Love Moved First (Cathy Quedzuweit, 06/15/24)

I'll do this for you, will you please save my family?

So she showed kindness to them because of her love for her family.

She wanted her family to be saved.

So she really didn't know God like we want to know God, to have him in our heart, to

accept him.

But her faith gave her enough to be able to make that choice and to see that these guys,

these spies, they had a God that was powerful.

She didn't know him yet, but he was powerful and she can see that in their lives.

So she was motivated by love to protect her family.

And actually in Joshua 2, in Rahab's words, I know that the Lord has given you the land

and that the fear of you has fallen upon us and that all the inhabitants of the land melt

away before you.

For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came

out of Egypt.

And what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, whom you devoted

to destruction.

And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted.

Her faith was growing and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, the Lord your

God.

He is the God of the heavens above the earth and beneath.

What she saw in them and in their God, it made sense to listen to them.

And again, it's logical and it made sense in her mind.

She didn't really know God in her heart.

She saw that their God could do mighty things.

And I truly believe the Lord knew that that is what I needed to reach me.

Now I've been in evangelism like Sarah mentioned, pretty much for over 20 years.

I am not an evangelist.

I am pretty much been executive assistant, but I've worked with evangelism.

I worked with amazing facts and now I'm thankfully blessed to be with It Is Written.

And evangelism is powerful.

But God knew that for me, it would be love.

It would be love to reach me.

He needed to show me love.

And I didn't know God, so I didn't know anything about His love.

But I loved my family and God knew that He needed to use people in my life to motivate

me.

So I am one of five kids.

I am from Long Island, New York, born and raised.

My dad is 100% Italian and my mom is English, Irish, and Norwegian.

So I was raised in a fairly large Catholic Italian home.

My siblings all went to catechism.

We all made our confirmation and communion and we did all the usual stuff that I'd say

we were nominal Catholics.

Because of the heritage of Italian, my dad Italian Catholic, they pretty much go together.

You can't separate the two.

So that's what I was raised as and that's my parents said, well, you know, we did the

best we can.

We knew what we did.

That's all we knew.

So I respect my parents for that.

We were raised in a good home.

There was a lot of respect in my home.

We had family meals together all the time and it was just, it was a good environment

except that I didn't know that there was another way of life.

I love my family.

I'm very close to my family and when I told my mom years later that I, not years later,

but a couple months after I had met my husband, that I wanted to be an avid, it was a little

interesting, but I'll get to that.

You know, and my family loves me and I know people, even just recently, I know people

who when they joined the Adventist church, their family disowned them and wanted nothing

to do with them.

They just separated themselves from them.

Now not to say that I didn't get made fun of by my family and picked on a lot when I

said I wanted to become an Adventist.

It was hard and it was challenging, but I knew that they loved me and that was important

too.

They really wouldn't disown me, especially when you have that Italian background because

that's big.

Italian and family is big.

Italians will, my family, they're screaming and yelling and nobody knows how to talk quietly

and calmly and softly and it's always screaming and yelling and Italians will, they'll shoot

you and then bring you to lasagna in the hospital.

It's just the way they are, but they'll never disown you.

So when I told my parents that I wanted to become an Adventist, that I wanted to get

baptized, there were definitely some words and disagreements flying in the room.

And then my little brother James walked in and James was a great kid.

And James walked in and he heard all the commotion and the loud noises and yelling.

What's going on?

Oh, your sister wants to be a different religion.

She doesn't want to be Catholic anymore.

She just wants to do something else.

And then James just looked at my mom, all eight-year-old of him, and he said to my mom,

will she still be my sister?

My mom was mortified and so was my dad.

And they were like, well, of course she'll still be your sister.

And then sweet little James said, then what difference does it make?

And they all came to my baptism.

So that was pretty neat.

And it really means a lot to me because my brother James actually died.

He was 30 when he died.

So if his life only amounted for that, he had a lot of struggles in his life, it was

worth it.

I know much of what I learned in the Catholic Church was not true, was false doctrine.

It wasn't anything that biblically I could stand on.

But I have to say that I was taught a lot of respect.

I was taught to respect authority, respect my parents.

I was taught to have a good worth ethic and really to generally live a good life.

Actually at one time, my husband always sort of chuckles about this.

At one time, I wanted to be a nun.

But every good Catholic girl thinks that at one point.

But I'm grateful for what the Catholic Church did teach me.

It taught me reverence in the sanctuary, reverence in the church, reverence for respect and for

the church and for my family.

Although, like I said, a lot of it wasn't true.

But just on a side note, I know for me, as I've been trying to witness to my family over

the years, I feel like we should try to spend more time in trying not to, trying to convince

our non-adventists, family and friends that they're doing things wrong.

I think it's important to at least try to find some common ground and build a bridge.

Years later, I mean I'll get to the part later, but I've been Adventist now for a little over

30 years.

And for me, I've noticed that my greatest witness to them is literally keeping my mouth

shut, you know, because they're not used to that.

You know, there's a lot of arguing things going on, but I'll have things of my mom will

say to me and, you know, I have three brothers and one sister, especially the older brother.

He just knows how to push my buttons, you know.

But yet, I've learned that the Lord has helped me over the years to just be quiet and be

calm.

And now, after all these years, I am the one, praise God, that they call and ask for prayer

when things are going crazy in their lives.

So it is a blessing.

Your witness and your example speaks a lot.

So those are my beginning steps.

I had a belief in God and Jesus somewhat.

Of course, you're walking to the Catholic Church and you've got Jesus hanging up on

the cross and you've got all the saints on the sides.

And, you know, but that was just me.

I mean I never, the funny thing is I look back over my life now and I remember as a

kid going to catechism and going to church and seeing everybody go up and pray and kneel

before the statues.

The crazy thing is I look back now and I never did that.

It gave me the creeps even as a kid.

It just wasn't, I thought this can't be right.

It doesn't make sense.

My mom would get a little upset at me, but I was like, it just doesn't make sense.

Going to confirmation, I mean going to confession, you know, the confession booth was scary to

me.

I had no kids, you know, so I typically didn't go.

I just didn't tell my parents.

But there were things that, you know, I just, that's the way it was.

I didn't know any other way.

I mean if you've ever, in New York, I didn't even know an Adventist either.

Never heard of one.

You're Catholic or Jewish.

I grew up with a lot of Jewish people and I grew up mostly Catholics.

But it was more like this was just me living my life and God was up there somewhere and

I knew that he was there and wasn't necessarily a personal God in my life.

My family just did a lot of everything that most worldly people do, you know.

And it wasn't being taught to have a personal God.

But you know, I think we all have that space in our hearts and I believe that that space

is just for God and just for him and we try to fill it with other stuff.

I know that was that way for me.

It was like that one puzzle piece that was in my heart and it was only the piece that

God could fit in and I was trying to fill it with other stuff.

I didn't know anything about a Bible.

We didn't even have one in our home.

I pretty much only knew the names of Mary Joseph because of course the Christmas story.

And I've heard about David and Goliath but that was it.

I knew nothing.

I, even when, you know, you go to catechism and you make a confirmation.

They don't teach you from the Bible.

They teach you from catechism.

So I really didn't know about any of those things.

I was more just like, I don't know, I didn't think about salvation.

I didn't think about what happens after you die.

I never even crossed my mind.

I just thought, well, I'm Catholic, I'm good.

You know, that's what everybody thought in my family.

You know, but I was living my life.

I was partying and going to clubs pretty much.

I did that almost every weekend, smoking, dancing, doing all kinds of stuff.

I was just living my life.

We had a lot of family gatherings.

Like I said, and where I was born and raised, there was my family, there was five.

It was a very big Catholic neighborhood.

There was five here.

There was eight in the family next door.

There was 11 in the family behind us.

We had a lot of kids in the neighborhood and it was a lot of fun.

A lot of gatherings.

So I grew up just living my life completely separate from God, not even thinking that

I wanted a relationship with God.

As I got older, I loved to work.

I worked a lot.

I actually had three jobs through high school and I barely graduated from high school.

I wasn't really good in school, but I was good at projects and getting things done.

So I loved to work and I worked a lot.

So I worked during the week and on the weekends, on the weekends on the nights, I bartended

on the weekends and then I worked in catering.

My family was in the catering business and so I did some catering and I did a lot of

that.

Just work, work, work, party, party, party, spend money, spend money, spend money.

I love to shop.

I would go to work in retail and that was my dream as a young person was to work in

retail.

I did go to college.

I went to college for fashion buying and merchandising.

I wanted to be a buyer for Saks and travel the world.

That was my dream and I was working towards it.

My little old lady lived next door to us.

She would tell my mom, I look out the window every morning to see what Kathy's wearing

because she always has something different on and that was very true.

I hardly ever wore the same thing twice.

I just was crazy, crazy.

It was almost literally I can look back now and see it was like my drug.

If it was on sale, I wouldn't buy it.

There's no way I would buy it if it was on sale because I knew it wasn't high fashion

enough so I wouldn't even buy it.

It had to be the latest and the greatest.

Nothing in my life made sense though.

Nothing made sense.

I mean when you think about that, does that make sense?

No, it makes no sense.

It makes no sense at all.

But I'd worked for almost 20 years doing window displays, dressing mannequins.

I won awards for best windows and I was doing fashion show coordinating and I was like,

okay, this is getting towards the job that I want, my dream job, my dream job.

I'm going to be a fashion coordinator.

I'm going to design.

I'm going to work for Neiman Marcus and Saks.

It was just worldly, worldly, worldly.

God was never even remotely on my mind, not even in my radar.

But I praise God that thankfully I was on his mind.

Psalms 139, all of this psalm shares God's perfect knowledge of mankind for me and for

you.

I'm not going to read the full whole part but I'm going to read part of Psalms 139.

Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know my sitting down and my rising up.

You understand my thoughts afar off.

You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways for there

is not a word on my tongue but behold the Lord you know it all together.

You have hedged me behind and before and laid your hand upon me.

He knows me and he knows each one of you.

Don't wait for Jesus to come looking for you.

Go look for him first.

It just makes sense.

So while I'm living my life, the Lord chose just the right time as only he can do to open

my eyes and show me that I needed him and that he has a plan for me.

I mean you have to think about it, we're all pretty much a hot mess most of the time, right?

But we serve a merciful, loving and generous God who has chosen us.

He has a plan for us and we can trust him with it.

Jeremiah 29, 11 most of us know.

For I know the thoughts that I think towards you says the Lord.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil.

To give you a future and a hope and that's what God had for me and he has for you.

I met my husband on a blind date set up by mutual friends who convinced us both to go

which neither one of us wanted to go but we were friends.

My husband is a fifth generation Seventh-day Adventist.

His family's history is making it through World War II being Adventists.

Their stories are amazing.

He was a piece of pastor's kid and he was blindsided to go on a date with unbeknown

to him a very worldly girl who was just all over the map.

And I look back and I feel so bad for him.

Like I feel so bad from that first date.

I really feel bad for him.

We went to this restaurant.

We were with these friends of ours and I know he was an Adventist, this friend of mine,

but the girl he was with was not because I went to school with her.

Public school.

There were no Adventist schools out on Long Island so he went to our public school.

And we went out on that date that night, the four of us.

We went on this blind date and I was smoking.

I ordered my drinks and I'm thinking why is nobody else drinking a smoke at this table?

I know Linda smokes.

I know she drinks but she was hiding it from her boyfriend.

And so I thought, well, you know, I put my cigarette out.

I was a courteous smoker.

And I put my cigarette out and I thought, well, this is unusual.

And then I thought to myself, yeah, this is not a good match.

This is definitely not a good match.

Thankfully, though, he didn't judge me by my appearance, although the outward does tell

the story sometimes on the inward.

I was, yeah, pretty interesting looking.

Anyway, he was definitely different than any of the guys that I had already been dating.

I pretty much looked for anybody who had money, a nice car.

Actually just a few weeks before I met John, I was dating a bouncer named Bubba.

That is true.

His dad was actually in the mafia out on Long Island and he had a Long Island girlfriend

and a city wife.

That is not just a TV show.

That is true.

Thankfully, I broke up with him and I look back now and say, man, that would have been

disastrous.

So God is so good.

I love that he had the plan for me and my life and actually made a good decision for

once was breaking up with the bouncer guy.

So John was very quiet and kind-hearted and he was just a gentleman and he wasn't rich,

he was poor.

You know, just so opposite from what I was already dating.

And I remember after the first date and I thought, no, that is the kind of guy you marry.

That is the kind of guy you marry.

But I thought, well, I don't know if that is going to happen because I don't know if

I will ever see him again.

I couldn't put my finger on it but there was something different about John.

He was just quiet, different.

Like I said, I knew that if I ever did want to get married, it surely was not going to

be in Italian.

I don't mean to offend any Italians if you are here but I have been around enough of

them, I just wasn't going to marry an Italian.

And I am sure there are some good Italians out there.

I have no doubt.

I can say that because I am Italian.

Anyway, I knew I wasn't going to marry someone who was Italian.

So what did I do?

I married 100% German.

Good job with the name.

You did good.

It is very hard to say that last name but you did good, Sarah.

But there was something different about him.

He was the first person that I could look back now and see this but I didn't know it

then.

He is the first person that I actually saw Christ in.

He did things that I was just, we went to on the first date, we went earlier, this was

after, sorry, this was after.

We went on another date, it was a month later, and we pulled into a gas station and he got

out of the car and he went in to pay and then he came out and there was a homeless person

outside the door.

And I am sitting in the car waiting for him.

I was a very, very impatient person.

I am like, what is taking him so long?

And he finally comes out with a whole bag of groceries and he gives it to this homeless

person.

And I am thinking to myself, who does that?

I don't know anybody who does that.

Anybody in my family, if they saw a homeless person they would be like, get a job.

Go, don't work, go do something.

But he was this man that I was with doing something I had never seen anybody do before.

So compassionate and so kind.

I am telling you, there was just amazing about him.

And I knew, I know now, looking back, that I was not good at picking guys to go out with.

And I thought, you know, I just need to let go and not date anymore because it just wasn't

doing very well for me.

And just as a side note for all you single folks out there, just be real, enjoy your

singleness, spend your time with the Lord, spending your time getting to know Jesus and

let God pick out the spouse he has for you.

Anyway, we had that one date.

I didn't see him for a month.

Rightly so, because I am sure he is thinking, okay, I don't know if this is somebody I really

want to get involved with.

This is probably not a good idea.

His dad is a pastor.

His dad worked for the Greater New York Conference, the Michigan Conference, and then the European

African Division over in Switzerland.

So really to bring me home would be like sort of bringing home part of his wife, you know.

So I knew that wasn't going to happen for a while.

Anyway, during that month, quite a bit happened in my life.

So John and I had that one date, didn't see him for a month.

And during that month, he was like, Lord, this isn't somebody I really should get involved

with.

I need to sort of step back.

But if you want me to pursue, then I need to be able to know that she's interested in spiritual

things somehow.

And I remember I told you, he wasn't even on my radar.

Wasn't even on my radar.

And so John was praying that prayer that if I was interested in spiritual things, then

we would continue and he would come, we would go on another date.

So anyway, during that month, here I am, and a lot was going on in my life.

I knew someone whose baby had died and it was really bothering me.

Really, really bummed.

I love kids.

I actually have my one.

I was told I couldn't have any more kids, so she's my one miracle girl.

And so I just was really killing me that, if there's a, why the God, why would a baby

die?

It just made no sense to me.

And so I was just really struggling with that.

Also during that month, I was working at the bar that I worked at.

And I walked in there and I thought, oh my word, same people sitting in the same spot,

doing the same thing.

I remember thinking, this is not what I want for my life.

I don't know what I want, but this is not it.

This is definitely not it.

My life was just feeling very empty.

And thinking about that baby that died, it just was feeling very, very empty.

Well also during that month, my niece was born, my niece Jeanette.

And she was actually, I was 22.

That was the first newborn baby I'd ever seen.

I'd never seen a newborn baby.

And my sister had asked me, being the good Catholic Italian family, if I would be her

godmother.

And that is a huge honor in my family, huge.

And I was like, yeah, of course I'll be her godmother.

And I am very, very close to my niece still to this day.

She's 40.

We're very, very close.

And so the Lord was really working on my heart.

So baby had died.

I was feeling empty, not knowing what was going on in my life.

I was watching Jeanette one night.

And I lit up my cigarette.

And I was holding her.

And I remember holding her, just being in awe at this beautiful little creature.

Little fingers, little toes, little nails.

And I'm smoking.

So I remember putting the cigarette down in the ashtray while I was holding her.

And it just hit me.

Oh my word, her lungs must be so little.

I'm thinking about all of her.

And I literally quit smoking right then and there.

And I didn't miss it.

I was almost at two packs a day.

Didn't miss it, nothing.

I loved that little child so much that the love motivated me to quit smoking.

When I'd gone into that bar, really that night, I just didn't want to drink anymore.

I was a weekend drinker.

I didn't drink during the week.

I was a weekend drinker or whatever.

So the drinking was gone.

So during that month, I quit smoking.

I quit drinking.

And just all these things now are going through my mind.

I know that something was awakening in me.

I remember going out with my friends a couple of times and thinking, this is not as fun

as it used to be.

And I don't know why.

I mean, I know I went to one dance club one night and there was a big fight broke out

there.

And it was a fancy place, but a fight broke out with two girls fighting over some guy.

And I remember the cops will show up.

And I was in there illegally.

I was 16, 17 years old, 18 years old using somebody else's driver's license.

Back then you had no picture on your ID.

So you could use anybody's driver's license no matter how old they were to get in anywhere.

And I remember getting out of there before the cops came.

So there were so many different things in my life that were just so empty.

And I knew now, I knew that something was changing in me.

Something was changing in my heart that this has got to be something more in my life.

There's just got to be something more.

I look back and I remember and I think to myself now, don't wait for Jesus.

Come look for you.

Look for him first.

It just makes sense.

Just makes sense.

Like God telling Moses, tell people, just look at the serpent.

All you got to do is look at it.

It's just simple.

God was giving instructions.

Just simple.

Just look.

Something was waking me up in my life.

So one month after, what I thought was the only date that John and I were going to have,

he surprised me and came to my work and he asked me out again.

We went out again and I noticed again something was different about him.

Nothing like I've ever seen anybody.

So after that date we went on, we went to the beach and I just looked at him and I said,

you know, you seem like a religious kind of guy.

Not that I really know what that meant, but that's what I said.

And I said to him, do you know what happens when people die?

He was blown away.

That was his prayer that I would be interested in spiritual things.

And he literally was, took his Bible out of the back seat.

He actually had it with him, pulled it out and he said, let's just, we can see what the

Bible says.

I was like, whoa, who has a Bible in their back seat?

I'm like, who does that?

You know, I only have one in my house, let alone my car in the back seat.

So I was shocked.

That was a totally foreign concept to me.

So from every date we had from that time on, we studied.

We went through all the amazing facts study guys, went through everyone.

I was like a sponge.

It all made sense.

It was so logical for somebody who had no Bible background, no nothing.

The motivation of love in my heart, seeing it in John, seeing this guy must have an amazing

God.

I need to know more about this.

I was so drawn to that, that everything I was learning, I was just soaking up all the

Bible truth.

State of the dead?

That makes sense.

Who wants to think of grandma up there or your husband or your spouse or somebody there

looking down and all the bad stuff that's happening to you?

How sad would that be?

That made sense to me.

You know, and plus being a Catholic, you know, there's this part and there's this part and

you have the floating between.

It was just, that doesn't make any sense.

So this was making sense.

All the things that I was learning was making sense.

The Sabbath, to somebody who worked three jobs, that made a lot of sense.

I made a lot of sense to say, rest.

At first it was even hard, you know, really hard for me to just say, you mean I'm not

supposed to do anything?

You're supposed to rest?

John's like, well, no, nothing.

So I started learning a lot of things.

It just made sense.

A healthy lifestyle?

Well, that made sense for somebody who smoked two packs a day, was drinking and partying

and doing all kinds of hours of the night.

I mean, I was 22 and running out of breath up a flight of stairs.

That made sense, healthy lifestyle.

I went to church with John a couple of times and I thought, wow, Adventist women are gorgeous.

They're like, hardly any wrinkles.

They look great.

They don't look like that, you know.

It's just, I was just really impressed by that.

So healthy lifestyle made sense.

Not that things weren't challenging for me, but I knew I was growing to learn.

My faith was growing and my love for the Lord was growing moment by moment.

And I think that we talked about this in Sabbath school.

The faith of my husband, I was actually pulling from the faith of my husband to continue to

grow my faith.

And we talked a lot about faith in Sabbath school this morning.

It was really good because God gives us, each one of us, that measure of faith.

And I think the rest of it for me was that I was using his faith, John's faith, and John

was being a witness to me to lead me to Christ.

God knew that love would motivate me to make the changes in my life.

I didn't know him, but the love I had for my niece, the love that I was having for growing

for John made the changes in my life easier.

And he was there as partnering and helping me.

I know when I wanted to quit eating meat, my mom's like, oh, what are you going to eat?

I was barely 100 pounds at 5'8 back then.

And so my mom's like, you can't do that.

You're going to starve.

You're going to starve.

I'm like, no, I'm not, Mom.

There's a million things I can eat.

And then she got mad at me.

I think you were always destined to be one of those vegetarian people.

And I said, why?

Just because whenever I asked you to help me clean the turkey on Thanksgiving, you would

say, I'm not cleaning that turkey.

So anyway, maybe I was.

I don't know.

Lord had a plan, and that was good.

But God was using earthly love to motivate me, because I didn't know him.

I didn't have a love for him, but the love I had for my niece, the love I had that was

growing for John, this love was drawing me to know the love of God, which I'm so thankful,

thankful for.

So all the truths I was learning was making sense.

It was all making sense to me, every bit of it.

You read the scriptures, and even though sometimes things may seem confusing, it's not.

Just keep reading it, because it'll make sense.

I wanted to start making good choices, and I had John to help me, and as I was growing

and learning more from the scripture that I can have a personal savior in my life was

just wonderful.

So like Rahab, my heart wanted to know and have these truths that could set me free.

I wanted the mercy, the kindness, and I wanted the love that only a loving savior can give

each of us and to set us free.

I had my struggles, and I still do, but now I'm learning to have a personal walk with

Jesus and have him in my life, and I can bring my cares and my sadness and trials and things

that I'm going through, I can bring them to him.

I'm sure that Rahab had many opportunities to suck Jesus throughout her life.

I know I did, I just didn't do it.

Don't let the candy coating of the world has to offer suck you in, and it can.

We all know somebody who they're trying to fill that space in their heart with something

other than only God can fill.

Rahab was motivated by love to protect her family.

I believe the Lord knew that that worked for Rahab, just like in my case.

Love motivated her for her family to be protected, and love was motivating me.

Love is a very strong motivator.

Don't settle.

God has more for you than you can ever dream of.

Seek him and seek his plan for your life.

I love Jeremiah 29, 13, and 14.

Those who seek me will find me when they search for me with all of their heart.

I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you.

I really believe that I was being restored, I was being renewed, and then I know we can

all say we all want to be restored, don't we?

Rahab's testimony is my testimony too, and it's your testimony as well.

Although Lord was working things out for Rahab in her life, I can't help but wonder how different

her life would have been if she had sought the Lord early in her life.

Less pain, less heartache, less guilt, less shame, less fear.

Myself too.

I mean, I look back and there were many times that, man, I wished that, you know, and prayed

that I didn't have to be raised the way that I was raised, that I could have known the

Lord from a young child.

Those of you that are parents, those of you that have children, those of you that are

kids that are children, seek the Lord now.

Teach your children about the Lord.

Every child given the opportunity would love Jesus.

I'm so glad you're doing VBS.

I love VBS.

I'm so glad you're doing VBS.

It's so fun to see these kids and to teach them how much to love Jesus, that He is there

for you.

You don't have to have all the hurt and the pain.

He'll help you make good choices.

He'll help you do what's right.

And I'd like to submit to you that if Rahab was standing here today, she would say, accept

Him now while you can, because it makes sense.

She saw those spies.

She saw the things that God did for them.

It makes sense.

I looked at my husband.

I saw the life that he lived.

That makes sense.

His family was amazing.

We often make choices and plans in our lives from the ones, plans apart from the plans

the one that Lord had for us.

And many times, there's consequences that we have, bad choices that we've made.

But He loves us and He works our choices out no matter what.

God had a better plan for Adam and Eve, but He worked through that, didn't He?

He had a better plan for David, and He has a better plan for us.

So I'm asking you today, seek the Lord while you can.

Seek Him no matter what your age is.

Seek Him and accept Him into your heart, fully and completely.

Don't wait.

2 Corinthians 6.2 says, behold, now is the day of salvation.

I'm going to ask if you would please raise your hand with me today if you want to move

first in reaching out to the Lord.

I know I do.

Let your love for Him seek out for Him with all of your heart.