That’s the really way it is. You’ll see the mother heart of God. Amen. And I think that’s one of the reasons that the churches, the Catholic churches, honored Mary so much. I ask people, I don’t have any real relationship with Mary. I’m a Protestant. I didn’t raise up little boy and seniors or a mama. And my mama was not a good, ideal mama. She loved me very much. She did the best she knew how. And I loved my mother. And I loved my father. And they did the best they knew how. And they just, and I honored both of them to the very last day of their life right on. I was with my father when he died. And I honored him as God told me to. And I was glad when my father died. I was.

I was, it was a problem I didn’t have to deal with anymore. But in the meantime, I was a good son because Jesus told me to do it. That sort of thing. So I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother and my father. Somebody told me about God. I said, why don’t you think of God as your heavenly Father? I thought, oh my, that’s all I need is an infinite being with all His power. And be my Father. But I have a good relationship with my brother. And so Jesus is my brother. And through that, I came to see that He is the Everlasting Father. And that made it good. And the mother, I honor Mary. And she is the mother of my Lord Jesus Christ, the physical mother. And she had to be very, very special. And she is called very special because there are only two persons in the entire Bible that are called full of grace. Jesus and Mary. Those are the only two. Pleroma is the word that is used in there, but it’s full of grace. Everything else probably is filled with the Spirit, all these things. But Mary was full of grace. And Jesus was full of grace. He grew in grace and stature until He had the full pleroma or fullness of grace.

And so I think Mary is very unique. I’m not going to talk much on Mary, but I might as well. And Gene is afraid to. But I’m not. But anyway, as I say, I don’t have a personal, loving relationship like I do with Jesus somehow. However, there are times when I ask Mary to pray for me or pray for someone else like that. I’m led to do that. And that’s perfectly all right. And I ask my grandmother to pray. She’s been dead for about 30 years. And 50. I’ve been home more than that. 55 years or so. And I give an awareness of her. You see? It’s really funny. When we go to communion, I was also talking to Gene. I’m just kind of random now. I’ve got some things that God has put in my head, and I’m just going to go do it. I’ll get back to this first step in a minute and see if we can finish it up.

But, oh dear. Now the thought went, so maybe I wasn’t supposed to say it. God has such a sense of humor. I love it. You know, of course, that I don’t plan anything. I plan what I’m going to do. It never works out. I always plan I’m going to do something, and the talk ends up in somewhere else altogether. I’ll get back on the thing. Maybe it’ll come back. Maybe the thought will come back. But let’s go again looking at truth. And that’s the whole thing. We’ve got to look truth in the eye. And that’s Jesus. But He will help us. He’ll help. And the Spirit helps us in our infirmities. So if you’re courageous enough to do this, see, what I’ve placed before you is a cross. Do you understand that? This is an unpleasant thing that I’m asking you to do. And that’s a cross. And any cross, there’s a little bit of agony in it. Okay? Are you willing to take the agony of looking at yourself in order to find the resurrection of who you are on the other side? Where you can leave behind all of that old stuff back there that’s been dragging you down. You know you can do this through this one little simple technique. It’s the truth.

And I’m just asking you to be courageous. Look at yourself with the help of the Lord. You must pray in this. You pray and ask God to show you these things. God, who am I angry at? Write them down. God, who do I resent? What do I resent? Write this down. And then, God, would you please show me why that I’m so resentful? And then, God, would you show me what this affects? If you do this in prayer, there’s a lot of agony involved in this because you’re going to have to face up to it. I thought for a long time, not a long time, a year or two, after I got sober, that some of the things that I did as an alcoholic I was very ashamed of. And it was the alcohol that made me do it. But that is not true. I drank the alcohol, an act of the will, in order to give myself permission to do those things that I really subconsciously wanted to do. Do you understand that principle? That’s what I had to find out. And that is not pleasant. That is not… it’s agonizing to find. And once it’s done, then you confess it to God and to yourself. I told you how to do that out loud.

And then with a two-chair to yourself. And you must, as Gene has been hammering at us on this, you have to confess this thing and read it out loud so that you hear it. And God hears it. And He knows it. And He knew about it before He ever wrote it down. But still, you have to read it to Him because you’re going to hear it yourself speaking to God. And one thing that you can do is sit quietly after you’ve done this and let God speak to your heart. And He will help you amend this thing a little bit and maybe give you something more to add to it. Then you read it to yourself and then you talk back and forth. It’s a good way to talk to God, too. Try this. Get two chairs. Just face them where your knees are nearly touching. And put Jesus in that chair. And then tell Jesus. It’s like writing a letter to God. You can do this every day if you want to. And say, Jesus, this is what I feel. I got some anger. This is pretty cool. And just let it all out. Tell Jesus all about it. Then get in there and be Jesus and answer what you said. And your subconscious, deep and from your spirit, as for the Spirit of God, will speak to you during this.

I know this is kind of a technique, but it worked for me. And so it does work for me. And I recommend it. And now that you’ve done that, then you have to realize that it is God who’s going to remove the defects of character. Now, what are defects of character? There are lying, gossip, anger, resentment, envy, and all the seven deadly sins. All of these are character defects that we have. And all of us have them and share them. And God will… He doesn’t magically take them, but He begins to transform them a little bit. And He changes the things. I think, did I tell you, or it was the last camp I was in, I remember that time, I found a scripture that says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” And I thought, Lord, how can this be? The desires of my heart are entirely wicked. And that little thing, what I really want them to do is just terrible. And I said, would you please show me how that scripture fits in my life? And as things worked on down the way, a few weeks went by, and I began to see that He was changing my want-tos. Do you understand? My desires.

He was changing them until they were coming closer and closer to what He wanted to do. I had, when I was back in my old days of drinking and one thing or another, and trying to make a million dollars a week and all this stuff, my plans and goals, and make all the money in the world and be the richest man in the world, you know, might as well be the richest as long as you go out for money. Do everything, aren’t we? And so I wanted to play golf six days a week. That’s what I wanted to do. And just work in the mornings and then play golf in the afternoon. Wanted to get where I could do that. And God very graciously, after I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, set up by a year later, set up the circumstances where that’s what I had to do. In the business I had in, I had to play golf six days a week. And I didn’t want to play golf. I was time out from reading the scriptures. And that’s all I wanted to do is read the scriptures.

And so it was terrible. And I just went on and on and on. For two and a half years, I had to play golf six days a week, five, six days a week. I got down to a four handicap and it was good. But it’s a bondage. It’s terrible. And it was a waste of time. And I didn’t want to do it. And finally, I remember I was on a Thursday. And I was eating a sandwich at home. I’d come home from the office and eat a sandwich and go out. And we teed off at 12:30. So it was about 11:30. And I was eating this sandwich. And I just put it down. And I said, “All right, God, I don’t care. I will play this blanky blank game. It’s like that. As much as You want me to. And I just give up. I’m not going to, you know. It’s part of Your world for me. And that’s it. I accept it.” And so I went out and played golf. We had a tournament going on at that time. And four-ball tournament. And so I went out there. And I saw the blue sky for the first time. The green grass. The little chipmunks. Everything else. And they just, you know. They said, it’s your turn to hit.

And I got them hit. Didn’t care. I mean, everything. I shot an even par. 70 of those goals that day. And it was just astonishing. I had no idea of awareness of what was going on in the golf game. I didn’t play. But I was out there, physically there. That’s where I told the Lord I’d be. And on the 11th hole, this one man missed a putt about this long. And let out a long string of expletives. And right in the middle of it, he stopped and turned around and looked at me. And said, well, I’m sorry. He said, these were strangers I was playing with. And I said, why? He said, aren’t you a minister? Now, he saw that my mind was on Jesus. I never said a word to anybody on this. He saw Jesus in me, supernaturally, without me saying a word. Do you see that? Because all I was thinking about the whole time was out there, Lord, help me do this. I accept and I love You. I will do this. I’ll hit this ball. I’ll walk after that. You know, whole thing. And so, three weeks later, the circumstances came up in our business that we had to stop. All of us stopped playing golf. We had an emergency.

We had to take care of the things. I’ve never had to play again. And once I accepted it, He delivered me. But here was the desire of my heart. And He gave it to me. But by this time, I didn’t want it. He had changed my heart. You see? And that’s what He does. I mean, He’s in the heart-changing business. That’s what He does. It’s about time to quit. But I do hope that you will get you a loose-leaf notebook like that, one of these little ring-binder things. That’s the best one to get. And it doesn’t have to be very big because you’ve got many pages in it. You can just keep going. And if you do this, when you put it down in black and white, it’s not running around up in your head. Because if it keeps running around up in your head, you’ll confuse it with other things. And you just will not see the truth. It has to be in black and white down there where you can look at it. And you will see a pattern. And you will thank God. And you’ll thank God that I shared this with you. Because it is such a liberating thing. If you want to be free, that the truth will set you free.

If you really want to be free, please do this. I recommend it very highly. It works. As an alcoholic, we have to be free. There is no option. We cannot sidestep this step or we will get drunk again. There is no question about it. I’ve seen it happen too many times. If they get up to the first step, and if you can’t get them to get through that first step as best you can, you don’t do this perfectly. You do it over and over and over. You do it once a year. But the thing with it is, do it once, the best you can, and you’ll get the reward. This is operant conditioning. You’ll get the reward. Lord, you’ll feel better about yourself than you were meant to do it the next time. And you go in, and even though there’s an agony in it, there is the ecstasy of the resurrection that comes after it. So I recommend it highly. And God bless you. Thank You, Lord, for this beautiful day. Help us to enjoy You this day. Help us to see the truth about ourselves, and it doesn’t hurt, because there is no condemnation in You. As long as we stay in You, we will feel no condemnation when the truth is presented to us.

And I thank You for that, Lord. Thank You for the fun day today. Help us to live in Your peace and Your joy and the happiness that You have for us. Because You do want us to be happy, joyous, and free. And we thank You, Lord. For it’s in Jesus’ name that we ask all this. Amen.