Devotions or Devotion — Keith Green

This is a study from the book Promise of the Spirit, which is put out by Bethany Fellowship. The Promise of the Spirit is a collection of Charles Finney's writings from his newsletter called the Oberlin Evangelist, which he put out specifically because his body was worn out from preaching and he said his, quote, organs of speech were worn out.

He lost his voice, he couldn't preach. He says, and because my organs of speech and body is worn out, I intend to come to you through the press so that I can preach to more, even so, through this way.

And this is the third chapter of about 25, if I remember right, maybe 22, on his study of the promise of Jesus of the Holy Spirit. And this doesn't really tie in except for the attitude of the heart, and that's what in your DTS and in our ICT we're trying to develop is the attitude of the heart, that it be proper, and proper meaning the only attitude that will reach God.

Now let me just say that many of you know me as a piano player, musician, and very few of you have ever met me before, and you might have trouble, you know, because you've had some image of who I am or what I am or whatever.

Let me just say that I live in a world where I struggle. I live in a world where I'm growing, striving, trying to rest in the Lord as much as you do, maybe more so because of the pressures put upon me.

That doesn't mean I achieve more than you do. It means that I might struggle more than you do. But God gives a measure of grace to each person as they need it, and so I have the same God you do, and the same Bible you do.

That's what Leonard Ravenhill always says, you know, one thing about Charles, we always talk about Charles Wesley, I mean John Wesley, Charles was there too, and Charles Finney and Martin Luther, he says, but you know what, their Bible wasn't any bigger than ours.

And their God didn't love them anymore and he loves us. So we can do things that he did and they did, and that's something to remember, that we think of the great men and those were the good old days, and I wish things were like that now.

Well, you sure say a lot to God when you say stuff like that, and you're saying to him that you don't really believe he's the same anymore. And there's some, how many people have read Charles Finney before?

Okay. Okay, some of you might, when you read our newsletter, how many people get our newsletter here? Okay, well we'll have you sign up at the end here. Some people who have been on our mailing list for some time, we try to print something by our brother Chuck here, about once every two or three issues, mainly because his writings are so archaic as far as the phraseology that he used.

We try to put them into modern English because they're hard to read. He was a lawyer from, this was preached, this was written in 1839, almost 150 years ago, and his language was so, and he was considered, he spoke in the common language of the day, of the people, but they were so much more vocal and they didn't have television and radio and a bunch of jive to soak their minds up like pickled prunes, that they learned, the common man's vocabularies today is only 2 ,000 words, and I haven't read the statistics, but I can tell from the words that he preached just to the common people on the street, that it had to be at least double that, I mean he uses words that curl my hair, and I can't even find some of them, look what happened.

So another thing is people think we preach and live and breathe Phinney, we're kind of on a one string fiddle, all I want to say is that this man is somebody we respect, that he's not our guru or anything, he's somebody that we respect in a way that, well just kind of like, kind of like a spiritual guidance counselor, this guy seemed to go places that I want to go, and I'm not talking about deeds, I'm talking about in prayer, I'm talking about, he went, he entered into the spirit of God, he entered into the presence of God and got the power of God in such a way that I would like to, as Paul said, be imitators of him, in the sense that he knew something that I don't know, and God revealed certain things to him, he wasn't a mystic, he wasn't some great spiritual leader, but he certainly loved God and he loved people, and he got, he came back out of the presence of God with some incredible insight.

The Meaning of Devotion

Now how many people here think they know what devotion is? Okay, good, I'm glad you're all here. I, this is from an article just titled Devotion, by Charles Finney, I renamed it, we're going to print this in the next newsletter, Devotions or Devotion, and we're going to put devotions in quotes, I forgot to do that on your copy, devotions should be in quotes.

I love when I hear people say, you know, well I did my devotions this morning, I don't even use that word after reading this anymore, and you'll see why. Let's go ahead and read through it and we'll discuss it.

Okay, first the scriptures that he uses, he always starts out with scripture, that's a good place to start. Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Whatever you do, do it heartily, as for the Lord, rather than for men. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord.

Therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. These scriptures reveal the true nature of what devotion to God really is. In discussing this subject, I, Finney's talking here, I propose to show, one, what true devotion to God is not, two, what true devotion to God is, three, that devotion and nothing short of devotion is true religion, that's the word he used, and true Christianity, and four, several mistakes commonly made upon this subject.

Going back over those four things, Finney, when he taught about what something was, the first thing he did was destroy every misconception that he could think of, what people thought it was, that it really wasn't.

In fact, the best thing you can do to find out what a thing is, is first to find out what it isn't. Because so many people think that love is something, for instance, you know, in fact he's got studies on love, and he starts out just like this, he tells you what love isn't, it isn't an emotional gushing of desire for anything, you know.

And three, when he says that devotion and nothing short of devotion is true Christianity, in his day, the word religion had a meaning of, if you were a religious man, you were a Christian in his day and age, there weren't Buddhists and Muslims running around in New York in 1830, you know, they would have been buried somewhere, I think.

There was, in fact, during the American Independent War, War of Independence, I remember reading something that, by Thomas Jefferson or something, that there was a group of 70 Jews on the island of Manhattan, and that they wouldn't let them vote, you know, they were anathema.

But imagine, you know, today in New York there's only 70 Jews when the country became, there's more Jews in New York City than there are in all of Israel, you know that? There's also, you know, I think there's more Italians there than there are in Rome.

Now, don't quote me on that last one, but I know the first one's true. There's more pizza there than at Pizza Man. Shakeys. So that's, so I, whenever Finney uses the word true religion or this man has no religion, he's talking about that the man's not a Christian, that the man is not really serving God, and that's when Finney used the word religion, it's synonymous with being a real Christian, okay?

What Devotion Is Not

One, what true devotion to God is not. Devotion does not consist of reading the Bible, nor praying, nor attending meetings. These may or may not be specific instances of devotion, but are not to be regarded as devotion itself.

It's pretty clear. Two, devotion does not consist of a private or public commitment of our lives to God. These are to be regarded as special acts, pledges or promises of devotion, but not as devotion itself.

Now, going over the first one, of course, people think that reading their Bible, reading, you know, five chapters in the morning, and spending five minutes with God, and making sure they go to the prayer meeting on Wednesday, and to the morning service, and if there's nothing good on TV, the evening service on Sunday, is devotion.

This is my devotion. God knows I mean business. Finney, you know, just destroys that. That's not devotion at all. They can be what he calls instances of devotion, or deeds of devotion, but they are in themselves do not constitute devotion.

And in the second one, many people think that when a guy in his prayer closet goes, oh God, I commit my life to you, that that's devotion. Or they come forward at the concert, or they come forward at the meeting, or at the sermon on Sunday morning, and they say, who here wants to devote their life to God?

And five people come forward, and they say the old sinner's prayer, and they say, well, I really made an oath of devotion today. Well, that's true, you made an oath of devotion, or a promise of devotion, but that in itself is not devotion.

Okay, three. Devotion does not consist of individual acts or exercises of any kind. These may indeed be devotional acts, that is, acts of devotion, but let it be remembered that no acts or exercises in themselves constitute devotion.

Whole-Life Devotion to God

Okay, that's, he's pretty thorough. Two, what true devotion to God is. Devotion is that state of the heart in which everything, our whole life, being and possessions, are a continual offering to God. That is, they are continually devoted to God.

True devotion must be the supreme devotion of the will, extending out to all we have and are, to all times, places, employments, thoughts, and feelings. Now, here he does what Jesus does as far as using a parable.

Let your own ideas of what a pastor ought to be illustrate my meaning. You most likely believe that a pastor, in preaching the gospel, should have only one purpose in mind, to glorify God by the salvation and later the sanctification of sinners.

Since he professes to be a servant of God, you feel that he ought to study, preach, and perform all his ministrial duties, not for himself, not for his salary, not to increase his popularity, but only to glorify God.

Now, you can easily see that if he does not have this singleness of purpose, or singleness of eye, his service cannot be acceptable to God, for it is not an offering to God, it is not a devotion to God, but a devotion to himself.

Now, we're not going to just read here. Some of you are thinking, well, I could read this myself. We're going to stop when we get past this and discuss this. Devotion, then, in a pastor is that state of mind in which all his pastoral duties are performed for the glory of God and where his whole life is a continual offering to God.

Again, you feel that a minister ought to be as devoted to God in everything else as he is in praying or preaching. And in this, you are right, for he not only ought to be, but really is, only as devoted in the pulpit as he is out of the pulpit.

If he is influenced by selfish and worldly motives during the week, then these same motives are surely in his heart on the Sabbath. If during the week his thoughts are centered upon his own interests, endeavoring to promote himself, you can be sure it's the same on the Sabbath.

You most likely also feel that if a minister's devotion is merely an outward farce, that he preaches, prays, visits and performs all his duties mainly for the purpose of supporting his family or to get honor and attention for himself, you would say that he was a wicked man.

And unless he is converted, he would inevitably lose his soul. If these are your views on the subject, they are undoubtedly correct. Let's stop here. The standard of righteousness, the standard of truth, black and white.

There are two things that are in opposition. The Bible says, mercy and judgment, right? It says that mercy rejoices against judgment. Why? The law of God is black and white. The justice of God is black and white.

The judgment of God is black and white. You're either righteous or you're not. The love of God is not black and white. The mercy of God is not black and white. The kindness of God, behold, the kindness and severity of our God, it's in Romans.

These are things that Christians have struggled with since the beginning days, that God has seemingly two ways of looking at you. One is through the law and one is through love. And that doesn't mean the law came from hatred.

The law is not necessarily the Mosaic law that, you know, you're not supposed to eat pork chops, you know, and so on. The law is, be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect. That's the law. That's a command.

Be perfect. And when you're not perfect, you fail the law. You fail God's standard. His standard is that you must be perfect. That's his standard. You must have a perfect devotion to him, a perfect love, perfect love cast without fear, it says.

And here, Finney's talking about, to make a point about you, he's talking about what you think a pastor should be. Now, in his day, there was the men of the cloth and the laity, right? There was the preachers and the people in the pews.

I always wondered why they called them pews. And I found out when I went to church for a while. Because the heart character of the Christian stinks in most cases, they're waiting for the pastor to do everything they're waiting.

Really, they're waiting for the pastor to go door to door and lead people to the Lord. They're waiting for the pastor to do all the marriage counseling and all the abortion counseling and all solve all the problems of everybody.

That's not a pastor's job. A pastor's job is to be an example of Jesus so that people can be raised up around him just like Jesus, so that the abortion counseling and the opening of the homes to people can be spread throughout the body of Christ.

Pastors are to be leaders. Christians are not not to just be followers. There, remember, it says that I am the door and everyone who comes in through the door becomes a shepherd of the sheep. It says that in John 10.

Everyone who comes in through the door who enters by me becomes that he becomes a shepherd of the sheep. When you become a Christian, you instantly become a follower and a leader at the same time. If you don't realize that, if you think now, I know many of you here at DTS and you've paid a good sum of money, which nobody likes to mention, but you've paid a good sum of money to come here and live and learn about Jesus and learn about what it's like to be a Christian, to be and to be a leader, to be a disciple, discipleship training school.

Our school is called intensive Christian training. It's kind of like something you put out of a bottle and soften your hands up. I'm I'm sure that you came here, most of you thinking that you are going to leave a better person, right?

I mean, you know, it's a lot of money. It's a long time out of your life. You want to be a better person. You would you'd be an idiot to come here and not think you're going to be better because of all the knowledge and all the love and prayers and concern and counsel you're going to receive here.

Some of you look bored. Some of you look filled up like a sponge that can't hold anything else. How many weeks you've been here now? Five weeks. Some of you feel like, man, it's filled up to here and everything comes in this area just floats on the top and pours out the other side.

Knowledge, Responsibility, and Christian Maturity

And I want to tell you something. The way knowledge is, knowledge, puff it up. The letter kills. It murders the spirit, gives life the letter killed knowledge pops up in Ecclesiastes Solomon, who I think wrote Ecclesiastes.

Says excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body when all is said and done. This is what you should know. Fear God and keep his commandments. Well, you can all go back home now. Finney's using a pastor here because most people think the pastor is supposed to be a different class of Christian.

That is an insidious thought. Now, it does say in James, be not many teachers, knowing that you shall be judged with greater strictness. And King James, it says you shall incur the greater condemnation.

Well, that's scary. That only means one thing. Knowledge equals responsibility, equals accountability, equals condemnability. The more you know, the bigger your punishment. If you don't live up to what you know, or as many Christians like to say nowadays, to the light that you have, living up to the light that you have.

Don't get more light. Be afraid of getting more light if the light that you have is turned to darkness in you. And if the light that is within you is darkness, you're in trouble. Now, I'm not here to condemn you.

I'm not here to thrust the law down your nostrils. I'm here to talk about the standard because the standard must be kept high. We should never, ever, even if, you know, Catherine Booth said, I've said since I'm 12 years old, since I'm a little girl, I will never, ever lower the standard.

Even if it sends me to hell, I will not lower it. And that's what happens. People invent doctrines because they can't live up to the standard. They invent these crazy doctrines. You know, these wonderful doctrines that say you can go to heaven, though you live a life of sin and you don't have to be changed outwardly as long as you get stamped USDA choice Christian on the forehead when you say the same prayer.

Now, I'm sure they've dispelled that in the first five weeks of this school. The fundamentalist movement in this country, which I'm not against, the word fundamental means basic truth, has got people believing in some cases that you as a Christian can get saved, whatever that means.

I mean, my Bible says you're supposed to be saved from what? From sin, you know, but you get saved, which means you get your brownie stars on your soul that only God can read. And from this point on, no matter what you do, God overlooks it because, you know, your sins are forgiven past, present and future.

And no matter what you do, you can't go to hell anymore. Well, I got news for you, and this might curl your hair. I can go to hell if I want to. And God isn't going to stop me unless I ask him to or I contain and remain in that relationship with him, which he wants me to stay in that relationship with him.

He's drawing me. He's keeping me. I want to go to hell bad enough. He's got to let me. Or else there's no virtue in being a Christian, there's no virtue in following Jesus, no one would have been lost.

And this pastor that Finney's talking about here, this pastor that he's talking about, this guy has got a standard that's not living up to the gospel, the guy that's that's preaching to get support for his family.

You can't become a Christian to make money. Oh, God, I know people making a fortune off the gospel. I know people that are living in mansions because they got saved and they found an idea and Christians gullible enough, put it on the back of their bumper and they're merchandising Christ.

Then I know singers and musicians that God gave them a talent, God gave them a talent for they even knew Jesus. They used it to serve themselves then and they use it to serve themselves now and they build up their own kingdom with it.

And I'm sure there's people out there that think that I do the same and God knows my heart and and that's I'm not here to defend myself. I'm here to defend the gospel. It's harsh and it's soft, it's severe and it's kind, it's black and white, but love goes into the gray to separate out the black from the white.

I'm trying to make a point, Finney gives you a standard and you shudder. The Bible does too, in many cases. Be perfect. There's none righteous, not even one. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.

Here's the thing, our Savior will not save us against our will, one, two, he will not cleanse us against our will. He draws us, he draws us, he wants us. We just talked about and the reason Finney talked about a pastor is because he knows that Christians being, you know, remember Jesus called Christians his sheep.

You know why he called them his sheep? Because sheep are the dumbest animals in the animal kingdom. They are. There's no animal in the animal, no mammal that has a lower IQ than a sheep. He didn't say, these are my dolphins.

Behold, wash my chimpanzees, you know, keep, keep, keep my German shepherds. He, you know, he could have, he could have said anything that would have given intelligence to the creature. But he says, nope, these, these people are so gullible.

If you tell them they're a plate of French fries, they'll believe it. Really, you know, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. Well, Jesus, that's hard. I mean, I can't think of eating your flesh, man.

You know, he tells his disciples, you know, beware of 11 of the Pharisees. Hey, man, nobody brought any sandwiches, you know. No, not bread, sin, sin, you know. I mean, he had these people with him called human beings, just like you and me, that had thick skulls a mile wide.

Called him a sheep. That was it. It's a pretty good sense of humor, I think. I go, oh, isn't that cute? Cheap little wooly bag. Jesus goes, yeah, and dumb too, you know. You know, he says, you know, you still don't understand.

Remember how many times Jesus said that? You still don't understand? Do I still have to explain it to you? Jesus, what does that parable mean, man? One plus one equals two. Parable of the sower. The sower is me and the word of God is the seed.

And golly, he can't understand anything. I mean, it seems like sometimes he's exasperated, doesn't it? Not in the flesh. Just exasperated. Just kind of fed up that these people who he's, remember how many times he says, I'm going to die.

And on the third day, I'm going to be raised up, right? Three days, he always said it. The Son of Man shall be crucified and raised on the third day. I think, you know what to think the saddest day of Jesus' life is?

Was the resurrection. What? Easter? You know, we all sing. We all sing how glorious and how wonderful that day is. That was the saddest day of his life because he told them that he's going to raise on the third day.

He got out of the grave and no one was there. All these thick skulled people, he told them three days. No one was there. This one woman who was devoted comes out. She didn't come out to see a risen Jesus.

She came out to to make his grave nice and smell sweet and, you know, annoy his body with, you know, she was she believed he was dead. I mean, she gets the credit for, you know, seeing. She believed it.

Well, you would have too. Anybody would have believed it when they saw it all. Even Doubting Thomas believed it when Jesus said, stick it in my side. What I'm trying to say to you is this. A pastor is somebody we expect to be a Christian.

Real good. Look, and he's a pastor. Look what he's doing. Hey, God says he's a Christian and look what he's doing. That's all God said. I love the thing. And well, you might not be able to find it, but it says you feel that a pastor, a minister ought to be as devoted to God and everything else as he is in praying or preaching in this.

You are right, for he not only ought to be, but really is only is devoted in the pulpit as he is out of it. OK, you most likely feel that if a minister's devotion is merely an outward farce that he preaches, prays, visits, performs all his duties merely for the purpose of purpose of supporting his family or to get honor or attention for himself, you would say that he was a wicked man and he would inevitably lose his soul.

Those were the days. These were the theological days when people were wicked men. They lost their soul. If you're a wicked man, you lost your soul. Today, you can be a wicked man and go to heaven. Really, you get your, you get your, you join the Jesus club, you get your card in your wallet and you go to heaven.

Doesn't matter. God pulls you over for speeding and sending and you hand your card out. Hey, you know, I got connections, you know. If these are your views on the subject, they are undoubtedly correct.

Here, where you have no personal interest, you form a right judgment and decide correctly concerning the character and destiny of such a man. Now, remember, nothing short of this standard is devotion in you.

Devotion as the Mind’s Supreme Affection

Do bear it in mind that no particular acts or zeal or gushings of emotion or resolutions to change or promises of future obedience constitute devotion. For devotion is that state of the will in which the mind is swallowed up in God as the object of its supreme affection in which we not only live and move in God, but for God.

In other words, devotion is that state of the mind in which the attention is diverted from self and self-seeking and is directed to God. The thoughts, purposes, desires, affections and emotions all hanging upon and devoted to him.

By the way, you can write on these papers. They're yours. I should have told you that before. You can make notes on the side or underline or circle or make crossword puzzles or whatever you want to. Okay, let's read that last paragraph again.

Devotion is that state of the will in which the mind is swallowed up in God as the object of its supreme affection. That's beautiful. In which we not only live and move in God, but for God. In other words, devotion is that state of the mind in which the attention is diverted from self and self-seeking and is directed to God.

The thoughts, purposes, desires, affections and emotions all hanging upon and devoted to him. Okay, devotion and nothing short of devotion is true religion. As Finney would say, it's true Christianity.

Devotion and true religion are identical. That's quite a statement. Devotion and being a Christian are identical. One, it is impossible for us not to be devoted to the object of our supreme affection.

Read that sentence and look at it. It's very important. It is impossible for us not to be devoted to the object of our supreme affection. The word supreme means our highest, the one we love the most. If we love God the most, he will be the reason for which we live.

If an individual loves God supremely, he will be as conscious that he lives for God as that he lives at all. Nothing short of this can be acceptable to God. Unless devotion be a habit or a state of the mind, unless the whole being be an offering to God, he must have a rival in our hearts.

This he will not endure and to attempt to please him by isolated acts of devotion, when it is not the habit and state of our minds, is far more abominable than for a wife to attempt to please her husband with an occasional smile while she lives only to please and gain the affections of another man.

That means something very... Look at this. To attempt to please him by isolated acts of devotion is far more abominable than for a wife to attempt to please her husband with an occasional smile when she lives only to please and gain the affections of another man.

What does that mean? It's far more abominable. That means this. If you... If your devotion to God is not a habit, it's not a state of mind, it's not something you live and dwell and have your move, you move and have your being in, then to go before God and do your five chapters or one chapter or twenty minutes or five minutes of prayer a day is abominable to him.

Just as much as if you were married and you knew your wife really loved another guy or your husband really loved another girl. Like they said, I'll marry you, but if Fred ever comes back, I'm splitting, you know, or something like that.

And she kissed you and she says, dear, I love you. And she smiled at you and was nice to you. You'd hate it. You'd hate the niceness. You'd hate the smiles. You'd hate the kisses. You'd hate the hugs.

If you knew her heart belonged to someone else, wouldn't you? I mean, it would be sick to you if you knew that she really in her heart wanted to be with another person beside you and that that was her desire and her motive was to find this guy and win him.

But yet she did her duty to you as a wife. Man, you make me want to throw up. I couldn't sleep. I had a nervous breakdown. That's the way it is when our hearts belong to the world or belong to our family or belong to our husbands or wives or our children or our finances or our education or our ministry.

Our hearts belong to something even godly on the outside, spiritual. That's the worst kind of sickness. The Pharisees had that. And we still do all the deeds that we think are pleasing God. And really, we believe in our hearts.

We fooled ourselves, and now we think we can fool God with all these religious deeds and acts, and it's sick to him. According to revelations, it makes him want to puke. I wish you were hot or cold, but since you're merely lukewarm, I'm going to spit you out of my mouth.

The word in Greek ain't spit. It isn't spew. It's vomit. Look it up. It's right there in the New American Standard Dictionary. It's on the side. It's one of those little footnotes. It says literally, vomit.

That means you make God sick to his stomach with your religion, with your commitment to him, because it isn't real. You're sitting on the fence if this is you, if you're trying to please him with what's called isolated acts of devotion, when it's not the habit, the state of your mind.

Okay, three. A departure from this state of devotion is heart apostasy. The word apostasy means something that has lost its heat and is now just like, it's like waxed fruit. You know how good that waxed fruit can look when you're fasting?

You know, you think it's going to taste good, but you know it doesn't, so you don't desire it. Whatever a man's outward behavior may be, the moment he turns aside from sincere devotion to God, from a supreme consecration of his whole being to the service of God, he has in his heart renounced true Christianity.

He is no longer in the service of God, but is serving the object upon which his heart is set. And this is the object of his devotion. That is, it is his God. Whatever his heart is set upon becomes his God.

Devotion in Ordinary Duties

Four. Several mistakes commonly made upon this subject. One, many imagine that there is a real difference between devotional and other kinds of duties. This is really heavy. If you don't get this, you're going to miss the whole study.

Many imagine that there is a real difference between devotional duties and other kinds of duties, as if a man could be doing his duty in that which is not devotion to God. Duty meaning obligation, like a guy that says, it's my duty to put bread on the table.

It's my duty to to support my family, you know, so I'm going to go do my devotions and then I'm going to go out and support my family. The duties of devotion are generally supposed to be prayer and reading the scriptures together with singing and praying in the fellowship of God's house on the Sabbath.

Oh, God's house on the Sabbath. Men imagine themselves to be devotional while on weekdays, except for those few acts they call their devotions, they are serving themselves and are supremely devoted to their own interests.

Now, all such ideas arise out of a total absence of true devotion and individuals who entertain such views do not yet understand what true Christianity is. Nothing is duty if it is not performed for God.

That means nothing. There's nothing that you have to do if it isn't performed for God and God doesn't isn't pleased that you're supporting your family or paying your debts or or brushing your teeth if you're not doing it for him.

A man that is truly religious is as devotional in his daily business as he is on the Sabbath. The business of the world is performed by him with the same spirit and purpose as he prays, reads his Bible and attends worship on the Sabbath.

If this is not the case, he has no true religion. He has no true religion. Now, there are some people who really live for God. Oh, OK, let's stop there. I want to say that there's the after reading Finney for a while, I never really saw this.

I thought that there was a religious part of my life and a secular part of my life. I really did. I mean, it's a common way to think. I thought that my prayer life was was sanctified and my Bible study was before God.

But, you know, my brushing the teeth, going to the bathroom, eating, you know, I mean, I knew there was a scripture, whether you eat or drink to offer the glory of God, I had to eat a hot dog for God, you know, and I knew there were recreational times, play volleyball or ping pong or God forbid, cards.