Jacob Becomes Israel!

I mean, that’s how this guy functions. He and Laban, his uncle, deceived each other to no end, playing little games with each other. And Jacob got the upper hand and he’s a very rich man now. And so he decides he wants to go back and he wants to make amends with Esau. He’s got all kinds of gifts. He’s prepared them and he has sent those gifts onward to Esau saying, please don’t kill me. And he sent his family between.

So he sent the gifts, then the family, and then he’s going to come along at the end. I don’t know what his plan was there. To me it would be good if he was to go on the forefront and face the music. But Esau was never good with music. So here’s Jacob at the very end of the line. So now he has sent his family moving on towards Esau and then it says, and Jacob was alone. I just want to mention to you in passing, Jacob has been alone all of his life, even in the house of his father and his mother. He was really in many, many ways alone.

His mother was whispering to him on the side, don’t worry about Esau, it’s going to take care of him somehow, you’re going to have the birthright, you are going to be known as the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, you’re going to be in that family line. I know your brother was born about two minutes before you, but it’s going to happen to you. He lived in this house of tension where the dad favoured the older son. So he was very much alone. And so it says he’s left alone and a man wrestled with him. So a man shows up out of no one he saw that he did not prevail against him.

That is the man who was with him who turns out to be the Lord God himself. When he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the socket of his thigh, of his hip. And the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, the man says, let me go. That statement, that concept is nowhere else in the scriptures. So here’s this deceiver, this liar, this cheater, this runner. And he’s asking for a blessing. And the reply was, what is your name? His name means a deceiver.

And his name means he’s a liar, he’s a trickster. What is your name? I’m the liar spelled with a capital L. And the reply was, your name will no longer be called liar, deceiver, trickster. Your name from now on will be Israel for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. I’m awestruck by this whole thing. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’m just totally awestruck by the fact that he and his mother conspire, sneaks up on dad who’s blind and can’t function very well, is about to die, tricks his dad into believing that he’s Esau. In spite of all of that, tricking his father in a pathetic, pathetic way, God blesses him. God blesses him. It absolutely strikes me as amazing. But I want to go back now and just remind all of us that this story really started with Abraham. And when God called Abraham out of the place called Ur of the Chaldees, which is somewhere between Iraq and Iran, we’re not really certain.

There’s been stories about some archaeologists have found that they found Ur, but there was no street signs, no neon signs left to tell really, really, really if that ever cloud was ever mixed up, you’ve got a new opportunity, a brand new special day, and that’s proven in the life of Jacob. So Abraham’s called out of the Ur of the Chaldees, and he’s given a great promise, land, he’s promised a great name, and that all of the world would be blessed because of him. He goes on and has a son in a miraculous fashion at his very old age, and the story goes on now that the promise of Abraham goes on to Isaac. But of all things, this deceiver, this trickster, the promise goes on to him.

So what does the story of Jacob really teach us? It’s as if God is reminding David, I’ll leave you out of this for a minute. I’ll just say, it reminds David that there are no perfect people, there’s no perfect family, and I’m sorry to report as beautiful as you look this morning. You look so angelica. Some of you need some fresh batteries in your halo, but you’re doing okay. But there’s no, listen, there’s no perfect church. There’s no perfect church. I’ve been made aware.

I’ve had an assistant pastor call me just within the last couple of weeks, saying there’s this little renegade group in the church that is out to put out the pastor. They’re having little meetings after the service in the lobby and whatever. They’re phoning each other and whatever. The church is packed to capacity. They’re seeing new people coming in all the time. They’re having a new Christians class to manage all the people who are getting saved. But somebody, and this pastor told me, this fellow told me, says, there’s this one man who’s leading the pack.

And he said, he’s out to destroy the pastor and says, you watch it. We’re going to get rid of him. And I said, what’s your pastor going to do? He says, my pastor, the guy that I support says, they plan to have a vote of confidence on him. He said, I’ll never let it happen. He said, I’m not going to let them demean me like that. If it comes to that, I’m taking the high road and I’m leaving. And his assistant fellow said, I’m leaving a half hour before you.

This kind of thing is always possible. April knows very well. We were involved in a very large church. I was an assistant. I was the assistant. I wasn’t the lead pastor. The church was packed to capacity. The church was turning away, literally turning away people every Sunday. I had a glorious, wonderful opportunity for each. I was in the pulpit pretty well every Sunday. I was not the lead pastor. I felt so honored and things were going so well until after a Sunday morning service, a man said, stay behind. I need to talk to you about you. And he said, I just want you to make sure you keep your nose clean and don’t get any ideas about moving along. You stay here. We have plans for the pastor.

You’ll be moving into the personage, very soon. Just stay the course. We’re going to manage him. April remembers, I’m sure that Sunday afternoon after church, I’m out cooking up the hamburgers on the grill. She came out and she found me weeping. She said, what’s going on, what’s wrong? I said, we have to leave. No, no.

Why? Why? Everything was perfect. I mean, everything was perfect. Why? I said, because this is not a perfect church. There’s trouble brewing. And I explained it to her and she said, but what does our leaving, what does that do? I said, if we leave, that takes away the hangman’s noose from the posse.

They won’t have me as the backup man. I went to the senior pastor and I said, you know, it’s time for me to put on my big boy pants. I’m going to be moving along. He was destroyed. David, what have I done? What have I done to make them, why? Why are you leaving me? And I couldn’t tell him. I was not going to tell him that there was a group in the church who preferred me over him. He was heading shoulders above me. He was a wise man. He mentored me. He groomed me. He helped me so very much. I wouldn’t have been the man that I was had it not been for him. But there’s this crew that wanted me over him.

What a pathetic situation. And so we left that church and God helped us and God blessed us. God blessed that church and it’s running a couple of thousand to this very day. It’s glowing like a candle at nighttime. It’s doing wonderfully. But the moment was salvaged when I decided I will not be a part of this thing. I refuse. It would have been a glow. It would have been the story across Canada.

Day four is not not not a day over 26 years of age. Pastoring one of the flagships of God. I would have been a hero. I would have been a broken man. I could not stand that I couldn’t even think of it. And I went to his funeral. He died not knowing that he didn’t pastor the perfect church. Of course he knew it wasn’t perfect. I’m here to tell you that God blesses people in spite of their errors and in spite of their downfalls. In spite of their failings, there’s a message for you and for me this morning. No matter what you’ve done, no matter what has transpired in your life, you are special in his purpose. And when he looks upon you, he does not see any stains or whatever. He can’t see you without looking through Jesus. Jesus is the beautifully crafted stained glass window that in order for the Father to see you, he has to see you through that beautiful elegant picture. All of your failings and your fault rings are lost.

I want to chat with you this morning about people who are like Jacob. Think about it, until he was 15 years of age, he had a grandpa whose name was Abraham. Can you imagine the stories? Grandpa, tell me, you said that God visited you and told you to come out of Ur of the Chaldees. Interesting that in the book of Genesis, there’s no record of how that little visitation took place. Was it a dream? Was it a vision? Did a man show up at the door?

That kind of element is frequently found. Like Jacob wrestling with a man in the middle of the night and halfway through the night, he recognized it came to his attention. I’m wrestling with none other than God. And that kind of bends our little two by four, doesn’t it, that God becomes a man? No. Jesus became a man and died on the cross. And that little situation where a man wrestles with Jacob, it’s called in theological terms a theophany.

It’s Jesus showing up for a moment to teach us a divine lesson, but we need to discover that lesson yet this morning. So in order to discover the lesson, a lesson is usually an educated moment to help be uneducated, to bring to light, to teach, to draw, to show the way. Jacob had not found the way. He had the most educated teacher in the whole world, Abraham. How did that change him? How did it sink in? It appears.

It just did not sink in. And his mother had a visitation in a spiritual fashion from the Lord saying, you have two nations within you. And the little one who’s going to hang on to his brother’s heel is going to be the one that’s going to be a marked man for my power and for the future people of the world. So he had the testimony of grandpa. He had the story even of Isaac who also had a head of visitation from the Lord. He now had his mother continuously reminding him that there was a prophetic word. God has a plan and a purpose for you and it should have been added on.

Sit in the back of the bus, leave the driver alone, leave it to God. He didn’t get it. Pastor Dave, what does that mean to us today? It means that we can hear things through the ear gate and maybe we can even see things with the eye gate and it still doesn’t register. There’s a little isolated verse. I think it’s in the Psalms that says, Israel knew the acts of God, the interventions of God, the movements of God. But Moses knew the heart of God.

So it’s very possible to know with your knower, but the real core knower misses the point. Jacob, you’re a man of destiny. God has a plan for you. But his own grandfather surely said to him, don’t make the mistake that I made. I followed him from Ur of the Cal days to occupy a land that God was giving to me as a gift, a land that was going to flow with milk and honey. But when the honey dried up and the milk was no longer flowing, I deserted the promised land, took your mother to Egypt, your grandmother to Egypt and allowed the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh to take her into his harem.

Your grandmother was being groomed to be the wife of the Pharaoh. I did all of that. I dismissed the promised land because I was fearful that I couldn’t feed you. And I was fearful that the land flowing with milk and honey had to be clearly visible and obvious to me. But because it wasn’t obvious to me, it was just a promise from God. It wasn’t even a sign check. It wasn’t a register check. It wasn’t an e-transfer.

It was just a promise and somehow I let go of a promise and I made a decision. Don’t make the same mistake. He surely told that to his son Isaac who did the very same thing. Almost word for word, almost identical. Things got difficult and what did he do? He didn’t go to Egypt. He went and joined some club med somewhere. Look at his wife and he’d learn from Grampa, from his father, Abraham, that if you tell a little white law, you can get away with all kinds of things.

So we told the very same lie that Abraham had told about Sarah. He told the same lie about Rebekah. So here’s this guy, Jacob, that I believe was always lonesome because he never knew the real core truth. You’re a boy of promise, but you might have to cheat and steal and hurt and disappoint in order to get that promise because it’s just God that promises you. You can’t find him. You can’t see him. He’s not visible to you.

When you can’t see it, when you can’t touch it, when it’s not obvious to you, your fingers of faith start to lose their grip. Have you ever been there? I was there, April dying of cancer and I’m crying out to God. What is wrong with this picture? And I have, I’d love to tell you man of faith and power. I was none of the above. I was losing my way. I just couldn’t understand it.

Maybe I report to you that God wasn’t dependent upon me from my faith. He called in a rescue team. That’s why I believe so much in the local church. Did you hear that? It wasn’t my prayer. It wasn’t my faith. It wasn’t when April was being healed, I’m sitting in another room down the hall feeling sorry for myself. Where are you God?

God was in the room with April. I missed the whole shell because I was down the hall feeling sorry for myself. Like the prophet got upset, sat under a, sat under a tree and said, kill me, I’m done. Oh dear, suicidal tendencies were in the Word of God. I’m not going to say that a second time. We’re not so dwell on those kinds of thoughts. They’re dangerous thoughts. And even Christians have experienced that kind of wasteland. They grow weary.

I want to encourage you this morning as I’m speaking first of all to David and then to you. How is your relationship with him? Is your relationship based on Sunday mornings at 11 o’clock? Dear God, if this is your religion or whatever you want to, if this is you all week, thank God it’s Sunday. I get my little hour and Dave will get up there and he’ll perform and you make me feel good all over the place. And that’s the end of it and you can’t wait for next Sunday.

No, no, no, no, no, get into the Word of God. Get into the Word of God because Jacob was a Sunday Christian. Can I put it that way? As long as Abraham was speaking to him, he’s, he’s naughty. Do you believe that son? Oh, I believe it. I believe it, grandpa. He’s crazy. Do you understand?

I get it. I get it. Rebekah, you’re a child of promise. I get it. I get it. He had it all up here. He didn’t have it down here. And at that point in his life, when he ran, when he ran away because Rebekah said he’s going to kill you, she should have finished it up with and God can’t protect you from Esau. You better run. And when he ran that day, if somebody was recording specifics at that moment, they wouldn’t have said the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac. He was not yet the God of Jacob. Now you say, Pastor Dave, how can you say that? God makes up his mind, who, whatever. I’m saying, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, that concept is seen from two advantage points.

God would say, you’re mine and I’m counting on you. But then there’s the other side where one confesses, he’s my God. You get that point, don’t you? So on that day, God was following him and pursuing him, but he was not a man of faith. Do you understand the promise? Well he was an intelligent fellow, he understood the promise, but he didn’t grasp it. And he was so mixed up to the point where when he woke up in the morning after that Jacob’s ladder thing, he got all excited and said, this is incredible. I discovered the house of God.

And he called it Bethel, the house of God. That tells you he had it, it had not kind of found its way into his mind. God is omnipresent everywhere. How much I know I’ll think. All powerful, even over Esau. And his word is powerful and undeniable. And when he sends his word, it does not return to him like a mouldy piece of bread. If God says it, it’s done. That was not in his heart.

Like a little child who’s been raised in Sunday school and can quote all the verses, can quote all the Sunday school lines. When I was a child, I didn’t have a choice of whether I went to church and I was in the backseat of the car, either happily or with a rear end that was read and by a stick. I went to church, never missed Sunday school. It wasn’t allowed. And I got a reward for that. I won a Bible with my name printed on, and the pastor signed it. I won a prize for sitting in the backseat of the car on Sundays.

And I learned my memory verse, but I had not yet experienced God for myself. My experience with God, maybe he’s not unlike yours. For me, it came in layers. I believed in my dad, he’s God. I believed in my mom’s God. I went to church with them. I watched them sing. I watched them worship. My mother was a beautiful soloist.

And by time she was in the pulpit singing songs and I sat there so proud. But it wasn’t in here. It was here. There’s a couple of things happening in my life and I’m not going to go down the road with all of that. But I can tell you this, that I experienced an ear infection. I can’t give you the medical, all the facts of it. But I do know that I was in desperate trouble and my mother raised me to a doctor. And he sent me immediately into the hospital and they did some surgery in my ear.

They put me out and the doctor said, good thing you brought him when you did. If that thing had broken, it was some kind of a pus filled whatever. And he said, if it had broken, the poison would have raced through his system. We might have lost him. So I was salvaged because the doctor made the move. During that week, I felt a little bit of pressure building. Saturday night, I don’t remember where I was. It doesn’t really matter. But I felt significant pressure building in my ear.

And by Sunday morning, I couldn’t open my jaw to speak without diabolical pain. And all I could say through my teeth, clenching my teeth, mom, it’s back. It’s back. The pain was incredible. It was the same pain, same location, but much more critical. Mom says, well, if it’s not any better this afternoon, we’ll have to take you and get it looked at. I went to church like in dire pain, sat through a Sunday school class, terrible pain that I was experiencing.

The teacher asked me questions. I never answered him. Now, as I came down the stairway from this classroom, a little cubby up above the auditorium, as I came down. I walked through the pastor’s little room where he would wait before he went on to the platform. And he knew that I’d had this surgery. So he stopped me and said, say, David, how’s that ear of yours working? I went into tears, shouldn’t he? I don’t know my cheeks.

I said, it’s bad, pastor. I’m going to go to the hospital. Something’s bad. My pastor stood up, put his hands upon my head and said, dear Jesus, heal my young friend here and now in the name of Jesus. And it was gone. Nothing drained out of my ear. That happened in a moment, in an instant. During the service right in the middle of the song service, that pastor went to the pulpit, he said, I just got to stop. He said, there’s a young fellow here with a testimony. David Forrest, please stand up and tell us what you just went through. My message to you this morning is, it seems to me that at that very moment, I had prayed this sinner’s prayer in a little church in Hagersville. But it was an emotion, a moment, it was a beautiful moment. And I meant it at the time. I was kind of like Jacob. Yeah, this is good.

Yes. Yeah, okay. I’m agreeing, mom, Rebekah. Yeah, I get it. But in that moment on that Sunday morning when I stood up, the Word of God says, if you’re believing your heart and you can fast with your mouth, a miraculous transformation, a transition will take place in your life. When I stood to my feet that morning, the God of my mother, the God of my father, the God of my grandparents, the God of my pastor, he became my God when I spoke it.

I hesitate to tell you this this morning, but I have a sister who was raised in the same house, and was taught to put her jam on the toast the same way I was. Went to Sunday school like everybody else. Big friends in the church like everybody else. Not serving God today, not in the least. And I won’t go any further on that. What happened? She was in church. If she’d seen the pastor, she would have been careful to say, good morning pastor.

She’d been asked to repeat like everybody else in a Sunday school class or whatever. Let’s confess with our mouths this morning. I believe in Jesus. She would have said it. It’s not enough to say it. It’s not enough to say it. It’s got to come out of the innermost being. Jacob had not experienced that. There’s a liar. He’s a deceiver. He heard the promise, but he didn’t take it by the horns and say, mine. So I pause this for a moment and remind you that he had that moment when he slept among these rocks. I think this would probably be the backyard of Barney Rubble. What a place to sleep, huh? You’re tired. You’re tired. And the experience is this dream.

And you know it. You have to go over it, but it’s angels ascending and descending. What do you get out of that pastor? What’s the message? Angels ascending and descending. What is man that you are mindful of him the scripture says? You made him a little higher than the angels. To me the message is, Jacob, you’re a deceiver. You’re a man full of mistakes. You’re now a fugitive because of your own undoings. You’ll never see your mother again. You’ll never see your father again. You’re going to be a lonely man for a long time and you’re going to be afraid of your brother. You’re going to live for 20 years in obscurity. But heaven is still open. 

And as angels are ascending and descending, there’s still an opportunity for you. But it goes on to say that in the dream as he looked up at the top of the letter, there’s God. And I believe that God was up there as his personal cheering section. Don’t give up now, son. Don’t give up. I have a plan for you. You little brat, you little rascal. I’m going to get a hold of you. You’re going to do my bidding. That’s my will and you will cooperate.

So he goes and he plays games with Laban. What a mess. Laban’s a trickster. You know the story. He says, I want to marry your beautiful daughter. And he says, well, we still believe in the dowry. So you’re going to earn her. So he worked for her, worked forever and a day, showed up with all of the animals. Like I did it.

He said, OK, tonight she’s yours. Going at about 11 o’clock when all the lights were burned out, that was the mistake he went in. He was so excited he didn’t pay any attention that this girl wasn’t wearing the same perfume as the one he’s accustomed to. Comes out in the morning and says, come on. And the dad says, oh, how did she get in your tent? Will I still have a? Yeah, yeah, well, you’ll have to earn her now.

He got deceived. Hey Jacob, how does it feel? But how does it feel to be lied to? He experienced anger and disappointment. That was a very good lesson for this guy. For 20 years he and Laban rolled a dice and carried on like a couple of stupid kids. Eventually he says, we got to go. The two women that he was married to, they fought like cats and didn’t one of them sneak off with a little tin God hidden in the blankets. What does that tell you?

Did Jacob get it? He’s got this woman that he lives with. She’s had how many kids, 12 kids with him. And he never took a moment to say, you get rid of that tin God, but Laban likes it. I don’t care what Laban likes. But no, he was not drilling down on purpose and principle. He was doing what was convenient. It’s called existentialism. Do you know what’s convenient now?

It was Black Lives Matter. Then it was the me too thing. Then it’s the cancel culture thing. And now it’s woke-ism. That’s called existentialism. It’s in order to get you all confused and all mixed up. You live for the moment and we’ve got a whole generation that are living like Jacob’s. They’re actually being taught by our own. Careful David, but the top leadership of Canada lied.

You’ll probably get away with it. Jacob lied. Isaac lied. Abraham, Isaac, now Jacob. He learned it well. I feel like going until one o’clock. I’m on a roll. Somebody’s crying out right now. Help him, Jesus.

No. Ha. Jacob was raised in the right Sunday school. Learned his memory verse. But his experience with God was hard to see even with a magnifying glass. God wasn’t done with him yet. He was learning a lot of hard lessons. He wants to go home. Why does he want to go home?

Does he really want to make things up with Esau? No, he just doesn’t want to die. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but not today. He’s playing the game. What’s he after? The promised land. If I can get back there, maybe God will help me. Maybe God will protect me. Maybe I can get back on the gravy train.

Abraham, Isaac, maybe. So now he’s alone. And he’s restless, I’m sure. He sent goods on millions of dollars worth of gifts to Esau. And he sent his wives and all of his kids and all of his servants and a bunch of goats, sheep and who knows what else? Few donkeys. He’s alone. I’m sure he can’t sleep.

This was not a dream now. This wasn’t like the ladder, whatever. Remember, he did not in the dream go up the ladder. He simply saw it. I believe it was an invitation. He wasn’t ready to get on the ladder. So now this man shows up from nowhere and convinces him we should wrestle. Now, it may be that Jacob was not a happy participant. Somebody puts you in an arm lock and you feel like your arms are going to break.

You’ll start to wiggle. And pretty soon you’re in a headlock and you’re going to wrestle for your life. And what God is trying to do, this guy, Jacob, is like a wild stallion who’s got so much promise but is missing it. So God’s got him in a corral. He’s put a halter on him. And God’s riding on Jacob like a cowboy rides on a stubborn horse. You know what the cowboy does? He rides that horse until he breaks his spirit.

And God rode Jacob all night till he broke that stubborn spirit. Before that, Jacob had already prayed and said, oh, dear God, I don’t deserve anything. He starts playing up. Can we make it with like, let’s make a deal. I know what I’ve got here. I just want to know what’s behind the curtain. We make a deal here, Lord. I don’t believe that the prayer is all that much. I don’t believe the prayer is that sincere.

It’s not that deep. He’s like somebody who never bothers with God until there’s a crisis. There’s a lot of Christians like that. They pray once a year when the income tax thing is too. Oh, dear God, look at the mess I’m in. They’re not people of prayer, but all of a sudden they’ll pray. I believe that Jacob’s prayer in that hour just before the wrestling match. It’s not unlike the Christian. The Christian who’s not had a moment for the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob becomes your God. He’s your God. And in that hour, God tests them and says, what’s your name? Jacob. There’s a lot left out there, I’m sure. I’m sure that that wrestler said to him, what do you think that means? How come you think you got that name? That name matches you to a T. You are a deceiver and a liar.

Admit it now. Admit it. Repent of it and change your ways. You prayed a prayer to me just shortly ago and said, I’ll serve you. I’ll do whatever you want. I want to know if I can collect on that, Jacob. I want to know. And if you follow me and you’ll do as I say, you’ll be known as Israel, no matter what the US Congress in the United States says.

If I call you Israel, you’re Israel. And if I say to you, that’s my land and I give it to you, it’s your land. And don’t back off, Netanyahu, get into the book. The promise is that. And yes, it’s ugly war and yes, terrible things are happening, but he didn’t start the world. He’s still trying to get those people out of there. And if he backs off now and does what Biden tells him, lay down your arms and go in there and kiss the toes of Hamas.

They will break out, they’ll slip those, they’ll carry on like demons again. He’s got to finish the job. Where are you going with this, David? You’re working up quite a sweat. My concern is that my relationship with him is not 40 miles wide and a half inch deep. What’s 40 miles wide? I’ve been preaching for something like 58 years. Wow. No.

Paul, the apostle who would ever compare themselves to him. He says, I count everything, everything, everything that I’ve ever done. I count it but done. Oh, that I might know him. That’s what I want. I want to know him. I want to be as riveted with him as he seems to be riveted with me. I know he’s my papa. I know he’s sitting in the drawing room and he’s waiting for me.

I’m too busy outside playing with the boys and playing in the sandbox. Papa’s waiting for me to come and sit on his knee, rip my arms around his neck and say, oh, papa, I love you. He wants a relationship with you. Keep your ties. That’s nothing. He wants you. He wants you. I heard a beautiful story with this. I honestly close. At least I feel honest right now. I heard a beautiful story about a Welsh revivalist and he was given to getting alone and praying by the hour and he went up into the highlands of Wales. April and I have been to Wales, but we never got outside the city. We were there in a ministry focus and never left town. We never got to see the beautiful landscapes and the hills and the dales and whatever else is there. But, just gentlemen, he lived there.

He was a Welshman. The story is that he went out and he stood up on some kind of a cliff and there were mountains, apparently high rises everywhere, big mountains. He spent the day there crying out. He’s crying for revival. He’s been ultra successful already, but to him that was not enough. It didn’t matter if there were 10,000 say. There’s still a hundred thousand yet to know and his cry was that God would come through. His cry was that he could be an instrument and he started crying out.

Fun, you got down to one little phrase and he was crying out. More of you. More of you. And suddenly it occurred to him. He was hearing a voice from the distant hills. More of you. Here’s an echo. It was an echo. But it was a profound moment.

Do you want more of God? Good. Because he wants more of you. And that’s where it begins. It begins with me. I want more of you. And that comes just as I am without one plea. What’s a plea? Well, it’s something that the accused says to the judge to kind of excuse himself.

What a beautiful song. Just as I am without an excuse. Just as I am without one plea. But that your blood was shed for me. I really want to come to you. I want to crawl up on your lap. Put my arms around your neck. I want to feel your heartbeat. I want you to whisper to me.

I want to be able to whisper so quietly to you and be assured he heard me. If you walk with him on a regular basis, you’ll never doubt he’s hearing you. You’ll never doubt. If you are in a close relationship with him, you’ll never doubt. Never. You’ll know that you know that you know. Out up here, down here, you’ll know. Stand with me. 

And .. He walks with me and he talks with me.

He tells me I am his own.