How to Live for Christ when Life Happens?

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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01:04

Welcome to the Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:26

Okay. Welcome to another Rap Report. I'm glad to have you with us and just want to give a shout out to the folks.

01:34

We really appreciate the feedback we have gotten on the last episode. Just want to read something that someone had sent over to us.

01:42

Very encouraging message because they listened to the last episode and said,

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I thank God for this message you've given here. Very good and edifying.

01:56

Really struck a few chords with me. And so we're glad that we had that.

02:04

People are sharing it. I hope that it was helpful to realize that for many of us we live in a period where we live by sanctification and yet for many of us we act as if we are living by a prosperity gospel because we live by really a works -based sanctification, a performance -based sanctification, which we should not.

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So I hope that last message was encouraging to you. We have been encouraged with the feedback we've gotten, the different people who have been sharing the episodes.

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We recently just had the episode we did two episodes ago had over 2 ,000 downloads.

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So that was quite encouraging. That's now our largest. We also have been getting back up there in the charts there.

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So we appreciate all those of you who listen, who subscribe, who share. It does encourage us and we're just people behind a microphone.

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We don't always know how much it affects you guys. So it is very encouraging when you guys write a review on iTunes, or we can't call it that,

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Apple Podcast. When we do things like that it's encouraging to us to be able to read that and know that you've been blessed by this ministry.

03:25

I'm your host Andrew Rapport from the Andrew Rapport's Rapp Report. I'm with Striving Fraternity Ministries and this is aired on the

03:32

Christian Podcast Community which is a ministry of striving fraternity. And today I want to talk about the just the issues of life and I have brought with me pastor and soon to be doctor

03:44

Frank Mullis. He's also a speaker for Striving Fraternity and he suffers a lot.

03:50

I suffer just being friends with him. Yeah me too. So you know one of the things that we wanted to do is just to talk about the fact that for a lot of people now

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I'll just open up a little bit here. Frank you obviously already know this but there are times in life where we have things unexpected that happen and I had that this past couple of weeks.

04:15

And it shows something of God's providence is the fact that when

04:20

I look at my speaking schedule the first half of the year first quarter of the year

04:26

I was gone like every week. I had something going on every single week and usually that's my quiet time and the summer into the fall is my very busy conference speaking time.

04:38

And this fall has been very quiet and I thought that strange and I'll be picking up in October I'll be out in California be at Grace Baptist in Redwood City in Northern California.

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In October I'll be in Kentucky in November and then in North Carolina.

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I will try if anyone's interested in getting the dates of those things just email info at strivingforeternity .org

05:04

we'll get you those those dates because I don't have them off the top of my head. But I've been in a lull and I think it's by God's providence because I had a little bit of a medical emergency that occurred and I had to basically when

05:19

I returned from the Philippines I wasn't feeling so well. I had gotten what's called a urinary tract infection and went into a doctor to find out what might be going on.

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And if you're anything like me you tend to think like I don't really need to go to a doctor.

05:36

You know you just you don't want to bother. And so I didn't want to bother but because I had come back from the

05:42

Philippines I chose to go and do that and just to get checked out. And the doctor was concerned that I'd have that sort of thing at my age.

05:49

And so in further checking they found out that I had a problem basically emptying the bladder and that caused a very uncomfortable process where they had to do an emergency catheterization.

06:02

So if you understand what that is yes I know most guys are now cringing. I was too. And so the thing that you end up seeing is there's times where unexpected things happen.

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I actually sort of went into a bit of a shock as they were explaining that they were going to do this.

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I wasn't prepared to do something like that and was not what I was looking forward to.

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And so it was well the unexpected things of life and things that you don't plan on and you have to you basically have to deal with it.

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And there's a couple ways to deal with it. Now I went through a point where I basically said okay what what do

06:46

I need to do to learn how to glorify God in this. Because that's really the thing that I wanted to do.

06:54

I wanted to I've seen you know people I mean I'll Frank you and I both know

07:00

Justin Peters. Have you ever heard that man complain ever? Just about you. Just about me.

07:08

Yeah maybe. But you know you think about you know he's got cerebral palsy and I you know

07:15

I was talking to him about this he said he goes you know he never it never dawned on him that he doesn't complain until everybody started commenting that he doesn't complain.

07:24

And you know so I just I think about that it's he really is a testimony. I really I thought about him much more and I told him this because you know he he's not able to put on his own socks because of cerebral palsy.

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Well when he travels you know he needs to have others help him out with with things like that getting his shoes on and stuff.

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And I was in that situation I couldn't get my socks on every time my wife would help me put socks on when we did have to go to the doctors.

07:49

I'm like thinking this is the reverse this is what I do for Justin. And the it helped me really appreciate a little bit more what others go through now.

08:00

I don't know how much you want to share. You've had a really really rough year this year on top of trying to get your doctorate which you're starting your dissertation on.

08:10

But you've had a lot of things go on in life. Not that you need to share all that but.

08:16

Right. You know what have you been going through at least what you want to share and then

08:21

I want to talk about for folks who are listening. How do we deal with these things.

08:29

Well you know part of it is just life happens you know God lets it rain on the just and the unjust.

08:37

And we all go through ups and downs.

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It's just the seasons of life we go through and some seasons are good some seasons are bad. You know Job said am

08:49

I going to take the good and complain about the bad. I deal with a lot of people who are suffering and made others suffer a lot worse.

09:02

I read a lot of things that have happened to victims of terrible crimes and I think well maybe my life's not so bad.

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But you know this past year I've had problems with business partners and problems within the family.

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I've had physical problems. So it's you know

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I've lost some very dear friends you know not through death like previous years but just through circumstances.

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And so you wonder why you go through these things and I understand

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God allows it to happen. But you know for me is

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I just assume that this is part of life. And you know as a priest I sermon at SufferCon one of the things that I kind of understood and gleaned from it was that God has a reason and a purpose but your theology really dictates how you suffer.

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And so I just look at suffering just as this is part of this life and this isn't our best life now and my best life is in the next one.

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And I think that the perspective can make all the difference. I mean this is actually what we mean when we say the name of the ministry striving for eternity.

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There's so many people that focus so much on the things of earth, focus so much on what is going on in my life right now that they lose sight of eternity, lose sight of that which is going to actually last.

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I mean if our focus is on Christ, if our focus is on seeing

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Him, then these things should,

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I say should, cause us to want to see Him more. It causes me to think through 2

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Corinthians chapter 5 where Paul, instead of reading the whole thing, but where Paul basically says this temporal body is failing, this temporal body that he calls a tent, this body of flesh, the tent of flesh, as it fails it gives a greater desire to see

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Christ. I think for many Christians that's missing. For many

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Christians they focus so much on their struggles in this life that they lose sight of looking for Christ.

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Now you do a lot of counseling, do you find the same? Well, here's an example.

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I got a phone call right after the hurricane hit the Bahamas. One of my friends who is an atheist, he asked me, so why does your

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God, why did He allow one of my friends and his three children to drown in the

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Bahamas? It's a good question. And I said, well, first of all,

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I generally answered the question, I don't know why God does this because I'm not God. And I said, secondly, by your worldview, it was just a random act that just happened.

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Those are the two choices. Either God has allowed it for His reason and purpose or just a random act of nature.

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And that's the way a lot of things we have to look at as believers is either we can accept that God is allowing suffering to happen in our lives for His reason and His purpose and His glory and for our good if we love

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God. Whereas the atheist, he has no reason or randomness in his life, so he has to just accept it, that this is what happens at times and then there is no hope of ever seeing his friend or his children ever.

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So that's what I kind of look at when I deal with this, is I try to say, look,

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I said you have two choices in life. Either there is a God who has a reason and a purpose for suffering or everything is just randomly happening for no reason or purpose in life.

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So ultimately, you have to place faith in Christ to really understand what suffering is in the human perspective because Christ Himself suffered for us.

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You know, recently I did a podcast in my daily podcast, and for folks who don't listen or don't know maybe,

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I do a Monday through Friday two -minute podcast, more of a somewhat devotional, but what we're doing is answering a lot of apologetic questions and showing those answers can be done in two minutes.

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This really brings up at Frank, one of the ones that does come up, a question often, is really the issue of evil.

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Why doesn't God end evil? So let me play that podcast episode and see and get an answer in less than two minutes.

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If God is a God of love, why hasn't He dealt with the issue of evil?

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This is a challenge we often hear that somehow His love is in opposition with dealing with evil, and this is a commonly made argument.

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However, this is a limited argument when you think about the fact that God is greater than just one or even two of His attributes.

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He is all of His attributes. So when we think of who God is, is God love? Yes. But is

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God holy? Yes. Is God just? Yes. Is God wrathful?

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Yes. We don't like to think about that. Now, if God is just, He must punish evil.

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However, He is also longsuffering, which means He doesn't punish evil immediately.

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So to display His suffering, He must put up with evil. We see this in Romans 9 .22,

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where it says, What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known

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His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which

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He has prepared beforehand for glory? So you see there that we see that God is longsuffering and patient, and those attributes can only be shown if He allows evil to continue.

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This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

16:33

Okay, so that was a two -minute daily that I did a couple days ago, which really does address the issue that we're talking about, is why is there evil?

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And it really is so that God can show some of those attributes like longsuffering, mercy, grace, these things like that, that wouldn't be able to be shown if there wasn't evil in the world.

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The issue of suffering, you mentioned SufferCon, the conference we did on sanctification through suffering, and we dealt with this issue in detail because of the fact that there's so many people who really do struggle with the fact of suffering in life, and I think that you find those people who can look at their struggles, look at what they're going through, and like we mentioned

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Justin Peters, the thing that always amazes every one of us with him is the fact that he just is like, well, okay, this is the way life is.

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He doesn't really give it a second thought in that sense to say, well, gee, poor me, what was me type of thing?

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Well, I think Justin, he's dealt with it his whole life, so that is life for Justin. Correct.

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It's not suffering for Justin. That's the way his life is. There are people, and it might have been a lot different for Justin if he had lived 40 years and suddenly in a car accident and suddenly he has those disabilities.

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It might be a lot different in the way he views life. I know that as I've gotten older, there are things that I can really no longer do that I once could, and I get irritated at myself with those things, and sometimes it is.

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It's ultimately a matter of perspective, but when we constantly talk about suffering and evil, we really need to try to figure out why is there good?

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What is good? If there's something that is evil or there's something that we call suffering, what is it that is good?

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Jesus made it clear that there's no one good but God, and then we have to look at the character of God to understand what good is, and that's where the atheist steals from the worldview because he has some kind of idea of what good is, but he won't admit what it is, and I constantly take them back to their following in the understanding that if you say that there is evil or something is bad, you're having to compare it to something that is objective, not subjective.

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If not, then we can just make up things as we go. Let's talk about contemporary social justice.

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It's kind of like if everything's a miracle, then nothing's a miracle. If everything is Hitler, what is

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Hitler meaning? So we're even losing what we can compare evil to.

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The thing I think that we end up seeing is people want and have bought into this false gospel message that we've been hearing for years now.

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God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and when they don't get that wonderful plan, they think something's wrong, or they've been listening to the prosperity preachers and listening to them say, well,

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God loves you. God wants the best for you. Well, sometimes the best that God wants is not what we want.

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There are times where the most direct route is a zigzag. I mean, think about—this is used a lot of times as an example—is

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Moses. The quickest way for him to get the children of Israel out of Egypt was to spend 40 years in the wilderness himself, leaving

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Egypt, going there, and having to first learn some things before he'd be ready. And then he didn't get to go.

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Yeah, and then he didn't get to go to the Promised Land himself. Well, that was his own doing. Well, I always make the argument

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Moses didn't make it to the Promised Land because he was on the Mount of Transfiguration. But, you know, the issue is what was the

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Promised—what is the Promised Land? Is this the Promised Land? And I think a lot of Christians believe that health, wealth, prosperity, and all these things are what

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Christians are supposed to have in life. But there are many scriptures, you know, that aren't taken out of context, that are in the

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Psalms, that are in the Proverbs, and Christians prospering and doing well.

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And especially the Proverbs gives us wisdom on how to be financially secure and those types of things.

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But those are things that God kind of guides us with, but it's not promises.

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And so we're going to have ups, we're going to have downs. And again, 11 of the apostles didn't turn out too well for them, if you want to look at it in this perspective.

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Well, so after this break, what I want to do is I want to go through a couple of pastor's scriptures, because I think

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Paul provides for us an example of how we should deal with issues like this right after this break.

22:25

Jeremiah 29, 11 should not be their life first. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org

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to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. The Five Solas Podcast, a weekly podcast hosted by James Watkins that is dedicated to the

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Each week, from the rich insight of Reformation Christianity, we will be showing all the manifold ways in which this material helps challenge and direct the current church in its life of worship and witness, and confront the idols of our age with biblical discernment and a sound apologetic in a manner that is as open and transparent as possible, while challenging you to seek the glory of God in all that you do.

23:46

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God intended for us to have. See you on October 18th. All right, so I encourage you to check that out if you're in that area and want to go and get some good training from Dr.

26:25

Danny Purvis on marriage. So let's deal with what Paul says. First, I want to start with 2 Corinthians 5, and then

26:31

I want to look over at Philippians 1, because when we look at this, we see in 2

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Corinthians 5, Paul says this starting in verse 1, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

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This is the perspective that we end up seeing with him, is that he's got this focus of striving for eternity, living in a life for eternity.

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His sanctification, his life is not focused on the things of this earth, but focused on eternity and being with Christ.

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This is even more so seen in Philippians. Now Philippians 1, you see beginning in verse 12, you see him struggling.

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There are people who are doing things to harm him as he's imprisoned. They are speaking ill of him.

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Many think that people were out there saying things against him, but he makes it really clear.

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They do it out of selfishness. They're bashing Paul. They're slandering him.

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They're saying things that are negative about him, that are untrue, and in verse 17, he says they do this out of selfish ambition, thinking to afflict

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Paul in his imprisonment. So you end up seeing that he knows the motive that they have, an ill motive, an evil motive, and he says, hey, it's okay,

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I'll rejoice because the gospel's going forth. He's in prison innocently. He was in prison because they were looking to kill him and to protect himself.

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He said he wanted to be seen by Caesar, but they knew he didn't do anything worthy of keeping him imprisoned, but he was still there for two years.

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Could he complain about that? Sure. Could he complain that people are slandering him? Sure, but what's his motivation? He says the gospel's going forth, and then he says this, starting in verse 19, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the

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Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. Now, stop right there and think about this.

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Frank, was Paul delivered from this imprisonment? Well, the word means rescue from danger that he was talking about deliver, but it's generally translated as salvation, and I think that he's delivered ultimately, yes, but not the way we think.

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Yeah, but not the way that he was saying it either, because he says he expects that he's going to see them again.

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Well, he will. He will, yeah, that's true. And this is something for some folks to realize.

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I mean, here's the Apostle Paul, and he thinks he knows God's will, and he was wrong. This didn't turn out to his deliverance physically.

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It actually ended in his death, because he's going to say he's eager to see them again.

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But that's just a side note, but notice he's looking at this and saying, okay, I have this going on, but I think it's going to turn out for good.

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But then verse 20, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always,

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Christ will be honored in my body, whether in life or death. For to me, to live is

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Christ and to die is gain. And many people memorize that passage, and they don't keep reading to see what he's going to say here, because he says in verse 22, if I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which shall

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I choose? I cannot tell. I am hard -pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is necessary on your account.

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See, this is the perspective he has. He's in prison. He could complain about it because he doesn't deserve to be there.

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People are slandering him while he's imprisoned, and what's his reaction? He wants to die. He prefers to die.

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The word for hard -pressed, I always find that interesting word there in the Greek, because this is the term that is used to refer to a cattle when it would go to slaughter.

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They'd basically put the cattle with these two guardrails, and they would be wide at one end and very narrow at the other end, so that when the cow gets to the end where they're going to cut its throat, it can't move.

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It's wedged in and can't move right or left, and that's the term that Paul uses to say the difference between life and death, but what does he say?

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Death is far better. It's a great gain compared to life.

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Many people are living for this life. Many people are so focused on their suffering and struggle.

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Some people could deal with what I went through the past month or what you've gone through this entire year.

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I mean, you've had so much that's been going on, and so many people that could end up struggling and focusing on those incidences.

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Paul's not focusing on those incidences. He's focused on the eternal things.

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Frank, how much does that change? I mean, as a pastor, you're counseling people, you're preaching.

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How much do you find this perspective can make all the difference in how we deal with life?

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Well, you know, I have a friend who's, you know, even myself, I find myself even saying, even so,

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Lord, come. You know, as you get older, you know, I used to wonder, you know, these older people that would kind of wish for death, and I was like, you know,

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I'm not quite there yet, but I understand what they mean is that the things of this life are fading, they're passing, you know, with my wife and kids, and, you know, my work here is one area, but, you know, so I look at heaven being a place of rest, too.

32:50

That's the other part of it, but it's also a place of worship and joy and a life where there is no more stress of sin, and I think one of the things that Paul dealt with, and he talked about, and I think he kept dealing, he got tired of dealing with sin, sin of nature, that body of nature, and I can't imagine, you know, for doing martial arts now for,

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I guess, 30, over 30 years, my body's pretty banged up, and I can't imagine what

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Paul's body was like after being stoned and beaten and all the terrible things that happened to him, and I'm sure toward the end of his life, he was pretty beat up and had, you know,

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I know the health and well -being problem, but he probably had some arthritis and some other medical conditions, and depending on what you believe the, you know, the thorn in the flesh was, if it was his eyesight going blind, which

33:47

I may lean to, I understand why he was saying to live and, you know, to die is to gain.

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That's where I am in much of this aspect, is that, you know, we are to work in this life, to strive to move forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, but there is the hope of glory that we long for, and I think that's what we see in Philippians right here.

34:20

Yeah, and this is the perspective, I've dealt with a lot of addiction counseling years ago when

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I was a counselor for a live -in center, and one of the things I found was that guys that had addiction, there were two types of guys that we often found.

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One was the character who the guy just can only focus on the struggles of this life, and those guys, they'd get out and almost, like, regularly you'd see that they would fall.

34:53

They would go right back into the same lifestyle that got them into the center in the first place. There's another character that I'd always see, and it was the guys who recognized that the addiction they had, that addiction drove them to where they were completely and utterly sold out to whatever was their drug, their, the alcohol, whatever it was, they were willing to give up everything for that, and there are some of those guys that understood that that's the way we're supposed to be with Christ, and they had that same perspective of being,

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I have to be completely sold out. That doesn't mean the phrase, so heavenly -minded, no earthly good, because if you're no earthly good, then you're not really heavenly -minded, but guys that had this focus on Christ that motivated them and drove them so that everything they did, they were thinking about Christ, those are the guys that didn't return back to that, and you'd see them clean up their life because that perspective completely changed.

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They no longer were focused on my life and my struggles and my needs.

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Well, that's the, that's exactly right. What is your, what is your focus? You're continually the focus on how bad things are and how bad the suffering is, and you think your life is nothing but that, where, what, what is it?

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Your thinking becomes locked into that. Your thinking becomes a failing thinking, you know, and there's this mentality, as a man thinks in his heart, heart's so easy.

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It's not a motivational thing, but it is something to it that the Bible tells us to think on certain things, and that's exactly what

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Paul tells us in Philippians, to think on the lovely things, not the things that are going to cause problems.

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So, as we go through life, we have struggles, we have things that we don't expect in life.

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God has a purpose in these things, and that purpose is to sanctify us, to make us more in the image of Christ, to make us more like him, to mold us and shape us.

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I don't think Moses wanted to leave Egypt and stay in the wilderness, but he needed it.

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I don't think Joseph wanted to be sold as a slave, thrown into prison, but that molded him.

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God used that. I don't think Daniel wanted to go through what he went through. I mean, you could look at character after character after character, and you end up seeing that God uses those things.

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I always wonder what Isaac was thinking as he was coming down the mountain.

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There's this meme where this kid looking back, what was he thinking about his dad?

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I wonder how much he understood what was going on, and again, how much do we understand what's going on?

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How much did all of the people who were suffering for God's glory that Jesus healed, how much did they understand, and what perspective in their life changed after Jesus healed them?

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That's a question. Well, you know, it's a really interesting thing you bring up out of Genesis chapter 22, because when the offering of Isaac, when we look at that,

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I think that Isaac understood quite a bit, and the reason being is one, Abraham was an older man at this point.

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We know that because he was in old age when he first has a child. So he gives birth, well, he doesn't give birth, but he has

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Isaac as an old man. Isaac, the term used for him is probably like maybe 14, 15 years old.

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So you compare that to the age difference, and I think

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Isaac had to submit himself to this. He didn't just, it wasn't that his father picked him up without him, you know, with his son fighting it.

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Isaac must have submitted himself to doing this when this occurred, and so many people say that, oh,

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Abraham woke up early in the morning, because he was so faithful to, no, he was up early in the morning,

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I think in verse 3, he rose early in the morning because he hadn't slept all night, you know?

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Or he was old. You're up early, you're old. No, well,

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I'm up early at three in the morning, but that's when I go to bed, so it's, but no,

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I think that what you see is, I think that that's a good example because I think that Abraham was struggling with what he was about to do.

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He knew this, and he was going back and forth, I think, with his own mind. I think it was a test of his faith, and I think there was a test for Isaac.

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Did Isaac actually, I mean, we have this understanding that we know that Abraham, in Hebrews, we know

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Abraham thought that, well, God may be raising him from the dead. Okay. We know that that's an argument that could be made.

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Did Isaac know that? I would think maybe he did, and he was showing his faith, but we do struggle with this, so I just want to, and I appreciate your time,

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Frank, with this, and I know you got to get going, but any things you can help with folks who are struggling, their focus is on the wrong thing, their focus is on their struggle, on the things of earth.

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What advice would you have? Well, I think ultimately your prayer life probably needs to improve.

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I know mine tends to do that when I'm going through suffering, but I think our prayer life needs to improve.

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You know, it may not necessarily change God, but it'll change us, as most theologians would say.

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Prayer certainly changes our perspective, and look at the perspective, I think, go to the scriptures that speak on suffering and realize that there are a multitude of people who suffered throughout scripture, and go to the suffering passage of the suffering servant,

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Jesus Christ. Go to his suffering. Read what he was going through in the garden.

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Read what he was going through as he went to Calvary. When you look at the scriptures, go to those scriptures that talk about suffering, but also go back to the

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Philippians and read Philippians. Get in there where it talks about joy. You know, what's amazing is Paul is talking all throughout his imprisonment about joy.

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Joy is used, I think, more in that chapter than he used in any other, or in that book more than any other, and it's a very short book.

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And so we have to realize that God's ultimate plan is his glory and for hopefully bringing about good.

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And I think that's the promise, is that the suffering that we are going through will ultimately be for our good.

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But we don't know what it is, and certainly suffering itself is not good, but we can find hope in the scriptures to find a place to where we can understand that our suffering is temporary and that eternity is forever.

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Well, I appreciate that. It's good advice. And folks, if you are struggling, if you are dealing with things, and we want to help you.

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We want you to think about the fact that we all struggle, and so if you are struggling, if you are, you know, there's just some people who struggle more than others.

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I mean, simply put, what we end up finding is that none of us suffer the same way as others, none of us struggle the same way as others.

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Some of us will deal with things differently, and because of that, there are times where what you may go through is something very similar to what

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I may go through, and you may handle it far better than I would handle it. That is a case because of the fact that we all deal with things differently.

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And God knows our differences. God knows exactly what He needs to mold us and make us into what

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He wants us to be. But if we resist that, if we fight against that, if we rebel against basically

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God working in our life, and we fight, then we're not really going to be as mature as God would want us to be.

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Now, obviously, God's in control of all things, and it's not like our fighting of what

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He puts in our life is going to be outside of His control. No, He knew how we would behave.

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But the point being that you and I should submit to God even in difficulties.

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I'll tell you, like, frankly, as you mentioned, I mean, I find that this past month my prayer life has increased.

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I mean, when I was sitting there and struggling and just walking was painful and couldn't sleep, which

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I don't do regularly anyway, but I really couldn't sleep even when I wanted to, waking up in pain,

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I was praying a whole lot more. And we don't want to wish things like that in our lives, but I know so many people who said, they get cancer, they get something like that, and they say they don't wish that, but they are so glad that it happened.

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In other words, God did a maturing in their life so that they ended up realizing that they needed that maturity.

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So, you know, you sometimes may need that in your life because God may know what you don't know, but the best thing to do in a case like that, submit.

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Submit to God. Whatever the trial is, whatever the tribulation is, don't run from it.

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Submit to it. See what God is going to do. This was my prayer. This was literally one of my prayers as I was going through this whole thing with my medical things.

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And by the time you hear this, as we're recording this, I will go through a procedure tomorrow, and I hope it all goes well, but you will hear this on Sunday after the procedure is done.

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I will have a catheter back in for a couple days, so I'm not going to be a happy camper by the time you hear this.

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And the reality is I was praying as I was struggling with things and saying,

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Lord, how can you glorify me through this? How can you be glorified through this? How could you use this situation to glorify yourself?

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Because I don't know how to deal with this. I'm struggling, and I don't know how

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He's going to do that. But I do know one thing that came out of it. I started praying a lot more.

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I started focusing on Him a lot more and being more appreciative of the time

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I could have in prayer. My life is very busy. I work 100 -hour weeks. I do a lot of things.

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I'm constantly busy, and it's very easy to be saying, well, I'm studying Scripture because I have sermons to prepare, so that's my devotional time.

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No, it's not. I need time away from the study and preparation of sermons to be alone with God, to pray, to read the

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Bible. I recently started a challenge to folks on our Faithlife page.

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If you go to faithlife .com and on the Striving Fraternity group, we started reading the

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Bible chronologically together, and so we're on day 14 right now. The thing is, as we're doing this,

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I'm reading through the past two weeks the book of Job. I mean, the timing is great, but it's something where I just really wanted to challenge myself to do more, to be more in His Word.

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I do a thing where I read a study Bible a year, so I take a different study Bible and I try to read through that with all the notes and everything, and maybe it's just my excuse to keep buying more

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Bibles that I make to my wife. I don't know. She thinks that's what it is, but that's one way

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I do it. But this is another way. I wanted to just do more. I want more of Christ in my life.

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That is one thing I can say that came out of this whole ordeal that I've gone through.

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What is it that you're going through that God could be glorified through your life with your struggle?

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You're struggling, I'm sure. There's many out listening, and maybe nobody else knows, because many of us, we don't want anybody else to know that we're struggling.

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It is almost embarrassing for me to actually share some of the things of what I've been dealing with, which is why actually decided

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I wanted to say what I've been going through, because sometimes we don't want anyone else to know we're struggling.

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That's our pride. It was my pride to not say anything. Several people had found out what was going on and contacted me and were like,

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I didn't know you were going through this, and I'm like, well, I didn't want to make a big deal. And one person rightly corrected me and said, well, you're robbing my opportunity to pray for you, brother.

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You need to let us know at times. And it really was my pride. Maybe you struggle the same way as I do.

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Maybe I'm not alone. But we don't want anyone to know our own struggles. We want to keep them in.

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Maybe you're that type of person. Well, that is a form of pride, the same pride that I have, and my encouragement is to do the same thing that I'm trying to do, is say, no, let's see how we can glorify

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God through this. The focus should be on Christ. Do you so desire to see

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Christ? You cannot wait to die to be with him. You know, the only thing I think that keeps me here on this earth, not wanting to just go completely full blown into heaven, is probably my wife and kids, that I would leave them behind, especially my wife, to have to deal with things without me.

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But if I was like Paul and not married, I think I would be much more like Paul saying,

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Lord, take me, come now. Like, let's not wait. So, just some thoughts.

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Hopefully, these are encouraging things for you to really be able to live a life that is more sanctifying and more glorifying to God.

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So, I do want to remind you, for those who have been listening, we do want to encourage you to join us.

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We're going to be going to Israel. We will be in Israel March of 2021.

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So, you have plenty of time to prepare. It's a year and a half away. Lots of time to save, but you don't have a lot of time to wait.

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We have one bus, 55 people. That's it. It's cut off. We're over a quarter full, almost half filled already.

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So, once it fills up, that's it. You can go on a waiting list, but that's all. Go to 2021israeltrip .com.

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2021israeltrip .com. You could join Frank Mullis, Anthony Svestro, myself, Justin Peters.

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We will be the folks doing the devotions. And so, we hope you will join us.

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This is kind of a, for many, a once in a lifetime thing. I know it's costly to get over there. There's a lot of things that require the cost because we have to pay the bus driver, the guide.

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That's a requirement. So, we have the bus, the bus driver, the guide, your hotels, your breakfast, your dinners, all that's included, even your flight from JFK.

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And if you're not going to fly from JFK, you want to meet us in Israel, then what you can do is you save,

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I think it's like $1 ,000 or $1 ,300, and there's a different price if you do that, and you meet us there.

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I encourage you to go to 2021israeltrip .com and join us for a trip to the holy lands.

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It will be a trip to remember and one that I think will be very valuable in your own sanctification.

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So, till next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. Dive into New Jersey's rich history and diverse heritage from colonial reenactments and Victorian architecture, scientific breakthroughs to the

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Underground Railroad. We're the crossroads of the American Revolution, birthplace of the motion picture, and home to the oldest lighthouse in the

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U .S. Explore our historic museums, view maritime marvels, and travel insightful itineraries.