Now You Watch Me Awhile

Now You Watch Me Awhile

by Larry Eddings

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I haven’t memorized it yet. But it’s, “Let me understand the teaching of Your precepts. Then I will meditate on Your wonders. Let me understand the teaching of Your precepts. Then I will meditate on Your wonders.” One of the greatest joys I have in life is to look at the wonders of God and see what God is doing in life and then tell about it. Some of you have known me a lot of years. And some of you have known me as your pastor. That’s an interesting relationship because you get to know each other pretty well.

And not all of us come from the same denomination, but in our particular part of the church family, pastors don’t stay too long traditionally. I don’t know why that is. It just is that way. We have an appointment system. My background is United Methodist Church. I’ve been in it all my life. I served as a pastor in local church for 31 years, different local churches, except for the last one where I was for 13 years. And when you’re there 13 years, you’re there long enough to live with your own mistakes. You can’t blame it on the one behind you. And then you have to ask forgiveness for what you have done. And you work out a beautiful relationship with people that way. I think it’s exciting. Some of you know me pretty well. And you know that I have had my times, my spring times and my growth with the Lord. The springtime, of course, is when everything is blossoming and going great. It’s exciting and colorful. And the breezes are blowing. And there are no clouds in the sky. And there’s just enough rain when the clouds do come to get ready for more flowers. That’s the springtime of your spiritual walk. You ever had those times? Everything’s just right. And then you enter into a long, hot summer.

Where growth takes place, interestingly enough, it’s in the hot summer, where the fruit starts developing on the trees and the vegetables on the vines. And it isn’t always pleasant to be in the sweat period of your life. But that’s when the growth happens.

Then, I’ve had those times. Then you enter into the fall season where people start picking your fruit. You know, the fruit of the Spirit grows in you. But interestingly enough, an apple tree never eats its own apples. It’s always there for someone else to pick and eat. And so, there’s that period of your life where people draw on you. And they drain you of what you have. Because whatever it is you have, they want it. And that’s the way it should be. You know, one of the ways that I experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life was I saw in other people’s life what I wanted. I saw a joy there that I didn’t have. And I wanted to have it. I saw a freedom and an excitement there that was totally out of my life. And I wanted… So, I started draining them, drawing on them whatever they had. I wanted it.

And that happens to me in my growth. You know, God developed something in my life. And people say, “I want some of that.” So, I share that. You know, by the way, if your body stores up too much energy, it’ll make you sick. You know that? If your body gets too much energy within it, you’ll get sick unless you give it away. If so, if you pour out your energy, it’s a lot healthier than if you just store it up for yourself. So, if you’re sick, maybe you got too much energy instead of too little. You haven’t given it away. Right. Well, let the people draw on that. Well, then there comes the wintertime in your life. The dormant season. “Isn’t anything ever going to happen in my life? It seems like I’ve been laying around here for three months. I haven’t heard the Lord. I have had no desire to read the Scripture,” and on and on and on and on. But the dormant period is such an important part of our spiritual growth. Where you’re quiet. And the body and the emotions and the spirit are restoring themselves. A dormant tree is not a dead tree. A dormant tree is restoring itself. And I think that’s the way with our lives. We need that cycle in our life so that we’re ready for the spring again.

Well, I had a time in my life when I’m not sure which cycle I was in. In my ministry. Where I was in my walk with the Lord. But there was a time that came when the Lord said very clearly… And this was an audible voice, by the way. It was not just a thought. It was a whole two sentences. Very clear, and made me listen. “Larry.” And when the Lord called you by your name. “Larry.” You listen. If it had been my mother, she would have said, “Lawrence Lee.” Do you really listen then? But the Lord said, “Larry.” That’s a name that I’ve used for years and years. “I’ve been watching you for 18 years.” That’s how long I had been preaching. Long I had been in ministry at the time. “I’ve been watching you 18 years. Now you watch me a while.”

And so for the last 16 years, I’ve been watching what God is doing and then telling about it. That’s what I want to do tonight. I don’t know how many times you’ve been in Israel, Wayne. You and Ruth. Audrey and I have been there once. We made our maiden voyage two years ago. Two years ago, today I think we were in Athens. But just prior to that, we were in Israel. What an exciting, overwhelming experience that was for me. There were 18 of us in the group, just the right size for those little buses. I wouldn’t want to go with a different size group unless it’d be smaller. But that was just right. It was an awesome trip for me. And I felt it was that way for everyone else on the group also. Because there were two in the group who had been there previously. And the rest of us were new babes. And our guide’s name was Abraham, of all names. Abraham, a beautiful man of God. He looked just like Abraham. Gray hair, gray beard, all the rest. He had more knowledge of more rocks than any man I have ever met in my life. He could tell you what every little hole in the ground meant. Which dig was where. And what came out of it.

And we were very well acquainted with all the holes and rocks in Israel. But other things too were exciting. We got to Nazareth on one day. And we went into the synagogue at Nazareth. I don’t know if it was the same synagogue Jesus stood in or not. It really doesn’t matter. I assume Nazareth was somewhere in that neck of the woods when Jesus walked there. But when we walked into that synagogue in Nazareth, it was as though we were there with the Lord. Because when we went in, they closed the door behind us. And we were the only group in there. Everyone took a seat on the side of the synagogue in quiet. And it was a privilege to stand in that synagogue where Jesus was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And He unrolled it to the place where it says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”

Because God always has a reason for something. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. To proclaim freedom for the captives. The recovery of sight to the blind. Release for the oppressed. And to say, ‘This is the year of the Lord’s favor.’”

Then He sat down. And all the eyes in the synagogue were on Him. This is a very big synagogue, so I don’t know that there were too many eyes on Him that day. But all the eyes that were there were on Him. Then He said an interesting thing. “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It had been read many times. But today, it has been fulfilled. It’s come true. I want to talk a little bit about that Jesus and about our relationship with Him tonight. I want to praise the Lord for what you were saying this morning, Wayne.

That birth, it just inspired me that Nicodemus had already been born again four times. And he was headed for a fifth one, I believe. And I think that’s exciting to know that there’s new birth all the time in the Lord. And the necessity to create that living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ. He’s the center of it all. He’s the foundation. No other foundation can be laid but that which has been laid, and that is Jesus Christ. There is no other foundation. If we try to build our spiritual lives, our temples on any other foundation than Jesus, we crumble. It all falls apart.

As I look at the Scripture, I see that Jesus is preeminent in all things. The New Testament, all of it focuses on Jesus Christ. In the book of Colossians, which I enjoy very much, the Apostle Paul says that He is preeminent in all things. In Him, all things are held together. He is the Redeemer.

He is the Deliverer. He is the one who brings us out of darkness into light. That’s what deliverance means. We come out of the realm of the dark into the realm of the light. And out of the dark world of evil into the light of the Lord.

We are children of the light. In Scripture, light is a part of the fruit of the Spirit, really. We have the fruit of light, the radiance of God. Jesus is also called the Savior. Even before He was born, the angel said that He would be the Savior. And then unto you this day in the city of David, a Savior is born, who is Christ the Lord. Even His name means salvation.

His whole mission was wrapped up in His name. He is the Healer. That was the message of the early church, that Jesus is the Healer. In Acts 10, 37 and 38. It says, “You know what has been happening, beginning in Judea, following the baptism that John preached. How Jesus of Nazareth was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. And how He went about doing good and freeing all those who were under the power of the devil. Healing all those who were under the power of the devil.” He was the Healer. What a gracious and wonderful Lord we have. Wherever He went, He preached good news to the poor. And then He demonstrated it by healing them. What He said, He did. And He only said what He heard the Father saying. And He only did what He saw God doing. What a wonderful and gracious Lord we have in Jesus Christ. He’s the center of it all. I find so many who do not understand the gracious act of God in Jesus Christ. And they feel lost and alienated from Him. The Colossians and the Ephesians were like that. Paul says, “Once you were alienated without God and without hope.”

That’s lost when you’re without hope and without God. And they were. But I find that there are a lot of Christians who are alienated from the Lord also. They have lost this beautiful, close relationship with the Lord. And one of the first evidences that they’ve lost it is that they’ve lost their joy. I think. They’ve lost their joy and their sense of thanksgiving.

One of the first evidences that we’ve lost our joy is that we’re trying to do it ourselves. Work it all out ourselves. Instead of leaning on the grace of God. We go right back into works righteousness. Slip out from under the grace of God. I heard you talking about the Grand Ole Opry tonight. And you said it was the second. How did you say that? I like that. I said it was the… Of all of the tourist places, it was my second choice to visit. Yeah. My first choice was any place else. Any place else. Yeah.

That’s physical. I want to tell you something. I’ve… When I was a little kid, I’m the last of 11 children. We lived in a little farmhouse in the hills of Oklahoma. And my parents were obviously farmers at the time. And we became migrant workers as we moved off that little farm and started traveling around. And so I was a migrant worker until I was finished with high school.

And it’s been an interesting life. We loved it. But while we were on that little farm, we used to listen to the Grand Ole Opry when I was a little kid. In front of a radio that scratched all the time. And we’d only get Roy Acuff. It wasn’t until years later I learned that part of the scratch was in Roy’s voice.

But a beautiful man. I loved him. And Minnie Pearl. And you know, a whole crowd. I heard them as little kids. And this last January, we had the privilege of being in Nashville, Tennessee for a meeting. First time I’d been in Nashville. Even though for the Methodist Church, that’s Vatican City. That’s where all our offices are.

So I was back there for a meeting. And we had a meeting on evangelism. We’re great for having meetings on evangelism in our church. I find a lot of churches are great having meetings on evangelism. As long as you learn about it, you know, and you can go home and feel good. But evangelization is something different. Evangelism is an ideology. Evangelization is doing it. So we were ideologizing, if there is such a word, in Nashville about winning people to the Lord. And our meeting ended on Thursday night. And Audrey and I, having gone to the Holy City, we wanted to wait another day before we went home. So we waited and went to the Grand Ole Opry on Friday night. I think, if you go to Nashville, don’t miss it. Regardless of what Wayne said.

I learned a lesson there. I learned you can have four hours of entertainment without one swear word. It’s a family program. You get your money’s worth also. It starts at 7:30 and it ends at 11:30. Four hours for nine bucks. And you can’t beat that. I don’t think. I thought it was a good price anyhow.

Everything is for radio. It’s a radio broadcast. It’s been going for 60 years, 64 years, something like that. At least that long because I heard it when I was a kid. And it was clean entertainment. The last half hour was in half hour segments. The last half hour was gospel, country gospel and worship time. There were probably about 3,000 people in the auditorium. 2,000 of them got up and left at the intermission just before the gospel time. So here sat scattered around through that auditorium about 1,000 people. Then came a beautiful country western choir. I don’t remember what they sang, but it was beautiful. And Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys sang.

And I like bluegrass. And Bill is probably the father or grandfather of bluegrass even. To my ear, which is flat itself, he’s about another half note flat. But other than that, it’s beautiful. I’m not to criticize another man’s servant. He’s the Lord’s servant.

Then, I think it’s Hank Williams Jr. If I have the name wrong, I ask the Lord’s forgiveness. But I believe it’s Hank Williams Jr. is an ordained pastor. And I’m not sure it’s in a Pentecostal church, but I’m not sure which one. He came out and he preached an eight-minute sermon. Eight minutes.

And it was basically, God cares what’s happening to you, whether you know it or not. Whether you believe it or not. He cares. And he preached it in probably a little more… with a little more enthusiasm than I normally relate to. But it was very clear, nevertheless. And when he was finished, he asked a question. He said, “Where are you in your walk with the Lord? In this moment, where are you in your walk with Jesus Christ? It doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, what commitments you’ve made in the past, what failures you’ve had in the past. None of that matters. Where are you this moment? Right now. And you need to ask yourself that question. Where are you?”

And for those of you that don’t know the Lord, this is what he’s saying to the crowd. “Do you feel you need to make some kind of commitment so that you do know Him? If you do, this is the time, right now, this moment. Not the next moment, but now.” Now here was a man doing what we’ve been talking about doing for three days. He was evangelizing.

He was confronting people with where they were in their walk with the Lord. Have you been alienated? Then get over it. Do something about it. Now. And he said, “If you’re at a point where you would like to establish a relationship with Jesus, I invite you to stand. Stand.” Right in front of everybody, I thought. In a secular auditorium. 50 people stood up. 50 people stood up. I said, “Thank You, Lord. Thank You. That the Spirit, Your Holy Spirit, worked through that man and this group to present the gospel to them and give 50 people an opportunity in this auditorium to stand for You.” We’ve been talking about it for three days and in eight minutes, he did it. Everything we’ve been talking about.

And somewhere, when we know that people are alienated because they don’t know the Lord, we need to give them an opportunity somewhere to say, “Yeah, I really do want to make that commitment to the Lord.” Because when that happens, we know that a new soul is brought to the Lord. And there’s more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 that doesn’t need it. And I knew all of heaven was rejoicing that night because they had 50 right there in that one place to rejoice over it. I saw God do that with my own eyes. I saw the Spirit of God moving. And that’s made a difference in my life about how I present Jesus to people. To give them an opportunity to say, “Yes, it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, but in this moment, say yes.” And I think that must be something of what Jesus was saying when He was confronting the people in the synagogue. “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” You’ve been hearing about it, now it’s fulfilled. This is the day of salvation. There’s an urgency in responding to Jesus. We were in a town of Belt, Montana. Have any of you ever heard of Belt, Montana? We hadn’t either. Belt, Montana, it’s, well, it’s hard to get to.

It’s just out of Great Falls, Montana, about 20 miles south and east, but there’s no main road that goes through it. So you fly into Great Falls and someone comes and gets you. We went there in January. We’ll know better than to do that again.

But it was exciting. It was a time when we saw the people of God experience a Pentecost once again in their lives. There were two churches in town, the Roman Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church, and they got together to have us come. They asked us if we would come since they were off the beaten trail. No one ever came through, so would we be willing to come? And we said, “Sure, we love places like that.” And I’m glad we went because we saw God’s Spirit released in that town and in those churches. One of the most exciting things happened in the life of an 84-year-old woman. In one afternoon session, we were talking on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and one of the words that came, a word of prophecy, which was Scripture, and I think prophecy comes straight out of the Scripture. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear my voice, I will come in. And open the door, I will come in.”

And wow. The place was quiet. How can you say anything after that? When the sense of the Spirit had lifted from that moment, we went on and concluded that session. And over to the side, the pastor motioned for me to come, and he said, “May wishes to speak with you.” And I said, “Okay.” And tears were flowing down her cheeks. Beautiful lady. And I said, “May, what do you want to speak about?” And she said, “I have been in the church all my life.

And Jesus has been knocking on the door of my heart all my life. But I would never let Him in. I always kept it shut. Today, I heard Jesus say very clearly, ‘May, I’m standing at the door and knocking. If you will open it, I’ll come in.’” And she said, “I want to open it. Will you help me open it?” And I said, “Sure, I’ll help you open it.” And I saw her open up the door of her heart and allow Jesus Christ to come in. Now, here’s a person who had been exposed to the gospel, to the church, all her life. She had her sister praying for her all her life. Her sister was standing there, and it was hard to tell whether she was 82 or 86. She was right around that same age as May. And she said, “Praise the Lord. I’ve been praying for this girl ever since we were kids.” And God honored her prayer and brought her sister in. She opened the door. You see, when Jesus has an opportunity, when we present Jesus, the Holy Spirit will move in people’s lives to bring response if we allow that to happen. I’m not just saying Wayne and myself. I’m saying when we, as the people of God, share Jesus with people around us and not worry about the results, the Holy Spirit will take care of the results.

Sometimes those of us within the church, as I mentioned a while ago, lose our joy. I think as I move around through the church, I see people who are weary. And they’re weary because we’ve tried to do it ourselves rather than rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to empower us to be God’s people.

We lose our sense of thanksgiving. We do not get up in the morning and say, “Thank You, God, for this day. I praise Your name for giving me this new day.” There is more of a tendency to say, “Oh, Lord, another day. You know, I have to get through it somehow.” And we have a tendency to say, “I just don’t know how I’m going to make it through this situation.” When in reality, we do because the Spirit of God is our strength. God gives us a way to bring about a healing in that situation. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and I think humble ourselves is to get rid of the false pride we have. “I can handle it myself. I don’t need the Lord’s help.” If we will humble ourselves, if my people will humble themselves and pray, that means basically talk to me. Praying is talking with the Lord. If my people will humble themselves and talk to me and seek my face instead of everyone else. If seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, which is repentance, just turn around and go another way, then I will hear from heaven, forgive your sins, and heal your land.

I think that’s a beautiful prescription the Lord has put in the Scriptures for healing us of our broken relationships with Him and bringing us back to Him, restoring our joy. Jesus put it in another way. “Come to me if you’re weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Tremendous prescription for healing for the weary Christian and the one who’s lost their joy or their sense of thanksgiving or feeling you have to do it all yourself. “Come to me if you’re weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest.”

I had an experience in a relationship with a boy some time ago. We were talking today and some of you said you were from the Lutheran Church, and I’ve had such an exciting time with the Lutheran Church. There are so many beautiful Lutherans in the world. They look a lot like Free Will Baptists and Episcopalians and United Methodists and any others that walk around. But they’re such a… I enjoy the liturgy of the church. It’s a beautiful worship experience. We were asked to come to Canada to participate in a Lutheran weekend. We didn’t know what they had in mind for us, but we drove to British Columbia to Kamloops, which is quite a ways from my home. It took us all day to get there. And they said, “Come early. Come on Thursday because we’re going to have a full weekend for you.” And I said, “Okay.” So we drove up on Thursday and had some rest Thursday evening when we visited with the pastor and his wife in their home. And he said… And we went over the schedule and he said, “We’re going to start at 6 o’clock tomorrow morning with a men’s prayer breakfast.” And that’s fine. We’ve had men’s prayer breakfast before as men get ready to go to work. But when we went to the men’s prayer breakfast, when that was finished, there were other meetings that lasted all day Friday, all evening Friday, and into the night.

And we got home about 11:30 at the parsonage where there was a group gathered for evening prayers. And then the Saturday schedule was exactly the same. 6 o’clock prayer breakfast, all day Saturday meetings, Saturday night at the church, and we gathered at the parsonage at 11 or 11:30 for evening prayers. Sunday morning, same thing. Early morning prayer breakfast, the worship services, Sunday afternoon meetings, Sunday evening worship, and when 10 o’clock came Sunday night, I was standing on my tongue. It was just… after you talk all that time. I had told them everything I knew, anything I’d ever read about, anything anyone else knew. I just… I don’t know how many hours went into that weekend of talking, but praise God He gave me the voice and the energy to last through it. But by Sunday night, you know, you wonder if you’ve said this before or not.

You’ve had experiences like that. They’re great, but they’re really wearing. And on Friday night, there was a couple came, young couple, they sat about three or four pews back in the sanctuary off to my left, and they brought with them their 12-year-old boy, Chris. And it was very obvious, Chris did not want to be there. 12-year-old boys have a way of telling you when they don’t want to be somewhere. And he did. His folks sandwiched him in between them because if he had had any room to get movement, he would have been gone. So they just squeezed him right in between them. And this 12-year-old boy sat there rigid, and through his eyes, he kept giving me this message, “I guess you know I don’t want to be here.” That was loud and clear through his eyes. And so as I spoke with the people, my eyes would come in touch with his occasionally, and mine would say back to him, “Yes, Chris, I’m aware that you don’t want to be here.” And then I’d go on talking. This went on Friday night, all day Saturday, Saturday night, all day Sunday, and Sunday night. Same place, same communication going on. Never a verbal word between us. When Sunday evening came, we went into the social hall for refreshments.

And this boy came over to me, and he said, “I want to talk with you.” Well, if you’ve never been confronted by a 12-year-old boy locked up in church for three days, you have never been confronted. And I said, “Okay, I’ll talk with you.” And I motioned for us to step over to the side, and he said, “Not in here. Let’s go in the pastor’s study.” Well, that was all the way down at the other end of the facilities. But I said, “Okay, Chris, let’s go.” So we walked through the sanctuary and education wing and down into the pastor’s study. And when we went in, he closed the door, and he said, “You sit over there.”

That was the counselee’s chair. He went around behind the pastor’s desk, got in the swivel chair, and he just swiveled. He just looked at me and moved that chair back and forth what seemed like an eternity. And he just looked straight at me.

Pretty soon, he said, “I want to talk with you about this Jesus. Jesus.” And then he began to unload. He started in on his school. He hated school. He hated everything that had to do with school. Teachers, homework, principal, coaches, recess, anything that had to do with school, Chris hated it. And he just spewed out everything he could think of that had to do with school. That took about 15 minutes.

When he was finished with that, he got to his home. He hated his home, hated his parents, hated his room, hated to clean it up, hated the chores, mowing the lawn, carrying out the garbage, everything had to do with home. He hated it. Wasn’t any question about it, he hated it. That took about another 15 minutes.

Then he got to the church. Chris hated the church. He didn’t like the church, never had, never will. He didn’t like the pastor. He didn’t like his Sunday school teachers, didn’t like worship, didn’t like the youth group. There wasn’t a thing about church Chris liked. And that included God.

And that took about 15 minutes. So I’m listening for 45 minutes to all of this stuff pouring out of this boy. He’s only 12, and it sounded like 50 years of stuff that had built up within him. So I’m asking the Lord as I listen to Chris, “Lord, what is this boy trying to say? What does he want?” And I sensed the Lord saying, “He told you when he first came in here.” Well, I had to sort back through 45 minutes of stuff to get back to when we first came through the door. But he said, other than “go sit over there,” he said, “I want to talk with you about this Jesus.” And that’s what we’ve been talking about all weekend. The person of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so when he ran out, he, you know, you can only pour out so much and you run dry. And he ran dry. And I listened for a while to see if he was going to say anything else and there wasn’t anything else coming. So I asked Chris, “You really want to talk about Jesus, don’t you?” And he said, “Yes, I do.”

So I thought, since I was right on one count, let’s try another one. “Chris, is the idea that you have that you want to invite Jesus into your heart?” And he said, “Yes, it is.” We had talked about that through the course of the weekend too. “Yes, it is.”

I said, “Well, why don’t we do it then?” And he said, “Okay.” But you know, before he could do that, God is so gracious to clean out the temple, to get rid of all the garbage. He loved that boy so much, He didn’t want all that stuff standing in between a relationship between Him and the boy.

So, I moved around behind the pastor’s desk, sat down in a chair beside Chris, and I said, “Chris, you want the Lord in your life? You ask Him. I can’t do it for you. You ask Him in your own words.” And he said, “Okay.”

“God, I’m sorry for the way I am. Will You forgive me? Thank You for Your forgiveness. Jesus, I want You to come into my heart. Thank You for coming into my heart. Jesus, baptize me with Your Holy Spirit.

Thank You for baptizing me with Your Holy Spirit. Amen.” That was it. Isn’t that a beautiful prayer? I remember it. It was so easy. I can remember it. Kids know how to pray. They go right to the heart of it. You can’t get any better than that. We adults have a tendency to get more sophisticated and mature in our praying. And we beat around the bush with the Lord. But kids will go straight to the heart of the matter because it’s the Spirit praying through him.

And when that boy looked up from that prayer, he was brand new. He was born again and filled with the love of the Lord. The joy was there. The radiance was there. And he hugged me. That was evidence to me that he had been filled with the Spirit because for three days he looked like he wanted to kill me.

But he hugged me and I hugged him and we walked back in to where the people were in the social hall. We’d been gone about an hour or a little over. And all the people were still in that social hall. I don’t think any of them had gone home. And at the time I was convinced the reason they all stayed was to pray for my protection.

They all knew Chris. We’ve all had Chris’s in our churches. Rebels. And not all of them are 12, by the way. Some of them are up in years. But he walked into that room and it changed. He went straight to his mom and dad and he said, “Mom and Dad, I’m sorry for the way I’ve been. Will you forgive me?”

That amazed me. And it shocked them. Amazed them because they said, “Chris, of course we’ll forgive you.” And I saw a family reconciled in that moment. And then he left his mom and dad and he went to other people in that room. All he could get to to tell them what had just happened in his life. And wherever he went they lit up. The room just lit up with his presence there. He was evangelizing. He was telling the good news. And people’s lives were touched by this boy who had just been filled with the Holy Spirit. I saw God work a miracle of change in that church’s life because it changed one boy’s life. You know, Jesus is the healer of relationships. Jesus is the savior of people’s lives. And I saw Him working, healing, and His saving grace in that boy’s life. I saw Him bringing reconciliation. That’s who He is, the reconciler. Saw Him bringing that in that church body through this boy. I saw Him redeeming life through this boy. It was exciting to see it happen. That’s the kind of savior we have. That’s the one I want to talk about throughout the course of the week. Tomorrow morning, I would like to talk about the faith that God gives us.

The gift of faith that He gives us enabling us to live an effective and productive life in our relationship with Him. Pray with me. Lord, I thank You for tonight. I thank You for the privilege of sharing what I have seen You doing in life around me, and gracious Lord, I pray that the words which were used were words which were inspired by Your Spirit. But Lord, if at any point I used words which were my own and they in any way would serve to create a barrier or a blockage in an individual’s growth and in their relationship with You, I ask for Your forgiveness.

And Lord, I pray that You would erase these from their minds. Lord, if I have shared anything which would in any way touch a life and encourage it in its walk with You and in its desire to grow in its relationship with You, I pray that that word go into the heart and take root there and produce a harvest of righteousness.

My great desire, Lord, is that Your name be glorified and honored. And I pray that that happen in each of our lives and in that which we share with each other. In Jesus’ precious name, Amen. Amen.