Ergun Caner is a shallow trollup.

One of the worst sermons I’ve ever heard on dealing with sin. Thanks, Ergun. At least you’re still “edgy”.

Now, I will fully admit that the first remark, while hyperbolous, is a bit indefensible. Ergun Caner may be many things but shallow is probably not one of them.  The second remark I completely stand by and I will defend that remark presently.

The truth is, Ergun’s sermon last night really was one of the worst treatments of dealing with sin that I’ve ever heard.  I would love to try to walk you through the entire sermon, but I can’t.  It’s impractical and it hasn’t been posted online as of writing.  (But you can always look here)

Instead I will summarize my biggest objections.

He used the scripture as a jumping off point, but little else.

It’s actually really difficult to find any strong connection between the scripture and what was said.  I don’t say that to be dramatic, I say that because I seriously have almost no clue how his advice and the scripture being used related.   The scripture (James 1:13-20) deals with a few ideas which he briefly touched on:

1. God does not and cannot tempt us.
2. We are tempted because of our own flesh.
3. Sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. (Which he interpreted as a warning to believers that God will literally take your life if you sin too much…a position I completely disagree with)
4. Every good thing is from God
5. Be quick to hear, slow to speak
6. Anger does not produce the righteousness of God.

Ok, that’s all of the points in the scripture.  Unfortunately, this was only examined for maybe 5 minutes and seemed to have almost no relationship to the rest of his points.

You can even argue that this scripture gives little to no direct advice on the topic of habitual sin.

He mocked those who need the most grace. He discouraged healthy vulnerability.

One of his first targets for ridicule are those he deems “too” honest about their sins.  This was done in the form of a story about a church camp where a young man confesses to his cabin mates “I’m going to stop masturbating.”   Ergun treated this as indefensible and even went as far as making a joke about how undesirable it is for everyone to hold hands after that statement.

What is the problem with this? Well besides completely unnecessary and untoward humor, his example was an example of what we should be encouraging: transparency with issues of sin.  It also completely ignores the gargantuan struggle nearly every guy in the history of humankind has dealt with.

How eager is a freshman addicted to porn going to be to confess his sin to his dorm mates and seek their assistance after such flippant remarks?

A sermon is not stand-up is not a sermon.

While I am not against a sermon including humor, I am against a sermon being used as a vehicle for humor while forgetting the more important goals (bringing glory to God and grace to others).

Ergun rarely, it seems, knows where to draw the line.  Hence his painfully graphic description of sex education.  It was unfunny, uncomfortable, and inappropriate…especially for a mixed gender situation.

He went as far as to compare his experience viewing charts of female anatomy to “finding the Holy Grail”.

That’s going to be a lot of help for those kids struggling with impure thoughts.

His advice was man centered and humanistic in approach.

Everything else aside, this is what kills me.  There is a wealth of Holy Spirit inspired teaching in the Bible on dealing with sin and understanding sin and freeing ourselves from it, unfortunately Ergun used none of it.  His alliterated five step approach included these:

• Flee (get away from the sin)
• Follow (not really sure…he didn’t explain this one)
• Fight (fight off the temptation?)
• Fade (get away from everything)
• Fail (start fresh when you fail)

Now, in purely human terms you might make the argument that some of these steps are practical, and they are. Certainly a case can be made for fleeing, fighting, fading, et cetera, but what is wrong with this approach? What is it leaving out? The Holy Spirit.

People who deal with habitual sin are all too familiar with the white knuckle, buckle down, try as hard as you can approach.  Reaffirming it as something we “try really hard at” in our own strength is useless.

• He made no mention of Jesus as our sympathizer, tempted as we are tempted but without sin.
• He made no mention of the transforming work that Jesus does in our lives. How he fills us with the desire for righteousness instead of sin.
• He made no mention of the spiritual context of 1 Corinthians 10:13.  That our way of escape is something that the Holy Spirit leads us to if we are willing to be led.
• He made no mention of our call to be slaves to righteousness instead of slaves to sin.
• He made no mention of Paul’s call that we consider ourselves as “dead to sin”.
• He made no mention of living in accountability with one another and the Bible’s call to confess our sins to each other.
• He made no mention of the role of prayer.

He did mention in passing that Jesus helps us with temptation but absolutely no practical advice on how to get from here (white knuckle, try as hard as you can) to there (dead to sins, alive to Christ).

How depressing! As someone who absolutely knows the pain, sorrow, and defeat of habitual sin it is unthinkable to me that he would take this approach.

But it gets worse, he summarized his advice with a few suggestions. He said that when we sin we have to be willing to admit to people “Yeah, I messed up. I can’t do that again.”  Ok, that’s great…now how does that apply to your “I am going to stop masturbating” story?

He referred to couples who “mess up” and said that someone in that relationship needed to say “Ok, we’re never going to do this again.”  Wow, that’s novel!  As if there weren’t hundreds of couples in that room who are promising each other that each and every time they fail.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

And that is why I said the things I said.  Ergun Caner did a disservice to people who desperately needed help in their desire to live righteously.   He completely let them down.

Sigh.

In the last few minutes, it seemed that even Ergun realized his sermon had left his control.  He began to desperately try to reign it in and connect it in someway to scripture.  It was way too late.

In truth it made the whole thing seem insincere.

But I don’t think Ergun’s problem is insincerity. Ergun’s problem (in my less than humble opinion) has always been that he gets lost in his persona.  He focuses so much on being a bad ass and being novel that he forget his primary calling.

Shouldn’t the president of the theological seminary’s heart and breath be to bring glory to God and show love to others?  Shouldn’t entertainment and novelty be the very last goal?

I welcome your thoughts.  Especially those of you who heard this sermon.

We often impatiently look for the instant while God is patiently affecting us through the incremental.

In the past, I typically would seek wisdom from God in one way:  ”God, please show me what to do in this situation. Please make it clear so that I will know the right thing to do.”  Or I might say “God, if this is Your will, please open the doors. If it isn’t, please close them.”  Something like that.  Very familiar…very common.

What I noticed this afternoon is that I very seldom pray like this anymore.

Experience has taught me that God is rarely going to tell me what to do before I do it.  He’s rarely going to give me a sign or impression that will give me 100% confidence in a course of action.  More likely, He will equip me for these things in small ways that sometimes are easily missed and often unseen when I am not looking for them.  These small nudges come in a million different forms: people, scripture, circumstances, feelings, ad infinitum.  The result is my continued sanctification (which is God’s will and promise for us all).

I tried to think of an analogy for this and I will admit I did not come up with anything perfectly fitting.  My first instinct is that this is like a path throught the forest that only He can see.  That he keeps me in the clear places between the dense forest on each side, even though I can’t see the big picture. I can’t see where the path is going.

Another example I thought of is the way a vine grows towards the sun. It never sees a plan or gets specific instructions, but its environment results in a very distinct change in the direction of its growth.  I thin it’s a bit like this with us.

The point is this:  God is sovereign.  He knows all, sees all, and cares for all.  He is the guarantor of my life. The non-refundable deposit for my sanctification, so to speak.  If this is true, if I can trust God with the outcome, I have no need to know specifics.  I don’t need to pray for a map when the very universe I have the privilige of living in exists and progresses at the discretion of God and God alone.  He has a million ways to lead me in His will and it seems presumptuous to ask for only one.

I think I used to pray like this because it left me in control in someway.  It was a bit like telling God “I’ll do what you want to do if you send me the instructions.”

Now I pray “God, give me wisdom. Help me to see truth instead of lies. Help me to seek light instead of dark. Guide me in Your paths. May the outcome bring glory to You.”

This, at least in my case, helps me remember that I am small and He is big.  That His ways are higher than mine.  That my plans are so short sighted and laughable next to His.

I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I pray for things so that I can get credit for having prayed for them.

I know. It’s bad.  Fortunately this isn’t really my primary motivation; it’s a sneaking temptation that invades my thoughts gradually. It starts out with a pure intention: I have a need/desire/something that concerns me and I begin to pray about it.  I may even recruit others to pray with me about it.

As I continue to pray about it over days or weeks (depending how long my attention span lasts) my thoughts begin to move towards anticipation.  ”With as much prayer as I have given this, God will have to answer my prayer.”  As nonsensical as this thought is, the subsequent thought is worse: “How awesome will I look when I am able to share this story of what God did because of my faithfulness in prayer.”  With this thought, mental images of me “humbly” relaying the details of God’s generousity and my perserverance flood my brain.

And just like that, my supplication becomes a self-glorifying venture. It is no longer a humble request of mighty God, but a means to a prideful end.  It is no longer about God’s glory but my own.

How sad it is that the means of righteousness can be so easily perverted to be the means of sin!

The truth is, we have probably all seen this particular temptation acted out many times before.  We’ve heard stories of men who prayed every day for 7 years and how God miraculously came to their aid–because of the prayers of a great man/woman. We’ve seen graphs of unthinkable monatary success with God given a footnote of credit.  We’ve heard people say “I know if I hadn’t prayed for my husband that night he would have died.”

Don’t get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with telling of God’s great works, we just have to be careful we aren’t using God’s generousity on our behalf as a means of self-promotion.

Paul had more to boast of than anyone but he chose to boast in what God did despite him, not because of him.  He said he would boast of nothing but Jesus.  He was thankful for anything that kept him from being able to take credit.

Recently I found myself thinking in just this way.  I simply had to repent and say “God, if you give me anything may it always be in spite of my best intentions. May I be as a blind man who occassionally stumbles into the light by your grace. May I never be able to take credit for Your works.”

I would much rather be a fool that God blesses anyway than a self-described wise man who knows just what to ask for.

As in other situations like this, I had conflicting thoughts:  On the one hand, I was thankful that Ed graciously provides coffee to this man, even though he is certainly a deterrent to business.  But on the other hand, I worried about my own convenience. I thought things like:
He probably smells.
I hope he doesn’t talk to me.
and I wonder how long he’ll be here.

It was not long before I became aware that the whole room was beginning to smell terribly.  I looked around for obvious suspects.  Could it be the fish the woman across from me was eating?  Could it be the pages of the old book I was reading?  Could it be a mixture of the twain? No, that couldn’t be it. It was the silent, coffee drinking man a couple of tables away. 

I held my ground. I continued to sit, trying my best ignore him and the smell. I paid extra attention to my book.

After about 5 minutes, the smell became unbearable. I decided to abandon my post.  I began packing up my belongings. As I did so, I noticed that the man sitting between me and the homeless man–a professor in the engineering school at Liberty–got up and went to the counter. I saw him talking with the barista.  I thought to myself he must be asking if something can be done about the stench.

I continued to get my things together as quickly as I could without looking like I was running from a fire.  As I finished and walked towards the door, the professor came back. He walked up to the homeless man who was encouraging my exit and said…

“If you would like to eat something,  go order something up front. I’ve taken care of it.”

As I walked out, I felt very convicted.  Both of us had experienced the same smell…he moreso than I by simple proximity, and we had both chosen our response.  I had chosen to run. He had chosen to show love.  Just like Jesus did and would have. 

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
- Jesus, Matthew 25:40b

“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.”
- Psalm 33:10-11

Growing up, the way I heard prayer talked about in churches and Bible studies sounded a lot like an economics lesson. It went something like this:

1. Prayer is powerful.
2. The more faith you have, the more powerful prayer is.
3. Pray to God with as much faith as possible to increase the chances your prayer will be answered.

Now, granted, I never heard it spelled out that…terribly. But, the implications and the way it shaped my thinking were the same: Get as much faith as you can and spend it at the God store.

In reality, prayer is nothing like economics.  Without delving into the huge discussions of each and every aspect of this subject, I’m going to list the fundamental, Biblical ideas about God and prayer and then focus on addressing the seeming paradox that inevitably surfaces.

Let’s begin:

1. Prayer is essential to the life of a believer.
2. God is sovereign; He is in control. Nothing can impede his purposes. (See above)
3. God is outside of time and has unlimited knowledge of what happens in time.
4. When we pray, God knows what we will ask before we ask it. (See above)
5. God also knows what He will do in response to our prayers.
6. If our prayers are not in alignment with God’s will, He will not answer them. (See James 4)

What can we conclude from these six tenets? We can conclude that because God is sovereign, because He is in control, the future is for all intents and purposes set. It can’t be altered by Satan, sin, demons, us, or even our prayers.

Our prayers do not alter the future. To say they do suggests that time is unfolding in a certain way and that God alters things on our behalf in a way they otherwise wouldn’t have unfolded.  It suggests that He waits to hear our requests, carefully considers their merit, and then acts. It’s nonsensical when we consider God’s sovereignty and omniscience.

This might be hard to reconcile with the way you’ve typically heard prayer preached, but, I firmly believe that all of these things.

So, that leaves us with the question I opened with: Why pray?

Simply put, prayer is the means by which God acts in our lives and in the world. Just as God has chosen to save others through our testimony, God acts through our prayers.

We aren’t responsible for the fact that God knows the future and we don’t. We pray not knowing the future, trusting God with the future.

At its simplest level, prayer is talking to our Father. When we start looking at it as a tool for manipulating future results instead of a way to work in concert with God’s plan, we essentially alter the true nature of prayer.

As I have talked with others about this subject, many questions have come up:

Why does the Bible seem to give us cause/effect examples of prayer? Why does Jesus say that the more faith we have, the more our prayers will accomplish? Didn’t Hezekiah pray for more life and God grant it?

For the first, I would say that the Bible presents a cause and effect view of prayer because that is how we experience it. God doesn’t burden us with the paradoxical nature of prayer, He simply gives us prayer and tells us it is important and tells us to pray and gives us examples of what He does in response to those prayers.  We can’t adjust God to match our misconceptions.

For the second, I would answer it similar to the first, with this alteration: The more faith we have, the more aware of God’s master plan we will be, and the more trust we will put in God to handle the future the way He knows best.  Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane “If there is any way that this cup can be taken from me ” finishing with “not My will but Thine”. If faith were a currency by which God is obligated to act, isn’t it safe to say Jesus, in His human form, had more faith than any man before Him? Jesus’ faith compelled Him to seek His Father’s will over His will.

As far as Hezekiah, there again we see an object lesson where God presents a person with a situation, knowing the outcome but testing their faith by it.  It may seem that God extended Hezekiah’s life and that this wasn’t part of the original plan, but I don’t think it’s a reasonable assumption.  Genesis speaks of God “repenting” that He made man, implying that God didn’t realize how much pain man would cause and wished He could change His decision. This passage, like the Genesis one, must be held in the light of everything else we know about God.

There is only a paradox if we allow ourselves to get hung up on one aspect of prayer, and hold that up against and above the other things we know to be true about God.

So, how would we think about prayer?

• We should pray, knowing that we don’t know the future, and that God does.
• We should pray knowing that God has a plan for all generations and that plan cannot be impeded.
• We should pray honestly, recognizing that it is possible what we want is not part of God’s will.
• We should pray remembering the importance of prayer as a (if not the) central way God acts in our lives and the world.
• We should embrace the blessing and gift of prayer and the way it enriches our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

This year I have tried something I haven’t done in the past. I’m reading through Psalms continuously.  Sometimes it’s a psalm a day. Sometimes it’s a psalm a day and then I forget for a few days and pick it back up, but in any case I’m trying to make it a normal part of my routine.

I’m not doing this as a “This year I shall read through Psalms continuously. So let it be written; so let it be done!”  vow.  There’s almost no chance I would stick to it if that was my motivation.

No, I’m doing this because I tend to fall back on a cold, explainable, factual “faith” without the constant reminder of what it means to be in relationship with God as Father, Jesus as brother, and the Spirit as comforter.

While reading Psalms, I’m constantly surprised at how differently David approaches God than I think most of us do.

David is real. He is always real. Whether is he is shouting for joy or wasting away from sorrow, he is completely transparent before God. He tells God when he thinks that he has been wronged. He praises God for all things.

But even more interesting, David is not bashful about telling God about the things that he (David) is doing right.  Read those verses I used at the beginning. That is just a small portion of the self-affirming language David uses in Psalm 26 and something you see all throughout the psalms.

On the other hand, David is equally transparent about his faults.

I think what we see in David is balance. David is able to take the thing he knows about God and the things he knows about himself and his relationship with God and balance those ideas. (as well as any fallen human can)

What are those things?

1. David sees God as powerful, sovereign, holy, omnipotent–God.
2. David knows that he has been welcomed by God into relationship with Himself.
3. David knows that he is a sinner with endless faults.
4. David knows that God has made him righteous.

Each of these things are clear in David’s prayers. Even when he says “God, I feel like you’ve let me down” he comes back to “But God, I know you will be faithful” to me. He is able to be honest about what he is doing right for the Lord because he is also honest about what he does wrong.

I think what most Christians lack is balance. We tend to see a number of attitudes in prayer that all represent a portion of the truth but lack balance.

For some, God is simply a buddy. A friend.  Those who view God this way tend to think of Him in very human terms and ascribe their own ideas to Him.

For some, God is eternal judge, nearly unreachable and always distant.  Those who view God this way tend to spend all of their time repenting, forgetting that God has made them clean by His Son.

For others, God is their personal guarantee. He is permission to sin. People who view God this way tend to abuse God’s grace (shall we sin more than grace may abound?) and most likely shield themselves from thoughts of God’s holiness and righteousness.  This is definitely reflected in their prayers. (Though we might ask ourselves whether a Christian who sins freely has actually been transformed by Christ)

In truth, each of us has probably approached God with one of these attitudes at one time or another, and that is not completely wrong. God is our friend. He is our judge. He is our personal guarantee (but not permission to sin!)

In each case we are not seeing all of God. (Not that any of us can ever truly understand God) We are choosing the aspect of God that we are able to believe the easiest.

David is able to say “I have walked in righteousness” because He knows God has justified him. David is able to say “His anger is but for a moment, and his favor for a lifetime” because he has experienced both.  David is able to worship God, face bowed to the ground, because David understands his own insignificance compared to God. (What is man that you are mindful of him?) But by the same token, David is able to proclaim loudly that he has been accepted by this same God.

So, since practical life questions are always a great way to summarize information, I’ll leave you with this ponderable:

What would your prayer life look like if you were able to rightly esteem your God in His terrifying holiness and His unthinkable grace?

There are some theological positions that seem so untenable and unpopular that the majority of Christians try to distance themselves from the ideas, while a minority embrace the ideas with fervor. They revel in the fact that their interpretation is non-mainstream and makes God more–insert some quality here: sovereign, powerful, etc–than other’s interpetations. Some of these ideas are true. Some are false.

Sometimes this begins with prominent teachers’ interpretations of the scriptures that filter down to less mature believers, who simply cling to the idea for its radicalism rather than its merit.

A good example of this would be the answer to the question “Does God hate us?”

Most Christians, whether they have good reason or are simply reacting in their gut would say affirmatively, no.  Some, would say yes.

In fact, one of my favorite Bible teachers of all time, Mark Driscoll, takes this position. In this video, he explains his stance.  The argument goes like this: God is holy. He hates sinners. <insert Bible references here> Jesus died and God poured his wrath on Him instead of us.

Which is very close to the truth.

God is holy.
He does hates sin, and a few verses do seem to generalize that hatred to sinners.
He did send Jesus.
He poured His wrath out on Jesus so that we might live in grace.

So, if God doesn’t hate sinners, why does Psalm 5:5 say so? Or, why does God say “Jacob I have loved; Esau I have hated?”

In order to properly understand scripture, we must look at verses in light of all scripture.  We have to find the unifying theme. We have to attempt, as best as we can, to see the whole picture.  We also have to apply common sense, or, in other words, we have to use our brains.

In order to properly balance the verses which speak of God’s love and the verses that speak of God’s hatred, we have to have a proper understanding who God is.

First, we have to remember that God is a person. That is, He is personal. He isn’t an impersonal force.  Similarly, we have to remember that He is a God who desires to be in relationship with us.  He desires to communicate with us.

Second, we have to look at His relationship with Adam and Eve, the first people and the first sinners. Did God go from love to hatred and then back to love again on one sunny afternoon in the Garden of Eden? Of course not.

Third, we have to take the idea of God hating sinners to its logical end. If God simply hates sinners, why would He send his Son to die for them? Why would He devise a plan by which all sinners (all people!) can be saved? It does not follow.

Fourth, the Bible is full of verses that more than hint at His great love for all His creation.  As John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.”  Romans 5:8 speaks in no uncertain terms about this. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God created us. He loves us. He hates some of the things we do. He sent Jesus to die for us because of that love. Jesus died to glorify the Father.

This is what the Bible preaches.

So how do we reconcile this with Psalm 5:5? Well first, we have to remember that our instinct on hatred and wrath are very human derived.  We think of wrath as flying off the handle, uncontrolled, and irrational. We think of hatred as petty and, as Jesus said, equivalent to murder.

But those things don’t apply to God. His wrath, is a rational response to wickedness, as is his hatred. It is derived from His holiness.

But why should His wrath trump His love? The answer is it doesn’t!  God loved us inspite of His wrath.  God is patient with us, despite the fact that we in no way deserve patience. 2 Peter 3:9 says “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” He isn’t speaking to believers there. He is speaking to the unrepentant sinners. God loves unrepentant sinners and is patient with them, desiring them to come to repentance so that they do not have to face His wrath.

Simply saying, “God hates sinners” relegates Him to only one of His attributes and prevents us from seeing His actions clearly.

God doesn’t hate sinners.  He hates sin.

“For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.” – Romans 6:19b

To be sanctified is to be set apart by God for God’s purposes.  It’s the next step after justification (where God makes us righteous by God’s righteousness through Jesus).

Most people with a cursory understanding of scripture and biblical doctrine know this.

So my question is: Do you believe it?

Do you really truly believe to your core that you have been set apart by God for His specific purposes? That there are things He has called you to do that He has not called others? That part of His sovereign will includes your participation with Him to accomplish His will?

I doubt it.

I don’t say this hypocritically. I say this from personal experience.

I have tried to figure out exactly what prevents me from really embracing this truth and I think it is related to two factors.

1. We’re always sure there is someone else more competent out there to do whatever God has asked us to do.

And there probably is.  While at first glance, this sentiment may appear to be humility, I believe it is more nearly a form of pride.  We are looking at the calling as a strictly human task that will have human results.  In light of this, we decide that we should be a gentleman and let God know that there is someone better.

What we’re really saying is “God, I know you thought I was the guy/girl for this job but you’re going to have to look elsewhere.  I’m flattered though and will figure out a way to tell this story so that other people will see how awesome and humble I am at the same time.”

Maybe this isn’t always the case.  But whatever the case, we have to remember that we are really saying more about our view of God’s abilities than our own abilities.

I have oft quoted this verse because it applies to so much in life. Phillipians 2:13 says,

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

It is by God’s power that we accomplish his purposes.

2.  We forget that it is God who has called us and begin focusing on His human agents.

Recently we began a new ministry at Grace (Ev Free).  We formed 6 new small groups of ~50 or so people.  The goal being to disciple each other while simultaneously reaching out to the community. It’s exciting. It’s been a testament to God’s graciousness. It’s become larger than we ever expected and we can see how He has been working in each of our lives to prepare us for this time.

I have the privilege of reading one of these small groups.

So where is the problem?

I have been focused on what we were humanly accomplishing.  I started to think of myself as “sanctified by Josh Stone” or “sanctified by Grace Church”, or worse: “sanctified by my own need to challenge myself”.

This had a significant impact on the way I started viewing this responsibility.  For instance, if I am sanctified by God, this suggests certain things I will do to prepare for the tasks ahead.

I might:

• Pray generally for my small group and specifically for each member.
• I might study the Bible.
• I might spend time meditating and focusing on being sensitive to God’s leading by His Spirit.

But, if I am sanctified by Grace Church this is going to change my behavior.  I might:

• Try to be a really fun guy so that people will want to join my group.
• I might read books on leadership.
• I might arrange to meet with church leadership to understand their vision more fully.

The difference is stark. The contrast is clear.

To avoid this requires an honest assessment of ourselves. While my actions were focusing on human “sanctification” my mouth was telling a different story. I was still refering to it as “God’s ministry”. But I didn’t believe it.

As believers, we have been called to something greater than ourselves. We have been called to participate with God in His sovereign plan. Paul says “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

So next time God calls you to do something I would encourage you to remember that it is by God’s power that you are able to accomplish His will.

And also, remember Who has sanctified you.

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