Let's start with prayer.
Abba Father, we ask you to speak the
things unto us this morning that we need
to hear, and Lord, work it for good
in many lives, I pray.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
The message this morning is about having a
sufficient livelihood, and it's come about by me
seeing and dealing and working with people and
trying to help Christians, believers, children of God
who are in dire financial straits, even on
the point of look like they're becoming homeless.
And years ago, I received a letter from
a Christian lady in South Alabama whom I've
never met in person.
She had read my books, and she wrote
me that she was living in her car,
had to get out of her rental house
because of no money to pay rent.
And I want to address such things this
morning.
If you will look at Matthew 22, 36,
where the man came to Jesus and said,
Master, which is the great commandment in the
law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
God gave us commandments to be obeyed.
Obeying his commandments glorify God.
They're a testimony before the lost world around
us, which also glorifies God.
Obedience edifies the body of Christ, and it
brings many wonderful blessings and benefits to us
that we need.
And worldly, carnal-minded Christians often trusted in
the Lord Jesus Christ for fire insurance.
They don't want to burn forever in hell.
And after that, they want to just be
left alone and live their own life to
do what they please instead of loving the
Lord God with all their heart and doing
exactly as he commands and guides them to
do.
If you want to back up there to
Matthew 6, 31, which we have memorized 6,
33 probably, we have another important command.
I want to read all the way from
Matthew 6, 31 through 34.
Therefore take no thoughts saying what shall we
eat or what shall we drink, or wherewithal
shall we be clothed.
You know your own life and the life
of Christians around you, and just consider how
much we give thought to these things that
he tells us to take no thought of
in verse 31.
For after all these things to the Gentiles
seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that you
have need of all these things.
Praise his name that he does.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness, and all these things shall
be added unto you.
Therefore no thought for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
And we, mostly all of us have memorized
verse 33, and I sing it as a
children's song with the children.
He commands us to seek first the kingdom
of God, and we look on Christians around
us seeking that which pleases them.
He commands us to do these things and
regard our daily livelihood needs in the manner
as he commands us here in these verses
I just read.
In chapter 6 here in 11 we are
in the midst of the Lord's prayer where
he says, he teaches us to pray give
us this day our daily bread.
If we obey Matthew 6.33 the necessities
of this life will not be a problem
to us.
We are to fully believe and genuinely do
all these things commanded of us, and the
result will be the blessing of a proper
livelihood provided by God, and we won't have
to worry about it just as he tells
us not to think about it in Matthew
6.
We can expect God to put us through
seasons of poverty for our good, and if
we truly love him all such will be
a great joy to us.
I've experienced that and will give some testimony
to that in a few minutes.
I look around at Christians living like kings.
I wouldn't doubt there are kings in third
world poor countries that do not live near
as well as some of the Christians whose
homes I have the privilege of visiting in
now, and some of those are in great
agony because the people inside those homes because
they cannot pay their bills and wonder what
they're going to do when the rent is
due next month.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is always the supreme
example in these things, and we can fairly
well logically conclude that while he was here
on this earth he owned nothing but the
clothing that was on his back.
You remember when they started casting lots for
the coat?
It was so well woven they didn't want
to tear it apart, so they cast lots
for it.
I suppose his mother had made that years
ago.
That's just speculation.
She was still alive when he was hanging
on the cross, but we can fairly reasonably
conclude that he gathered up no other earthly
possessions than that.
If we were to follow that supreme example,
we would be most rich and ask him
to give us each day our daily bread,
and if we were content with having food
and raiment as he commands us to be,
it would be a most blessed life.
Most of you know that the Lord called
me to serve him as a missionary in
Japan while I was there serving in the
United States Marine Corps, so I got discharged
from the Marines in Japan as my time
was up then and started serving the Lord
with no salary, no promise of any support
or anything, so the natural reaction for me
was to become as frugal as I could
be, and that's a wonderful virtue for any
of us to practice.
I went into a missionary language school and
studied full-time for two years living in
a small room with no thrills.
I walked everywhere I went because I didn't
have a motor vehicle and didn't even want
to spend the money to buy a bicycle,
which many adults use in Japan instead of
a car.
I walked just as my Lord walked while
he was here on earth, and it's a
wonderful way to commute.
After I finished that language school study, the
Lord led me to move into the house
that I'm still living in.
I moved into it in August of 1978.
It was completely unfurnished, and it more or
less stayed that way.
I had no refrigerator for about two years
until friends visited me from the States, and
it seemed like I needed one then.
I would buy a half a liter of
milk and drink it with the next meal.
In the winter time, I could put milk
or juice out on the north side of
my house outside, and it would stay cool
enough so that it didn't spoil there.
I looked around for any tent making jobs
and began to teach English conversation as opportunity
afforded.
I was not idle, and I'll get to
that later on down here in some scriptures.
When I became hungry, I just went hungry
and searched for more tent making jobs.
One of my tent making jobs was to
often arrive about 1 a.m. in the
morning when everybody else was off the streets
and it was dark and take a wire
coat hanger that had fashioned into a hook
for my this job and a small flashlight
and head out on my bicycle.
By then, I had a bicycle, and you're
probably thinking, oh, he became a burglar.
Well, not exactly.
Vending machines everywhere in Japan, and I found
out there's often a sprinkling of coins under
vending machines there, and I was somewhat embarrassed
to be kneeling down looking under, peering under
vending machines in the middle of the day
with everyone walking by.
So, I would go out at night with
that little flashlight and shine it under vending
machines and often get up to two dollars
or more.
That would buy a small sack of potatoes
that would last me a while, and there's
always things we can do not being idle
to earn some money or get some money
to buy our food that we need.
When about three years later, going to Guam,
I rented an apartment in Tumon Village to
have children's services, and it was unfurnished, and
at first the children sit on the hard
tile concrete floors until I gathered up a
few little cushions and such from church friends
for them to sit on.
And my first days there, as soon as
I arrived on Guam and rented that apartment,
a friend was good enough to loan me
his car.
I go to the supermarket for a little
food, and I get several cardboard boxes and
bring them home and flatten them down, and
they would be my bed on that concrete
tile floor.
And I had my laundry, dirty clothes, in
a small cloth laundry bag, and I'd roll
it up and make it my pillow.
And I felt so blessed to be there.
Daytime, an average of 20 something children would
come.
A large apartment complex, and almost daily there
were decisions of children to trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
My Lord had no place to lay His
head, and the closer I live to the
way He lives here on this earth, it
just fills my heart to overflow Him with
joy.
Those first years as a missionary were the
leanest time physically in my missionary life thus
far, but they were the richest time spiritually.
And the joy the Lord gave was just
such a spiritually rich, physically poor.
Psalms 37, 4, you've probably memorized it.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he
shall give thee the desires of thy heart.
As you listen to fellow Christians complaining that
they do not have the desires of their
heart, they wanted this, they wanted that, but
they never were able to achieve it.
It's simply a testimony that they have not
delighted themselves in the Lord.
And they never think on what a testimony
they're given there, but that is exactly the
case.
More and more, my one delight becomes to
love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my
heart, to seek first the kingdom of God,
to follow the Lamb with us wherever He
leads.
And as that becomes my delight, when I
have a need or something, I often cry
out to the Lord for it, and it's
amazing to see how that He so quickly
and so readily provides what we need.
2 Thessalonians 3, 10, Paul writes to the
church in Thessalonica saying, we command you that
if any would not work, neither should he
eat.
That sounds sort of like a harsh commandment,
but that's from our Lord, and I love
that, and that is the way it should
be.
If a person is not willing to work,
he shouldn't expect to have any food provided
for him.
Our Lord is not much of a Lord
of welfare, if you want to put it
in those words.
One time, a Japanese man came to me
and asked me for money, said he needed
money, and I said, well, I've got work
for you to do.
I'll put you to work for hourly wages.
He walked away.
It was simple work that he could have
done, but he wouldn't work for wages, so
he walked away without working, and he walked
away without any of my money.
This is a good verse to keep in
mind and to speak it and preach it
to others when the occasion calls for it.
Christians know the experience of ending up unemployed,
what an agonizing situation it is, but there's
no need to be idle at all.
We can work for our Lord and expect
Him to give us good pay.
Exodus 20, in verse 9 there in the
Ten Commandments, he says, six days shalt thou
labor, and in Matthew chapter 20, we're told
that the man went out at the eleventh
hour still hiring, so we see that the
Lord God ordained a twelve-hour work day
for us, six days a week.
If you will, turn to Matthew chapter 20.
We were in it.
This is a very important chapter.
It has several important points made here.
You can start glancing at verse 1 of
chapter 20 to see the man, like the
householder, going out early in the morning to
hire laborers into his vineyard, and he hired
some for a penny a day.
That was the wages then, well, long before
inflation.
Verse 3, and he went out about the
third hour, and later on he went out
about the sixth hour in verse 5 and
the ninth hour.
And verse 6 of Matthew chapter 20, and
about the eleventh hour he went out and
found others standing idle.
Being idle is a curse.
God did not ordain that we be idle.
Twelve hours a day, six days a week,
He ordained that we labor.
If you'll do that, it'd be a wonderful
thing.
It'll be something that God will honor.
And you know, if you're a math genius,
you can figure out that's seventy-two hours
a day, I believe, six times twelve.
You can see how many more hours that
is than our forty-hour work week.
And any man who wants to labor diligently
for seventy-two hours per week, you can
expect him to be able to earn a
good good livelihood with that many work hours
per week.
He found others standing idle, so he said
unto them, Why stand ye here all the
day idle?
And in verse 7 they say, Because.
Because no man hath hired us.
I've hit some of these points before, but
they're in the message again today.
That's a curse of the system of the
world.
Instead of the farmer going out each morning
to his own land to kill it and
work it to take the necessities of life
for him and his family, his family laboring
with him, now we go out into the
world and prostrate ourselves before some human employer
and beg him to hire us.
God didn't ordain that we have to live
such a life.
The good news here is that our Lord
Jesus Christ is in the hiring business.
If you want a wonderful taskmaster, labor for
our Lord.
Why don't we go on to Luke 10,
7 at this point.
I want you to keep in mind what
a terrible curse that it is for a
person to be idle.
And you know how if you're sitting by
the phone waiting for it to ring, you
put out your resumes, you signed up at
the employment or unemployment office, and still you
sit there, your heart hemorrhaging because waiting for
the phone to ring and it never rings.
It is a horrible situation, very perplexing situation
to be idle.
No Christian has to be idle at all.
The Lord has work readily available for you,
12 hours a day, 6 days a week.
In Luke 10, the Lord is sending out
the 70 after sending out the 12 in
chapter 9.
And we go on to verse 7 of
Luke chapter 10 where he's told them, take
nothing for your journey.
He spoke that in one of these chapters,
maybe both of them.
And in verse 7 here, he says, and
in the same house remain eating and drinking
such things as they give, for the laborer
is worthy of his hire.
Go not from house to house.
If Almighty God hires you to work for
him, he deems you to be worthy of
your hire, and you can rest assured that
he will not cheat you out of any
of your wages.
I think one of the most high and
lofty works that we can do while we're
here on earth is that of an intercessor.
Praying without ceasing in intercessory prayer.
You can take the Bible one verse at
a time and pray it for yourself or
for anyone you know.
Let me give you a wonderful true story
regarding that.
I don't know how many of you might
know the name Pastor Jack Howes, who pastored
the Lord's First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana
for many years.
And he's with the Lord now.
Went to be with the Lord at age
about 75.
He was a very zealous preacher.
And because of that, he won many souls
and his church became a quite large church
with a few thousand in church on Sunday
mornings.
And he stressed soul winning, going after the
lost souls for whom Christ died.
And as he won lost souls, they took
on the same burden.
And it was amazing to hear some of
the stories of soul winning.
And a dedicated Christian in his church got
a burden for a drunkard friend.
We call them alcoholics today.
God's Holy Bible calls them drunkards.
Let's stay with this perfect language that the
Lord gave us in his Holy Bible.
And the Christian brother with the burden began
to intercede in prayer for this drunkard who
he had Christian friends and he would laugh
as they witnessed to him.
Apparently, he was a large, muscular, strong man
who loved his whiskey.
And when he would get high on that
whiskey, get drunk, he really enjoyed life.
I don't know if he fought or messed
with people or what, but he really liked
to tie on a good drunk.
And as they would witness to him and
tell him how the drunkard's going to have
a part in the lake of fire and
such, more or less, he would laugh at
them and go on his way.
But all that time, the Holy Spirit working
in there in his heart from what the
witnesses told him.
But one godly man got a burden for
him.
And he started with Genesis 1-1, praying
each and every verse of the Bible for
that man.
I don't know what he said about each
verse.
Lord, help George to believe this.
Help him to repent and trust in you
and obey this verse.
Give him full knowledge of this verse.
And I don't know how many years it
was.
It was probably at least two years or
more that that dedicated Christian prayed without ceasing.
He went through the Bible once, through the
Bible twice, praying each and every verse, spending
many hundreds of hours in intercessory prayer for
that one drunkard.
He had gotten through it two times and
was in the third time or the fourth
time one when that man trusted in the
Lord.
He had been attending Dr. Howells' church from
time to time, the drunkard, because it was
sort of an exciting place to be.
Souls getting saved and such, and friends inviting,
and he would come.
They have an invitation after most every service,
and Dr. Howells said an invitation was going
on, and I was quite busy.
I turned and looked, and there was George
standing there near the altar, and I wondered
what George might be doing coming up there.
He said he wanted to get saved.
And George got wonderfully saved, and Dr. Howells
baptized him.
And after he baptized him, he and Dr.
Howells were back in the same place, same
little room, getting out of their wet clothing,
I suppose, and he said that man, George,
was sitting there looking out toward the baptist,
and he said he was chuckling to himself.
And Dr. Howells said, George, what are you
chuckling about?
He said, Pastor, I'm sitting here thinking that
baptistry probably wouldn't hold all the whiskey I've
drunk, but I've never had such a good
time drinking all that whiskey as I had
when you put me down in that water
and brought me up again, signifying death and
resurrection and new life in Christ, lest, my
friend, that comes from praying without ceasing.
If you find yourself idle, you can pray
12 hours a day, six or seven days
a week, and you can get up in
the morning and say, give me this day
my daily bread.
Lord, I need some rent money.
And I would expect the Lord, who's a
faithful and just One who hires, would give
you your food and your rent money and
supply all your needs according to His riches
in glory, just as He promises to do.
A second employment unto our Lord, work unto
our Lord that any Christian can do is
to take Him up on His wonderful invitation
in Hebrews 13, 13, let us go unto
Him without the count, bearing His reproach.
I listened to Brother Jeff talking to you
folks about that a while ago.
You know, Brother Jeff, as we're out there
in the flea market singing praises to our
Lord, just about everybody going by, just about
all the children of the devil, readily manifest
that they're children of the devil with their
large tattoos all over their body, with the
cigarette they're smoking, with the foul language coming
out of their mouth.
It's no effort on their part to manifest
that they're a child of the devil.
Why should it be thought incredible that we
would stand there singing wonderful hymns of praise
to our Lord, manifest in the whole world
that we're a child of the King?
And I was listening to Brother Jeff as
he told you that it seemed sort of
peculiar what we were doing, and he used
that word.
If you look in a strong concordance, that
word is in the Bible a very few
times, and it usually talks about us Christians.
We are a peculiar people.
The Word of God plainly tells us that.
Don't you be ashamed to be a peculiar
Christian.
Don't be ashamed to go unto the Lord
without the count, bearing His reproach, it says
in Hebrews 13, 13.
So few Christians will do it because they
have so much sinful pride of self, sinful
love of self, that they will not bear
that reproach.
They want men to think well of them.
Read Luke 10, 7.
The laborer is worthy of his hire.
If you're unemployed, cry out, Lord, hire me
and guide me daily as to exactly what
you would have me to do.
Twelve hours a day, six days a week,
intercessory prayer, testifying outside of the count, preaching
outside of the count, witnessing, singing outside of
the count, and also any other work the
Lord would guide you into, call on Him
in your needs and see Him supply ever,
ever so well.
I mentioned how my first few years in
Japan were very lean financially.
And the language school I attended was in
a summer resort town up in the mountains
where tourists flock to in the summer.
And you know how the shopping area there
is like a vanity fair.
And walking up the main street there are
the little shops with all their trinkets and
toys.
I saw car tags on sale for $12
apiece.
Car tags from the States.
You might know them as license plates.
And the cogs started turning in my brain
because I said, I can get them free
back home.
And when I came home on furlough finally
eight years later, I gathered some up in
1986.
I shipped back by ship a few tons
of them and started standing out on the
street there selling license plates.
And I wasn't idle.
I didn't have any idea how to sell
them.
So I just stood out on the street
and put a price on them and people
started buying them.
And soon I start singing and preaching while
my goods are sitting out there for sale,
building and battling back there near where they
had to hold a sword in one hand,
you know, to keep the enemy off as
they built that wall.
Building and battling, building and battling.
It's a wonderful thing to do.
I want to stress here that you do
not have to be idle.
Cry out to the God, to your Lord
as to what he would have you to
do when you find yourself idle.
Lord, what work do you have for me
to do today?
Other examples really impressed me.
I guess it was well over 30 years
ago that I read a story in Reader's
Digest, a true life story that really the
wisdom of it lodged in my mind.
It might have been as early as about
1950.
If it was after that, it wouldn't have
been much longer after that, that a Chinese
man escaped from Communist China into Hong Kong.
You well know how many of them would
try to escape China and get out to
freedom.
And at that time, Hong Kong did not
belong to China.
It belonged to Britain, I suppose, wasn't it,
back then before they gave it over to
China.
It was freedom.
And this man later on started a ship
building company in Taiwan.
He later on went from Hong Kong to
Taiwan and started, formed a large company building
ocean-going ships.
So you know, you can well imagine what
a large-size business adventure that is.
But he came out of China penniless, and
the Reader's Digest story said that he started
out selling pencils on the street in Hong
Kong.
And I immediately saw two reasons of wisdom
that he would sell pencils.
Now, this is long before the digital age,
and everybody from a little child who draws
pictures up through adults used pencils.
They used ink pens, too.
But this was before ballpoint pens.
I'm old enough to remember when the first
ballpoint pens came out in the 1950s, and
we thought, what a convenience.
You don't have to have an ink bottle
in that fountain pen with a little lever
-like pump on it.
There's a squirt ink everywhere if you're not
careful, and you put a cheap fountain pen
in your pocket, and it leaks that ink
out, and you can't ever get it out
of your clothing, no matter how much you
wash them.
And everybody knows you had a, unless you
throw the shirt away, knows that you had
a cheap fountain pen which leaked.
But everyone uses pencils, and a pencil is
a cheap item.
He may have come out of China with
enough money to go to a wholesaler there
somewhere and say, and buy a dozen pencils.
If he had come out penniless, I know
he had a brain on him, in his
head, because he founded that shipbuilding company.
He would have walked into a wholesaler.
He wouldn't have been frantic or panicky.
He would say, hey, I just got out
this morning, and everybody in Hong Kong knows
what that's all about.
I need to get a start.
Let me have a dozen pencils, and as
soon as I sell them on the street,
I'll be right back to pay you and
get a dozen more.
The man would have probably handed over a
dozen pencils to him.
If not, he would have gone to another
man and asked for it, and if necessary,
he would have gone all the way down
to, well, six pencils.
Well, three pencils.
And he would have gone out on that
street and just stood there holding up those
pencils, and in a very, not a very
loud voice, as there's many passive eyes on
a crowded street, he would say, I just
got out today.
Help me get a start.
And people on the street there know what
that's all about, getting out of China to
freedom, and people would have bought a pencil.
He would have gone back, plopped down every
bit of money he got for those three
pencils, and said, give me six, please.
And that man would have just kept a
running ledger of his money paid and how
much he's taken out and the money he
owes.
He would have come back, I just sold
those six, and said, give me twelve now,
and three of your ink pens will sell
the best.
And he'd gone out there with that.
Next time he'd come back, he would ask
for three little notepads.
The next time he would come back and
ask, have you got a folding chair or
anything I can use for a stand out
there to put some of this stuff on?
He might have gotten that, but he would
have increased his wares throughout the day and
gotten in the black during that day.
And by the third day or so of
selling on the street, I would expect he
would spend every night on the street to
save all the money he could.
And in the evenings, he'd go looking for
a small shop to rent.
And he might go back on the second
end of the second day to that man
who he's already bought much from, and that
merchant has made a profit from what he
sold this street vendor.
And he'd say, I found a little shop
that's for rent, and I've got enough money
now to pay half a month's rent.
How about you going with me and vouch
for me that I'll do right and try
to get that realtor to give me a
start by just letting me pay a half
a month's rent at the start and the
key money later also.
And they might go to that realtor, and
this man might be able to start out
like that.
And he just slowly increased.
Within three months, he'd be in a larger
shop.
Soon he goes to Taiwan.
He has enough good of a reputation that
he can sell stock there to start a
large shipbuilding company.
My main point was that as soon as
he got his freedom flat broke, he was
not idle.
Oh, the curse of being idle.
Intercede in prayer.
Go without the count.
Any elderly Christians around you that need yard
work or anything from some younger Christian that
the elderly person is not able to do,
do it as unto the Lord and expect
him to pay you.
When I started selling those license plates on
the street, that story about the Chinese shipbuilder,
it often stayed in my mind.
And it's amazing how that I started out
with nothing when the Lord called me to
be a missionary.
And I labored and labored and labored preaching
on the street till my voice was gone.
I would intercede in prayer for days.
It was no trouble to fast because often
I had no food to eat.
And fasting is another thing that will bring
on power, honors God, and will give answers
to prayers.
Those three things are three things that anyone
can do.
Nothing, no equipment, anything is required for them.
And you'll find yourself greatly blessed by doing
so.
As I preached this on the 5th of
February, 2017, two days ago, a man in
his 50s was talking to me.
I'm here in the States, in Gulf Breeze,
Florida, preaching this.
A man in his 50s was talking to
me.
As we just was in conversation, he mentioned,
well, I mentioned that I'd been to the
dentist the day before.
And this man does not profess to be
a Christian.
And he reiterated how he has no upper
teeth.
And he reiterated how that when a lower
tooth gets bad enough that it has to
be pulled, he scrapes together a little money
and goes to the dentist and gets it
pulled.
He said dental work is hard.
He can't afford dental work.
He hasn't trusted in the Lord as his
Savior.
He's not serving the Lord.
He's working a secular job.
And many of us here in this, here
in Gulf Breeze, have witnessed to him.
I pray he'll get saved.
But I thought about the he and I.
The day before he lamented that to me,
a kind Christian dentist lady took me into
her dental office, gave me a thorough exam,
x-rays, cleaning, and filled the one cavity
she found that needed filling.
And I walked out of there without her
taking one penny of money from me.
That's the reward for loving the Lord Jesus
Christ with all your heart and seeking first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and
letting Him add all these things unto you.
Another Christian dentist in Japan always worked on
me free.
One time on Guam I had a cavity
and I made a dental appointment, went to
the dentist and he filled it.
I'd never met him before.
In conversation, I told him I was a
missionary in Japan and we chatted somewhat.
And when I walked out, he said, no
charge.
Truly, it is a blessing to work for
the Lord.
Truly, He supplies all our needs according to
His riches in glory.
I'm just past my 71st birthday and my
upper and lower teeth, that horseshoe pattern, the
biting surface is solid from all around.
There's no gaps, nothing missing.
A lot of it these days is man
-made, but the Lord has kept me in
good dental repair.
And I think about that man I talked
to, 53 years old, I think.
I don't know how long all his upper
teeth had been gone and one by one
his lower teeth are going.
When one gets bad enough that it needs
pulling, he goes and gets it pulled.
Truly, the devil is a hard taskmaster.
If you refuse to give the Lord your
all, refuse to love Him with all your
heart because you love things of this world
and such, you are the loser.
Rest assured that you are the loser.
I want to end this at this point.
If you're well taken care of by the
Lord, thank God for it each day.
God will bring people in touch with you
that you can share things from this message
this morning, people who are hurting financially.
Lord willing, I hope to post it in
audio on my website so that anyone can
listen to it from there.
These are things that Christians need to know
today and in all ages.
Each and every Christian believer should delight themselves
in obeying the greatest commandment, love the Lord
God with all your heart.
Truly, He is worthy and truly you'll benefit
eternally by doing so.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for each and
every command in the Bible.
Truly, your yoke is easy and your burden
is light.
Old people balk at obeying you because they
love themselves and have so many things they
want to do to please themselves, and then
godly Christians around them have to listen to
all their graphing and complaining about their lot
in life simply because that's what they chose
when they could have had a perfect lot
in life.
Lord, I have no complaints.
I thank thee that I'm the most blessed
human on the face of this earth.
I thank thee for each and every day
and week and month of poverty that thou
hast led me through, how rich it's been,
what wonderful lessons I've learned, and what close
fellowship I've had with thee.
Lord, work in each of our hearts to
love you with all our hearts and glorify
you to the fullest while we're here on
earth.
In our Lord's name I pray, amen.
Amen.