Advent: Week 2

I'll tell you what. Oh good morning.

It is fun to watch the introverts versus the extroverts

in this room. Case in point, the biggest extrovert I know,

just not getting seated.

You know, it's like a minute and a half.

Who can tell anybody anything in a minute and a half.

And then there's a lot of you who are like,

thirty five seconds, that's enough, That's that's really enough.

I'm gonna sit down.

And uh, well, it's good to be back. I had

a great vacation. It wasn't my normal vacation where I,

you know, hunt like two or three states or whatever,

because I'm in the middle of my doctorate.

I mean, I had to stay at home a lot

more and work on uh school, and but that was

great because I was taking a.

Class on spiritual formation and so I felt like my

whole vacation I was just drawing closer to the Throne

of Christ all the way through it. And it was

a very enriching vacation. Now, I couldn't do that without

thinking about you guys a lot. And you know what,

I've been so excited to get here today and just

tell you that you are beloved, that you are God's children.

He deeply cares about you and that you were on

his mind and he is with you. And I just

want you to know how loved you are now in

case anybody else. Ass of course, I went hunting. It

was a very successful hunting trip. Actually, my wife and

I we went and rented a Have you ever heard

of a barn Aminium? Yeah, yeah, we He'll billied it up,

let me tell you. And we went out there and

we had a great time. But it is so good

to be back. Let me pray for you as we

dive into today's message.

God, we thank you.

For your word, your love, your grace, your goodness. All

of our little kiddos thank you for them. And God,

just pray that today we'll draw closer to you and

realize on a deeper level your great love for us

Jesus Name.

Amen.

Now, some of you were done, some of you are

in the middle of it. Some of you haven't even

begun yet. You know what I'm talking about?

Shopping?

Absolutely, who here is done with their Christmas shopping?

Raise your hand?

Oh a lot more in first service, A lot more

in first Who here hasn't even begun? Yeah me either,

I'm waiting on everybody's Amazon list. Before I begin, you know,

our culture loves this season. Our culture loves gift giving,

and you remember how much we love making those lists

as children, and we love blessing children and grandchildren with gifts.

It's an exciting time of the year.

How many of you still remember your top one, two,

or three Christmas presents you ever got?

I still I remember mine, and you.

Know, I want to share a story with you about

probably this one definitely makes it to my top three.

But I want to give a little bit of background.

Because this gift came to me as a complete surprise.

Early in my ministry, we were involved at our first

church that we were on staff at in a homeless

ministry called Shalom, and this is where we would live

with the homeless people at our church for weeks on end.

And we had some standard rules that were followed by

all the churches because some churches had preschools, and so

after breakfast and after we gave them a pack lunch,

they did have to leave and then.

Not come back till dinner time.

And so that was always a hard thing for us,

especially when it started snowing and as the weather was breaking.

This one season.

We had a free coat giveaway the night before and

everyone got awesome, wonderful coats and it was a wonderful night. Well,

the next morning, when we were saying goodbye to them,

we opened up the gym door and overnight about a

foot of snow had dropped.

It was just a huge amount of snow. We weren't

expecting that much.

And right before we left, I was told that one

young lady did not get a coat the night before

because no coat would fit her. She was well into

her pregnancy, and so we looked around everywhere for a

coat that would fit her. None would And here we

are at ready to send her out and there's no

coat for her. And then that's when I felt the

Holy Spirit say to me, your coat to fitter. Your

coat will fit many pregnant women. God didn't say that

last part. That was from the devil. And so I

gave her my coat. And now let me tell you

what was special about that coat.

That was hard.

That was a hard moment in my life because that

coat was a gift.

To me from my grandmother the year before.

My grandmother wanted me to have a really nice coat.

In any setting I was in, I would look really sharp.

And so she took me out to this one place

and we found this black lambskin coat and it was

absolutely beautiful and she paid I think about this was

over twenty years ago. She paid like around I think

it was six hundred and.

Fifty dollars for that coat. So what would that be today,

like seventeen eighteen thousand dollars.

And so I love this coat and I looked so

good in the coat.

And that was a joke.

No one laughed at that part, and so, you know,

it was really hard to give up, but I gave

it up to her, and I knew the God had

told me to do that. Well, the thing is, I

didn't want to tell any one because I felt like

this was between God and I. And so the rest

of the winter I was just running from the vehicle

into the church, or running into the from the vehicle

to my house or.

To the restaurant.

It was a pretty cold winter, and I figure, well,

somehow somewhere I'll get a coat next winter. Well, next

winter came along and we had Caitlyn, so there wasn't

money in a budget for me to go out and

buy a nice coat. And the big thing was one

of the big reasons I didn'tell anyone because I didn't

want Mamma finding out that I gave away her nice coat.

She grew up in a depression. She would not have

understood this. Well.

Come Christmas morning, I was real excited because it's, you know,

Caitlyn's first Christmas. And go to our front door, the

lookout front, and there's this.

Huge wicker basket on my front porch.

And I bring it in the house and it is

stacked full of gifts for me from an anonymous person.

And the top layers were just a ton of dress shirts.

Dress shirts are things that passers used to wear and

antiquated time a long time ago. But it had a

bunch of nice dress shirts and at the very bottom

was this beautiful brown leather jacket. And I was so excited.

And I remember in that moment setting that basket aside,

and even though I knew someone out there gave it

to me, I remember turning to God in my kitchen

and saying to him, I know.

This is from you.

I know you see me, I know you love me,

and this could only be from you. See, sometimes the

best gifts in life are the ones that surprise us.

The most.

Four hundred years of silence, they hadn't heard from God.

And then one day an angel comes to Marry and

taps her on the shoulder and says, God has decided

to bring the gift of his son to this earth,

the greatest gift that will ever be given. And then

he says, and guess what else. This might be a

little shocker for you, Mary, but you are going to

get to be his mother. Now, this was shocking news

for this engaged teenage girl.

Took her a little while to absorb it.

After she absorbed it, we see a teenage girl go

from like just like WHOA, what's going on? To a

great theologian. Some people call it Mary's Beneficent and it's

a song that Mary says in praise to God.

We're gonna be looking at that today.

But before I jump into the scripture, I want us

to look at a scene from Chosen. Chosen, by the way,

takes creative liberties if you haven't noticed, as you've watched

a series, and they take a beautiful creative liberty here

and they imagine Mary being an older lady talking to

one of Jesus' followers, Mary Magdalene, and she's recalling this

song of worship that she sung to God after she

found out that she was going to have the baby Jesus,

and the scene goes simply like, Mary, make sure as

Luke is doing his research for the Gospel of Luke,

make sure he includes this. So, Mary, I need you

to write down this song.

Check out that scene.

I thought, look about this, how she was overwhelmed for

the both of us, and she called me the mother

of our Lord.

And we were laughing and crying together, and it was

all too much, and words of praise just burst out

of me.

Please tell me I'm about to hear them.

You're going to write them down and deliver them to Look.

The materials are here.

I test you to get them right and to keep

it safe and to get it to look. I've kept

it all to myself, as you know, I like to

treasure things.

In my heart. I was shy, and it felt personal

between God and me.

But I wish I would have shared it with Joseph.

And people must know this felt like God's words as

much as my own.

I can't explain it what they did.

And people must know.

I'm ready, my soul magnified the Lord, and my spirit

rejoices and cut my savior.

For behold, from now on, generations will call me blessed.

And he who is mighty has done great things for me.

And holy is his name, and his mercy is.

For those who fear him.

From generation to generation.

He has shown strength.

With his arms.

He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the mighty from their throne and

exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry

with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, and remembrance of.

His percy.

As he spoke to were fathers to Abraham and was

off spring forever.

It's like this song of Hena.

But even more beautiful.

What a beautiful scene as Mary recounts this song of

praise to God.

Today, we're going to be looking at that.

And even though this was in response to the great

gift of Christ, even on a more personal level, I

think we can look at her song and I think

there's three gifts that we can absorb as followers of

Christ today.

And so that's what I want to do today.

I just want to take a few moments and think

about the gifts that we are reminded of in this season.

The first gift that I want every one of you

to be reminded of today that you have received as

a child of God, is that you are on God's mind,

that God thinks about you, that God knows you, that

he loves you, that he sees you, that he cares

about you.

Let's look at this text.

Here. It says, and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he

looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold,

from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for

He who is mighty has done great things for me.

And holy is his name.

Now, as we look at this first part of this text,

we're going to see that thinking about how we are

on God's mind, Mary is literally blown.

Away by a couple things.

Because this announcement of God bringing his son this gift

to the world, actually, well.

It eases.

Some of the doubts that all the Jewish people had

during that time.

And let me explain to you.

You got to understand that two thousand year years before

this moment, before God comes and says Mary, I'm going

to bring you my child. Two thousand years before this,

God says to Abraham, Abraham, I need you to step

out of your tent for a moment, and I want

you to look up at these stars, and Abraham, you

see these stars. And someday your descendants are going to

be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and

through one of your descendants will be a Messiah, and

through him all will be blessed.

All right.

For sixteen centuries, God reminds them over and over and

over again about his covenant, good times to bad times.

God reminds them.

Listen, I will be faithful to you.

I will be faithful to you.

Then all of a sudden boom, for four hundred years,

we have radio silence, nothing from God. When the prophet

Malachi ends his letter, that's it four hundred years.

And so naturally the average Jewish person has.

To assume God's had enough of us, He's done with us.

His grace can't go that far. We've disappointed him too much,

And so.

For four hundred years radio silence. To make things even worse.

Halfway through that four hundred years of silence, Antiochus epiphanies

marches into Jerusalem, and Antikos Epiphanies in one sixty seven,

walks into the Temple. The temple, which is the place

where Heaven meets earth, is where the presence of God dwells.

To the Jewish people.

And it was prophesied a couple hundred years before in

the Book of Daniel that someday that there will be

an abomination that causes desolation.

In other words, all things that we hold sacred will

be destroyed. And so.

Antiochus Epiphanies comes in and he takes over Jerusalem. He

looks at the Jewish people, he mocks the religion. The

first thing he does is he says, up an altar

for Zeus, where the altar where they prayed and worship

to God.

The next thing he did the Jewish people do not

eat pig.

They consider them unclean, and so he sacrifices a pig

on the altar. And then to add insult to injury,

he brings in the priest of God and he has

the priests of God eat the meat from these pigs.

And then Antiochus Epiphany says, all right, we're gonna outlaw circumcision. Now,

circumcision was the sign of the covenant between God's people

and himself. He says no more, and then he says

no more. Sabbath Day observant Daniel prophesied that someday their

temple will be desecrated, and they call it the abomination.

It causes desolation, and the actually.

Saw it, and the Israelites must have assumed God is

done with us. This was not This was not only

it felt like ultimate butterial betrayal, but it felt like

they had no hope. And so they have a season

of no voice, no vision, no word from God, and

it felt like.

God had abandoned them and their promises.

But then all of a sudden, God shows up and

he begins to speak to Mary.

And I want to remind you of this today, of

this quote.

Even when Heaven seems silent, God is still writing his story.

Maybe you are here today and your life is messed up.

Maybe you're here today and you just lost that job.

Maybe you're here today and you just got that diagnosis.

Maybe you're here today and you're dealing with depression anxiety.

Maybe you are dealing with a relationship that that's been destroyed.

Maybe you're just you're just tired tired of this crazy life.

In this dark season, it.

Feels like God is not even looking at you, or

God is even aware of you. And here's what I

want you to understand today, that God is still writing

his story in your life.

God is at.

Work in your life even in the darkest moments. Actually,

God does his greatest work in your darkest moments.

The same God who seemed.

Distant when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the temple is the same

God who, by the way, they don't even realize it,

but for four hundred years have been working to prepare

the people for God's true temple, Jesus Christ. And after

four hundred years of silence, God, let's marry.

Now.

You've always been on my mind. You've always been on

my mind.

The second thing that Mary would have understood was that

God knew who she was.

She wasn't just a number. She just wasn't a person

in the crowd.

No, no, no, no, she wasn't just a teenage girl

from a know nothing town and know nothing nation.

God saw her. God knew her, and God loved her.

First forty seven says, and he looked on the humble

estate of his servant and This is where Mary realizes

that God knows me, He sees me, he knows who

I am.

I'm on God's mind.

And that's the same gift that God wants to remind

you of today.

You were on his mind. He sees you, he loves you,

he knows you.

And he is walking with you. Bible even says that

God even knows the number of hairs.

On your head. But I think there's times where we

just doubt we're.

On God's mind, especially when we're having like these huge.

Seasons, and it doesn't seem to give up, and.

We doubt that we're on God's mind, that we're on

his radar. But I want to remind you, and here's

another quote for you today.

Dark seasons they can cast a shadow.

On our understanding of God and his involvement in our

life when things get tough. Here's how Satan works in

your life. He just wants to blur your vision. He

wants to blur your vision so you can't see God

at work in your life. And the hope is that

you will think God forgot about you, or that God

is not for you. Israel did this after four hundred

years of silence. They assume like, where has God been?

What has God been doing?

God has abandoned us, God has forgous and God.

On the other side here going. What are you talking about?

I'm the God who has been raising up kingdoms and

crushing rulers and moving the map all around for the

last four hundred years.

What are you talking about? I raised up the Greek nation,

the Greek Empire, who said, hey, why we're at it?

Can I pearl your language, the Greek language, because for

the only time in human history of the world had

one language. And then he allows them to fall. Then

he raises up the Roman Empire. He says, Romans, I

need you to get to work on some rose and

get some systems all throughout this known earth.

And he says, of Romans, here's what I got to

borrow from you. I gotta borrow your rose system.

And by the time the gift Jesus Christ comes, for

the only time in history, we speak one language and

we have a rose system where the Gospel of Jesus

Christ could spread like wildfire, so the whole world can

know that God has not forgot them, and that God

has given his gift, his son. Even when it looked dark,

we were always on God's mind.

But you know what, when things are dark.

And we're struggling in our life, it's hard to see

these seasons. It's hard to see God at worked during

any seasons, or when we feel.

Abandoned by God or hurt by God.

It's hard to see that God is doing a work

in us, and that isn't actually a gift. It's hard

for us to understand that the trials and the pains

that we go through are God's grace in God's hands

and God's gift in our life.

I don't know about you, but here's one thing I

hate about myself. I don't know if any of you

are in the same boat.

For the life of me, it seems like I can't

take huge steps of growth.

Unless it's through extreme pain or through a trial. Anyone

else like that? Does? It seem like you.

Don't really have big changes in your character or in

your life unless pain causes that change.

Can I get an amen? Anyone else? I know that?

Why are we like that? I don't know. Let me

tell you something.

I found something that I wrote about seven eight years ago,

and these are the words that I wrote about a

trial that I was going through and it was in

this trial that I was realizing that these dark times

was actually a gift from God. So let me just

read to you verbatim what I wrote about my trial.

I said, in the last week or two, God has

been shaping me through my pain. It's shaping my preaching,

it's shaping my pastoring, it's shaping my prayer.

Life in significant ways.

And I'm starting to see the growth that God is

doing in my own life through his pain. For a

long time, I kept praying to grow in one area,

and it's been in this season that I'm finally seeing

this growth in my personal walk.

And check this out. It's a gift.

This difficult season is going to serve me, my family,

and this church well in the future.

And then I continue to write.

During this past week, I have been experiencing the joy

of knowing that I am most certainly on God's mind,

not forgotten, not ignored, but being prepared. I see his hand, guiding, leading,

and gift even in seasons of pain. You need to

understand that you were on God's mind. Now I want

to remind you that's a beautiful gift of God. You

were always on his mind. Number Two today, the second

gift I think that we can absorb from Mary is that.

He offers you his faithful grace. Now, pay attention to this.

I actually use this.

Phrase faithful grace in a very intentional way. Now, when

you look at this scripture, you're not going to see

faithful grace in there. You're going to see the word

mercy instead. And it says, in his mercy, it's for

those who fear him from generation a generation now.

And now here's why I.

Use his faithful grace instead of that word mercy here

because when we go and study this word, originally the

Jews would have understood this word in the Hebrew. This

word for mercy was the word has said. Now this

word has said it had unique connotations. It didn't mean

like I have mercy on this person. In other words,

I have pity on them or I feel sorry for

them for because they're going through a rough time. No, no, no,

has said in the original Hebrew, it's better translated to me,

the grace of God. And here's what you need to

understand about his said, this type of grace from God

is the grace of God gives you based on who

He is, not based on who you are. It's his

grace based on his.

Character, not on your character.

In other words, it's the grace of God is based

on who he is, not on your behavior or what

you've done, or what you've earned or all the good

things you've done. It's based on who He is and

his love for you.

And so this.

Faithful grace is a grace that does not taken away

from us when we mess up.

Or when we blow things. No, no, it's a faith

that stays with us. It's a grace that blesses us.

And by the time we get to the Greek New

Testament writers, this word has said takes on the meaning

of the gracious faithfulness of God, the gracious faithfulness of God.

In other words, it's a faithful grace, not a temperamental grace.

It's not here one minute and go on the next.

It's a faithful grace. It's the love of God through

all things. And now I don't know about you, but

I had a hard time understeing this because I grewup

in the holiness movement, and so I felt like when

I did really good, God was really.

Pleased and God was with me.

But when I sinned, when I messed up, God was

disappointed to me, he was discussed with me. He didn't

want me, and so I felt like my salvation was

this yo yo salvation, in and out, in and out

of God's grace.

And that's before I understood.

That God's grace, his faithful grace, is based on who

he is, not on who I or I am, because

if God's grace was based on who I am, I'd

be in trouble. But it's based on his character. The

faithful grace of God, it's a beautiful gift. Let me

tell you about the time of my life where I

finally got it. I finally got this religion out of me.

Some of you, a lot of you know the story,

a lot of you don't. When i'd been married, right

around a year, we went down to Mexico and we

were working in Renoso, Mexico, and we were working in

a place with our youth group where we were building

shelters for those who did not have homes on what

used to be a.

Former garbage dump.

They had a school on that garbage dump that they

had just put together and it was kind of like

a VBS school for the little children. I spent the

morning up with help at that school, loving all some children,

hanging out with some children, and then it was time

for me to go down to the work sites.

And so on the way down from the.

Work sites, I was walking by myself and I saw

a upside down car and tied to it was a horse,

and I thought, well, I should ride that horse. And

so I got on that horse. And by the way,

it wasn't n till like many many years later that

I even connected one time on a Sunday that I

was telling the story that I.

Stole that horse. I'd never even thought. It took like

fifteen years, like I stole a horse anyways.

And by the way, if you've watched Westerns, that's not

a good thing. So I took this horse, and I

take it down to the site where our students were working,

and I'm thinking, well, this will be funny, this will

cheer them up on a hundred degree day, and all

the kids gathered around, and apparently that horse was not

into glamour shots, and the horse got spooked, bucked me

off and broke several sections in my vertebrae. Had a

severe concussion. And when I got up, I didn't know

where I was. I didn't know who anyone was. And

I couldn't even told you my address. I couldn't have

told you who my parents were. Just complete amnesia. And

I knew who I was, Oh thank god, I knew

who my wife was, but I couldn't have told you

my address or nothing like that. And so the doctor

is rushing us across the border, and I'm sitting there

going to myself, all right, don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep.

Don't fall asleep. That'll be bad. That'll be bad. That'd

be bad.

And then I kept trying to remember things, and I

knew that I was a pastor, but I couldn't remember

any of the books of the Bible.

And then I heard the doctor.

Say to my wife, I think he might die, and

he said, she said, you'd better pray for him. And

you've never heard somebody pray until you've heard a bride

of one year pray for her husband. And then that's

the moment I realized, Oh, this might be it. And

so I just kept trying to think of scripture. But

then only scripture I could remember, this is so crazy,

was the very first scripture I memorized, and I knew it.

In King James version for God so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes

in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And

then I couldn't I remember that verse, and so to

try to keep myself awake, I kept repeating that for God,

who love the world, that he gave his only beott

someone whoever relieves in and Sh'm not peris, but I have

ever last like I just kept repeating and repeating and

repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating, and then all

of a sudden, I had this moment, It's all that matters.

He gave his son as a gift.

To me.

Because he loves me. It's not not anything I did,

but he loves me. I'm in his hands and that's

all that matters. And I remember having that little prayer

with God. God, if I don't make it today, thank you.

For my life. I love you and I'll see you soon.

That changed my life.

And still to this day, by the way, even in

between service, I had Andrew pray for my neck and

my back because every single day of my life since

that day I have back connect problems. But every single

day I'm reminded that God loves me, and that his

grace is a faithful grace and is not based on

who I am, but it's based on who he is.

Let's look at the third and final gift today. The

third and final gift that we should absorb that as

we move through Mary's song is that he moves. Is

for you to understand deeply, that he moves on your behalf.

She goes on to say, he has shown strength with

his arm.

He has scattered the proud in their thoughts.

Of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from

their thrones. So she's recognizing now, like, look what God

has done for us to get to this point. God's

how to shape the whole world, and He's exalted those

in a humble state.

He even cares about those who are hungry, where he

has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich

he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel.

And think about this, She's remembering God's covenant and his

faithfulness in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to

our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever, Mary

recognizes that God fights for her, for her nation and

those who belong to God.

And that's what I want you to know today.

Whatever situation you're in in your life, remember that God

is for you, and God is fighting for you. That

is his gift that comes out of his character, not

your character, out of his love, not your level of

love that you can give to him. No, it's because

he loves you and you are his child. Those of

you who have children or grandchildren, you know this. You

would take a bullet for him. We can. Most I

would say, if there was a picture that reminded us

that God fights for us, we would have to look

no further than the Exodus the Israelites. After four hundred

years of slavery, God brings these ten plagues and then

they get out and they're marching all the way until

they hit the Red Sea, and then you know, they're like,

all right, what are we going to do now?

And then they turn around and guess who's on their trail.

It's Pharaoh's army. Now here's what you have to understand

when it comes to battlefill.

Strategy all throughout history.

One of the main things that strategists try to do

in battles, especially during the time around the Iron and

the Bronze Age and so on. Was you try to

get your endemy to a river or to a lake

so that they had their back towards something that they

can't escape. And when that happened, it almost guaranteed a massacre.

So Israelites, over a million of them, they're looking at

Pharaoh's army. By the way, they only have jewelry in

their hands that were given to them.

They do not have weapons.

But Pharaoh's army is the greatest army in the world.

And now they are coming towards them with the against

the Red Sea. And let me tell you something. It

is set up for this moment where there's gonna be

an epic massacre u like the world had ever seen before.

But there's this guy named Moses who'd actually hung out

with God and actually knew God and knew the character

of God, and so he said this, do not be afraid,

stand firm, and you will see the deliverance of the

Lord that he's gonna bring to you today. The Egyptians

you see today, you will never see again. The Lord

will fight for you. You need only to be still.

And that promise and that thought about how God fights

for you, how God.

Stands for you.

Is still at work today as you follow him, as

you pursue him, as you walk with him. Your God

fights for you. And so as we close today, what's

the application? What do we do with all this? I

got three things for you as you head out to

say Number one, receive it. Just receive it. Be reminded

you were on his mind. His grace is faithful to you,

and he fights for you. He is with you, and

he loves you deeply. Receive it. But how do you

receive these gifts?

Humility? He must first see I need God. I am

a sinner and I need him.

What is a Verse forty seven says where he looked

on the humble a state of his servant humility allows

us to receive Number two. You got to unwrap them.

In other words, you need to think through what God

has done for you. Matter of fact, the text says this,

my soul magnifies the Lord. That Greek word from magnify

talks about a continual worship, in other words, a continual

thinking about the greatness of God.

And so over the holidays.

I want you to just to think over and over

again about how much He loves you, how much he

cares for you, that you're on his mind, that he

is graceful to you, and that he fights for you.

And then lastly, today enjoy them.

Well, a lot of times we have homework for you, like, hey,

this week, I need you to.

Do this and this and this and this and this today.

And one thing that I've been so excited about all

week as I've been looking forward to this moment where

I'm going to give you, guys two minutes and service

and have some background music, and I just want you

to do this as we begin this holiday season. I

want you just to stop from this insanity that we

are rushing through right now. I want you to stop,

and I want you to visualize yourself opening each one

of these gifts, knowing that you were on his mind,

knowing that His grace is faithful to you, and also

known that he fights for you.

So for the next couple of minutes, I want you

to do.

A prayer of receiving and I want you to receive

these from the Lord. At the beginning of this season,