Well, I don't know how you convince
a bunch of white boys
and a bunch of black boys
and a bunch of Latino boys
to all gather together
in a tiny little room
on a miserable night in November
to hear Bible preaching.
That must be Jesus.
So let's open the Bible together.
So, last night for those of you that weren't here,
we began looking at the book of Philemon.
And we were talking about the fact
that men are called to lead
and they're called to lead well;
they're called to lead biblically.
They're called to lead themselves.
They're called to lead their wives,
their children.
They're called to encourage their friends.
And we saw that Paul is really the example
of skill in leadership.
And he led with his compelling character.
He says, "I, Paul, an old man
and a prisoner for the sake of Christ..."
He led out of who he was
and the weight of what God had done in his life.
And then he led really by a compelling change
that had happened in Philemon.
He's trying to get, if you'll remember,
he's trying to get Philemon
to forgive Onesimus.
Onesimus was a runaway slave
who had done Philemon dirty
and then stolen his money.
And had really stolen himself
away from Philemon.
And now Paul was trying to get Philemon
to forgive this runaway slave.
And so he first of all starts by saying
you should do it;
you should listen to me
because I'm Paul, a prisoner,
an old man for Christ.
And then he goes, and then you should do it
because this guy's now your brother.
He's now my spiritual child.
He's changed.
He used to be - just like everyone in this room
who is a Christian -
he used to be useless.
Now, he's useful.
What a great way to think of yourself
as a Christian.
I used to be useless.
Now, I'm useful.
And then he did it by giving Philemon some space -
the freedom of choice.
He gave Philemon the liberty,
and he said I don't want to constrain you.
I don't want to force you.
I wanted to send Onesimus back
so you could think about doing the right thing
and come to it for yourself.
And this evening, I want to focus
on one verse in the book of Philemon,
and it's verse 6.
And it might sound like it at first,
but I'll explain in a second
why this is not an evangelism verse.
Although, it certainly has some implications for evangelism.
But in Philemon 1:6, it says,
"And I pray that the sharing of your faith
may become effective for the full knowledge
of every good thing that is in us
for the sake of Christ."
"And I pray that the sharing of your faith
may become effective
for the full knowledge
of every good thing that is in us
for the sake of Christ."
Can you imagine that?
Having a fuller knowledge of everything that is in you?
For the sake of Christ.
Knowing more about all that's in you
for the sake of Christ.
Above all, brothers, above all,
all the earthly treasures,
what the Christian wants is to know God.
That's the main thing every Christian wants
is to know God.
If you're not in touch with that right now,
you're not in touch with the main thing
that God has made new about you.
That's that you want to know God.
That's why you're gathered in this little tiny room
is because we want to know God.
The cry of the Christian is the cry
of the Apostle Paul in Philippians -
"That I might know Him."
The difference between being of the world
and being of Christ is the world
does not know Him
and the Christian has tasted and seen
that the Lord is good.
The promise of the New Covenant
is "they shall all know Me.
No longer shall a brother say to his brother,
'know the Lord,' but they shall all know Me."
We look at each other around the fire,
we begin to talk about the things of the Lord,
if you're a Christian, and you're like,
"Yes, brother, I know what you're talking about."
Whatever background you come from
racially, socioeconomically,
all of a sudden, you find you have
the most important things in common
with the ones who know the Lord.
How does a Christian change?
We're transformed from one degree of glory to another
as we see Him.
And we shall ultimately be like Him
when we see Him as He is,
because when we see Him as He is,
we will be like Him.
It's a transformative knowledge.
The more you get to know Jesus,
the more you become like Him.
The main thing about being a Christian
is knowing God.
It's everything.
It's everything to know God.
If there's anything in your Christian life
that isn't leading you to know God more,
you are going down a rabbit trail at best,
and you are going down
a destructive path at worst.
Because everything is meant
to serve the Christian and to bring them
to a knowledge of God.
Have you ever thought about this?
The reason we repent
is because we want to know God.
What's the difference between worldly sorrow
and godly sorrow?
Worldly sorrow we're told leads to death.
Worldly sorrow is the kind Judas had
where it makes you depressed,
it makes you suicidal,
it makes you want to kill yourself,
but there's nothing godly about it.
Worldly sorrow is depressed because it lost the world.
Do you know what Judas lost
when he betrayed the Son of God?
He was no longer going to be able to enjoy the rest of his life.
He was going to have a defiled conscience
as being the one who handed over
the Son of God.
But he had no remorse really about losing God.
He had no love for God.
Why do preachers who get caught
in sexual immorality
shed a couple tears
and then just try to get their way through it
in the easiest way possible?
Because they have worldly sorrow.
They're sad that they can't be the preacher anymore.
And they've lost the world.
It's worldly sorrow.
Godly sorrow is sad that it's lost its grip on God.
That's why the slightest sin
can ultimately disturb a Christian, right?
Just the smallest thing.
Ugh! I can't enjoy my Lord!
I'm not walking in fellowship with Him.
It doesn't have to even be something heinous like pornography.
It can be the slip of a tongue.
It can be something that you knew
the Lord didn't want you to do
and you did it anyway,
and then all of a sudden the day is ruined.
It can be 75 degrees out.
There can be no snow clouds in the sky.
It can be all your friends around you,
and it's all misery because you're not
walking in fellowship with God.
And so what do we do?
We have godly sorrow and we repent.
We've got to have God. We've got to have God.
Christians can't keep going on
with something on their conscience
because they've got to have God.
They've got to know God.
The Christian life is all about knowing God,
and it's about knowing Him better and better.
It's not just about coming to know Him
when we're converted.
It's about getting to know Him better and better
after we're converted.
And what I want to point out to you tonight
is that Philemon -
in the book of Philemon,
we're watching Paul,
but Paul is not just giving Philemon
a rule to follow.
Paul's not just trying to give us an example
of what it looks like to be an amazing leader
as important as that is.
Paul's trying to lead Philemon
to know God better.
And what Paul is telling us
is that the way you come to know God better
is by obeying God.
Obedience is God's means
of further revelation to your soul.
Obedience is not just something you do
in response to God's revelation.
It is that.
Obedience is something we do
in response to God's revelation.
Therefore, in view of God's mercies,
offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God.
In view of what He's done;
in view of what you've seen;
in view of what you know,
offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God.
We obey because of what we know,
but we also know more once we obey.
And in that sense, obedience is God's means
of further revelation of Himself
to your soul.
Let me spell this out.
Jesus said it clearer than I'm going to say it.
So we'll just read Him.
He said in John 14,
"Whoever has My commandments
and keeps them,
he is it who loves Me.
And he who loves Me,
will be loved by My Father,
and I will love him
and manifest Myself to him."
Who hasn't prayed for that?
If that's not a regular cry of your heart,
I wonder if you even know the Lord.
I want to see more of You, Lord.
Sir, we would see Jesus.
That's the cry of the Christian.
That's the irony of the Christian.
We know the Lord, and what do we want
more than anything else?
We want to know the Lord.
That I might know Him.
That's our desire.
And here's Jesus telling you,
"I will manifest Myself.
I will display Myself.
I will show Myself to your soul."
The Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians,
in Ephesians 1.
And he prayed for them and he said,
he prayed that they "might have a spirit of wisdom
and of revelation in the knowledge of Him."
He wasn't praying that they would
increase their Bible knowledge.
The Ephesians were notorious
for their Bible knowledge.
You read chapter 1:3-14 of Ephesians
and it's pretty clear Paul knew
they had lots of Bible knowledge
because he's just going off -
praising God for God's election
and adoption, and redemption,
and Spirit-filling and sealing.
He's praising God for all of that,
and then he comes to the end of it
and he goes I just wish this was lit up in your souls.
Isn't that the greatest frustration
of those Christians who have learned good theology?
Lord, why isn't it on fire?
Why isn't it lit up?
I know more glorious truths
than almost every other Christian I meet
and yet, why isn't it on fire?
Why isn't it lit up?
Why isn't the spotlight
burning in my soul?
You know the difference between standing
out in the middle of that patio
and standing by the fire, right?
There's a big difference.
I want to be by the fire.
And you want God's Word
not to leave you out in the cold,
but to be lighting a fire.
And in Ephesians 1, the Apostle Paul
says, "I pray that you'd have a spirit
of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him."
And he prays that the Spirit would
light up our hearts.
Is your heart being lit up?
What did the disciples say on the road back to Emmaus?
Or the road from Emmaus?
As Jesus opens up the Scriptures,
they go, "did not our hearts
burn within us?"
Mormons aren't the only people
who should be talking about the burning heart.
Man oh man, we have the heart
that should burn after God's truth.
You want that, beloved.
You want more of that?
I hate every day I go through life
without the fullness of that.
It's a sadness to the Christian
not to see more of the Lord
and to have - just listen to it -
"I will manifest Myself to you."
"I'm going to show you more of Me."
"I'm going to make your soul quake with My holiness."
"I'm going to make your heart melt with My love."
"I'm going to make your heart thrill with My promises."
"I'm going to show you more about Me."
In Ephesians 1 it says, "That the eyes of your heart
might be enlightened, that you might know
the power that's at work in you."
That you might know the inheritance that you have.
That you might know the hope that you have.
So that heaven is not something
distant and abstract, but it's lit up in your heart.
So that being God's people
is not just like, yeah, I'm a Christian,
but it's gripping your heart,
so that resurrection power
is not something distant and abstract,
but it's something where you face a temptation
and you're like, "I have resurrection power!"
"I know it!"
"I know it's at work in me."
And the pathway into more and more
knowledge of the Lord like that
is greater and greater obedience.
This generation is so confused about obedience.
Every single time you mention the word obedience
in this generation, someone is going to
start talking about legalism.
Beloved, obedience is not legalism.
Legalism is one of two things.
Legalism is when someone says,
"you need to obey this
and then you'll be accepted by God."
That's legalism.
Legalism is when someone adds to the Bible
what's not in the Bible
and says, "Thus saith the Lord,"
when the Lord didn't say anything.
That's legalism.
But the Lord Jesus, when He told us
to go and teach people to obey everything He commanded
was not the world's greatest legalist,
He was the world's greatest Savior.
He was leading His people to follow
the One who had set their souls free
with truth.
And He knew that as He led them in obedience,
they weren't just going to be His rule keepers,
they were going to be increasing
in the knowledge of Christ.
Knowing Him more.
And you ought to meet
every command in the Scripture
as a wide open door of possibility
to know your God better.
Isn't that amazing?
We get a command and we're like,
"that's going to cost me."
"That's going to pinch me."
"That's going to limit me."
"That's going to hinder me."
Rather than thinking, that's going to open me
wide open to knowing Him better.
So here in Philemon 1:6,
the Apostle Paul puts a big umbrella
over the whole book -
a big prayer covering
over the whole book -
and the prayer is that Philemon,
by the sharing of his faith,
would become effective for the full knowledge
of every good thing that's in us
for the sake of Christ.
Now, in our English versions,
this term "pray for the sharing of our faith,"
we can't help but think of evangelism.
We call evangelism "sharing your faith."
And that's good.
Evangelism is sharing your faith,
but evangelism is really not the main focus
of the book of Philemon.
And the whole idea here of sharing your faith
is really "koinonia" your faith.
Participation in your faith.
A sharing of your faith.
So it's really this idea of:
I want you to live out your faith, Philemon.
I want you to put into practice:
Christ is a forgiving God.
I want you to put into practice
that forgiveness towards Onesimus.
Christ is a God who makes people
from different backgrounds brothers.
I want you to put that into practice, Philemon.
And as you put that in practice;
as you share your faith
and participate in your faith
and have this koinonia with the truth,
what is going to happen to you, Philemon,
is that you are going to find
that this becomes effective -
not possible brothers -
effective for the full knowledge
of what we have in us
through the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the full knowledge of every good thing
that is in us for the sake of Christ.
This principle that obedience leads
to greater understanding of the truth,
it's all over the Bible.
It's an evangelistic principle.
John 7:17,
"If anyone's will is to do God's will,
he will know whether the teaching is from God
or whether I am speaking on My own authority."
If there's anyone here who doesn't know
that God's teaching comes through Christ,
I'll tell you why you don't know.
Because you're not willing to do it.
You're not willing to do it.
There is some magazine under your bed;
there's something under your Internet;
there's something in your family;
there's some obedience you know you'd be called to
and you don't want to do it.
And there's some piece of pride in your heart
that you don't want to let go of,
and you do not want to let go of it because the minute that you do,
I'll tell you what, you'll know that it's really from God.
You're in a moral coverup.
You're holding on to your own sin
until you can't even see the truth.
But the minute you're willing to obey,
He'll show you it's all true.
Isn't that amazing?
It goes on not just in our evangelism,
but this principle that obedience
leads to greater revelation
can be found in Colossians 1:10.
And when I say greater revelation,
I don't mean you obey and you get something
better than the Bible.
I mean you obey and you get deeper,
sweeter insight into the Bible.
Colossians 1:10,
the Apostle Paul - we'll start in v. 9 -
starts praying here again.
"And so from the day we heard,
we have not ceased to pray for you
asking that you may be filled
with all the knowledge of His will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding."
So I want you to know God's will
and I don't want you to be fools about it.
I want you to know it in spiritual wisdom and understanding.
I want you to have some savvy
and some spiritual insight.
And so I want you to know God's will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding
so that you can walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
So, you're obedient; walking in a manner worthy of the Lord.
"Fully pleasing to Him,
bearing fruit in every good work
and increasing in the knowledge of God."
I want you to have mature,
balanced obedience
so that you will increase
in the knowledge of God.
The same principle's in Ephesians 3:14-21.
Ephesians 3 - maybe my favorite passage
in the New Testament.
Ephesians 3:14-21.
The Apostle Paul says,
"For this reason, I bow my knees
before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven
and on earth is named,
that according to the riches of His glory,
He may grant you to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in your inner being."
So, the first thing Paul prays:
I want you to have power. I want you to have spiritual power.
That's what you need to obey.
That's what you need to do with will of God.
You need spiritual power.
You don't just need it on the outside coercing you.
You need it on the inside.
And I want to ask that you get this power
in your inner man,
so that...
Christ might dwell in your hearts
through faith.
Well, isn't Christ already dwelling in our hearts?
Yes, He is.
Yet the word here is oikodomia.
It's this idea of settling down at home.
Settling down at home.
One person has illustrated this
that when you move into a house
and decide you don't like the color
of the living room,
so you paint it the color you want.
You don't really like that lima bean green
in the bathroom,
so you change that one up too.
You wanted a patio in the back,
so you build one of those.
And after ten years, you're like, this place...
this is home.
Well, Christ moves in and He's like
I'm not really sure I like what you're doing in the bedroom,
so He rearranges things.
I'm not sure I like what you're doing in the wallet.
So He rearranges things.
And then He settles down increasingly at home.
And pretty soon, you open your wallet,
and you know you've got His smile.
You walk into the bedroom, you know you've got His smile.
You turn on the TV or turn off the TV,
whichever it is and you know you've got His smile.
And you want that power in the inner man
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith.
And then he goes on,
"...so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
that you being rooted and grounded in love."
Your roots are just soaking up the love of Christ.
"...May have strength to comprehend
with all the saints what is the breadth
and length and height and depth
and to know the love of Christ
that surpasses knowledge."
Man, it's important to have knowledge
in the Christian life.
Careful, clear, doctrinal knowledge.
And once you've got it all right,
God will blow it up with His love
and go beyond it.
He does not bypass knowledge.
But He does surpass knowledge, doesn't He.
He goes beyond knowledge, doesn't He.
You want to know God like that?
I love the story of the preacher.
He prayed that God would show Him to himself
in more intimacy and power.
And the Lord just descended on him one day
and eventually he had to ask Him to stop.
He was receiving such manifestations of Christ.
I find in this generation, most of us
are just walking around going, "start!"
I want to live in a "stop" generation.
Lord, it's too much.
It's too much for me.
C.H. Spurgeon said,
"There is as much difference between
a mature Christian and immature Christian
as there is between a believer and an unbeliever."
There's no end to the heights, brothers.
There's no end of the heights
of the knowledge of God
that we can be brought into,
and yet some people are apathetic
in the Christian walk
and they scoot back from obedience
as if they're keeping some freedom for themselves.
We're only cheating ourselves when we
don't walk in obedience to the Lord.
Obedience is the pathway
to further manifestation;
to further illumination;
to further revelation from the Scriptures
of what God is like and who He is for you,
and not only that,
but who you have been made in Him.
I don't know about you, but I find
the greatest moments of being a Christian
are when I just realize I am a Christian.
Man, I'm a Christian!
Saved before the world's foundation.
Before there was a creation, I was on His mind.
He knew I would see the revelation,
Him in all His adoration,
knowing I was His creation,
He walked up Calvary's hill to save me,
before the world's foundation, I was on His mind.
I was with Him all the time.
It's incredible!
And now I'm a new creation.
Now the third Person of the Trinity
has decided to dwell in me,
so that He can cause me to call out
to the first Person of the Trinity,
"Abba, Father,"
through the second Person of the Trinity
who loved me and gave Himself for me.
What a thing it is to be just a Christian!
I just want to walk through life knowing I'm a Christian.
I need the full knowledge
of all that God's done in me.
That's what I need.
And all of a sudden when you get intimidated,
I don't know if you've ever experienced this,
but there's some people I'm intimidated to witness to,
and there's some people I'm not intimidated to witness to.
It's just my shameful pride that makes it that way.
There are some people I feel a little better than,
so I just head right in there
and give the gospel to them.
There's some people,
I don't want them to think I'm a fool,
so I'm a little bit more sophisticated
I like to think.
Cowardly is the real word.
What would I need to overcome that?
Just a full knowledge that I'm a child of the King!
That all I would ever need to be bold
is already in me,
and He wants to help me.
And that, brothers, comes
through a life of obedience.
It comes through a life of running from sin
and running towards righteousness.
Now, I don't mean that now
you can only trust God's going to help you
when you've been perfect that day.
That's not what I'm talking about at all.
That's legalism.
God's not helping you unless you're perfect.
That's not what I'm talking about.
We all stumble in many ways.
But I am talking about a bent;
I'm talking about an orientation;
I'm talking about direction
that says I'm going towards Christ
all the time.
And whenever I see myself fall from that,
I'm asking Him to forgive me
and I keep walking towards the light.
Men like that keep getting more light.
They keep getting more manifestation of Christ
to their souls.
So Paul is saying here to Philemon,
listen, there's a guy who's a slave.
You're a slave owner.
Slave owners and slaves -
you're not really notorious
for having warm, intimate fellowship, right?
Not only that - that he is a slave,
and that you are a slave holder,
he's done you wrong
and you've been wronged.
And not only that,
but he's ashamed
and you know why he's ashamed.
And I want you to extend forgiveness to him,
and I want you to know what it's like
to have him as a brother.
I want you to know what it's like
to see God be the glory
and the lifter of his head
and take his shame away.
I want you to see that God forgave you
and now you get to forgive him.
And I want you to feel the pulsing love of Christ in your heart
forgiving him.
We've been called to walk as Christ walked,
to fellowship in His sufferings,
to fellowship in His forgiveness,
to fellowship in His mercy.
And that's what Paul is inviting Philemon into.
So let me just leave you with this, brothers.
Speak this truth.
We're called to lead.
You speak this truth.
Speak it everywhere you have
even a grain of influence,
and you speak it to each other
over the course of the rest of this retreat.
Speak this truth:
"Oh brother, I hope that God
will help you to walk in the faith
so you'll know more about the faith.
I hope that God will help you to walk in obedience
so that you'll know more of Him."
Don't just speak this truth.
Pray this truth.
Did you notice that I've read four texts
that prove that obedience leads
to greater manifestations of Christ,
and three of them were prayers?
Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon -
those were all, "And I pray..."
Brothers, leadership doesn't start
with you talking to people.
It doesn't start with you at the front of people.
It starts where no one sees us
except our Father.
It starts with us talking about people to God.
Lord, would You let them see?
Lord, would You let them obey?
Lord, would You let them grow in obedience
so they can know more of You?
You know what that does?
That helps you trust the promises of God
for other believers.
One of the biggest problems that happens
when we try to lead people,
is they get the impression that we don't think
they're actually going to grow.
"You really need to do this...
Really need to."
Listen to what Paul says in Philemon.
He says that he's confident that Philemon
will obey.
Do people get that from you?
"Man, I just know that God's at work in your life.
I'm sure you're going to come around to the truth.
I'm just confident that you're going to obey."
Now, I'll admit to you,
there are some Christians -
their lives are dicey.
There are harder moments to believe that isn't there?
You know what Paul said to the Galatians?
I'm confident you'll take no other view than mine.
Even in this urgent moment,
he's like: these are believers.
They're going to turn around.
And in Philemon, he does the exact same thing.
In chapter 1:21, when he says,
"I'm confident of your obedience.
I write to you knowing that you will do
even more than I say."
Well, that's even more isn't it?
I'm laying out to you what I hope Christ will do in your heart.
I just know you're going to do more than that.
Brothers, there's a power that comes
when someone godly expresses
the truth about God towards you.
It's not the power of legalism.
It's the power that John Paton spoke about
when his father raised him
and poured into him all those years,
and then he left his father in the hills of Scotland,
and he said, "I just never wanted to displease that man."
When someone older and wiser
looks at you and says,
"Jesus is working in you,
I just know you're going to go above and beyond
and really walk with Him,"
you really walk away like,
"Oh Lord, I hope that's true!
I want to see that be real in my life.
I want to see that.
I don't want to make that hero of mine ashamed."
Those are wonderful, wonderful motivations.
Fear is not the only motivation.
You need to speak this truth.
You need to pray this truth.
I don't know what you all do for these kinds of things.
I keep a picture book of our church with me
and pray for our people.
This would be one of the things I'd want to pray.
Lord, would You just help them to obey You so they'd know You.
The last thing I want to leave you with
is would you trust this truth tonight?
Would you take - or, I'm confident you will take
a practical next step.
What is it?
What is it for you?
I've been a Christian long enough to know
there's almost always something
gnawing at the conscience of a Christian.
Right?
I know I need to grow.
Well, let the Holy Spirit fill in the blank.
It's not the same for everyone.
Some people - they can barely
pull themselves away from pornography.
Some people - they aren't even tempted to look.
We face different struggles, don't we, brothers?
Some people are just naturally frugal.
Some people just naturally aren't.
But we each stumble in many ways,
and we each have areas the Holy Spirit
puts His finger on
and says, "That one's next."
And when He says, "That one's next,"
our flesh screams.
"Don't touch that one!"
"I'll give You one of those things I'm good at obeying."
I had a guy ask me one time,
how does God help you to be bold?
He was kind of a timid guy.
How does God help you to be bold?
I said I'm going to be honest with you.
That's not really my problem.
I don't have problems being bold in preaching.
I've got problems in being compassionate in preaching.
I've got problems being sweet.
That's where the Holy Spirit might put His finger on me.
Where does He put His finger on you?
That very place is a precious invitation
from the Lord to know Him more.
He wants to reveal Himself increasingly to you.
And this isn't tit-for-tat.
Hey, I had a good day. Where was my revelation?
That isn't how this works, okay.
God is not your genie -
if you do 24/7 of obedience,
He'll give you a nice hour of inundation with His presence.
That's not how this works.
This is all of grace.
It's all of His sovereign good hand.
But I'll tell you one place He won't meet you:
disobedience.
He only has one thing He'll do if He meets you
in disobedience and that is He'll reprove you,
discipline you,
bring you back
even through showers of mercy.
But He wants to reveal Himself to you.
So you take that place, you hold it in your heart.
Maybe you express it to a brother.
And you recognize that place as holy ground
where God wants to begin to keep
walking you in obedience
because He's going to reveal more of Himself to you.
He'll give you more illumination.
And when you speak to people
about the problems in their life,
you realize you're not just there
applying leadership principles.
That's not it.
You're not just trying to get them to be
more biblical or more conservative
or more whatever.
You're inviting them into the knowledge of God.
You're eager to see them grow
in the knowledge of God.
And when that's there, brothers,
when that's there,
you get churches that can be
insanely obedient,
and they just get more gracious,
not more legalistic.
Because they're just all digging for treasure.
Lord, give me more.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank You -
we thank You that You would choose us
and make us Christian,
but we pray that if there are any here
who don't know You,
that they would be willing to obey You
and You would show them that Your teaching is from God.
Lord God, we come before You
and we ask You for those of us who are Christians
that we would see those areas You're pinpointing -
maybe an area of self-control,
maybe an area with our finances,
or an action towards our children,
or our wives - maybe it's a lot of things.
Maybe it's just one thing for now,
but Lord, whatever You open up,
we pray that we would just see it
as the pathway to knowing You better.
And we would just acknowledge
that You have made us know You,
and You've made us want nothing more
than to know You more.
So we would just follow that.
Lord, we plead with You for this,
in Christ's name, Amen.