New Things – New Paths

let's pray together father in heaven we are so thankful to come to you this

morning Lord as we have things like the VBS and the kids get to come sing and we

have fun and a lot of people are smiling Lord you know in the midst of that

there's still a lot of hurt and pain and suffering and struggling going on

within all of us in many different aspects of life and father we just come

before you today on behalf of Samantha as she has come before you through faith

when she asked what it meant to be anointed and then understood and wanted

to do this herself Lord she comes before you in faith so father this isn't

a magic trick we're not trying to create something or do something that's not your

wheel Lord we're simply being obedient to your word this morning so this morning

we anoint Samantha in the name of God the Father who created her and formed her

and her mother's womb who created this world and everything that has led up to

this moment and knew that what she's going through would happen we anoint her

in the name of Jesus Christ God's one and only Son who took her place on the

cross and died for her sins and all of our sins and we anoint her in the name

of the Holy Spirit who has come to dwell in all of our hearts and to be with us

and so father you know what is within her you know her heart you know her mind

and Lord we come before you and pray that you would help her this morning

there while there may not be a physical healing Lord that there would be

spiritual healing that you would touch her in the way that she needs and God

as we sing that last song to pray and ask for your Holy Spirit to come down

on us I pray that you would come down on her right now that you would work and

move in her life but God that you would also come and work and move in all of

our lives that we would all be willing in obedient to you this morning and open

to let your spirit work and move in amazing and powerful ways and father as

we pray for her we also pray for the Steadman family but we pray that you

touch them this week with the loss of their loved one father we pray for

pastor Greg as he's traveling missions today and he's been feeling sick Lord

just be with his body but more importantly prepare him to do a work

spiritually father we pray for pastor Gary this morning miss Magdalene God

that you would be with him and give him a special outpouring of your spirit as

that situation continues to progress in difficult ways father for all of our

shut-ins for all of our people who are sick and hurting we ask that you'd be

with him the Lord in this moment we come humbly before you and ask that

you would work and move and be with us and help us to have faith to believe and

trust in you that you are more than able to do anything we could ever ask or

imagine father we love you today and we ask all this in Jesus precious and

holy name all God's people said

I think I killed a bug we're very thankful for you guys being here today

and being patient and allowing us to take care of really the more important

things we're talking about new things how we serve this amazing and wonderful

God who is perfect and he's unchanging and he doesn't need to change but we

serve the Lord who loves to do new things and because we are people and we

have failed and we've messed our lives up we need God to do new things in our

lives but I don't know if you've realized this or not but as people a

lot of times we like new things a lot of times we'll go out and buy something new

not necessarily because we need it but because we like something new we like

going new places we like trying new things we like meeting new people now

the older you get you may kind of push back against that a little bit for the

most part if you're young if you're moving through life we generally like

to do new things so it shouldn't be one of these things that we look at

God and we kind of push back against this idea of him wanting to do new things

in our life last week we talked about him making us into new creations and

how God wants to give us new hearts new minds new bodies and that's a

wonderful thing because we need that we cannot bring glory and honor to the

Father in our sinful state we need God to renew us to cleanse us to wash us

and to make us new and this morning we're talking about how God likes to

create new paths when you read the Bible and you look from Genesis all the way

through Revelation it's not just following these people and it's not just

following this idea of God using these people to do different things but

it's talking about all of these new paths that God is creating leading people

to this one main goal and that's to have fellowship and to dwell with him

for all eternity and so as God talks about creating new paths for us as

individuals you may be here this morning and if you are walking in fellowship

with God you can probably testify to the fact that God spoke to you he saved you

and he has given you a new path for your life I know when I got saved there was

things that I wanted there was goals that I had there was places that I

thought I was going people that I thought I was gonna be with and

surround myself with and when God called me to follow him that changed God gave

me new paths and it didn't just stop at salvation because even as I walk with

the Lord he continued to lay out new paths before me even something as simple

of me moving out of an education degree for all you teachers who are starting

back tomorrow I'm sorry you got to do that I know you're looking forward to it

greatly but I know like I know because my degree was in education like that's

what I was going to do and did it for a year but the Lord laid out a new path for

me to be in ministry and so this idea of God laying out new paths is something

that as a Christian you can testify to you can you can see very clearly how God

is laid out new paths for your life and it's been a wonderful thing if we

testify about that and we look back on it see how God has worked and move in

powerful ways now you could also be here this morning and you you may know

that the path that you're on in life right now may not be very good you know

that the path that you're on is is not doing well for you it's not doing well

for your family it's not doing well for anyone around you and you could be

struggling greatly on this path but for whatever reason we get on paths and we

like to just stay with what we're comfortable with and a lot of times

even though we know that it's not good for us we'll stick with it because

sometimes we don't want to change but you could be here this morning you might

be on a path and it may not be a bad path you might be on one of these paths

where you're not living in sin you're not doing anything terrible you're

there's nothing really going on there's nothing wrong you could be as

comfortable as you could possibly be and yet it does not mean that the path

that you're on is God's path for your life and what he wants for you the

amazing thing about God is is that he creates new paths for us regularly

throughout our life that should not be something that we push back and answer be

afraid of that should be something that we welcome and that we pray about and

that we seek and I want to read a passage of scripture to you from Isaiah

Isaiah 43:18–21

chapter 43 verses 18 through 21 we're picking up in the middle of a message

that God is giving to the Prophet Isaiah and this is really cool because God is

speaking to Isaiah and he's reminding him and he's reminding the people of Israel

about all the wonderful things that God did in Egypt as he was leading the

Israelites out he reminds them of how he rescued them the ten plagues brought

them to the wilderness he speaks of all these things that he's he did for

the people of Israel to bring them to the point of where they are today and

then we pick up in our passage of verse 18 and God says this is the Lord but

forget all that that's pretty important as God is reminding the people

of Israel all the wonderful things he did for them verse 18 he says forget all

that it is nothing compared to what I am going to do for I am about to do

something you see I have already begun do you not see it I will make a pathway

through the wilderness I will create rivers in the dry wasteland the wild

animals in the fields will thank me and the jackals and owls too for

giving them water in the desert yes I will make rivers in the dry wasteland

so my chosen people can be refreshed I have made Israel for myself and they

will someday honor me before the whole world so point number one talking about

new paths we have to move on from the past now our age demograph in this

service is a lot different than the first service this was a little easier

point to deal with in the first service as we get older we become a little more

nostalgic okay I'm getting old I've hit 40 I've noticed in the past couple years

I began to reminisce and think about things from my childhood and things from

the 90s and the early 2000s stuff that I haven't thought about in 20 years

stuff that I didn't care anything to think about in the past 20 years and

for whatever reason I guess it's just getting old you just start doing that I

used to make fun of my dad for that he used to watch all these old movies and

talk about his childhood days and being a teenager and what life was like

and I used to laugh about it and yet I find myself doing the same thing now

and I'm like gosh I hate it it's terrible but we have to be really

careful because as people we can get really accustomed to looking back to the

past and thinking about how glorious and wonderful and amazing that was and

completely miss out on what is happening now right in front of us but also what

can happen in the future not just from a physical standpoint but especially from

a spiritual standpoint so let's look at the people of Israel Jesus Christ came

as Messiah right I'm gonna give you a little bit of timeline to kind of get

an idea of what we're talking about today so Jesus Christ came he was born

750 years before Christ approximately Isaiah is prophesying and giving us this

passage that we're reading from today about 1500 years before Christ just

under 1500 years before Christ God led the Israelites out of Egypt now

that's a rough time frame but just to give you an easy idea of what's going on

there was 1500 years from the Exodus to Jesus and Isaiah is pretty much right

smack in the middle prophesying this message of what God is going to do new

and it's really important to think about the people of Israel because ever since

they walked out of Egypt for 750 years leading up to Isaiah they will

constantly looked back and said oh those were the glory days that was when

God did the most amazing things and we look back at that and it was powerful and

it was wonderful and attend plagues and the manna from heaven and God brought

water from the rock and quell from the sky and he parted the Red Sea and he

just did everything I mean he did these most amazing things and they clung to

this and it wasn't like all the things that happened after that were no good

because there were some great things that happened in the book of Judges

the with the Kings with with leading up to this idea of all the books of the

prophets and everything leading up to this moment God was doing amazing things

still but the people of Israel always look back to Egypt as that was the day

you know what's funny about her the people of Israel who walked out of

Egypt you know what they were doing during that time Oh God why did you

bring us out of Egypt why did you make us do this you brought us out into the

desert to kill us we had more than enough food to eat in Egypt we had more

than enough water to drink we had everything we needed why did you do this

to bring us out they complained and they turned against God constantly rebelled

against God over and over in the wilderness for 750 years up to 1500

years later even when Jesus came the religious leaders were still looking

back at Exodus as the glory days and it was pretty awesome because God was

walking and moving among them his spirit was literally present with them

the entire time he led them with his presence in a pillar of cloud by day

and a cloud of fire by night and every time they stopped and they set up

the tent of meeting because they haven't they haven't got the tabernacle built at

this time God's presence would literally rest on that tent and Moses would go

in and he would communicate with God he would come out and Moses his face would

be glowing from the very presence of God and the whole time that God was

literally living and walking among them in the moment the people of Israel was

God why did you do this why would you bring us out here make us go

through this and then for 750 years they were like that was the good days for

another 750 years that was the good days and I say that this morning because we

have to be really careful as Christians because if we're not careful we'll do

the same exact thing we'll look back on stuff that we remember that when we

were kids oh I remember and I'm just gonna throw out some easy things that we

talk about a lot okay I remember back whenever we used to have church and

we did it this way and it was so much better back then and we used to sing

these songs and we would do this and we would have these activities and I

remember when so-and-so was here and they would do this and it was wonderful

times and that's when God really worked and moved and then we're in right now

and we're here and do you really believe in your heart that the God that you

serve is only capable of moving then but not moving now do you really think that

the God that you claim that you believe in and serve can only move in powerful

ways in that moment at that place only with those people but not here and now

and even with us what so many people fall into the trap of we look back to the

past and we think that was it and without realizing it we take our

wonderful amazing incredible God who is able to do immeasurably more than we

could ever think or imagine and we put him in a little box and we say that was

when God moved that was how God moved and at best we're trying to duplicate it

rather than saying okay where is God working and moving now how is God

working in moving now how is God gonna work and move in the future because the

truth is as people we are called to be a part of what God is doing both now

and in the future and what happened in the past does not mean that it was not

good what God has done in the past is wonderful what God did in the past in my

life when he saved me 25 years ago the most wonderful thing that ever happened

in my life but if I live today based off of what God did 25 years ago I would

be a empty shallow vessel at best it is the fact that God continued to work

and to move and to call and to expect and to create new paths and make me

continue to choose him day after day after day that brings us to the moment

now where we're doing what we're doing right now because the God we serve is

able to continue to in fact everything that God has done in the past even in

Exodus leading the people of Israel out of Egypt brings us to this moment this

very day it was all part of the coming of Jesus Christ all part of the coming

of the Holy Spirit all a part of the birth of the church and then we are just

a small part of God's amazing and wonderful plan in that it all runs

together and everything that it talks about in Scripture leading up to

Revelation and leading up to Judgment Day it all leads to the same place it all

leads to God and there's nothing that God has done is doing or will do that

is any less important than the others don't you think about that there's

nothing that God has done is doing or will do that's any less important than any

of the others because everything that he's doing leads to the same place it

may seem bigger in our eyes what God did at a time then maybe what he's

doing right now but make no mistake about it it's very much connected the

past the present and the future is all leading to God's ultimate plan and we

have to forget about the past now Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 11 says for I

Jeremiah 29:11

know the plans I have for you says the Lord there are plans for good and not

for disaster to give you a future and a hope and we love that verse and we put

it on all kinds of stuff and we give it to people and we quote it all the time

because we love the fact that God knows his plans for us it's very

comforting to think about that but in verses 12 and 13 that follow that

verse says in those days when you pray I will listen if you look for me

wholeheartedly you will find me see the thing is is that God very much knows the

plans that he has for us he very much knows the plans now now a lot think about

this this is future tense I know the plans that I have for you that are

coming but if we don't pray and we don't seek God's face and we don't

pursue him wholeheartedly we are going to miss the plans and the paths that God

has for our life we have to forget about the past and move forward you know one

of the most powerful moments of my life happened at youth camp like 24 years ago

I got saved 25 years ago but probably the most powerful spiritual experience I

ever had was at a service at youth camp like 24 years ago and at that service no

one spoke a word we sing a couple songs pastor got up to speak never said a

word sit back down and the Holy Spirit fell on that place and it was the most

amazing thing I've ever been a part of and if I wanted to I could look back and

say man that was when God moved that was when God worked that was when God

did amazing things and I haven't felt him do anything like that or nearly as

important since then but the truth be told it is one of the many things that

God has done in my life leading to this point today and make no mistake

about it that just because we may not feel it it may not seem exceptional

right now in this moment does not mean that what is happening today what God

may be speaking about in your heart today what God is trying to teach us and

how we gather together as a church and encourage one another and pray for one

another even though it may not be this this thing that we feel is significant it

doesn't mean that it's not significant or not important it's one of the many

things leading up to God's ultimate plan for us to spend eternity with him to

give him praise and honor and glory he know it's funny Dan he's out doing safety

team this morning he sent me a text at like 930 last night and it was this

picture he and Nina had gone to this little museum in Greer I don't know if

you know this or not but our campground for the Wesleyan Church in South

Carolina used to be in Greer there's a picture of this little old wooden church

in Greer where all the people it showed a picture of everyone there from all the

Wesleyan churches in South Carolina had met for camp meeting in 1911 coolest

picture ever all right later on that wooden church was replaced with like a

block building at the Greer campground and you know what I've heard this is

fun I've heard several older people say you know back when camp was at Greer

that was when God really worked and moved in powerful ways when they moved

when they sold the Greer campground and moved it to table rocket just hasn't been

the same ever since and yet the most significant and I've heard people say

that and I'll testify to you the most significant spiritual moment of my life

happened at table rock at the campground that they said it's just not been the

same sense your experience with your heavenly father is going to be greatly

determined by the openness and the softness of your heart to receive him

your God is not limited to a place he's not limited to a time he's not limited

to a certain group of people our God is more than able to work and move in

powerful ways both in the past in the present and in the future and there may

be things in your life that happened in the past that are so significant you

may not even be aware of it it just did not stand out to you but God did it to

lead up to a point now or maybe to leave and lead up to something that he's

going to do in the future because God's always working and moving and we may not

be able to see it but it's happening point number two God wants us to see this

is really important because a lot of times as people trying to navigate and

walk with the Lord and make decisions and do the right things and choose these

paths that we have in life it's fuzzy a lot of times everything going forward is

never as clear as looking back you know hindsight's 2020 we can look back on

things and see how God was working and moving and testify the what the Lord's

done I can see so many things now that God did in my life that I was so blind

to then and I can look back with perfect clarity and see God was moving in

that God was working in that God knew exactly what he was doing even when I

didn't but looking forward a lot of times things can be fuzzy a lot of times things

can be difficult to see but God wants us to see and we speaking to Isaiah in verse

19 he says for I'm about to do something you see I have already begun do you not

see it and this is the great thing about God because even though he's

about to do something you the cool thing about God is he's already doing it look

at the words he says I'm about to do something you see I've already begun do

you not see it so even though he's delivering this message I'm about to do

something you he's still saying do you not see it because if you were looking

and if you were asking and if you were praying and if you were coming to me and

asking for sight you could see because I've actually already begun it's

already been working out it's already been playing out it's already been put

in the process and yet it has yet to come to fruition for everyone to see but

if you look close enough you can see and don't make the mistake this morning

to think that we serve this miserable wretched God who loves to sit up in

heaven and watch us fumble around and feel our way through life stumbling and

falling ever which way we can that's not the God that we serve any of you

ever watch some Chinese game shows where they run those obstacle courses and

stuff just pops out like knock some 30 feet off this platform into like nasty

muddy mess and they're just like just trying to make it to the end it's

amazing nobody dies that's not like the guy we serve he's not trying to knock us

down he's not trying to make it fuzzy he's not trying to make it hard he

literally wants us to see and he's already doing it and really what he's

saying is is like I'm already doing it I've already put it in the plan I've

already put it in this process and I want you to see it but I also want you

to be a part of it come join the plan get on the path that I've put before you

as long as you follow your path you can't be a part of my plan that's why I

made a path for you to be a part of the plan and all his paths lead to the same

place and all of our paths lead to Lord knows where

one of my favorite verses in all scripture is Proverbs 3 5 & 6 and the

Lord gave this to me when I was a young man and I first got saved because I

really had no idea I didn't know anything about Christianity didn't know much

with all your heart do not depend on your own understanding seek his will and all

you do and he will show you which path to take so maybe this morning the fact

that we're fumbling around and we're feeling our way around and we don't know

which way to go or what to choose or how to go about what's coming next maybe

it's not the fact that God is trying to make it murkier muddy and difficult

for you maybe we just really aren't seeking him with all that we are and

saying God show me it says if we seek his will and all that we do he will show

us which path to take he will make it clear and guys you know visions the

weird thing being able to see stuffs kind of odd we talked about table rock

this morning and one of my favorite drives in the world is driving to table

rock and you go up highway 11 and it's just kind of curvy and it can be

perfectly clear outside but you know because of the curves you can only see

so far ahead go around a curve you see as far as the curve goes come around

you see another curve there's only so far you can see it's not a bad thing doesn't

mean the camp's not there made the trip a hundred times it's not more and every

time I go and I stay on highway 11 I always make it there right one of the

cool things about that trip is is whenever you I think it I think how

we live emerges 176 and then 176 goes off and how 11 cuts back and that's when

you're going to the state park and to the campground and you know you're

getting close because you're going through all these curvy roads it's a

beautiful drive and then you finally get to this point where you top the hill

and as you crest the hill there's this amazingly weird spot that you can see

for like 1.1 1.2 miles straight ahead as straight as an arrow through the foothills

of the mountain and you've curved the whole time curve the whole time curve

the whole time and all of a sudden it opens up and you have perfect clarity for

like 1.1 miles from one top of the hill to the next and you can just see

and that was whenever I went way faster than I should have most of the time

but it's amazing in life how sometimes the Lord gives us division to see at

certain times more clear than others but one of the things we have to be

careful of is that we we fall into this mindset of we think that God is against us

and he doesn't want us to see he very much wants us to see and there may be

times and seasons where he gives you a little more sight than others and you may

be doing everything that you're supposed to be doing right now you could be

praying you could be seeking you could be in God's Word you could be submitting

to him there's no sin in your life right now and for whatever reason you

just cannot quite see clearly the path before you and in those times we have

to be very careful to make sure that we stay the course and that we keep the

faith and we say God I can't see right now but I trust you and I know that you

can see and even though I can't see I'm gonna let you be my eyes and I'm gonna

let you guide me and I can promise you that whenever we step out in faith and

we let God do the walk we let God guide us we let God lead us in those

moments you'll probably be better off than what you are even when you think

that you can see pretty clearly God wants us to see and point number three

God's paths will not make sense to the world this affects our vision a lot of

times because God's paths just do not make sense to the world and sometimes if

we are thinking with just our minds from a worldly perspective we can't make

sense of what God is trying to do or wanting to do and this is especially true

looking forward you can always look back with clarity but looking forward is very

difficult but God wants you to see and it won't always make sense to the rest

of the world in our focus passage it says that he is going to make paths in

the wilderness and he's going to create rivers in the wastelands in the deserts

that's pretty cool but from a human perspective let's think about the way

that we think you know the people of Israel during the Exodus were

complaining and rebelling against God the whole time the whole time that God

was there and while God's wanting to create rivers in the desert and a path

in the wasteland we may look and say well God that doesn't make sense why

would you put a path in the middle of the desert in the middle of this

wasteland where there's nothing there why would you force us to walk down this

path where I can't see anything of benefit because this is a wasteland or

why would you put a river in the desert whenever it's dry and nothing lives

out there no one lives out there why would you not send more water here I

mean we kind of went through this here in the past few weeks we had several

weeks with no rain everything's getting dry everything's dying off everybody's

like Lord please send the rain especially the older people and I

always like pray for an appropriate amount of rain because they always pray

and then we have like two weeks of solid rain right why would God not just

send the water where people are why would he not send the path I mean as people if

the government went out and put a road in the middle of the desert but then they

didn't fix the roads around here how many of you would be angry and that's

how we treat God it is his purpose his plan his paths and his people for not

careful will look at it from a worldly perspective from our understanding from

our knowledge and will question everything that he's doing rather than

just saying okay God if that's where you're going I'm going to be there

because I want to be where you are I want to be in on the action I want to

see you work I want to see you move I want my life to be a part of who you

are and what you're doing rather we fight against it because it's not done

how we think that it should be done we have a better idea we have a better

plan for God and when God doesn't do it our way a lot of times we just like

why I'm not gonna do that I'll be I'll be on my own that's scary but when you

look at the world they're not gonna understand God's plans you can't

rationalize God's plans through the world and if you're thinking of it from

a worldly perspective you're not gonna be able to rationalize it in your own

mind as well as we said earlier sometimes we just have to trust and

believe that God knows what he's doing and that we're gonna be okay with

following that path Proverbs 16 verse 9 says we can make our own plans but the

Proverbs 16:9

Lord determines our steps we can plan and we can think and we can prepare and we

can think we know everything there is to know but in reality God's got a purpose

God's got a plan and God's got a path and he will see that it's done and it's

much easier to go willingly than it is to be forced on paths that you don't

understand and you're not ready to travel down willingly God knows point four last

one God's paths lead to the same place as we said earlier everything's

connected everything everything that God done everything that he's doing now

everything that he will do it's connected every church that bears the

name of Jesus Christ and serves his purpose it's all connected you're not

just going to be in heaven with people here from Graham Chapel there's gonna be

churches all over the world every tribe every nation every tongue will be in

heaven giving glory and honor to the father we are but a small part we are

he says I have made Israel for myself and they will someday honor me before the

whole world when we spoke last week about being made into new creations we

need to remember that we are not made new creations because we deserve to be

made new or it's for our benefit that we're made new yes we do benefit greatly

from being made new through Jesus Christ but it's not for our benefit we

are made new to bring glory and honor to the father the paths that God sets

before us our paths that lead us to the ability to bring glory and honor to the

father everything that God did for the people of Israel it was not because

they deserved it it was not because they were any more special than anyone

else it was because God wanted to use them to bring glory and honor to his

name that's the message that God continues to sin the path that he has

for your life is not a path for your benefit yes God does have good things

for you there will be benefits from following Christ I believe that

wholeheartedly I've said it time and time again even if there was no heaven

the good things that I've experienced from giving my heart to Christ and

living for him the life that I have is so much better I would do it again

anyway without eternal life that's how beneficial it is for us I believe that

with all that I am but that's not what it's for the past that he laid out before

us or so that we can bring glory and honor to him not so we can gain not so

we can consume not so we can be comfortable but to give God glory and

honor in our lives if you choose your own path you will only bring glory and

honor to yourself at best everything that we choose is for us but if we

follow God's paths and we serve him we bring glory and honor to him Psalm

Psalms 119:105

119 verse 105 says your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path

I want to make really good and sure that we understand what that verse means

today because this is not a passage of scripture saying that these are your

feet and this is your path and if you read God's Word he's gonna guide you and

he's gonna light up your path so that you can pursue what you want and do the

things that you want to do and gain as much as you can gain and bring fame and

recognition to your name that's not what it's talking about because what

happens is is when God makes us into new creations and he gives us new

hearts and you minds the feet upon which carries us become his and they walk

where he calls us to go and the path that we take is not our own because

we're no longer pursuing the things that we want the things that we desire

we're pursuing the things of God and so when it says that your word is a lamp

to guide my feet and a light for my path yes it becomes your path because

God has called you to walk on it and the path that God has called some of you to

walk may look very different from the path that God has called others of you

to walk and it becomes your path because God is giving it to you but it's very

different from your path that you would have chosen for yourself or the path

that you may be desiring for yourself right now it's very different from where

your feet are wanting to go for you rather than going for God and it becomes

personal there is ownership in it because when God gives it to us he gives us this

path he gives us these feet that carry to do the things that he's called us to

do and as we read God's word as we pray and we seek his face wholeheartedly he

reveals it to us more and more and more and he guides our feet and he

lights up our path so that we can see even more clearly as time goes on and as

we follow and as we serve and as we submit what we find is that our vision

becomes more and more and more clear it's easier to identify the paths of

God it's easier to identify his will it's easier to identify what he wants from

you as a person as a follower the more that you serve him but you have to make

the decision are you gonna go down your own path or you gonna go down the path

that God wants for you and don't be satisfied don't be content with where God

has been on the path that God has had you own because at any given time God can

say okay you've walked this path I got a new path for you are you gonna walk this

one there's a regular obedience and choice that has to happen as we walk

with our Savior to continue to choose him every day what paths will you take

let's pray father thank you for this day thank you for your word and your love

and mercy and God I pray that you would work and move in our hearts I ask that

you would speak powerfully and Lord for some people in this room this may not

be the most powerful or amazing day that they've ever experienced with you

but Lord there might be one or two in here to say this is the day that it all

changed this is the day that God spoke to my heart and revealed it to me very

clearly about which path I should be on about how I should serve him Lord help

us to seek your face so that we can see what you're doing now so that we can see

what you're going to do in the future because you want us to see you want us

to know and you want us to follow and I pray that we would follow you with all

of our hearts we love you and we ask all this in Jesus name amen