A Firm Grip on the Christian Life： The Holy Spirit — Zac Poonen

Persevering to the End by Grace and Faith

Among Christians there are two different opinions about, as I mentioned the other day, about enduring till the end. There are, okay, among Christians there are two different opinions as to whether believers who have accepted Christ will endure till the end or not.

There are some who teach that once you receive Christ, no matter what you do, you're going to endure to the end whether you like it or not. And there are others who believe that we have to hold on. Now the truth is that in Scripture both these truths are found.

And Christians have a tendency to choose one over the other. I would never be able to endure till the end if God's grace did not keep supporting me and helping me. Impossible. It's more realistic to say that Jesus keeps me from falling than to say I got victory over sin.

Maybe the same thing but there's a subtle difference. On the other hand, God will never force a person to do anything. The Bible speaks about demon possession and spirit filling. You never read about the spirit possessing people or demons filling people.

I've seen numerous demon possessed people in India and they have no control over what they do or say. They say things they don't want to say, they do things they don't want to do because demons possess them.

They do all types of silly stupid things. That's a result of possession. But once they are freed from the demons and the demons are cast out, then they become normal people. Now the Holy Spirit never possesses people like that.

Never. That's the difference between God and demons and Satan. Satan likes to control us so totally that we lose our own free will, freedom of choice. Whereas when the Holy Spirit fills, he still gives us freedom of choice.

When we are born again, we're still free. He promises to keep us in his hand and no one will pluck us out of his hand. But we have the choice to jump out if we want. If you want to jump out, he's not going to grab you like the devil does and say you can't jump out.

So we need to understand this fundamental difference between God and Satan. Satan drives you, possesses you, wants you to, when he tells you to do something he says do it immediately, do it immediately.

There's a harshness about him, whereas the Holy Spirit is very gentle. If you hear a voice saying, come on, you've got to do this immediately, you've got to do this immediately, it's pretty sure, certain it's the devil.

God always gives you time to think, to be sure, to wait. It says by the renewal of our mind, we understand the perfect will of God. So the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, changes our mind so that we begin to understand God's way of thinking and very often that takes time.

So there's nothing wrong in waiting. So don't ever listen to a voice which says, you've got to do this immediately. God always gives us time to think. So in enduring until the end, we don't have to worry about God's part, he'll do his part, we've got to do ours.

You remember Jesus said, take my yoke and learn from me. Now in countries where you don't see oxen, bullocks plowing the field, you don't know what a yoke is, because now most people use tractors, but most of the villages in India we still have oxen plowing the field, just like in Jesus' time.

And there's a yoke put on the neck of the two oxen, which makes sure that they go together. We can't separate as long as the yoke is on the neck. They have to go at the same pace, in the same direction.

And when a bullock dies and they're training a junior bullock, junior ox, to plow a straight furrow, it's put with a yoke onto a senior ox who is experienced, and that, just by going at the same pace in the same direction as the senior ox, the junior ox learns how to plow a straight furrow.

So, that's what Jesus meant when he said, take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, and you will learn to walk absolutely straight in your life. But he doesn't catch us by the neck and say, you've got to do it.

I've got freedom. If I want to stall, and if I want to stay there where I want, he'll just leave me and let me go. So, we need to think about what is the part we have to do in order for us to endure till the end.

Gaining a Firm Grip on the Christian Life

The sad thing we see in so many Christians is that many young people, they start so well. It's like people who run a marathon race and they're way ahead in the beginning for the first mile or so, but by the time they come to the 26th miles, they've dropped out.

A lot of people in the Christian life are like that. They don't have a solid grip on the Christian life. So, the things which I've been saying from the very first session on Friday have been related to getting a solid grip on the Christian life, and that's what I long that all of you young people will have, a grip on the Christian life.

And the first thing I mentioned was to understand what the blood of Jesus Christ has done for us. It's like five fingers. You can hold something with two fingers. You can hold it with three, you can hold it with four, or you can hold it with five.

It makes a lot of difference if you have all five. The grip is much stronger. Someone can't take something out of your hand if you're holding something with five fingers, but if you hold it with just two, maybe somebody can pull it out of your hand.

Something like this. So, what I want to speak about in these remaining three sessions is the other three fingers. I spoke about the blood of Christ and the word of God. We need to know, just to briefly recap, first of all, what the blood of Christ has done for us.

The blood of Christ cleanses those who walk in the light. Those who are honest about their sin, those who don't blame other people, who take the blame completely for their sin, and don't try to justify themselves.

Jesus told the Pharisees, you are those who justify yourselves before men. Then such people never get saved. If you want to stop being a Pharisee, one of the first things you've got to do is stop justifying yourself, certainly before God.

Don't say, because of this, because of that, because then your sin will never be forgiven. And call sin, let me give you a little bit of advice, call sin by the dirtiest, filthiest name you can call it.

If you, for example, if you get angry with somebody and you call it sort of some super spiritual name like righteous indignation, you'll never get free from it for the rest of your life. You'll live with righteous indignation all your life.

But if you say, Lord, you said that anger was murder, Matthew 5, verse 21, 22, 23, he said it's murder. Call it murder. Lord, I murdered that person with my words just now. I'm a murderer. You'd get deliverance pretty quickly.

When you lust with your eyes, call it adultery. Lord, I committed adultery for the 50th time. I'm a filthy, rotten, lustful adulterer. Don't say I was just admiring God's creation or something like that.

You'll never get delivered that way. If you don't call sin by the filthiest possible name you can think of, you'll live defeated all your life. Call it sin. If you call it by some other name, remember the blood of Jesus only cleanses sin.

If you don't call it sin, it won't be cleansed. Say, Lord, this is a sin and I'm responsible for it. And don't blame anybody else. Blood of Jesus will cleanse you, not only cleanse you, the Bible says we are justified by his blood in Romans 5.

Justified means declared righteous. God promises something that is not promised in the Old Testament. I will never remember your sins anymore. You know, there are songs we sing which are not truly scriptural.

There's a song which says, I'm covered by the blood. I'm under the blood. That's an Old Testament concept. We got to understand, I'm not under the blood, I'll tell you that. I'm not covered by the blood.

You don't find such expressions in the New Testament. Most Christians don't read the New Testament carefully and so they got all these wrong ideas. I'm under the blood. Under the blood was for the Israelites in Egypt.

They were, that blood was on top of that door so the angel of death didn't come and they were under the blood. Well, I'm not an Egyptian, I'm not an Israelite and I'm not in Egypt. I was a sinner and it was not the blood of lambs that delivered me, it was the blood of Jesus Christ.

And the blood of Jesus doesn't put me under it, it doesn't cover me, it cleanses me. So I need to understand that. Get rid of all these wrong concepts that we get from hymn writers who didn't have that theology right.

I'm not under the blood. I'm not covered by the blood. In the Old Testament they were. Blessed is the man whose sin is covered, it says in Psalm 32. That's like if all your sins are there and you put a sheet over it, it's covered.

But they're there. You lift up the sheet, it's there. But in the New Testament, the blood of Jesus cleanses it. It's gone. You can't find it. It's like if you write all your sins on a blackboard and put a sheet over it, somebody can lift the sheet and still see it.

But if it's wiped out, it's gone. We need to understand what a thorough work the blood of Christ has done that I don't have to feel guilty about something in the past. In Revelation 12 and verse 11 it says, they overcame Satan's accusations by the blood of the Lamb.

Satan is called there the deceiver of the whole world, Revelation 12 verse 9. But then as far as believers are concerned in Revelation 12 10, he's called the accuser of the brethren. He's the deceiver of the world and the accuser of the brethren.

Of course, because we're in the world, he tries to deceive us too. But he doesn't particularly accuse the unbeliever because they're already in his hands. He's accusing the believer. And the voices of accusation that you hear are all from the devil trying to condemn you, making you feel unworthy, rejected, and especially when he reminds you of sins that you've already confessed.

Haven't you seen how some terrible sin that maybe you committed 10 years ago, the devil keeps reminding you of, ah, he says, but don't forget you did that. And you confess it a 10th time, and a 50th time, and a 500th time, and he wants you to always feel guilty about that thing.

But God's got good hearing, I'll tell you that. You don't have to tell him a 10th time what you've already confessed. If you have not honestly confessed it, if you have blamed somebody else for it, then you probably need to keep confessing 5 ,000 times till you take the blame for it completely.

But once you've taken the blame for it completely, you need to confess it only once. Remember that. If we confess our sins properly once, that means you take the blame for it. You don't blame anybody else.

He is faithful, 1 John 1 .9, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not cover, cleanse. Very important difference between the blood of bulls and goats in the Old Testament that covered sin, and the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses, removes completely.

There's no memory of it. I will not remember their sins anymore. Justified, declared righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ. I stand before God as if I'd never sinned in my whole life, and even more wonderful, clothed with the righteousness of Christ, so that it's as if I don't even have a sinful nature.

See, otherwise, we couldn't possibly stand before God. We need to understand this. I mentioned the other day how the seraphs in heaven, they cover their faces, cover their feet because they cannot look at a holy God, even though they have never sinned.

How could we ever come before him, even when our sins are all forgiven? I can't still stand before a holy God, because we've got a sinful nature, which the Bible calls the flesh. That would prevent us from standing before God.

That's why God has to do something more than forgiving us. He's got to justify us. Now, many Christians don't understand the difference between forgiveness and justification. Forgiveness is the blotting out of our past completely.

Justification is, I'm clothed with the righteousness of Christ, so that I don't stand before God with my sinful nature. It's still there, but God's put the righteousness of Christ to my account, and I stand before God as if I've never sinned, as if I don't have a sinful nature.

Even though the truth is I have sinned, the truth is I still have this flesh. This is the wonderful truth about forgiveness and justification. Once you're sure about this, that you shall know the truth, Jesus said, the truth will set you free.

All condemnation, particularly among young believers, is because they have not taken pains to study the truth of what cleansing is and what justification is. So I want you to be very clear on that. We are cleansed by the blood, 1 John 1, 7.

We are justified by the blood, Romans 5, 9, and therefore we have access into God's presence freely. We don't have to come with fear and wonder whether He's going to accept me or not. No. Because when we come with that type of uncertainty, we are dishonoring the blood of Christ.

We're dishonoring what God says, I've put His righteousness to your account. It's not pride to say that I stand before God accepted. It's faith. It's not humility. It's not humility to say, well, I'm not so sure whether God's accepted me.

That's not humility. That is unbelief. Now let me tell you that unbelief is like slapping God on the face and saying, I don't believe you. If my dad says to me that I put $500 into your bank account and I say, well, Dad, I'm not going to believe it until I go and check in the bank whether it's there or not.

It's like slapping him in the face. If you really trust your dad, you say, Lord, I believe, Dad, I believe you. I don't have to go and check anything. You said it's there, it's there. I believe it. So you see, when God says something in His word and you say, well, I'm not so sure, you're slapping God in the face and say, I don't believe you.

Trusting the Bible Through Personal Experience

And that's the reason for all of our problems. Just start believing from today and say, Lord, I believe your word. Well, next question that very clever people will ask is, how do you know this is the Bible is God's word?

Well, initially you don't know. But as you begin to prove it out, it's like a machine you got at home, a new machine that you bought. It could be a washing machine or anything. And you say, how do you know it works?

I say, I don't know whether it works. But if I've used it for a few years, I say, hey, it does work. I don't know how to prove it. I don't know how it works inside, but it works. So it's like that. The more you claim the promises of Scripture, this is how I know Scripture is God's word.

If people ask me, how do you know the Bible is God's word? Some people try to prove saying they dug up, some archaeologists dug up some manuscripts out in Israel. I couldn't care less for that. I say, I've proved in my life over 50 years that God's word is God's, it's God's word because I've proved it, I've claimed it.

And that's what your testimony should be and become stronger and stronger as every year goes by. The blood of Christ. The second thing I mentioned was the importance of God's word. That's the second finger.

With God's word, we get the understanding of God's mind. And if I allow the Holy Spirit to give me God's word every day as I read it and he speaks to my heart and I trust those promises and I obey the commandments and believe the facts that are mentioned there, gradually my mind begins to think like God thinks.

If I come in humility, humility is very important because Jesus said that Scripture is revealed. You don't find in the Bible the word explanation or understanding the Bible. It speaks about understanding God.

The New Testament word is revelation. That means the Holy Spirit makes something real to you all of a sudden from Scripture. As if suddenly the light was turned on and you could understand that verse.

That's the way we should understand Scripture. That's why I said yesterday, it's more important that the Bible goes through us once in our lifetime than we go through the Bible many times in our lifetime.

I've seen people who boast about having read the Scriptures 20 -30 times right through, but they don't seem to have any revelation on the simple things which are in his word because they've not sought for revelation.

They've been trying to get into some Guinness Book of Records that I went through the Bible so many times in my life. Well, I'm not in that competition. I want to make sure the Bible goes through me. One of the prayers I prayed to God many times is, Lord, before I leave this earth, before I leave this earth, I want to obey every single command you have for man given in this book.

And I want to claim every single promise that you've given for man in this book. It may take time, but before I leave this earth, I want to experience every promise and obey every commandment before I leave.

Make that your prayer. And that's what I mean by letting the Bible go through us. And if we dilly-dally and waste time in obedience, then you're not going to get, that's not going to be fulfilled because you're just wasting a lot of time.

That's why once you're clear that the Bible says something, say, Lord, give me grace to do it. It may find it difficult to do it, but God will give you grace. Every word of Scripture is a word of His grace.

We read, that's one of the titles given to the Bible in Acts chapter 20, the word of His grace. I think it's verse 27. The word of His grace means every word has grace attached to it, help. And if I ask for that grace, I'll be able to keep it.

I remember somebody reading through the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, a young fellow, and he said to me, Brother Zach, it's so difficult to keep these commandments in Matthew 5 to 7. I said, they're not difficult.

They're impossible. As long as you think it's difficult, you'll keep trying. The day you realize it's impossible, you give up. And you say, Lord, it's impossible for me to keep these commandments, but give me grace and I'll do it.

That's the point. Like someone said, there are three stages in the way a man experiences God working in his life. First of all, he thinks God's commandments are difficult, and he never gets anywhere. Then he comes to the place where he realizes these are impossible.

Then he has to lean upon God, and then it's done. So it's difficult, impossible, done. That's God's way of doing everything. When Abraham was 75, it was difficult for him to have a son. By the time he was 100, it was impossible, and he got it.

So when you realize that these commands are not just difficult, that you struggle a little bit and somehow one day you'll make it, but when you realize it's impossible, it's impossible for you to stop lusting with your eyes permanently forever from today onwards.

It's not difficult, it's impossible. It's impossible for you to say, I will never get angry again for the rest of my life. Not just a difficult thing. When Jesus said, your yes must be yes, you must be absolutely honest.

It's not just difficult, it's impossible. When he said, and I'm just talking about the Sermon on the Mount, when he says you must not seek honor from people for your giving or your praying or your fasting, it's not just difficult, it's impossible.

Don't judge others unless you be judged yourself. That's not a difficult command, that's an impossible command. When you say, Lord, it's impossible, but you've told me to do it, that means I must seek for the power of the Holy Spirit to do it.

I'm going to trust you to do it for me, it'll be done. Now the commandments in the Old Testament were not impossible. Thou shalt not murder. There are millions of unbelievers who can keep it. Thou shalt not commit adultery, physically.

There are millions of unbelievers who never commit adultery. You don't need the power of the Holy Spirit for that, you don't even need to know Jesus Christ to keep most of those commandments. The only commandment you need Christ's help for is the last, the tenth one.

That's impossible. You shall not even desire in your heart your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's daughter or anyone, that's impossible. But God kept that last one to show that that's what his standards were.

But the other nine commandments you can keep, definitely you can keep it. So this is one of the big differences. The Old Testament commandments all could be kept without the power of the Holy Spirit. They didn't need the Holy Spirit's power to keep any of those commandments given in the Old Testament, except the tenth one.

But when it comes to the New Testament, right from the beginning, the very first one, if you look at Matthew 5, 6, and 7 as replacing the ten commandments, you can't keep any of them if you really understand it.

You know, for example, a simple thing like forgiving others. You may say, well, I can forgive others, I've forgiven everybody. But probably that's because you haven't experienced something really evil from somebody else.

Imagine if somebody raped your daughter and murdered her. I think you'd find it a little difficult to forgive that person. You haven't experienced that, so you experience small things and somebody said something bad about you and you forgive.

There are difficulties many people face, much worse than what we have faced in our life. And I can really understand when somebody says to me, Brother Zag, I find it almost impossible to forgive that guy for what he did to me or to my family or to my daughter.

I can never forgive. I say, I realize it's impossible. You've got to ask God for grace, then it can be done. There is no commandment in Scripture which God has given which is impossible of fulfillment with the grace of God.

The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Grace

One of the great things I discovered, I want to speak about the Holy Spirit today. That's the third thing I want to talk about. The Holy Spirit. The blood of Christ, the word of God, and the Holy Spirit.

There's a title given to the Holy Spirit in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 29. It's called the Spirit of Grace. That's a beautiful title. The last part of Hebrews 10, 29, the Spirit of Grace. Grace is a New Testament word.

It says in John 1, 17, grace came through Jesus Christ. There was no grace in the world until Christ came. There's no grace in the Old Testament. Even the word grace when found in the Old Testament in the King James Version is not really grace.

It's favor. Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Grace is very clear in John 1, 17, came only through Jesus Christ. There was no grace in the world until Christ came. Grace does not mean the unmerited favor of God because everybody in the world gets God's unmerited favor.

That atheist who is healthy, he's got unmerited favor, but it's not grace. Grace is God's power and help to help us to overcome sin, to help us to fulfill His commandments, to help us to please Him, to transform us into the likeness of Christ.

That's what grace is. And here the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Grace or the Spirit that communicates grace. And it says in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 9, in the middle of that verse, it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.

Just think of these two verses I just quoted. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Grace and it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. In other words, when the Holy Spirit comes, He doesn't primarily come into our mind.

He comes into our heart to give us strength. The power of the Holy Spirit is a power that strengthens us with grace. Now what happens when you're strengthened by grace? It's like supernatural strength.

Can you think of Samson? Samson didn't have strength in his heart, but he had strength in his body. But it's a good picture to look at. When the Holy Spirit came upon Samson, he was only on the outside, but He gave him such tremendous power that he could kill 300 of Israel's enemies just with the jawbone of an ass.

He could tear a lion to pieces. Imagine lions being scared of Samson. The lions telling each other, watch out, that guy, that guy's coming. We better run. And that's a picture of the devil and the lusts of our flesh coming against us and getting scared because now we've got the power of the Holy Spirit.

Isn't it wonderful to be so strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit that the devil is scared and runs from you? I want to live like that. In the olden days, I ran from the devil, but it's not going to be like that now.

I'm not going to run from this lion. Samson did not run away when he saw a lion. The lions ran when they saw him once the word got around who Samson was. And that's the position. That's what happens inwardly to us.

The heart strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. That was possible only after Jesus came. And what happens through this grace? It says in Romans 6 .14 that when we come under this grace, sin will not be able to rule over you.

Romans 6 .14. Sin that can rule us, sin that is our master, stops being our master because we come under the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, it's very easy to find out who's your master. Supposing there's a man standing here and there are two fellows, A and B, both saying that's my slave.

Well, I say it's pretty easy to find out who's slave he is. I ask Mr. A, tell him to sit down. He says, sit down. The guy says, no, I'm not going to sit down. Oh, he's not your slave. Tell B, I tell B, tell him to sit down.

He says, sit down. The guy sits down. I say, I don't know who's slave he is. It's very easy to find out whether you're a slave of sin or righteousness. When you're standing there, sin says, get angry and get angry.

You know whose slave you are. The Holy Spirit at the same time says, don't get angry, keep your mouth shut. You keep your mouth shut. You know you're the slave of the Holy Spirit. You can find out. In a provocative situation, sin says, come on, lust after that girl.

And you do it. Or click on that internet pornographic site and you do it. You're a slave of sin. The Holy Spirit says, don't. Get away from there. Don't look at that picture. Turn away from there and turn your eyes away.

And you listen to the Holy Spirit, you know you're his slave. So when it says, sin will no longer be your master, what a wonderful promise. To me, it's one of the most fantastic promises in the New Testament.

I think I've quoted that verse more than anything else in my preaching. Sin shall not rule over you. It's the distinctive feature of the New Testament that sin, which has ruled me all my life. Imagine like the Israelites hearing one day from Moses, Pharaoh will not rule you anymore.

And these guys have been slaves for 430 years. They've never known anything but slavery. They go to work at 6 o 'clock in the morning and the whip of the taskmaster, that's all they experience until 10 o 'clock at night when they come home.

Day after day after day after day. Imagine a 60-year-old man saying, I've experienced the whip of the taskmaster for 45 years. Moses, are you telling me that I won't have to face it anymore? Moses says, yeah, that's right.

God's come to deliver you. That would be the best piece of news he ever heard. It's almost impossible to believe. And it's like that with many Christians when they hear the word of God which says sin shall not rule over you.

It's almost impossible to believe. You mean I need never get angry again? That's right. You mean I never need to get depressed and discouraged and gloomy again? Right. You mean I won't have any more bad moods in my home?

Right. You mean I'll never lose my temper at my wife again? That's right. You mean I'll never in my life go to an internet pornographic site? Right. Boy, are you interested in that? Or you want to live under the whiplash of Pharaoh's taskmasters forever?

It's good news for those who want to be free. Sin shall not rule over you. And all it requires is to be under grace. The Holy Spirit has come primarily for that. To give me that grace that'll strengthen me to do what's impossible for me to do otherwise.

I mean, you take these bulbs which shine with such bright light. Now, if you were to ask that bulb, can you produce that light on your own, it's impossible. But can you produce a bright light if I send electricity into you?

Oh, sure. Easy. What is impossible for it by itself becomes the easiest thing in the world when electricity comes in. It's something like that. As long as that bulb's trying to look inside and look inside and see if I can somehow produce some light, it'll never produce light.

It needs an external power coming inside and then it just continues. Think of these fans that are rotating effortlessly. Life under the law is not like this. In the olden days in India, before they had electricity, they had these little kings who ruled over little kingdoms in different parts of India.

And they would have slaves who had a string with which they would rotate a type of fan. Well, they couldn't do it for long. You can't keep turning a fan with your hand. They've got to keep doing it in shifts.

You get tired after an hour or so. I find that living under the law is something like that. People hear a commandment in scripture, and like those old slaves had to rotate that fan by hand, after some time you get tired and you give up.

And the fan stops. And you sin. You can hang on for a little while and say, okay, I managed to live one day or two days without it. But after some time you give up. Many people, when they come for a conference like this, what they hear is the equivalent of a pep talk, you know, like the coaches give before a football game or a basketball game or something.

They get a pep talk and get everybody worked up. And it lasts for the length of the game. Once the game is over, the next game comes tomorrow, they need another pep talk. And it's something like that.

Many people listening to sermons, the sermon stirred them up, and for a little while it lasts, the effect of it, and they think they're holy. But once the effect of the pep talk is over, they're back into their old sinful life.

And that's why they need to keep coming back to conferences, keep listening to these pep talks to live a holy life. And they feel that, well, I like to listen to this person preach because I'm protected.

I keep listening to a CD or from the internet or something. But what if you were locked up in prisons, like in some lands, in communist lands, Christians are locked up for 10 years, no internet, no sermon, nothing, no Bible even.

What would happen? You'd just become a sinner. No, there's something even better that we have in the New Covenant. It's the Holy Spirit that'll come and live within us. They can, people who persecute me can take away my Bible, take away everything, prevent me from going to meetings.

The Spirit of Grace, Supplication, and Conviction

They cannot take the Holy Spirit from me. They cannot take grace from my heart. It's a wonderful thing that Jesus has come to give, power to be a witness for Christ. In Zechariah, in the Old Testament, there's a wonderful prophecy, which was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.

In Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 10, and I want to apply this in a New Testament way, Zechariah 12 and verse 10. I'll pour out, Jerusalem in the New Testament, by the way, is the church. It's you and me, the inhabitants of this New Testament church.

I will pour out on the people in this church the spirit of grace. It's one of the only occasions in the Old Testament where that word grace comes, and it's a prophecy about the future. The spirit of grace.

The Holy Spirit that communicates grace. I will pour it out upon my people. I've claimed that promise so many times. The spirit of supplication. The spirit that makes me cry out saying, Father, help me.