Colossians chapter 1.
Now, you have to give me a few
moments until we get there, but tonight we're
going to be turning around to a lot
of different passages of scripture.
But we're going to begin at Colossians chapter
1.
So turn in your Bibles there, keep a
finger there, and listen to me for a
few moments as I approach what I want
to talk to you about this evening.
As part of my devotional reading over the
past few years, I've made it a point
to read biographies, or sometimes autobiographies, of great
Christians.
One book recommended to me by Gail Irwin
that I had in my library, that I
had never read, was a book called A
Song of a Sense by a fellow named
E.
Stanley Jones.
E.
Stanley Jones was a famous missionary to India.
He was an American, born on the East
Coast in Maryland, born in 1884.
He died in 1973.
E.
Stanley Jones was a very well-known and
a very effective missionary in India.
He went there in a very much different
way than the English missionaries to India had
gone.
The English missionaries went to India pretty much
with the heart to make the Indians as
English as possible, but that was not the
heart of E.
Stanley Jones.
He wanted to show them how you could
still be a good Indian and still be
a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ.
He was controversial in some ways, but he
was an amazing man, and I've been very
blessed by reading his autobiography, which again is
titled A Song of a Sense.
In the early chapters of this book, E.
Stanley Jones remembers his salvation experience as a
teenager in Maryland.
He remembered what it was like to be
converted, and he recorded what changed in his
life and what changed in his perception of
life.
Now, I found his description to be very
real and thoroughly scriptural.
So, let me read to you several paragraphs
from E.
Stanley Jones, and then I want to talk
about it from a scriptural framework.
Now, I'll title this message The Sense of
Salvation because that's what E.
Stanley Jones speaks about in these points.
Again, I'm quoting from him now, beginning now.
What had really happened?
I said that a tiny ray of light
had pierced my darkness.
In that ray of light, as in all
light, there were seven colors blended.
Three primary, the rest secondary.
So, now he's going to list three, excuse
me, seven things that he gained or that
changed in his life when he was converted.
Number one, a sense of forgiveness and reconciliation
with God, with life, with my brothers, with
myself.
The universe seemed to open its arms and
take me in.
The parable of the prodigal son was reenacted
in my setting.
Number two, a sense of being at home
in my homeland.
I did not try to make myself at
home in my new condition and position.
I was at home.
This was my native land.
It had the feeling of a homecoming upon
it.
This is where I belonged.
Number three, a sense of purpose, direction and
goal.
I had been a raft tossed by storms
and waves of meaningless emotion.
Now I had been taken aboard a great
steamliner that was going somewhere with some goal,
with the power to move on to that
goal.
Number four, a sense of purpose, direction and
goal.
A woman in one of our ashrams, this
is a community of Christians that East Stanley
Jones formed in India.
A woman in one of our ashrams asked,
is there anyone here with a car going
anywhere?
Well, I didn't want to go anywhere.
I had a goal and power to move
on to that goal.
Number four, a sense of not being alone.
I had another who knew and understood me
perfectly and was always with me in spite
of knowing me.
He loved me.
I was loved and I was giving love.
I was no longer preoccupied with myself.
My entire being went out in gratitude and
love to another.
Myself absorbed me.
Myself absorbed me no longer.
This was the greatest emancipation.
With it came a sense of caring.
I began to think and care for others.
Number five, a sense of being a person.
My total being was awakened and coordinated and
fulfilled.
One man said, I'm not a man.
I'm a menagerie.
Do you know what a menagerie is?
It's a cage where a lot of different
animals are.
Oftentimes wild animals, but not necessarily.
It's a cage with a lot of different
animals in it.
So he said, one man said, I'm not
a man.
I'm a menagerie.
I was a menagerie, too, growling with passions
in a state of tension.
But now I was at peace with myself
and respected myself as a person.
My whole being was awakened, including my mind.
Number six, a sense of wholeness.
Fragmentation was over.
Life was pulled into central meanings and purposes
around a single center.
And then number seven, a sense of grace.
How did this happen to me?
I felt so undeserving and unworthy, and yet
it was mine.
I found myself going into solitude and reading
my New Testament.
And when I came across a verse which
spoke of him, I found myself reverently pressing
my lips to that verse.
I gaze at him and wonder and wonder
until my knees bend in gratitude.
But I'm soon up on my feet again
with a compulsion, a divine compulsion to share
this with everyone, everywhere.
Now, I don't know about you, but I
found that list remarkable.
Let me read it again to you, just
just the title points, not the descriptions.
This is what happened to E.
Stanley Jones, as he describes it later, when
he was converted.
A sense of forgiveness and reconciliation with God,
with life, with my brothers, with myself.
A sense of being at home in my
homeland, a sense of purpose, direction and goal,
a sense of not being alone, a sense
of being a person, a sense of wholeness
and a sense of grace.
My suggestion to you.
Is that the description that E.
Stanley Jones gives of what conversion feels like
is thoroughly scriptural.
And thoroughly accurate.
And so I want to take a look
at these one by one and consider whether
or not they're scriptural.
First of all, E.
Stanley Jones said that when he was converted,
he had a sense of forgiveness and reconciliation
with God, with life, with my brothers, with
myself.
He says the universe seemed to open its
arms and take me in.
The parable of the prodigal son was reenacted
in my setting.
Look at Colossians chapter one, verse 14.
There, Paul says in him, excuse me, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the
forgiveness of sins.
Is it God's will to give those who
are converted by the spirit of God a
sense of forgiveness?
I think it's absolutely so.
I mean, the person is forgiven.
It's not wrong and it's completely appropriate.
For them to have a sense of forgiveness,
a sense of reconciliation.
Now, I like how Paul puts it in
Colossians 1, 14, where he says in whom,
because he's speaking about a person and who's
the person?
Well, it's Jesus himself.
It says in verse 13 that he's delivered
us from the power of darkness and translated
us into the kingdom of the son of
his love in whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You know, it's a beautiful thing to consider
that this thing that's East Stanley Jones speaks
about this sense of forgiveness.
Where does it come from?
Where does the sense of forgiveness come from?
Does it come from hearing a good message
on forgiveness?
Not necessarily.
Does it come from your brothers and sisters
saying, I forgive you?
No.
Look at it right there in verse 14
in whom we have, where do you find
the sense of forgiveness?
You find it in Jesus Christ.
Matter of fact, if you go down to
verse 21 of Colossians 1, I think it's
another great place where he describes the same
dynamic.
He says in verse 21.
And you who were once alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now
he has reconciled, you're reconciled to God.
There used to be a separation between you
and God, whether you sensed it or not,
it was there and now it's gone, it's
vanished.
And so now we can have a sense
of forgiveness and reconciliation with God, with life,
with my brothers, with myself.
God is in the business of reconciliation.
As a matter of fact, he says that
he's entrusted to his people, the ministry of
reconciliation.
And really, we find from passages like this,
that the ministry of reconciliation isn't our going
in there and making reconciliation.
It's grabbing people and taking them to Jesus,
who is the great reconciler.
So this is a beautiful thing.
We can have a sense of reconciliation and
forgiveness with God.
Number two, E.
Stanley Jones says that when he was converted,
he had a sense of being at home
in my homeland.
I did not try to make myself at
home in my new condition and position.
I was at home.
This was my native land, he wrote.
There are many people who describe this sense.
I felt like I was coming home.
I felt like I belonged for the first
time.
Now, this, again, is a very scriptural principle,
you know, after all, we're not here this
evening to study E.
Stanley Jones, even though I'm sort of making
his remarks the launching point for what we're
talking about this evening.
But what he's speaking about is just a
scriptural principle in different ways that he's ordered
it.
Look at it here in Ephesians, chapter two,
verse 19.
Just turn a couple of pages back from
Colossians, chapter one.
Ephesians, chapter two, verse 19, says now, therefore,
you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but
fellow citizens with the saints and members of
the household of God.
Isn't that exactly what E.
Stanley Jones was talking about?
A sense of being at home in my
homeland.
I'm home.
I'm not a stranger anymore.
I'm not a foreigner.
Not to this is a glorious, glorious thing
that I have experienced on many occasions, and
I think sometimes you have to go far
away and to other cultures to really experience
this, where you can go among other Christians
with whom you don't share a language.
You don't share an economic status.
You don't share national background.
You don't share political viewpoints.
You may not share five or six other
things, but in a very powerful way, just
being, you know, you're among brothers.
You're among the household of God.
There's a bond.
There's a unity there.
Now, again, here's my question.
Where does this come from?
Look at it here in verse 19 of
Ephesians, chapter two.
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and
foreigners.
So the reason that we are no longer
strangers and foreigners, it must be back.
Right.
Because he says, therefore.
So look at verse 17.
We'll start out.
And he came and preached peace to you
who were a far off and to those
who were near.
For through him, we both have access by
one spirit to the father.
Well, who's the him?
It must be Paul, the apostle.
Right.
No, no, no.
Peter.
He was the first pope.
No, no.
It's neither them.
Who is it?
It's Jesus himself.
So where do we get this sense of
being at home in my homeland?
We get it from Jesus.
You know, that's sort of staggering to think,
because there's something in me that thinks I
should get the feeling of being at home
from you.
You're the one who should give me that.
You know, it's your niceness or your hospitality
or your warmth or your handshake that should
give me that feeling of being at home.
And I'm not trying to diminish the fact
that there is a sense of friendliness and
camaraderie that there should be displayed among Christians.
But you know what?
This basic sense that, man, I'm part of
the fellowship of the people of God and
I'm no longer a stranger.
I'm no longer a former foreigner.
I'm at home in my homeland.
Friends, that comes as a gift from Jesus
Christ unto us.
The third one, E.
Stanley Jones mentions, he says that when he
was converted, he received a sense of purpose,
direction and goal.
He says that before he had been like
a raft tossed by storms and waves of
meaningless emotion.
Now he had been taken aboard a great
liner that was going somewhere.
With some goal, with the power to move
on to that goal.
Well, do we have that as Christians?
Is this a scriptural thing?
Maybe it was just unique to E.
Stanley Jones that he received that.
No, no, no.
This is something for every believer.
We're already in Ephesians.
Take a look at Ephesians 2 10.
It says, for we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
He's got a course charted out.
It's prepared beforehand.
You know, it's not aimless.
God has a goal.
God has a course.
God has a direction.
And even if you're not aware of it,
well, certainly, you know what the final destination
is, right?
And if you don't know the whole path
along the way and all the details about
it, well, then so what?
It doesn't really matter.
You're not driving the boat.
My wife and I are going to go
on a cruise next month.
And we're very excited about going on this
cruise.
And you know what, though?
I know some of the different ports where
the ship is stopping, but I don't know
the direction.
I'm north somewhere.
I don't know.
That's all I know.
But doesn't matter.
I'm not driving the boat.
I'm on it.
But let me tell you, it's going somewhere.
It has goal.
It has direction.
It's not just going to go out and
float around in the ocean.
When we come to Jesus, we should gain
the sense that our life has purpose.
Oh, how the world needs this.
You know, more than ever, I have the
sense that the world lives for meaningless things.
One of the things that has emphasized this
to me in the past months, and I
almost cautioned myself against saying this, is that
the world needs purpose.
And I'm saying this because it's one of
these things where I could be taken very
wrong or misunderstood at, but I'll venture forth
to say it.
Is well over a year ago, it's getting
close to two years ago, at the Goozicome,
we unplugged the television cable.
And no antenna, no cable, no satellite, no
nothing.
Just just videos.
And then, well, last Christmas, DVD.
And so there we are in the Goozicome
with videos and DVD.
And so, look, it's not like I'm on
a big anti-television campaign.
We had our own reasons in our family
for doing this.
I'll tell you, it's been a blessing.
It's been a tremendous blessing for our family,
even though definitely there's things that I miss,
you know, man, I miss watching the Dodger
games and I like watching the news and
such.
But I get along just fine in any
regard.
You know, it's not like I have this
phobia about television.
You know, oh, get it away from my
eyes.
I cannot see it.
And so nowadays, when I'll see some television,
typically over at somebody else's house, it looks
weird.
You don't know how strange television is until
you haven't seen it for a while.
And more than ever, it just seems to
be meaningless, purposeless.
Just, you know, there's a there's a phrase
that E.
Stanley Jones uses in this.
He said, I had been a raft tossed
by storms and waves of meaningless emotion.
You know, I tell you, there's a lot
of that in this world.
A lot of it's communicated on television, but
in other places, too.
You don't have to go to television to
find it, but it's one place where there's
a lot of it.
Meaningless emotion.
Who cares?
Well, let me tell you, when you start
living your life for Jesus Christ, when you're
converted by the spirit of God, you have
something to care about.
You have something eternal that matters for all
of eternity.
There's a kingdom that God is advancing that
he wants you to be a part of.
It's a very different way to live.
How about this, what Paul said in Philippians
chapter three, you don't have to turn there
where Paul said, I press toward the goal
for the prize of the upward call of
God in Christ Jesus.
Oh, Paul had a goal and it's our
goal to the upward call of God in
Christ Jesus.
So so far, we've seen a sense of
forgiveness and reconciliation, a sense of being at
home in my homeland, a sense of purpose,
direction and goal.
I think all of those are thoroughly scriptural.
Let's take a look at the fourth one,
a sense of not being alone.
And notice this, he says, I had another
who knew and understood me perfectly and was
always with me in spite of knowing me.
He loved me.
I was loved and I was giving love.
I was no longer preoccupied with myself.
My entire being went out in gratitude and
love to another.
Myself absorbed me no longer.
This was the greatest emancipation.
With it came a sense of terror and
I began to think and care for others.
Is that something that should be the property
of every Christian, if you're born again, if
you're converted by the spirit of God, that
you have a sense of not being alone,
you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 2820,
Lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the age.
Always.
That's how long Jesus would be with his
people.
Always.
He would never leave us.
And I think he wants us to sense
that he wants us to sense his presence,
to sense that he is the center of
our life, that we're too preoccupied with being
preoccupied with him and not with ourselves.
How about this?
The fifth one that Jones mentions, he says
that when he was converted, he gained a
sense of being a person.
I like how he puts this one.
My total being was awakened and coordinated and
fulfilled.
One man said, I'm not a man, I'm
a menagerie.
I was a menagerie to growling with passions
in a state of tension.
But now I was at peace with myself
and respected myself as a person.
My whole being was awakened, including my mind.
Well, that's what it should be like when
we come to Jesus.
How about Second Corinthians 517?
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is
a new creation.
All things have passed away.
All things have become new.
You're a new person.
Might I say you are a person, perhaps
for the first time.
Oh, before you got this war, this battle,
this this strangeness going on, that there should
be a clarity because now you're a new
man in Christ Jesus.
You now are a new person because you
are in the ultimate person, Jesus Christ himself.
That's what you are, a new creation in
him.
And so we can agree heartily with E.
Stanley Jones when he talks about this sense
of being a person.
Now, the sixth one he mentioned was a
sense of wholeness, he says, fragmentation was over.
Life was pulled into central meanings and purposes
around a single center.
This is almost a variation on the fifth
one that he gave about a sense of
being a person.
But, you know, many of us feel so
scattered that there's no unifying principle in our
life.
They say that scientists are searching for the
great unifying principle of the universe, some theory
or explanation, you know, something on par with
Einstein's, you know, E equals MC squared, you
know, the theory of relativity and all of
that.
They're looking for some sort of equation that
will explain the whole universe in one equation.
Well, listen, I'm here to tell you that
there is a equation that explains the whole
universe and brings everything into a central place
in the equation reads like this.
Jesus, that's it.
He's the center of everything.
Life was pulled into central meanings and purposes
around a single center.
You know, there are planets and then there
are meteors.
Meteors just sort of fly through the heavens,
fly through the universe until they crash into
something.
There's no real power, just flying around.
And then there are planets which have a
center and they orbit around the center.
Well, I think that some lives, most lives,
all lives before they are converted, they're like
meteors, they're just flying about in the space.
Who knows where they will go?
They're not even like comets that have a
big circle, you know, that go around a
big sphere.
They're just flying about through the heavens like
meteors waiting to crash into something.
No, but it's different when we come to
Jesus, he he puts us around his orbit.
And, you know, I don't know about you,
but I want his gravitational pull on me
to become stronger all the time so that
the orbit gets tighter and tighter and tighter.
You know, some of us are like Pluto
way out there at the end of the
galaxy.
You know, I want to be what is
it, Mercury?
That's the closest to the sun.
That's what I want to be.
I don't have Mercury.
It's one of those planets out there.
So a sense of wholeness.
Now, listen to what Paul says in First
Thessalonians, Chapter five.
He says, Now, may the God of peace
sanctify you completely and make your whole spirit,
soul and body be preserved blameless at the
coming of our Lord Jesus.
He who calls you is faithful and who
will also do it.
And you get into a big debate with
theologians.
Well, spirit, soul, body.
You know what?
I don't we could get into the big
debate here.
Can we just say that Paul means to
be comprehensive?
Everything is drawn together around Jesus Christ.
Fragmentation is over.
This should be the property of every Christian
at conversion.
And then finally, that's First Thessalonians, Chapter five,
verses 23 through 24.
Now, finally, Jones mentions a sense of grace.
And let me read his description to you
about that.
He says, How did this happen to me?
I felt so undeserving and unworthy.
And yet it was mine.
I found myself going into solitude and reading
my New Testament.
And when it came across a verse which
spoke of him, I found myself reverently pressing
my lips to that verse.
Isn't that a beautiful picture thing?
Oh, this is so precious.
If I could, I would kiss this verse.
That's a precious picture, a little strange, honestly,
but it's very precious.
It says, I gaze at him and wonder
and wonder until my knees bend in gratitude.
But soon I'm up on my feet again
with the compulsion, a divine compulsion to share
this with everyone, everywhere, a sense of grace.
And I think of what Peter said in
First Peter, Chapter four, verse 10, he says,
as each one has received a gift, minister
it to one another as good stewards of
the manifold grace of God, the manifold grace
of God.
That means the many faceted grace of God.
And he says to do it as stewards,
which means you've been given the grace of
God.
Now be a good steward over it.
Well, I think the fact that we've been
given this grace speaks to the fact that
we should live our lives with this sense
of grace that E.
Stanley Jones speaks about.
Now, let me read the list to you
one more time and then I'm just going
to make a few comments about it and
then we'll be done for the evening.
The list he gives, again, just in the
headings of it, is he says, number one,
that he gained a sense of forgiveness and
reconciliation with God, with life, with my brothers
and with myself.
Number two, a sense of being at home
in my homeland.
Number three, a sense of purpose, direction and
goal.
Number four, a sense of not being alone.
Number five, a sense of being a person.
Number six, a sense of wholeness.
And number seven, a sense of grace.
Now.
You have me read that list to you
and you listen to it and you say.
Do I have the sense of those things?
Honestly, now.
Between you and God, do you have a
sense of those things?
Or is it running kind of low in
your Christian life on those things?
Now, let me say this, first of all,
by way of observation.
If life is alive with these senses, then
the Christian is never defeated.
How can a Christian be defeated if they're
alive with the sense of these things?
It's absolutely impossible.
You just can't be burdened with a sense
of defeat.
If you go around with the sense of
forgiveness, of being at home with purpose, direction,
a goal of not being alone.
All of these things are the opposite of
defeat.
If you have the sense of these things.
Now, I'm not talking about just having the
fact of them.
A person can have the fact of forgiveness
without the sense of forgiveness.
A person can have the fact of direction
without the sense of it or the fact
of being at home in their homeland without
the sense of it.
But here, Stanley Jones is very specific.
He talks about having the sense of all
of these things.
Let me say, secondly, that these things are
the birthright of every Christian.
They belong to us as adopted children of
God.
Might I say that these seven things, these
are not matters of maturity.
It's like mature Christians have the sense of
forgiveness, but immature Christians don't.
No.
Friends, these are not marks of maturity.
These are the birthrights of every believer of
Jesus Christ.
These are matters of.
Listen carefully.
These are not marks of maturity.
They are matters of faith and abiding.
This is your birthright.
It's this is the environment of the household
of God.
And if you live in the household of
God, you live in this environment and you
should sense it.
You say, well, what if I don't?
Then what's wrong with me if I don't?
Well, I'll tell you, there's a lack of
one of two things.
Either there's a lack of faith or there's
a lack of abiding.
And really, the two are connected.
It's almost two different ways to describe the
same thing.
There's something wrong there with your faith link,
your spiritual link with Jesus Christ.
Friends, when you think about it, there is
no reason for a Christian to be without
the sense of forgiveness.
To be without the sense of being at
home in their homeland, to be without the
sense of purpose, direction and a goal, to
be without the sense of not being alone,
without the sense of being a purpose, without
the sense of wholeness and without the sense
of grace.
I think we're prone to just make a
lot of excuses about these things in our
Christian life.
And when we see that we lack these
things, we should be on our knees before
God and say, Lord God, I want these
things as a possession in my life.
Won't you grant them unto me in Jesus
name?
That is the fact of the matter.
These things are the birthright of every Christian.
They belong to us as adopted children of
God.
They're not matters of maturity, but they're matters
of faith and abiding.
Next, I would point out that these things
come from Jesus, from him.
We waste a lot of time in our
Christian life waiting for other people to bring
these things to us, or we blame people
or we blame groups or institutions or churches
for not giving us these things.
This is vain because these things come from
Jesus.
If you don't have a sense of forgiveness
in your life, don't you blame your husband
or wife?
Don't you blame the church?
Don't you blame that friend who made you
cross?
And maybe they were totally wrong.
Maybe you're completely innocent and they're completely right.
Are you telling me that what they did
to you robbed you of your sense of
forgiveness, your sense of being at home in
your homeland, your sense of purpose and direction
and goal?
You've just been ripped off by the devil,
haven't you?
Well, he's robbing you blind.
You think that those things are given to
you by other people or by institutions or,
God forbid, by pastors or leaders.
They're given to you by Jesus Christ.
Don't waste your time waiting for other people
to bring you those things.
They can be your possession now by faith
and abiding in Jesus Christ.
You know, it's almost as if we come
together as Christians to enjoy these things together.
We get together with a bunch of other
people, have the sense of forgiveness.
And man, isn't it sweet?
You get together with other people, have the
sense of being at home in the homeland.
Here we are all together.
Great.
We're all at home in our homeland.
We don't come together to gain these things
from one another, though, as we come to
Jesus together, he can bestow them upon us.
But friends, we don't get confused about this,
do we?
We come together to enjoy them, not to
gain them.
We gain them from Jesus.
And Jesus may come and meet us and
give us these things while we are with
other people.
But we don't gain them from other people.
We gain them from Jesus.
I could put it to you this way.
In conclusion, I would say that these things
are rooted in our vertical relationship, not in
our horizontal relationship.
There is a great error that people make
in understanding the Christian life.
For some people, the Christian life is all
horizontal.
It's all about their relationships with other people.
And if they're getting along with other people
fine, then their Christian life is fine.
If they're not getting along with other people
very well, then their Christian life isn't very
good.
Now, there are other people for whom their
Christian life is all vertical.
You know, I don't care about you one
bit, brother.
I'm abiding in God.
And that's the attitude that they have.
Oh, that it's all just about me and
God and you don't matter at all.
Where the true Christian life is both vertical
and horizontal, each component is essential.
But if you think in your mind about
the classic picture of a cross and think
about the classic picture, we don't know exactly
what Jesus's cross looked like.
But think about the classic conception of the
cross.
Which beam is longer?
Well, the vertical one.
The vertical one is more important and it
comes first.
But it's also absolutely necessary to have the
horizontal component.
We live with both, but we don't kid
ourselves about which one is primary and which
one gives us these things.
Let me read it one more time.
A sense of forgiveness and reconciliation with God,
with life, with my brothers, with myself, a
sense of being at home in my homeland,
a sense of purpose, direction and goal.
Dear brothers and sisters, have you been waiting
for the church to give you that?
A sense of not being alone, a sense
of being a person, a sense of wholeness
and a sense of grace, these things that
E.
Stanley Jones mentions in his biography and that
we've gone by passage by passage and found
to be entirely scriptural.
These things are given to us by our
vertical relationship, not by our horizontal relationship.
That's not to say that the horizontal relationship
is not important.
Matter of fact, one of the most effective
ways that the horizontal relationship is important is
as a measure of our vertical relationship.
Because remember what the Apostle John says in
1 John, he says, anybody who says I
love God and hates his brother, he's a
liar and the truth isn't in him.
So both are important.
But don't look to the horizontal relationship to
give you those things that can only be
gained at the vertical relationship.
How about it?
You know, as I read that list to
you, was there one or two of them
that really struck your heart?
Oh, I don't have that.
And oh, do I want it.
Oh, do I need it.
Then, you know, why don't you come to
God in faith and abiding and say, oh,
I need that, Lord.
Lord, you didn't just love E.
Stanley Jones and not love me.
You want to give those things to me.
You want me to live my life with
a full conception, with a full sense of
those things.
God loves you enough to give it if
you have the faith to receive it.
So, Father, that's my prayer to conclude this
evening is to call out to you and
to say, Lord, God, pour out your spirit
upon us.
Speak to us, Lord.
We don't want to live a single additional
day of our Christian life without the sense
of these things.
We regard these things, Lord, scripturally.
So as our birthright, as adopted sons and
daughters of God.
These are not things that we have to
earn before you.
These are not things that we have to
gain some level of spiritual maturity before we
can lay hold of.
Lord, we believe that they are ours as
adopted sons and daughters by faith in Jesus.
And God, forgive us, Lord, forgive us.
We we were mistaken.
We were misguided all those times where we
thought we would gain those things from people.
From churches, from leaders.
Lord, it was mistakes of ignorance and misdirection.
Be merciful for us, for those those misguided
things.
But, Lord, we don't want to be misguided
any longer.
We want to be put on the right
place on the right path.
Help us to do it, Lord.
Fill our lives with your goodness, we pray
in Jesus name.
Amen.