WWUTT 1450 Q&A Church Search, Seeing God, Who Was Buddha

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How do we see the face of God? Will we see him in some kind of miraculous sign, or is there another way to see

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God? And how does Buddhism clash with Christianity? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

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No one comes to the Father but through faith in Jesus. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt

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.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. I should be saying, here once again is

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Becky. Yay! Welcome back onto the program, babe. Thanks. We were starting to lose listeners.

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Aw. It was terrible. Sorry, guys. We're leaking like a sieve here. We had to get you back on.

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They're going back and listening to the old ones. We'll just go that route. Right. Going back to classic

01:03

Becky. Yeah. Hey, the Wokeness and the Gospel Conference coming up in two weeks.

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It's coming fast, too. Two weeks. Summer's already started. Well, not really.

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Summer break. Okay. Yeah, granted. I guess, well. It's summer to the kids.

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Yeah. You got Memorial Day coming up on Monday. That's the beginning of the pool opening, right?

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Well, Saturday opens the pool, but yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's the weekend. The way it was in - Memorial weekend.

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Just about every town I lived in, it was, the pool was open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Oh, yeah, yeah.

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That's your summer. Mine was Memorial Weekend. Like, they even threw in Friday, because usually people, the kids didn't go to school on Fridays.

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So. Oh, good. Yeah. We ended school on Thursdays. Here, they go to Friday. They have a half -day

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Friday. Oh, that's lame. So, they don't open the pool around here until Saturday.

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Saturday. But then, the summer doesn't officially start on the calendar until June 20th. Right. This year, the solstice is on the 20th, which is a

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Sunday, which is Father's Day. Yeah. So, the first day of summer is going to be on Father's Day this year.

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Lots of things going on. And then, our son's 10th birthday is the next day. The next day. Yeah. Yeah. Super exciting.

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Well, we've got the Wokeness and the Gospel Conference coming up in two weeks. I just said that, didn't I? Yes, you did.

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It was the way I said two weeks. It was like, that's come out of my mouth already. Yep. I've said that. Two weeks, everybody. Two weeks.

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We've got a booth. Becky is going to be there? So far, the answer is yes.

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Yes. Okay. But I'm still leaving one toe out the door to be like, ah, it didn't work out.

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So, Lord willing, I will be there. Yeah, right. If all goes well, we're really close to our third trimester.

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That's about the time you'll be starting your third trimester, I think. Yep, that is. Yep. Yes. With baby number five on the way, appreciating your prayers and your encouragement.

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Definitely. On the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners. You can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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This one comes from Patty. Hey, I was told by a brother that I could search for churches on your site, but I can't find anything.

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Is this resource available? Thank you, Patty. Well, if you go to links at our website, it's like the second sort of category down.

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You won't find it in a menu heading. You have to click on links, and then it's in the links page. But it's the second category down.

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It gives several links to church search sites. That are trusted. That's right. Founders is one of them.

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Master's Seminary, I think, is the other one. The thing with the master's church search, though, church search, hard to say.

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The thing with that search is I'm pretty sure the churches that are in that database, those churches have pastors that are graduates of master's.

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So you know kind of what doctrine and theology you're getting when you're looking for a church on the master's search page.

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I mentioned founders. The other one is Michelle Leslie's site. Yes. Because Michelle has already put together her own page with a bunch of different church search engines.

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Right. So you can go to her page, too, and search for her. People verify or suggest removal of churches that made the page.

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So she keeps it pretty up to date, too. So I farm the searching out to other sites.

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I don't have a database myself. No time for that. But thank you to those people who have put together those databases that you can search for a good, godly church in your area.

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And we encourage you to go. We know because of pandemic regulations, all kinds of stuff, there are lots of churches that don't have their doors open, and that may be the reason why you're searching for a church.

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It could be. Mine hasn't even been meeting, and so I need to go find a church. If you're in the

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East Texas area, come to First Baptist Church of Lindale. We have been open. We have doors open.

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All year long. And I've heard that Canada has a lot of doors closed.

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Yeah, there are. We get a lot of emails. Yeah. So be praying for Canada. Please do.

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And the Christians there who want to be faithful, they want to go to church, but there's not an open church. So you need bold, courageous men of God that are willing to stand up and say, we're going to obey

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God, and we're going to have church. This next question comes from Katie. She says,

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Pastor Gabe, I saw you say on Twitter, uh -oh. Uh -oh. You get in trouble on Twitter sometimes.

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I do. You know, it's funny. Is it the way that I type things? I don't know. They hear like a tone that I just don't have.

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Well, I mean. I'm not being mean. If I'm calling you friend or brother or sister,

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I'm not being sarcastic. It's not sarcastic. It's not sarcastic. I'm legitimately calling you a friend or a brother or a sister.

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I'm showing peacefulness as we engage here. I'll still get blocked. It doesn't come across that way, because I just remember my arguments with my parents growing up.

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And then I would call them, yes, sir, yes, ma 'am. Yes, sir. You know? Well, I've heard stories from your mom.

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I know you weren't being respectful when you did that. No way. It was.

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Yeah. I was not that child. But anyway. All that to say, I'm not trying to be mean on Twitter.

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Yeah. And you really don't. I mean, but you don't use the flowery talk either, like to surround it with the super sickly sweet responses.

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So that way they get a feel for, hey, brother, I'm talking to you out of love, you know, like that kind of thing.

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That takes too many characters. I only have so many characters. I know. But at the same time, sometimes it's worth an extra tweet.

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Tom will say things more forcefully than I will. And he doesn't get blocked.

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He gets phone calls, and they sit there and have conversations. I'm like, nobody wants to talk to me. They just block me. Well, you kind of have a, apparently you have a reputation going.

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So does Tom. It's true. It's true. He still does not. I don't know. These guys will text him.

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I mean, they have me blocked on Twitter, but they're texting Tom. I don't know what he says. We'd be curious. Don't invite that.

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Oh, we get to tell Gabe what we think about him on Twitter. Out of kindness. All right.

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Well, that is true. Curiosity did kill the cat. So Katie's email here. Yes. Keep caring.

07:47

I saw you say on Twitter that you used to ask God in impassioned prayers that you would have a burning bush experience.

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That's true. I used to ask God, please speak to me through a burning bush. I would pray exactly that.

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Turn my water into wine, something. I want to see some miraculous sign that you're there. You're breathing, babe.

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That's miraculous. That's true. My next breath is by the grace of God, which is kind of my point, because then

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I went on in the tweet to say that I read John 20, 29, which says, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.

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And 2nd Corinthians 12, 9, which says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

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Katie goes on to say, Given that you said you used to pray for a burning bush experience, does that mean you don't anymore?

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Why would that be a bad thing? Shouldn't we want to see the face of God? Don't get me wrong.

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I'm not saying don't trust the Bible. I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. It just bothers me when

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I see someone say, I believe what the Bible says, and then they don't seek God anymore. But I want to be gracious, and maybe

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I'm not seeing this the right way. I enjoy following you on Twitter. Okay. Glad to hear that.

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God bless Katie. Okay. So I did not say that I'm not seeking the face of God anymore.

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Right. I was asking God to give me some kind of a burning bush sign that I would know that he was there.

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I want to hear exactly what his will is for my life. Moses heard from God, who said to Moses exactly what

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God's will was for Moses. And Moses didn't want it. He didn't even ask for it.

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Yeah, that's right. God chooses whom he is going to appear to and whom he is going to appoint to what task.

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I'm asking for that. I want God to show himself through these miraculous signs and revelations.

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But as I talked about on the podcast earlier this week, he has chosen his prophets and apostles, and not just anybody gets to hear the voice of God.

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If you have somebody that comes along that says, hey, God spoke to me and he told me to tell you this, you tell them, well, raise the dead and prove it.

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Yes. If God really spoke to you, you better have some sort of miraculous sign to back it up.

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So seeking God, seeking the face of God, is not something that is done by impassioned prayers asking to see a miracle.

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Seeing the face of God is reading his word. For we read in 2 Corinthians 4,

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Having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

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We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

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In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord. With ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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So this is how we know God. This is how we see God. We see him through his word.

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And I gave a couple of passages there that showed me how

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I know God. John 20, 29. 2 Corinthians 12, 9. As I said on Twitter, you only have so many characters to be able to say something.

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Another one of those passages, this one was hugely instrumental for me, was 2 Peter 1, where Peter says in verse 16,

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For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Now that's

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Peter talking about him and James and John in that context, because they're talking about the three of them being together with Christ on the

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Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus was transfigured before them, and they got to see the glory of the face of Christ with their own eyes.

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Verse 17. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

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And that was only three of the 12 that got to see that. Only Peter, James, and John. Verse 19.

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And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. To which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

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So when I was young and I'm asking God to reveal himself to me so that I could see him in some sort of miraculous doing, and then

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I go and I read the scriptures and I read this, what I read is that God has appeared to a select few.

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And he had miraculous signs that he did for them to affirm that the message that was spoken to them really was from God.

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Or through them, they would perform miracles to show that the word that they are speaking comes from God himself.

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Right. In the case of Peter, of course. And we gave examples of that earlier in the week. Him healing the beggar outside the temple, you know, so on and so forth.

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Raising the dead, speaking in tongues. All those things that were done by Peter affirmed that the power of Christ was with him and the word that he spoke really was the word of God.

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So if God was going to appear to me in a miraculous sign, then that means I'm a prophet or I'm an apostle.

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Which is, that's not going to be God's will for me. Instead he's appeared to those few for a specific purpose that they might speak the word that comes from God, a prophetic word more fully confirmed.

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So when I'm young and I'm studying this, I recognize what I have here in the Bible is actually more confirmed than the miraculous signs that were seen.

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And one of the other things that I noticed about the foolishness of my request, thinking that if God would just perform a miracle in front of me, then

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I could believe and I would do what it was that he wanted me to do. What I came to realize was the

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Israelites saw those miracles and they did not believe. Right. They went and worshiped a golden calf.

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Yes. And so I was, that made me tremble. I'm going, would I hear the voice of God from Mount Sinai and then turn around and worship a golden calf?

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No joke. Yeah, seriously. I mean, how full of myself am I to think that this is all

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I need for my faith? Isn't that like the story of, I think it was Lazarus, wanting to go back and warn the people not to sin anymore and to follow

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God. And they said that even if we bring back someone from the dead, is that right? Yeah, sort of. You're getting it, a little bit.

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Kind of. So there was the rich man and Lazarus. I'm waiting for you to jump in and I'm like, I'm going to get this wrong eventually.

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Becky's got pregnancy brain. I do. It was the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was the poor man who died and was carried by angels to Abraham's side.

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And it was the rich man who said that? Yes. He said that from hell or from a place of torment. That's what

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I meant to say. You got it. I know you know it. I know it. It's just anyway. Don't mind me.

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So the rich man looks up and sees Abraham in paradise and says, well, first he asked for a drop of water to cool his tongue in this awful place.

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Abraham says, there's a chasm fix between here and there. You can't come over here. I can't come over there.

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And so the rich man says, we'll send somebody back to warn my brothers about this awful place. And that was when

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Abraham said to him, after he pleaded and said, if someone rises from the dead, then they'll believe.

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And Abraham says, they have Moses and the prophets. If they will not believe

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Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone should rise from the dead. So yeah, you're right on with that.

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Confirms it. You had the Jews that were demanding of Jesus for a sign.

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And he said, no sign is going to be given to this wicked and crooked generation except for the sign of Jonah, which was his death and resurrection from the dead.

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So all of these things are right here in the Bible for me. This is confirmation that this is true, that God is real, and his will for my life is something.

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It's just I may not be getting it from a burning bush. But his will for me, as it says in 1

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Thessalonians 5, is to abstain from sexual immorality. His will for me is to, as it says then in the next chapter, is to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is

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God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Yes. He has a will for me to pursue holiness, to live as Christ, to have the mind of Christ.

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And to share the gospel with the world. That's right. To do that with others. Now, I didn't come in to, oh, well,

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I'm supposed to be a pastor. Right. This, what we're pointing out from the

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Bible is for everybody. Yeah, that's everyone. This is not a fortune cookie. Right. You don't open up the

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Bible and find a verse, and boom, that's what it is that I'm supposed to do. Here's where I'm supposed to move.

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This is the career I'm supposed to have. But we have the word of God, the prophetic word more fully confirmed.

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And Peter says, you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. That was a passage I read last week, too. We were talking about the Book of Enoch. Mm -hmm.

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Which came from a man, not the Holy Spirit. But the Book of Jude was inspired by the

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Holy Spirit for Jude to write what it was that he wrote. Anyway, there's the answer to the question.

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You seek God by seeking his word. Mm -hmm. You know God through his word. You know

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Christ through the Bible. And you know him more fully through the Bible. That's right. This is how we are sanctified even, for as Jesus prayed in John 17, 17,

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Father, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. So praying and begging for miraculous signs is not how you see

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God. Reading the Bible and asking God that you may understand it, and also have the

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Spirit of God that you may live according to it, that's seeing the face of God. And if you're striving to be one of the very few who see

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God in miraculous signs of burning bush or whatever, check your heart.

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Make sure it's in the right place for you to be seeking God, because sometimes we just want to be the one person and be special.

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Or we want a feeling. Or a feeling. We're chasing after something that we're not supposed to be chasing after.

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We're not chasing after God's heart and what would bring him honor and glory.

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That's right. We're after our own heart, our own desires. Okay, this next one, I don't know if this was sent to me by mistake.

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Okay. But anyway, it's from Kenton. I thought I'd go ahead and reply to it. Hi, many have the misconception of Buddhism being a religion.

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Buddhism is really more of a way of life which can wire our brains positively and see changes in a different light.

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Since fate has brought us here, we hope you can spend some time to explore Buddhism.

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We have shortlisted a few videos from YouTube with regards to Buddhism. We believe your time will not be wasted.

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Okay. I did not watch any of those videos. I intend to because I'm just kind of curious as to what is it that you're going to be passing off as Buddhism.

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What sort of worldly philosophy am I going to hear in this basically? Right. But I thought I would respond and do kind of a little overview of Buddhism.

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This is a pretty popular religion. Yes, it is a religion. So he says, many have the misconception of Buddhism being a religion.

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It's really more of a way of life. I understand why he's saying that, but Buddhism is a religion.

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Yes. They're trying to get rid of the religion because that seems to be a bad word in today's society.

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Oh, yeah. There are Christians that do it, too. I know. That's what I'm saying. It's a fad that's happening right now that people don't say religion.

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This is not a religion. It's a relationship. Yes. Oh, my goodness. Oh, stop. It's both.

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It is both. Yes, you have a relationship with God through Christ, but Jesus gave us religious practices.

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Right. The Lord's Supper, baptism, going to church. These are all religious things that you do.

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So, yeah, Christianity is a religion. It's also a relationship. Buddhism is, too.

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It's a religion and it's a relationship. Oh. It's a relationship with yourself. I wondered. Yeah.

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It's entirely self -centered, incredibly self -centered Buddhism is. So, it was started by Siddhartha Gautama in about the 7th century

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B .C., and this guy was from a very, very wealthy family. He grew up rich, didn't have a care in the world, and his parents even wanted to guard him from the world.

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So, he would always have a cushy life, and they tried to guard him from religion and things like that.

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But then he decided that this was not the way to live, and so he started devoting himself to asceticism.

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Probably because that's how God made us, is not to live like that. Yeah. So, he surprisingly found himself unsatisfied, though he was rich and had everything.

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We see celebrities going through this all the time. They have absolutely everything and are not satisfied, and yet then the rest of us think that, if I could just have what they have.

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Right. That we'll be happy if we get to this. Right. Yep. Or that, or the other. I would have everything without a care in the world.

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Right. Well, this guy had everything, the guy that would eventually be called the Buddha, and yet he wasn't satisfied.

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So, he devotes himself basically to self -torture and depriving himself of certain things so that he could experience struggle.

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And he sought the monk's peacefulness. Well, he had these visions. There was a famous vision that he had of an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse.

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And then he had another vision of this monk. And the monk was living in peace.

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So, he wanted that. He sought the peacefulness of a monk. And so, he decided to devote himself to this deprived sort of existence.

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And on one occasion, he indulged himself with a bowl of rice. So, he's living as a poor man.

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He's depriving himself of all pleasure. And he gives in to his impulses for hunger, and he eats a bowl of rice.

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And then he sits down under a fig tree, and he decides, I'm either going to achieve enlightenment, or I'm going to die.

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So, he decided to stay right there until one of those two things happened. Oh, my.

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Well, he managed to resist every impulse that he had, and he achieved sudden enlightenment.

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And it was at that moment that he became the enlightened one, or the

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Buddha. And then he took this new enlightenment that he had, and he began to teach other monks who had already gained great influence following along with some of the philosophies and teachings that he had been spouting off even before he had achieved this enlightenment.

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And from there, he came up with the four noble truths. Number one, to live is to suffer.

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So, he concluded living is suffering. Okay. That's true. I mean, yeah, I can relate. Living is hard.

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Well, of course. You're pregnant. I am. Living is hard. Becky is feeling the effects of the curse now.

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He will go through pains in childbearing. Yeah. That's part of the curse upon the woman, and Becky is feeling it.

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Yes. And so, we understand that as Christians, but this is a guy who did not know.

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It wouldn't have been Christianity at this time because he was over 600 years before Christ. This would have been anything according to the

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Hebrew God. Buddha did not know this. Now, Solomon had been around before Buddha, hundreds of years before Buddha.

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Right. So, everything that could be conceived of as far as philosophy goes,

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Solomon had already thought of it. Right. And in Ecclesiastes 1, he says, it's all vanity.

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And the more knowledge one gains, the more sorrow, the more grief. Right. So, Buddha's attempt to try to achieve this enlightenment is contrary to everything that God says according to his word.

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To live is to suffer, that's true. Suffering is caused by desire, not so much.

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Suffering, you can suffer regardless of desire. True. Desire has nothing to do with it. True. But, I mean, desire does increase suffering if you can't have what you want.

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If you go about pursuing what God has called sin.

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We've been talking about this even as we've been going through Proverbs. The wicked, when they pursue those things, they keep suffering on themselves.

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Yes. And so, yes, if you go after what God has called sin, there's going to be consequences for that. Even if you don't experience it in this life, there's judgment that comes for it later.

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See, that's what my filter did whenever you said that, but I know that's not what they're coming from. Right. So, my world view is different.

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Yeah. So, even when I hear some pastors that will say, see, God has given us the best way, and if you'll just follow the way that God has set before us, then you won't suffer so much.

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Andy Stanley says stuff like that. No, that's not true at all. Ed Young Jr., he said that as well. Whenever I hear a pastor say that.

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They didn't read the rest of the Bible. Yeah. But I think to myself, that sounds like Buddhism. Yeah. Like you're borrowing from a

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Buddhist world view when you say that. It doesn't make it better. Jesus. I mean, there is people.

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Yeah, Jesus. Exactly. Perfect. Perfect example right there. Who did the will of God perfectly.

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Perfectly. Suffered and died. Yes. Yes. That wasn't where I was going, though. I was going to say that. Sorry. That was a team effort.

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That's why I'm here. In Matthew chapter 7, he said, following him is going to be the difficult path.

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The easy way is the broad road that leads to destruction. Right. Following him is the narrow, long road that is difficult, but it leads to life.

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So anyway, he goes on Buddha, this fourfold path, suffering caused by desire or attachment.

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And one, here's number three, one can eliminate suffering by eliminating all attachments.

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Yeah, no, that doesn't make any sense. And number four, obviously it doesn't because he eliminated himself from all his attachments and then he's dying of hunger and eats a bowl of rice.

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So you got to have attachment to something, apparently. Got to have food. Number four, this is achieved by following the noble eightfold path.

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And then you have the eightfold path, which is number one, having a right view. Number two, having a right intention.

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That's all very subjective. Number three, having right speech. Number four, having a right action.

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Right now our culture is saying that right speech and right action is to support the LGBTQ movement. That's what our culture would say.

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And if you don't, we're going to cancel you. Right. Number five, having a right livelihood, which for the

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Buddhist was to be a monk. Number six, having the right effort. Properly directing your energies into the right thing,

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I suppose. I mean, you just see all of this is very subjective. Number seven, mindfulness or meditation.

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And then number eight, there's a concentration or a focus. Well, I can see how this can apply to anybody.

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Yeah. And I would be appealing to everybody because it's so vague. Now, the reason why people will say that it's not a religion is because there are not gods in Buddhism.

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It's largely considered to be atheist. It's just, yeah, there's no deity.

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There's no supreme being. There's no one that you connect with at some sort of spiritual force.

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Or that you pray to. Right. There are factions of Buddhism where that's the case.

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They have created gods within Buddhism. So all things considered, the different directions that Buddhism has gone, it has become something that's polytheist.

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And Buddhism itself has deified Buddha. Right. That's true. Because if he's the enlightened one and we can all achieve this state of enlightenment, then we're trying to ascend essentially to the place of becoming a god.

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And there is like an afterlife ascension of the consciousness into this supreme state.

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So there is something about Buddhism that is very religious, even though there may not be some sort of god originally that was attached to the founding of this particular religion.

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Now, the Buddha himself makes up some of the largest idols in the world, like depictions of Buddha.

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You have the one in Myanmar, which is over 300 feet tall.

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Whoa. Massive Buddha statue. There's the one in Taiwan that's over 90 feet tall. There's one in China.

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There's several in China. But the one that I'm thinking of overlooking Lingshan, which is over 270 feet tall.

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Good grief. There's the Spring Temple Buddha in China, which is over 420 feet tall.

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Goodness. And that was the largest statue in the world until 2018.

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Oh, my goodness. That recent. Yep. When the Statue of Unity was raised up in India, it's 597 feet tall.

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Whoa. That's the size of two football fields stood up. Oh, my goodness.

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That's how large that statue is. That's crazy. Then you've got,

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I mean, there's huge Buddha statues. We're not just talking about little Buddhas that you go buy at five and below, which, yeah, you can go into any kind of store today and find little

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Buddha statues and have them in your home. But the big, huge Buddha statues in Japan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, South Korea, they are all over Asia.

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He has become an idol to be worshipped. Yeah. So this is a false religion.

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It's a very much paganism that is opposed contrary to God. But as you said in the very beginning of the broadcast, quoting from John 14, 9,

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Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but by me.

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And it is only through Christ that we achieve immortality. Right.

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Eternal life with God forever in glory. But it means dying to yourself, not searching for yourself.

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Right. And the things of Buddhism would be contrary to what

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Jesus teaches us to do. Yes, completely self -centered. Exactly. In Luke 9, 23,

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Jesus said, if anyone would be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow after me.

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For whoever loves his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

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Right. And if you're confused by that and how that contradicts with the

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Buddhism separation and what was the other one to the desire sufferings and stuff like that, just email.

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We would be happy to have a conversation. I'll share more with you and a couple of what videos that I've done that talk about Buddhism as well.

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Precisely. That's in there also. All right. Well, God bless. Thank you so much for listening today.

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Don't forget the Wokeness in the Gospel Conference coming to Denton Bible Church right around the Dallas area.

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That is June 11th and 12th. And you can register online. It's not too late to register. Wokenessandthegospel .org.

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I'm sorry, Wokenessandgospel .org. There you go. Don't type in the, that won't get you to the site.

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Wokenessandgospel .org. Yes. All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time together. And I pray that we would see

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Christ in the words that we have studied today. As we look into the scriptures, we see

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God in the face of Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God dwelt bodily.

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He is ascended into heaven. He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And he has promised us that in Christ we will reign forever with him.

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As he says in Revelation 2 and 3, he has given us a place to sit with him on his throne where he reigns forever in glory.

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Deliver us from this present evil age. May we not go after the ways of this world, but set our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

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May we walk in holiness as Jesus walked. Forgive us our sins. And teach us to be forgiving, gracious, and merciful with one another, as you have been merciful with us.