Acts chapter 1, Acts chapter 1 verse 8,
the book of Acts 1 verse 8.
Familiar to many, but still important.
But ye shall receive power after that the
Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye
shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem,
and unto Judea, and in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth.
And when he had spoken these things, while
they beheld, he was taken up, and the
cloud received him out of their sight.
The Lord Jesus gave the same command in
the gospel.
Now he repeats it in the book of
Acts.
I wonder how many of us really take
the Lord Jesus seriously.
I wonder how many of us really believe
that it should be to the uttermost part
of the earth.
And then I wonder how many of us
are really involved through prayer, through telling others,
through distributing literature, through giving, through going, through
every possible method.
Some time ago, actually it was when I
was an Indian, I picked up this book,
Why Revival Parish, written by an Englishman, Leonard
Ravenhill, written mainly to Americans.
When I picked this up and began to
read it, I could only repent.
Around that same time, I began to read
some of the books of A.
W.
Tozer.
We've taken quotations from about 15 of his
books, and we put it in this little
book, Gems from Tozer.
Some of these quotations are very unpleasant.
They do not paint the picture very bright,
though Tozer, if you read him carefully, is
still an optimist, with a great belief in
the sovereignty of God and the overruling power
of God.
But through these books, I had a deep
confirmation of what I began to see when
I was one year old in Christ at
university, when the Lord first began to work
in terms of sending us out to a
foreign country.
And I came to this conviction, and I
share it with you tonight.
You may not accept it.
You may not understand it.
But I've spoken this message now for almost
16 years.
Many of my friends, because of my temperament
and the sin I'd been in before, the
way I lived, didn't think that I would
go on for Christ very long.
They certainly didn't believe this crazy movement would
last more than two years.
And now the Lord has given grace for
16 years, almost.
The movement has been going almost that time.
No one knows how to date the movement.
It's impossible.
And this conviction lays heavier upon my heart
than ever before.
And I believe that more than anything else,
God has brought you here tonight to hear
what I'm going to say in the next
few minutes, not to see these pictures, not
to sign up as a prayer partner for
OM, not to even go in an OM
crusade.
Because you can go on an OM crusade
and still miss what I'm about to say.
What I'm about to say is simply this.
I believe that a vast majority of all
evangelical, Bible-believing people are deceived by the
powers of darkness, and that the Church has
been deceived into a false evangelicalism instead of
a revolutionary, dynamic, biblical Christianity.
I believe that, and I've had it confirmed
hundreds, perhaps a thousand times in 16 years.
In country after country, as I've seen men
who have been deceived by this spiritual, diabolical
thought, ripped apart spiritually.
Very few of us are willing to face
our own state.
Very few of us are willing to face
the state of the Church.
There are men who will face it.
One of them who confronted me with it
13 years ago was a man from this
country named Alan Redpath.
He didn't like his preaching at Moody Church.
He didn't like the way he thundered.
He didn't like the way he got upset.
He didn't like the way he almost wept
from the pulpit, and called Christians to repent,
and Christians to come out of the fog,
and Christians to get right with one another,
and Christians to get back on their knees.
We always want to think of the sinner,
the drunkard, the dope addict, the man down
the road who's never coming to Church.
But I believe God tonight is wanting to
speak to the Church.
He's wanting to speak to Christians, and I
believe that he's trying to say to Christians,
open your eyes.
We see verses that give a strong indication
along this line in the Word of God.
Some of them are found in the book
of Revelation, Revelation chapter 3.
We read in verse 1, I know thy
works, that thou hast the name that thou
livest, and art dead.
Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain
that are ready, ready to die.
For I have not found thy works perfect
before God.
Thou hast the name that thou livest, and
art dead.
Could this be true of many of us
tonight?
In Martin Luther's day, most of us as
we study it now will agree they were
deceived.
So easy for us to say that, isn't
it?
So easy for us living in the 20th
century to look back at the people in
Martin Luther's day and say, poor souls deceived.
The whole Church deceived.
Thank God we're not like them.
Isn't this what we say when we study
the Reformation?
Isn't this what we say when we study
how the Roman Church went into more and
more darkness?
But we are only human beings.
Is it not possible that we as well
could be deceived?
Is it not possible that with all our
orthodoxy, with all of our good truths, we
still could be deceived?
Things have happened in Britain recently among one
exclusive sect that has have proven this a
hundred times.
It should go like a great shout across
this country.
And I believe that these words should ring
in many of our hearts tonight.
And I speak as a man who is
convinced that I am still in some areas
a deceived man.
And I pray that God would open my
eyes.
I don't believe it's a once and for
all experience.
The devil is in a constant attack, and
the man who thinks he's in the light
the most may be the most blind.
For example, I've had dear Pentecostal Christians in
my meetings who thought when I referred to
evangelicals I didn't mean them.
We have Pentecostal Christians on O.M. But
I want to tell you when I say
evangelical, I mean Pentecostal, I mean Brethren, Anglican,
Presbyterian, Baptist, I mean all of them.
There's no group in the evangelical world today
that is not affected by this tremendous strategy
of Satan to deceive us, to rock us
asleep, to get us on tangent, and to
keep us from obedience to his word.
And the man who gets himself in the
little group, even if he calls it O
.M., and then thinks he's not deceived is
usually the one who's deceived the worst.
And in no way do we believe that
O.M. is a fellowship of the undeceived.
We're a fellowship of people who are deceived,
but perhaps who are beginning to know it
and who are desperate, desperate to get free
from the chains that bind us and hinder
us from being the kind of men that
God would want us to be.
And unless God renews us, unless God revives
us, most of our evangelism will go to
naught.
Most of our millions of facts will be
relatively meaningless and in 20 years we will
be a movement of dust and bones.
And I'll be on the topic.
Thou hast a name that thou art alive.
However, evangelical, Pentecostal, brethren, dedicated, keen, a name
that thou art alive, but thou art dead.
Does that ring in any heart tonight?
Tozer said we were specialists at playing the
game.
The evangelical game is the game of words,
and we have all the words, and we've
even put them into lovely tunes, and we
sing them.
We sing them to all different beats, and
we sing them joyfully, but could it be
that we are deceived?
I believe we are.
I believe that our eyes have been blinded
and that our situation is similar to Revelation
3, 17.
Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased
with good, and I'm need of nothing, and
knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable
and poor and blind and naked.
Such stunning words.
Some people think, oh, is George Furry so
hard when he preaches?
My words are nothing compared to those words
of Scripture.
Look at them again.
But thou sayest, I am rich and increased
with good, and I'm need of nothing, and
knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable
and poor and blind and naked.
Is this the situation of the church?
Is it your situation?
I believe it is.
In some cases, of course, not completely, praise
God.
And in every church I've been in, where
there's any sound teaching, I have found wonderful
rays of light, and I stand as someone
who will die fighting, believing, praying, and working
with the local testimony of believers, wherever they
are, whatever their problem may be, at whatever
their point of commitment may be.
And I do not speak from without the
church, looking down or looking in.
I speak as one from within the church,
who believes in the church, who works with
the church, yearning and praying for spiritual awakening,
for eyes to be opened, for our hearts
to be filled, for this counsel to be
obeyed.
What is this counsel?
I counsel thee, to thy amie gold tried
in fire, that thou mayest be rich, and
white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and
that the shame of thy nakedness do not
appear.
And anoint thine eyes with eyesalves, that thou
mayest see.
I don't have a sermon tonight.
I only have a compulsion within from the
Lord, though it will be stained by my
personality, forgive me.
It will be stained by an American accent.
It may be stained by a voice that's
too loud.
It may be stained by this vessel, this
clay pot, but it's still, I believe, from
him, because this is his word, that thou
mayest see.
And I believe that God wants to anoint
eyes tonight.
I believe that God wants to open some
of our eyes tonight, that we begin to
see, we begin to discern what real Christianity
is, and what we are stuck into.
What real biblical truth is, what real biblical
reality is, and what we are caught up
in.
And that when we go out from this
building, we will have committed our hearts and
our lives to see spiritual revolution in our
own lives at any cost.
Be it nights of prayer, be it going
to a dozen brothers and telling them, you're
sorry for your stubbornness, for your lack of
love.
Oh, so hard that is, isn't it?
So proud we are, so unwilling to go
to another brother and get things right, so
that everywhere the Church is divided, everywhere people
are carrying resentments and in bitterness, not only
in the Church, but in homes as well.
And so divorce among Christians is becoming as
common in some places as divorce among the
unsaved.
And we've got men, hundreds of men, who
stand in our churches, minister in the name
of the Lord, who are nothing short of
devils in their homes.
I've had more women and men come to
me for counseling, and I've read of many
others in this area.
I can't believe it.
Easy to talk religion, easy to gather once
a week, easy to go through motions, but
to put that into practice in the home,
under the pressure of rearing children in this
insane age, under the pressure of making a
living, under the pressure of all that involves
in this mad, rushing society that we live
in, not so easy.
And so the Christian homes are cracking up.
Children, even the sons and daughters of many
an evangelical, even many an evangelical leader, are
departing from the faith.
They want nothing to do with it.
Dr. Schaefer told me some time ago in
the Brie Fellowship that he has a stream
of Christ-rejecting sons and daughters of evangelical
leaders.
But if you say anything, you'll be called
a fanatic or an extremist or a pessimist.
What would you do to keep your daughter
from deserting the faith?
What would you do to keep your son
from deserting the faith?
Would you cry out?
Would you pray?
Would you fast?
I would.
I am, because I have three children.
I believe.
God wants to open eyes tonight.
He wants to show us ourselves, you know.
We can never take another step forward in
our Christian experience.
We can never take a new vision in
the sense of the Lord without seeing a
little more of ourselves.
We don't dwell on ourselves.
It's like Machine said, one look at self
and ten looks at Jesus.
Otherwise, you'll go down into the pit of
introspection and you may never get up.
Lots of people do that.
Despite what I may be saying tonight, I'm
an optimist.
I have a great faith that God is
working in the 20th century.
I have a great faith that there's a
revolution going on and that people are beginning
to see more and more their situation and
the situation of their church, and they also
are beginning to do something about it.
Maybe in the ones and twos, but it
soon will spread, and you can be involved.
I believe we should unite.
I believe we should pray.
Lord, open our eyes.
I believe we should lay down our denominational
pop guns that divide us and begin to
work together, at least in evangelism.
We may not be able to tolerate everybody's
doctrine in terms of teaching and in terms
of our own local fellowship, but in evangelism
at least we should be able to work
together and win souls together.
Oh, may our eyes be open.
May we see the hopelessness of trying to
evangelize Britain as a divided church, as a
splintered group, when the Lord Jesus said and
actually prayed.
That when we were one, people would see
this oneness and know that we were from
God.
That's what Jesus prayed, and that's why today
I believe many times we're so ineffective.
It's not literature, it's not films, it's not
a ship, not even our preaching that's going
to be our first weapon in this age
in which people are being bombarded by every
form of propaganda.
It will be lives that are on fire
for God, lives that burn with the love
of Jesus Christ, lives that are broken and
humble, lives that are filled with the radiance
and the sweetness of the Savior.
Only this can we possibly believe will make
an impact in the desperate day in which
we live.
Believe me, brethren, it will not be a
cause for clapping, and I don't want clapping.
It will be a cause for weeping, for
repenting, for sometimes those of us who look
down at others and wonder, why isn't he
more committed?
Why isn't he more zealous?
Why doesn't he give out tracts?
Why doesn't he do this?
Why doesn't she do that?
We are more guilty because if we are
so spiritual, why are we not having a
greater effect on them?
Ever thought about that?
Rather revolutionary.
And I believe that we need a baptism
of humility.
I don't know where you can get a
copy, but I recommend you get a copy
of Andrew Murray's book on the subject of
humility and devour it, because without this humility
we won't repent.
Without repentance our eyes will not open.
Some of the men who talk the biggest
lies walk the widest road and make no,
make no impact in the process.
Perhaps this is a lot of words to
say a small thing, but I don't believe
it's small.
God says there's a way, a way that
seems right to a man.
The end thereof is the way of baptism.
And I believe the same is true oftentimes
of us as Christians.
There's a way that seems right.
We have our own way, the way we
use our time.
We feel it's right.
We have liberty.
We can waste our time if we want.
We can sit endless hours at watching stupid
programs on the television.
We can go to ridiculous films.
We can read ridiculous magazines.
We're free.
Just try to tell us otherwise and you'll
get a case of the argues as fast
as you can ever imagine.
And I would only say, well, you might
as well do those things.
Unless this spiritual palm ignites in your heart,
unless the love of Jesus Christ grips you,
you might as well sit down and read
the funny sheets six hours a day and
spend your evenings on the telly.
But if God is God, if the Bible
is true, if there is such a thing
as a great commission, if there is such
a place as hell, if there is such
a thing as a resurrection, then I believe
not only will we have to lay aside
questionable things, we will have to lay aside
good things to get into the battle.
Oh, we all can justify the way we
spend our money.
I don't know any book that sells worse
than a copy of William McDonald's Where Is
Your Treasure?
One look at the title is enough to
turn anyone off.
The publisher is going to drop it from
circulation.
We have put our treasure where we want
and we're not about to be told what
to do.
And if we are, we'll soon pull out
a scripture verse somewhere from the middle of
the Old Testament to defend our ridiculous accumulation
of wealth that could be used for bringing
hundreds of thousands into the kingdom of God.
But you see, we remain deceived.
And so while world starves to death, why
two million Pakistanis are suffering in East Pakistan
and still have never been evangelized, the big
boy in the West can blow another thousand
pounds on some favorite thing and pray over
it and declare it to be a blessing
of God and gather around his friends and
have a celebration.
I want to tell you if that's Christianity,
excuse me, I'll become a Marxist.
And there are thousands of young people like
myself today who are on the Marxist trail
instead of the trail with me and you
for Jesus Christ because of that.
Because the church has been blind and disobedient
about the commands of scripture in regard to
the material world, which is spoken about more
by Jesus than we dare to admit.
You may not like what I'm saying tonight.
You may think that this is hard, but
I'd ask you this question.
Would you prefer me and the thousands of
young people who have united in this movement,
would you prefer us to be Red Guards?
Would you prefer us to be Marxists?
You may not agree with all that O
.M. says.
Of course you won't.
Neither do I.
But would you rather us to be communists?
Would you rather me to line up with
the Jehovah's Witnesses or Herbert W.
Armstrong or the Mormons?
They already have enough zealots.
They already have enough men winning hundreds to
their false way every year.
And so when you meet an O.M.
and he's a little too zealous and maybe
not as finessed as you'd like and not
as sophisticated as he should be, and if
his hair's too long, forgive him.
At least he's not a communist.
At least he's not a Mormon.
And I believe adults in Britain today have
been too critical of young people.
Out of me!
If I didn't learn how to take criticism
by this time, I'd be dead.
But when a young person comes back after
one summer crusade only to meet with 16
buckets of cold water on the first day
of church, it's not always so easy to
go back again.
And I believe with all my heart that
we as young people need the older generation.
And I believe the older generation needs the
younger generation.
We'll never do it alone.
We all need our eyes open.
We're all desperate.
And we all should come in repentance and
brokenness and ask God for a revolution, for
a revival, for an anointing of the eyes
like it says here that we together may
see.
And when we see, we will go.
We will go.
And I believe some of you know God
is beginning to show you things in these
days from his word, from books, from others.
And I believe that many here tonight who
deep in your soul you're not content with
your present spiritual position, you're not content with
just going through motions, you're not content with
just playing evangelical game.
And I just say that if you're not
content, you're on the road.
You won't arrive, but you're on the road.
And if you just keep going, keep going
to the cross, keep your eyes on Jesus,
keep feasting on the word, keep obeying, steady,
daily, you will see great things in your
life.
Oh, someone can pop up and say, oh,
wait a minute.
I believe that this happens to you tonight.
That's it.
You've got a lot of super salesmen in
Britain.
Don't tell me this isn't a nation of
salesmen.
I've seen fantastic salesmen on the pulpits of
Britain.
Step right up folks tonight.
I've got the experience.
You get this experience tonight, you'll be a
new testament Christian, you'll be dynamic, you'll be
a witness, you'll turn the world upside down.
Thousands and thousands of people have had all
kinds of experiences.
I'm not thinking of any one.
The world still doesn't turn upside down.
And the fact of the matter is, most
people don't remain zealous for more than a
few years.
I meet many people and they say to
me, oh, Mr. Brewer, oh, George, I remember
when I was like that.
What happened?
I remember when I was a teenager, I
used to give out tracts.
Oh, beloved, God can give us the crisis,
but any crisis that's not followed by that
daily process of the cloth, communion, the word,
brokenness, repentance, any crisis that's not followed by
that process will soon be an abscess.
Is that the condition of some of us
tonight?
Ask the name that thou livest, that thou
art dead.
You say, what do I do?
I believe, you may say, I am deceived,
but what do I do?
A few simple steps and then we'll close
in prayer.
One, admit it.
Admit it.
Tell God.
Tell others.
Admit it.
Face it.
Declare it.
Secondly, repent of it.
Not just once, but every time you see
any form of deception, any love of the
world, anything that's selfish, anything that's not like
Jesus, repent.
If it has to be 20 times a
day, well then do it 20 times.
But don't tolerate sin.
Don't tolerate selfishness.
Thirdly, accept God's forgiveness.
As a Christian, that's right, many a Christian
is living under the pains of a guilt
complex.
Many a Christian who set up a fantastic
standard for Christian living lives down in the
doldrums because he knows he can't make it.
Christianity I'm talking about tonight, the reality I'm
speaking about tonight, includes dryness, includes coldness, but
it doesn't stay there.
So when you repent, believe that God is
forgiving.
I meet young Christians who are overwhelmed by
some sin that is really, really cut into
their life.
Many young Christians today have got involved in
immorality.
Impurity has swept the nation.
Pornography is not only in the hands of
unconverted people, it's in many Christian homes.
It's only better hidden, that's all.
And I believe we have to turn from
all this, and then we have to believe
that God has forgiven us.
Whatever it may be, whatever vice, whatever sin,
whatever defilement it may be, God has forgiven
it as far as the west is from
the east, under the blood of Jesus Christ.
Without his forgiveness, we can never go forward.
It's not a matter of getting all excited,
running out the door.
It's realizing we're forgiven.
It's realizing his love is greater than all
this mess that we find ourself in.
And I want to tell you that's like
taking a cool shower in a hot summer
day in New Delhi.
Once I did it six times because it
was very hot.
Oh, his forgiveness, his love, his grace, his
sovereign power to overrule.
The next thing we must do is believe
that he will overrule the mistake.
He will overrule the mistakes made in the
darkness.
He will overrule the blindness.
He will overrule the problem that may be
at hand right then.
You don't come out of your problems all
at once.
You may repent tonight and come to the
Lord in a fresh commitment, but all your
problems won't be solved tonight.
We're scarred.
Every Christian in one way or the other
is scarred.
We've been in combat.
We've been scarred.
Though we can get the forgiveness immediately, the
scars sometimes don't erase so quickly.
So be ready to deny self daily.
Take up the cross and follow him So
you see it, you repent of it, and
you believe that God has forgiven you and
that it is God.
And then you believe that in his sovereign
grace, oh I'd love to speak to you
all night about his sovereign grace, to overrule
all of our folly.
The only reason he's evangelizing the world was
such a weak church.
His sovereign grace to overrule, his sovereign grace
to beat the devil in his own game.
It's tremendous.
It's exciting.
You've got to believe it, or otherwise you
become discouraged.
Christians can discourage you.
Situations can depress you.
But keeping your eyes on the Lord and
on Jehovah God and believing that he is
on the throne, he will overrule.
That can give you strength to face anything,
even two and a half thousand tons of
20-year-old ship.
Sovereign grace to overrule your blunders, my blunders,
and even our sins.
You know when we think of it, it
causes us to fall in love with the
Lord Jesus on a deeper level.
And that brings me to the next point,
to learn to simply walk with Jesus.
Don't run ahead of him.
Don't lag behind.
Walk with Jesus.
How?
By obeying him.
If you love me, Jesus said, keep my
commandments.
This means devouring the Word of God.
Many are failing in their Christian life.
They're not becoming spiritual revolutionists because the Bible
is neglected, because they're failing to meditate and
memorize the Word of God, which is able
to give us the strength.
And so they're slipping all over the place.
So after we take these steps, we get
into the Word of God.
We begin to walk with Jesus, obeying him.
Only his Holy Spirit can do this.
I believe it's God's provision for every believer
to be filled with the Spirit, but I
don't believe it's something to be talked about.
It's something to be walked about.
And God wants to fill you tonight and
he can have no pretension that tonight I'm
going to preach all your favorite doctrines and
make all of you happy.
This is only one message and our time
is almost up.
And I'm not particularly interested in your vocabulary.
I would perhaps prefer to quote Billy Graham,
who said, I don't care how you get
it, but get it.
This life, this reality, this power, this love
that everyone has to respect, no matter what
your denomination is, when they see it in
the flesh.
Walking with Jesus, it's great.
It's revolutionary.
The Bible says those who believe in him
ought to walk even as he walked.
Too many of us talk about him, sing
about him, and when we walk out of
church on Sunday morning also forget about him.
It must not be that way.
Walking with Jesus, that will mean witnessing.
We've got to start witnessing.
The man who becomes a spiritual revolutionist, the
man who begins to see as the eyesalve
of the love of God covers his eyes,
begins to witness with literature, with word, spontaneously
and militantly.
I'm not here to dictate how you should
witness.
I've written a book on the subject.
It's on the table, but if you don't
like those methods, throw it away and use
yours and write me and tell me how
to do it.
But don't just sit there.
Don't make excuses.
So many tell me they haven't got the
gift to speak.
You'd think that most tongues of most Christians
were tied to their feet.
They won't speak.
You come to some girl and she says,
oh Mr. Brewer, I haven't got the gift
to speak.
You have such a wonderful gift to speak.
I saw you at the meeting and your
tongue was going a mile a minute, but
I haven't got the gift to speak.
You get the same girl with some of
her girlfriends on her favorite subject, sewing or
cooking or boys, you see how well she
can speak.
And when we really, when we really fall
in love with Jesus, when we really are
bursting with his love, we're going to speak
even if for the shyest, quietest, little sweetness
that ever was born in the British Isles.
And I've seen that happen.
I've seen the quietest, most reserved young men
tiptoeing out of Britain over to France, ignited,
and they spoke and souls were brought to
Christ in the process.
We've got to witness.
And the fact that we're not witnessing, we're
not advancing, we're not moving, our churches aren't
growing, is one of the big signs that
we don't really see the way we think
we do.
Oh, beloved.
God is alive tonight.
God is working.
And he wants to work in you and
in me in a new and a revolutionary
way.
And he wants to use us to take
the gospel to the uttermost parts of the
earth and to the uttermost gutter most street
of Manchester as well.
You have to begin in Jerusalem.
The man who sends his one pound note
across to the missionary in Congo and forgets
the Pakistani living down the road, this man
is blind.
I hate to say it, but he is.
The man who drops his two bob in
the missionary box at the back of the
church and goes down the street every day
and passes Pakistanis and Englishmen and doesn't do
anything about reaching them for Christ, this man
has a And may we
decide that we're going to learn to see
and learn to do at any cost.
It'll be a revolution.
It'll change the way you spend your money,
the way you spend your time.
It'll change what you do in your leisure.
It'll change your friendships.
It'll change perhaps even your home.
And you'll become those men, the likes of
which are described in Acts 17 when it
says these men who have turned the world
upside down have come to our town.
Has that ever been said about you?
May God open our eyes.
May God give us the faith.
He will, if you want it, to step
and believe for new things in Manchester, in
Britain, in the church, in Olympia, in the
world.
Christ is able.
Christ is wanting.
Christ is calling.
Christ is commanding.
And Christ has died to make it a
reality.
The rest is up to you.
Let us pray.
Spend a moment in silent prayer.
I'm not going to give an invitation tonight.
Sometimes I do.
Last year here I did.
My invitation is this.
Tomorrow and tonight, demonstrate by your life that
Jesus is opening your eyes.
Demonstrate by your life that Jesus is alive.
That's my invitation.
Lord, I'm a sinner, totally unworthy to speak
these words.
In need of the eye salve to open
my own eyes, I may see my inconsistencies.
And I may see Jesus in a clear
way and know what he really wants and
what he's really like.
And I pray that you do it tonight.
And I pray, Lord, in the authority of
your son, that many eyes may be open
tonight.
That we may see that we have been
playing, many of us, an evangelical game instead
of being involved in a revolution for Christ.
That we may see that Christianity is really
just a part of our life instead of
Christ being all of our life.
That we may be willing to admit our
situation.
We may be willing to repent of it.
We may be willing to accept your forgiveness
and to walk with you in denying yourself,
taking up the cross and following you daily,
filled with your spirit.
Lord, we believe you can do it.
For the likes of us, it may take
a long time, but we believe it's worth
starting.
And we look to you.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.