The Incredible Kindness of Jesus — Carter Conlon

You can get some bread and some juice in your home and prepare to share communion with us. Now, you might be of the opinion tonight that you're not worthy to share communion with us this evening, but I'm going to share a message with you.

And at the end of this message, I want you to reconsider that thought because in order to be able to share communion, all you have to do in your heart is say, Lord God, I want to live for you, Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to be your follower. I want you to be the Lord of my life. And I'm trusting you for forgiveness, for renewed power over everything that would try to destroy me and for a divine purpose for my future.

And if you can remember any of those things, or if you can't remember any of it, just say, Jesus, I give myself to you. It's really that simple. The thief on the cross, the only thing he had time to say is, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And that was sufficient. The Lord received him and forgave him and promised that that very day that he would be with the Lord Jesus Christ in paradise. So thank God for that with all of my heart tonight.

Before I speak, I just want to tell you, I was at our Bible school out in Grantville, Pennsylvania this week, and a lovely card came in. It was, this is the card. So maybe there's no name on it, but so maybe if you're out there, you might recognize that you actually sent it to me, care of our Bible school.

And it was such a touching card because it thanked us for all that we do to bring refreshing into your lives. And it said these words, Pastor Carter and Teresa Conlon, please don't forget my family. There's so much division and unbelief.

My daughter is still on the streets, tormented. My mom passed away and my brother passed away also. I'm forever grateful to you for the 2014 Tuesday night prayer and fasting. It was the difference between life versus death for me.

Thank you for your love and faithfulness from all of us here in Alaska. And there was an offering inside, a gift I suppose for me, and it was $9. It was a $5 bill and four $1 bills. And it was just so sweet to receive this.

And I know maybe there's a little group of you meeting in a home, it's all you had, and you put it in this card. But as fate would have it, that's all I need actually to travel to Alaska this coming fall perhaps.

As soon as we're able to travel, the $9 covers my airfare, it covers the hotel, and it's a full honorarium to come and spend time with you and pray with you. And it doesn't matter to me. If you're able to find a small church and bring a group together, that would be nice.

And if not, get your friends. And they don't have to be stellar believers in Christ. I don't care who they are. Just bring your friends if they're struggling and in difficulty. And let's just have a home prayer fellowship in Alaska.

As a matter of fact, there might be enough of the $9 left over to actually bring somebody with me when I come. So I know Pastor Teresa probably wants to come for sure, and most likely one or two other people.

So, and there might even be a little leftover to buy dinner for everybody when we're there. So I'm really looking forward to coming to Alaska and thank you for your love offering. It just meant so much to me.

And who knows, but that your seed of faith that you put in this card might just be the beginning of something wonderful for somebody's life, maybe a lot of people's lives in Alaska. I'm looking forward to coming.

As soon as this COVID thing is over a little bit, then maybe as early as this fall, we'll make an attempt to get to Alaska. So I don't know who you are. So you have to somehow figure out who you are and get ahold of me and let me know who you are so that we can start communicating and make preparation to come to Alaska.

Praise God. I'm looking forward to that with all my heart. I wanna talk to you tonight. I wanna, my pastor spoke on Sunday morning, a message about the incredible kindness of God. It was that theme. So that's what I'm speaking on tonight, the incredible kindness of Jesus.

The Incredible Kindness of Jesus and God’s Call to Come Home

And there's nowhere else that you see it probably more in a story than in Luke chapter 15, which Pastor Tim Delina actually alluded to on Sunday morning. So Father, thank you God for, thank you for your word tonight.

Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you're calling your church home. We know it in our hearts, Lord, we know it. We're not surmising this. You're calling your people home. You're reaching out into the highways and the byways and you're calling the addicted, the afflicted.

You're calling those that have it all together and those that have nothing together. You're calling your church home to you again. You're preparing us for an end time harvest. You're preparing us to be witnesses of your kindness, this incredible kindness of Jesus.

Lord, how would we know it if we didn't open our hearts to receive it? But tonight, God, I'm asking you in Jesus' name to open people's hearts to this incredible kindness that we sometimes in our religiousness miss almost entirely.

Give us the grace to see it and I thank you for it with all my heart tonight in Jesus' name, amen. Now, Luke chapter 15, at the beginning, the scripture, now here's the scene. It doesn't say whether it's in a house.

It doesn't say whether it's in a field. We really don't know the exact location and we can't even surmise on that. But the scripture says in chapter 15, verse one of the gospel of Luke, all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to hear him.

Isn't that interesting? And in verse two, it says the Pharisees and the scribes complained saying, "'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'". So here's the crowd. You've got those that know that they're probably very distant from God, but they feel very comfortable in his presence.

Then you have those who feel that they're very close to God and they feel very uncomfortable in his presence. Isn't that interesting how that can happen? Those that strove hard in their religiousness.

The Two Sons and the Failure of Religious Self-Righteousness

Jesus is about to teach a parable where there were two sons. And the one was a son who worked hard to gain his father's favor, I'm sure, but his religion was angry and it was joyless. And he even testified to that at the end of this particular story.

The other son was a younger son. And at a certain point in chapter 15 and verse 11, he just said, I'm out of here. I just don't wanna live my life like this. I find it too rigid, too strict. I've often felt it was because of the older brother that the younger brother decided to leave the father's house.

He might've said in his heart, well, this older brother of mine is going to inherit the house. And if I have to live under his condemning ministry, which is what the Pharisees and scribes were, then I'm out of here.

I'd rather be a tax collector or a sinner than to live in this place. So the scripture says, Jesus told this story. A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.

And he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered everything together and journeyed into a far country. And there he wasted his possessions on prodigal living. Another translation basically says, he wasted his inheritance on self-focus.

He focused on himself. He lost the heart of his father, forgot what his father's kingdom was all about. And it became all about me, myself, my future, my personal aggrandizement, whatever it was. The whole thing became about me.

So he took the life that his father had given him, the heritage, the title, the giftings maybe that were given to him, the resources to accomplish what his life was supposed to be. And he took it all and he went into a place that was far, far away from the heart of his father.

I'm not sure he really knew how far away from his father he was going. I have no doubt that he continued to confess that maybe to a few, at least anyway, that he was his father's son, that he came from this house, this was his background.

How many people listening to me tonight, even around the world, that you were raised in a certain tradition maybe that had gospel in it of some sort. And you know in your heart, you've left it long ago.

You walked away from it. You said, well, if this is what the father's house is like, I'm not really interested in living my life here. You know, throughout history, quite often when a generation turns away from God, turns away from the purpose of God, I'm not just saying they, in their heart they don't think they've turned from God, but they turn from the purpose of God, which is ultimately about other people.

And they gravitate to a gospel that now focuses on themselves. That's exactly what this prodigal son did. He turned away from what the real purpose of his life was. Turned away from the heart of his father.

And he crafted his own sense of wellbeing, his own sense of religion, perhaps. And in every generation, when the house of God has become legalistic and strict, which Pentecost in particular, and some other denominations as well, has a tendency to gravitate towards, where it all becomes about the length of clothing.

It all becomes about outward appearance and church attendance and picking up your broom and doing your work and service for the house of God. And then suddenly the whole focus begins to shift and the house of God becomes a joyless place.

And a lot of people, they don't wanna go to hell, but they don't wanna be there either. And if this is the way to heaven, they say, I'm just taking what I've got and I'm gonna maybe find another way. I'm gonna find another purpose.

I'm gonna look for something other than, and I've always believed that whenever you find rigidity coming into religion, you'll find another generation that have taken this inheritance of God and they've gone far, far away from the heart of God.

And if we had a chance to really do a sociological study tonight, I think we might see that happened to a great degree in America. You had generations that just, a generation that turned from rigidity and they wanted freedom.

They wanted to dance in the house of God. They wanted to express their faith, but nobody would let them move. They wouldn't let them do anything. So they took their inheritance of life that's promised them through the son of God.

And they went into a place where it was all just about me now. It was about my future. It was about my happiness. It was about my life. It was all just about me, myself and I. And they gravitated maybe to even churches that preach that way and talk about spiritual life as if that's all it's about, as opposed to being left here for the sake of others who are headed into an eternal place without God and don't know it unless somebody pays the price in some cases to go and to tell them about it.

And so he took his inheritance and he went into a place that was far, far away from his father and he wasted his possessions. He had giftings, he had an inheritance, but he wasted it. He just used it for himself.

Everything that was given him, it was no longer just speaking about things to come for the sake of others. It was all about things to come for the sake of himself as it is. But when he spent everything, in other words, he exhausted himself.

And when you live for yourself, I'll tell you it's an exhaustive life. It eventually hits a wall. It eventually, age catches up with everybody. Eventually the dreams don't materialize or they do and they turn out to be not what they promised that they were going to be.

Famine, Emptiness, and the Search for Meaning

And there arose a severe famine. Can anybody debate with me tonight that there is not a severe famine in America? Can you hold to that position? There is a famine like I never thought I'd lived to experience.

A famine of civility, a famine of truth. People don't seem to even care what truth is anymore. It's just, truth is not based on fact anymore. Truth is just based on what I think truth should be in our modern day society.

It's like living in a bizarre world. It perplexes the mind of anybody who is a believer in Christ and who wants a foundation of truth where there is a right, there is a wrong, there's a reality, there's an unreality.

And he went and there was a severe famine and he began to be in want. And I wish I had time to read the prayer requests tonight that are on the tablet from people who are just so fed up being where they are.

Christians, I'm tired of crying at night. I'm tired of the addiction in my life. I'm tired of running from relationship to relationship. I'm tired of the alcohol. I'm tired of the endless pursuit and going nowhere in life.

And I could tell you, as Pastor Teresa said, there's 82 or 83 women that are praying for their wayward children. There's a lot more people out there that are just saying, I'm just so tired. I'm just so tired, I'm in want.

And the scripture says in verse 15, he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. It speaks to me of the kind of a person who just, he gets tired.

He doesn't wanna go back in a sense to what he left behind. He doesn't see it as worth it at this time. So he garners a cause. He just, he finds himself out there cause-driven, may I put it that way.

A lot of our young people are cause-driven but they're not even sure what the cause is. Just a lot of slogans. Some have a marginal understanding of what it is that they're looking for. What kind of a society are we looking for?

And they're just being driven by causes even though they're not quite sure what those causes are. And their presence is feeding something that they shouldn't be feeding. Their presence maybe is feeding anger and division.

This young boy was a Jewish boy. The last thing he should have been feeding through his life is swine because it is the most unclean thing to a child of God of that time. And here he is in a field and his presence is feeding it.

In other words, allowing it to exist. And I speak now to young people who are in places you shouldn't be. And you're feeding things you shouldn't feed. Your presence is feeding it. That's not what you're called to be.

That's not what the Father has destined for your life. It's what you're trying to do to fill a void in your heart that only God can fill in your life. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate or the pigs were eating and no one would give him anything.

The Father’s Compassion for the Wayward

It was a place that was so filled with selfishness even though it purported to be a place of compassion and love. Everything matters. You're gonna notice today, everything matters. Everybody's holding up a sign that this matters, that matters, this matters, that matters.

Everybody's fighting over what really matters. You ever noticed that there's no sign? I've never seen a sign ever one time that say Christians matter. Have you ever noticed that? I've never seen that ever at any time.

And I'm somewhat thankful for that because what's happening is that God is causing the world to reject you as a believer, as his son, as his daughter, as the one created in his image, as the one whom he has a plan for that's so much bigger than anything that you could ever imagine for your life.

He's not allowing you to find satisfaction being in a place that you shouldn't be. And this young boy is out in this field and everything matters but him. It just seems like who cares about me? Everything around me seems to matter, but I don't matter.

It doesn't, and you know, the reality is that maybe he didn't really matter to the fallen society around him, but he mattered to somebody whose eye was still on him. He mattered to the one who created him, mattered to the one who loves him with an everlasting love who engraved him on the palm of his hands.

He mattered to this wonderful father who seemingly had let him go into this place without resistance, but had never left the front porch where he was watching and waiting for him to come home. I wish you could fully understand how much God loves you tonight, how much he cares and how kind he is willing to be towards you.

The Bible says, Jesus said in this story, he's telling now to tax gatherers, sinners, Pharisees and Sadducees, they're all there. The religious are there, the non-religious are there, the people have abandoned the house of God of that time.

They're all there, they're all listening. And he said, suddenly this young son, he came to himself. In other words, he just had an epiphany. The epiphany is simply this, what am I doing here? I'm created in the image of God.

I'm created by God for the purposes of God. I'm created for something greater than what I'm doing. He came to himself. And tonight my prayer is that there's somebody listening to this message this evening that you will just simply come to yourself and just say, I'm not created to live here.

I'm not created to do these things. And I'm not created to give my life wholly to some cause that is short, it might be even a good cause, but it's short of what my life is called to be. It's short of what could be accomplished through my life.

God can do something that's exceedingly above and beyond all that I can even ask or think. And he started to think about the people in his father's house that had bread enough to spare. He said, but I perished with hunger.

Maybe he started to think about some of the old folks that he'd seen in the house of God in his early years that he thought were so off the wall. The ones that would get up and clap their hands and hoot and holler and do a Jericho march around.

I know a lot of young people were so embarrassed by that when they see their parents and the older folks doing that, especially teenagers, they would just be so embarrassed to bring their friends to the house of God, just afraid that sister so-and-so was gonna get up and do her thing or brother so-and-so, or the preacher's gonna get all excited and dance all over the platform.

And suddenly there's this memory that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Whatever they had, they seemed to be satisfied with it. And I'm perishing with hunger out here. So it's almost as if he begrudgingly, at least in the beginning, gets up and says, well, I'm gonna go home.

And even if being under the ministry of my brother is bad, at least it's not as bad as it is out here. And he gets up and he's trying to figure out what is it that I'm supposed to say? How is it that I'm supposed to be received back into the fellowship as it is?

And he comes to the conclusion, maybe that was his experience. Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. And that one statement, the first statement that comes out of his mouth is very telling.

Because to sin against heaven means in his heart, he's saying, I've lost my eternal reward. You have promised that we're gonna rule and reign with you. You promised Lord that there are giftings that are gonna be rewards given out.

And when we get into your presence, but sinning against heaven, that means that I've lost my place. I've lost my eternal reward. And I've also, so that means my future, my eternal future is jeopardized because of what I've done.

And I've sinned before you, which means my present is also marred. It means you'll never look at me the same again. It means you'll always be looking at me askance, Father. You'll always be wondering when I'm gonna leave again.

You'll always be thinking in the back of your mind about what I did to the family name and the disgrace I made and the waste I propagated by taking the things that you'd given me and just using them on myself.

In a sense of shame came into his heart and he said, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your hired servants. So in other words, to come back to you, Father, to come back to your house, means I'm going to be living in perpetual shame for the rest of my life.

You know, a lot of people who have wandered away from the kingdom of God feel that way about themselves. I'd come back, but I've already blown it. I've blown my eternal inheritance and I've blown the favor of God.

God's favor, he'll never trust me again because of what I've done with my life. And I'm destined in a sense for a life of shame. I don't wanna share my testimony. I don't wanna be the one to get up and search and say what my life has been because everyone else has this glorious victory story and mine is just such a disaster and a disgrace.

And I would be ashamed to open my mouth. So I'll just sit there and I'll just hang my head and I'll take up my broom like my brother and I'll just work for the favor of God. The scripture says, he arose and he came to his father, but when he was still a long way off, you see, he couldn't see his father.

And some of you tonight or today, you're listening to me and you're a long way off. In your heart, you said, I just wanna go back. Some are just so drug addicted, you can hardly hear me. You can hardly think.

There's a man just listening tonight. I can sense in my heart that you're barely sober, but at least you're still listening and you're a long way off and in your heart, maybe the tears are even starting into your eyes now.

And you said, I just wanna get up and I just wanna go home. I'm tired of living like this. I wanna go back to, or maybe even find something I never knew about my father before. And when he was a great way off, it says his father saw him.

He didn't see his father. His father saw him. You might not have a clear view of God, but God has a clear view of you tonight. And it said his father had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

I don't know if there's a greater demonstration. Now this is red letter coming out of the mouth of, means it's written in red of my Bible because it's spoken directly by the mouth of Jesus. He is now conveying the heart of God.

He is telling the people who are listening why God sent him into this world, because God was running after those who even marginally could get up and start heading back to him again. His father ran, fell on his neck and kissed him.

Can you imagine what this boy felt like as he looked down the road and from a distance, he sees this older man come running towards him. And in the beginning, he's not sure, is he coming at me in anger?

Is he coming and telling me, don't come near my house. Get away from here after the disgrace you've made. Why is he running towards me? And as he gets closer and closer and closer, there would be these doubts, there would be this war.

And I'm telling you, there's some tonight to come back to God that you're gonna have to fight through this war. You have to fight through these thoughts that you've blown your inheritance and God's found his favor with you.

And you will always be in a position of shame in the sight of the father. And how shocked he must have been when suddenly his father falls on his neck and kisses him. Now, this boy has been in a field with pigs.

It is the most abhorrent thing to a Jewish person. His father's Jewish, he's Jewish. Now, in other words, when the father embraced him, he took the smell of that son upon himself. In other words, I'm not ashamed of you, son.

And when Jesus Christ went to the cross and he opened his arms wide with those nails through his hands and through his feet, he took the smell of your sin and my sin upon himself. Everything you have done, everything you will do, everything you are doing, he took it upon himself.

And all he asked you to do is just get up and with whatever amount of strength you have, you start making your way back to me again. I see you, I know where you are. And you might just be staggering towards me, but I will come running towards you.

I will embrace you, I will cover you. And this boy would have known that his father had just taken his uncleanness upon himself because he would be unclean by his association with things that were an offense to the Jewish culture at that time.

And he would know that his father had taken the smell and the reality of his uncleanness upon himself. And not only that, but kissed him, embraced him, loved him. It would have been a shocking moment.

I don't think the boy knew how to deal with this because he started with his prayer again. He said, father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father doesn't respond to him. He doesn't answer him, doesn't agree with him. The first thing the father does is clap his hands as I see it and says, bring out the best robe and put it on him.

A robe that is reserved for royalty. A robe that is reserved for an honored guest in the father's house. And in the kingdom of God, the cleanest robe that is available to anyone who comes to God is the blood of his son, Jesus Christ.

And he said, put the robe on him. And when that robe was put on him, he was completely covered. He now no longer looked like somebody who just climbed out of a pigsty. He now had the robe of royalty on him.

He was now an honored guest in the father's house. Not a guest actually, he was a son. And then he said, put the ring on his hand, the ring of authority. The ring that the father gave to those who were the most trusted in his house.

I want you to hear me on this. He would have been so shocked. Not only did the ring have power, it had the power of the father's seal. In other words, whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.

He put the ring of authority on. So when that son put the seal of that ring on anything, it had the weight and power of the father and his whole house behind it. Incredible, incredible that the father would give this boy this ring because it was only given to those that were trusted.

You remember he thought, I'll be forever, my father will forever be looking at me with a sideways glance, never trusting me again. And suddenly, before he has a chance to even prove his worth, he's now covered and trusted in the sight of his father.

Grace, Restoration, and the Believer’s New Mission

I'm talking to you tonight about this incredible kindness of God through Jesus Christ, his son. And then on top of all of that, he says, put sandals on his feet. Now that's an interesting concept because usually an encounter with God, you look at the encounter that Moses had, that Joshua had with God, for example, the command is always take your shoes off of your feet.

In other words, God said to Joshua and Moses, I don't want your strength, I don't want your plans, I don't want you injecting your ideas into my kingdom. I want you to humbly walk before me and do what I tell you to do.

But now you see the father has a son who's been broken. The son now knows what he is without his father. He understands grace. He understands the kindness of God, the mercy of God. He says, now put his shoes on because he's not gonna fight with me.

He's not gonna bring his own ideas into this kingdom, but I'm gonna send him on a journey now where he's gonna be actually doing what his life is supposed to do. He's going to be telling other people about the kindness of his father.

Isn't it amazing? It's not gonna be about 10 steps of this and seven steps to that and all the rest of this stuff. Maybe that the older brother was just so proud of the formulas he'd come up with for God's kingdom.

This boy's message was, you just gotta know my father. You just gotta meet my father. My life was a mess. I had ruined everything, but I came home, he ran to me, he kissed me, he covered me, he empowered me and he invited me to tell others about him.

You just simply have to know who my father is. And that is what this message is all about tonight. That's what the communion table is about this evening. It's about God's invitation through his son, Jesus Christ, for you to come home.

It's no more difficult than that. And don't make it difficult. Just come home. Your life might be a mess, but your message will be about mercy. Your message will be about the kindness of God. You know, generally speaking, that's why new believers have a tendency to win more people to Christ than older believers.

Because the new believer knows it's all mercy. The older believer starts to feel they've had a little bit to do with their redemption and they lose the message in the long run. But oh God, I can see it in my spirit tonight.

I can see people just getting up. I see you half drunk in your living room. I can see you actually tonight. You're in a kitchen. Your chairs are plastic, if you wonder who I'm talking to in your kitchen.

And you are about to get up and come home to God. Your life will never be the same again. You don't have to know all the Greek and the Hebrew of the Bible. You don't have to be a theologian. You just have to say, you just gotta know my father.

I wanna tell you what he did in my life. He's transformed me. He met me when I was in my deepest mess and confusion, covered me, empowered me, and invited me to tell you who he is. Will you come home with me?

I want to introduce you to my father. This is what the communion table is all about. It's an invitation. So you can come. You can receive communion tonight. If you'll just say, Lord Jesus, I wanna come home.

Don't make it difficult. Don't try to add things to it. Don't try to formulize it. You died for me, Jesus, on a cross. You paid the price for my wrongdoing, which the Bible calls sin. You invited me to a place where you could cover my wrongdoing.

You could give me the power to live a new life, and you could give me a message and make my life what it was supposed to be when you formed me in my mother's womb. And so my message to you tonight, from the heart of God, is come home.

Just get up and come home. So I'm gonna ask you to pray a simple prayer with me tonight and then we're gonna go to communion. Here it is. You repeat it after me, and you know who you are. Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, thank you for loving me.

Thank you for dying for me, for paying the price for the wrong things that I have done. Tonight, I open my heart to you, and I invite you to come into my life. Take over, be my Lord and my Savior, and help me and teach me how to walk with you for the rest of my life.

Thank you for loving me, and thank you for showing me this incredible kindness tonight, in Jesus' name. See, if you meant that in your heart, now you can take communion with us, which represents the fact that Jesus loved you so much that he shed his blood to pay the price for your sin, and the bread represents every promise he's given you in this book called the Bible that is now yours, the promise of a new mind, a new heart, a new spirit, a new future, a new identity, a new reason for living, a new song.

New Creation and the Meaning of Communion

I could go on and on for an hour about all the things that he makes new. Matter of fact, it's summed up in one verse. It says, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old things are past. All the old things lose their power, and behold, all things have become new.

And that's who you are, and that's how God sees you tonight. So please, if you'll get the juice and get the bread, we're gonna come to the communion table together, and we're going to celebrate your new life and what God has done for you and what he does for us as those who believe in him.

For I received of the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he'd given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Responding to Jesus and Beginning the Christian Walk

Raphael, can I get you back here with your team? And I'd love to sing the song, I've Decided to Follow Jesus. Now, if you have made a decision in your heart to live for Jesus Christ tonight, now you're not gonna live for him in your own strength, but you're gonna receive his mercy, let him cover you, let him give you the power of his Holy Spirit as Pastor David prayed earlier tonight.

If you're willing to undertake the journey that he set before you for your life, I'm gonna ask you to text in the word decided to 88202. Decided, 88202. And let us know, and somebody from Times Square Church will be in touch with you, and they will help you to get started in your walk with God.

There's some good Bible studies, I'm sure, out there. There's things that you can start to read that will help you to understand how much God loves you and how much he's willing to be kind to you. I've Decided to Follow Jesus, a real old time song.