…of these Bible stories and how important they are for their lives right now. They're not just things so that we could decorate our walls and have nursery rhymes before we go to bed. These stories are powerful in the lives of our children, you need to know. You need to know, son, that someday, maybe when you're in junior high, someone's going to tell you that you can't pray. You can't pray before a meal or they're going to laugh at you when you do. What are you going to do in that moment? Are you going to be like a Daniel? We need more Daniels in our lives in our world today. Why don't we tell the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who were told they had to bow down to the image because that's what the governing authorities were telling them he had to do. Are you going to just bow the knee? I mean, we're living in an age where there are situations that our young people find themselves in.
I want to tell you, if you're a young person, a high schooler going to a secular public school, you're going to face a challenge when there's going to be a gay pride day or gay pride week. And during that day or week, what they're going to do is everybody's going to wear tape on their mouth, or they're going to not speak during that time, or they're going to wear something that demonstrates that they are in support or supporting that lifestyle. What are you going to do? Because if you decide you're not going to participate in that, you will be scorned. We need more people like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that says I'm not going to bow to the current authorities or the current things are going on or to the culture. I'm going to take a stand for the Lord. How are we going to do that?
It's very important for children to understand the power of God's word. When we tell children the story of Noah, it's not just so we can put pictures up on the wall of animals and an ark. It's so that they can learn that here was a man who was laughed at because he was following the Lord. He was considered crazy.
I want you to know, children, when you go to college in a secular university there is a belief there that Christians are less intelligent than humanists. And when you face that the people will laugh, they'll think you're crazy to be a Christian. It's very important that we understand that things we're learning right now as we're going through God's word will help us as we deal with a war in a world that's becoming more and more anti-Christian, more and more hostile to Christianity.
We're studying the life of Joseph. Here's a guy who refuses the sexual advances from Potiphar's wife. He was able to say no. See, the question for our children and young people today isn't if they're going to see pornography. The question is when? And when they experience that, when they see it, what are they going to do? Are they going to be able to say no? That's the question. So as we study God's word, it's very practical. We must help children and young people ask the question, why is this passage here? How can I apply this to my life? How is it going to change me now and in the future? Because I'll just tell you, young people, you're going to have to make some tough decisions in your life. Having a foundation of God's word will help you and empower you to do that.
Now today as we look at the life of Joseph, we're going to see that Joseph is going to excel. He's going to be prosperous. He's going to rise to a place of fame and fortune, wealth. He's going to be right up there with his power at the top of the ladder, so to speak. Some of you will be in those kinds of positions. But today as we look at the story of Joseph in Genesis, 39, we're going to look at five decisions that you must make to excel. If you want to excel (and I think we all want to excel and move forward in our lives), there are five decisions that you need to make. We're going to look at those five decisions today as we open God's word in Genesis 39. Let's look at it and get started. I'll take the principles right out of the text so you can see where we're getting those and understand this is God's word that is presenting these ideas to us.
If you look at Genesis 39:1 it says – Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. If you remember the story, his brothers out of jealousy and hatred sold him into slavery and the Israelites took him from Israel down to Egypt.
Now I suspect that his success started on that path down there. I suspect that these Israelites were looking at Joseph and they're saying, “Hey, this guy's really good. We've captured something that's really valuable here. And so what we're going to do is try to find a great owner for him. We're going to try to get a lot of money for him.” We aren’t told all about that, but he ends up being sold to the captain of the guard. He's the CEO of Egypt. The CEO. And he's the one who can execute anybody. He's the person who is in charge of the army. He's the person who has a lot of power. And now Joseph is going to be his household servant. He's coming into this home and he's going to be the person who's helping this guy with his business functions, with things around the house, all those things in his home. That's the backdrop. That's the stage that's being set for us as the story develops.
Notice it says in verse 2 – The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man. Now, we're going to look at several things here today, but I want to point out that his success was because the Lord was with him. Now, he was a hard-working guy, I'm sure. But that wasn't only what led to his success, I'm sure he's a man of integrity, as we're going to see, but that isn't the only thing that led to the success. I'm sure that he handled conflict well, as we'll see later on in the book of Genesis. But even in that situation, that's not the secret to success. The secret to his success is right here. It says – The Lord was with Joseph. He was with him.
What's interesting about those words is that they're the same words that we saw back with Isaac and Jacob. Remember when we were looking forward, when God says to Isaac, I will be with you. He says to Jacob, I will be with you. They're looking forward into the unknown of what's going to happen and God is saying, I will be with you. That's where most of us are today. We're saying, “Okay, I want to pay attention to the Lord and His presence in my life. He's going to be with me no matter what the outlook might be.” But now what's happening is our story of Joseph is looking back, looking at the present, they're saying here's why he's successful, because the Lord was with him.
Well let's go on. It says there – The Lord was with Joseph and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight.
That word favor is the Old Testament translation of the word grace. It's hhen is the Hebrew word. It is the word grace in the Old Testament. This is God's grace that is being seen in Joseph by this man. So he's finding grace in the eyes of Potiphar is what it's saying there.
So Joseph found favor or grace in his sight and attended him, and Potiphar made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate.
Let’s just talk about God's grace for a moment. Because God's grace is out there and it's available to believers and non-believers. The Bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Grace comes to all people. Everybody can experience it, except there's a way to position yourself so that you can receive more grace. And when you put yourself in this place where you can receive more grace then God's grace can funnel down to you. Now we don't know when God is going to share out His grace. And we don't know how much of grace He's going to put out at any time. And we don't know when He's going to do it. But we do know that God wants to issue His grace out to us. If we position ourselves well, we can be the recipients of that and we can receive it. It's like a shower. That's how I imagine. There's a shower of God's grace. If I'm running away from God, then I'm not under the shower of God's grace. I'm not receiving that grace. I can position myself well to be right where God's grace is being poured out. And I could experience that in my life. And so can you.
I think what that means is we need to integrate our faith into every aspect of our life. So that's decision number one. Integrate your faith into your daily life. When you integrate your faith in your daily life, it's going to have an impact on your business, on your family. In fact in our church our motto is “take Jesus home.” That's our website. You can go to TakeJesusHome.com and find out who we are because that's our motto. Take Jesus home. Take Him home to your business, take Him home to your family, take Him home to your neighborhood, take Him home to your computer, to your finances. Take Him home. Because when you do, you're positioning yourself well to receive God's grace.
Let me show you this first principle. Integrate your faith in your life. We want to apply the Psalm 1 principle. Psalm 1 principle is this. Now I want you to look at this in the positioning of grace because notice it says – Blessed is the one who does these things. First of all, who doesn't do these things? All positional. Does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. When do you have your devotions? In the morning or at night? Yes, both. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. Wow, that's a very interesting statement. Whatever they do prospers.
This first principle is very important when to integrate our faith into our life. The principle here is that when you do that, you position yourself well for God to bless you. That's what's being said in Psalm 1. That's what happens in Joseph's life. He's positioning himself well to receive God's grace. God is visiting him, favoring him, blessing him, and good things are happening as we see in the passage. It's a real blessing that he's experiencing those things.
But that means we don't position ourselves by walking in step with the wicked, or standing in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company and mockers. You don't want to be there because that's not where the blessing takes place. You want to position yourself where God can pour out His grace because He wants to give it to us. We don't know how much, we don't know when, and we don't know exactly what it's going to look like. But God wants to pour His grace on us and we can position ourselves well to receive it. Very important principle.
You're going to say, “Wow, that really opens the door for a lot of things.” Now in our church, we don't look at the scriptures and say, “God wants you to be healthy, wealthy. God wants you to have a million dollars.” There are churches that are like that. They emphasize this one principle without the other four. We have to look at the rest of these four. Because you know if you look at the passage, Joseph has got some problems. He’s been sold into slavery. Now he's going and he's being a servant in this guy's house, outside of his own home and so on. He's going to then be put into prison. I mean, there's a lot of challenges that he faces. So we must balance out these principles as we go through. I think these five decisions that you make will help us understand them.
But look at James 4:6. Don't you just love that? He says – But he gives us more grace. Do you want more grace in your life? Then you want to position yourself well to receive it. It tells in this passage one of the ways you can do that. This is why scripture says – God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. You might say, “Well I'm not a leader, I'm not an executive, I'm not one of these people that's going to be a big shot somewhere.” That's okay. You want grace, right? If you want God's grace in your dungeon, if you want God's grace in your bondage or slavery, you can have that. It comes to the person who has humility. It's another way to position yourself well. And so the first thing is to integrate your faith into your life. A very important part of who we are and what we do.
Well let's go back into the passage because in that same passage, look at verse 5 again. It says – From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake. Do you see that there? He blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph sake. It wasn't because the Egyptian had anything in particular, except he was close to Joseph. I really like that. I like to hang around with other Christians, because maybe God's going to bless them and grace them, and maybe I can get a little bit to rub off on me. That's in particular why I like to hang around adopted kids. Because adopted kids, it's obvious God has His hand on them because He's rescued them from something in their life. And now they're in this new situation, especially if they love the Lord. I want to hang around with adopted kids because God's grace is pouring on their lives. If I could get a little bit close to that maybe some of that will benefit me. That's what's happening with the Egyptian.
Which leads me to a second principle or a second decision that we must make if we want to excel, and that is we take the grace that God gives us and we share it with other people. It's not just for ourselves. It's not just so we can keep it for ourselves. God doesn't just fill us up. He fills us up and gives overflowing so that we have it to share with other people. That's the beauty of being part of the family of God, being part of what God is doing in life. Because God wants to do something through us, not just to us. So let's go to the second principle or the second decision. Determine to pass God's grace on to others. When you determine to pass God's grace on to others it's one of the ways that you're going to excel.
I love 2 Corinthians 8. It's a passage about giving financially. But we see this idea of grace being passed on to others. If we look at money, money is a good way… It's kind of tangible. You can measure it. But there's much more things that we pass on to others than just money. Let me read the verse in 2 Corinthians 8:7. It says – But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving. In other words, God doesn't just give it to you to hold on to so you can be happy. God gives it to you to pass on to other people.
It's a daily thing that we do. That's why you have these daily acts of kindness that you do in your marriage for your spouse. This is why you as children are learning how to honor your father and mother. There's these gifts that you give, this grace that you give and share. You have it to give and have it to pass on. This is why when you're driving, you drive in a particular way that is honoring to the Lord, because you have something to give. You don’t even know those crazy people out there. But you have something to give to them. This is why at work you're helping other people be successful. Do you see you’re passing on the grace. That's the second decision that you want to make in order to excel is to determine to pass God's grace on to others.
Well not everything goes well for Joseph. He finds himself in some challenges. Which leads us to a third principle or third decision that we're going to look at. It has to do with this idea of sin that's out there really to get us. So we have to commit ourselves to avoiding sin. Somehow we've got to see sin coming and stay away from it. That's what Joseph does in the passage. Wouldn’t you agree? I mean he obviously is saying I'm not going to do this activity. I'm going to read it, but I want you to think about the way that sin can mess with us. It corrupts us and hinders our ability to receive and pass on grace to other people.
Well, let's read the passage. It says in verse 6 – Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Do you see how he's integrating his faith into his practice, into his life, integrating his faith into his sexuality. He's interacting with his faith in a practical way, saying I can't do this.
And as she spoke to Joseph day after day (this wasn’t a one-time attempt, but day after day), he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. It's interesting that of all the kinds of sins that are listed in the Bible, it says flee sexual immorality. Run. it's dangerous, it’s damaging. And this is what he does. He runs out of the house.
We have to have a commitment to stay away from sin, to avoid sin. Now you might say, “Well God's grace will help me if I'm in sin.” Well that is true. That is an amazing thing about God's grace is that God's grace even helps us when we're sinning. So you might say, “Well then, I might as well just enjoy myself and sin. Is that okay? Can I do that? I mean God's grace can deal with all of that.” Well that's the problem that was happening in the early church. They were thinking that way, and then they would be in trouble. So Paul says to them…and let's go to that particular decision. Don't get sucked in by sin. Romans 6:1-2 says – What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
There is this damage that takes place, and I'm sure you know this. I mean just look at people that you know or have heard about who've been in positions of leadership, Christian leadership or even secular leadership. They've been great in some way or another and then you find out that they've committed adultery, or they've embezzled money, or that they're addicted to some substance of some kind and they check themselves into a rehab. When those things happen, you go, “Oh wow,” and they kind of fall. We say they're falling from leadership. What they're doing is they're losing part of the grace that was available to them when they were in that position. Yes, God's grace will help them where they are now, but they lose something.
We need to be careful to not get sucked in by sin. That's the third decision we need to make. Peter reminds us of that in his book when he writes this in 1 Peter 5:8-9: Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, stand firm in the faith.
It's interesting to point out in this passage as we're going through it that Joseph is doing the right thing. Even though he's doing the right thing, bad things are going to happen to him. Very important that we understand that. Because sometimes when bad things happen to good people, then people get discouraged with God and say God must not be in this. And when they get to that place where they say God can't be in this then they have a misunderstanding of God and His work in our world. God doesn't tell us that we're going to be protected from every bad thing. He says He'll be with us in the midst of the challenges that we face. Bad things are going to happen in your life. I’m just going to tell you, Jesus is the one who promises that to us. He says – In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
Well let's go on and read the passage where it talks about how bad things happen to him. Let's look and see what happens to Joseph in verse 13. It says – And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us (blaming the problem on Potiphar himself). See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” Then she laid up his garment by her until his master came home. In other words, she's setting the crime scene. Let's put the garment right here. I'm going to sit right here until Potiphar comes home. And she told him (verse 17) the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us (it’s your fault, Potiphar), came in to me to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”
When bad things happen to good people we must remind ourselves that God's sovereignty oversees our darkest moments. That's the decision you need to make. If you want to excel, you need to remind yourself that God is sovereign of even our darkest moments.
Psalm 46:1 says – God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. So you're going to have trouble. That's going to take place in your life and my life. What are you going to do then? Are you going to be able to go to the Lord and experience the grace that God has for you? He's an ever-present help in trouble. Proverbs 18:10 says – The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.
My favorite passage of these three is the last one. This is the story of how Pharaoh and all of his Egyptian guard are going to be coming to get the Israelites and attack them. This is in the next book of the Bible, many years later. They're coming to attack the Israelites who are trying to escape from Egypt. The Israelites are anxious. They're afraid. There's an anxiety passage, a very important one for anybody who experiences anxiety. Because bad things are happening in our world and so it makes us feel anxious about our personal lives, about other people. We start to feel anxious about those things. So they feel hemmed in. They’re feeling overwhelmed by their emotion because there's no way for us to go. We're being attacked by Pharaoh and his army on this side and we've got the Red Sea on this side. Notice the beautiful words of Moses to comfort them. Here's what he says. Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."
When trouble comes into our lives we do the best we can to manage it. We do what we can to do what's right, but there's a point we have to let it go. We say, “Okay, God. I can't do anything else here. Your sovereignty is important in my darkest moments, and this is one of them. I want to trust in you in the midst of this painful experience.”
You can imagine Joseph feeling mistreated, feeling falsely accused, feeling like I've been doing all the right things all this time. This is so unfair. That's what's taking place in his situation. I can imagine the feelings that he had, except that he's trusting the Lord.
Verse 19 says – As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. That's got to be a dark moment in Joseph's life. But the Lord was with Joseph. Wow, here we are again. The Lord was with him and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison.
Notice how Joseph is rising to this position again because God's presence is on him. God's grace is present on Joseph. I'm sure that Joseph did a lot of things to position himself well so he can be the recipient of God's grace. And so here he is, God's grace is on Joseph. And these words that we're about to read are the same words that were used when it described how he did well and was successful in Potiphar’s home. He does the same thing in the prison.
It says – And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.
You know what that tells me? Here's a guy, he's not sitting around moping, disappointed, discouraged, because he had a position, he had dreams before that he was going to be in this great place. He thought he was there, maybe, that he's in the captain of the guards of service, in a great position, probably trying to just honor God in the midst of that, thinking this is part of this promise that's going to come to me through the dream. But now he finds himself in the prison. What does he do? Does he get discouraged and just mope around? No. He follows the fifth decision that we all must make if we're going to excel. And that is this one that we find in this passage. He says don't focus on the results; focus on being faithful. Don't focus on the results.
There are some people are out there and work, you know they're saying, “Oh I’ve got to reach this goal and I've got to do this thing.” And so they’re focusing on the results. When we focus on the results, something happens to us. We start cutting corners and we start stepping on people or we start damaging relationships. We do things that are unhelpful. What we need to do is focus on being faithful and leave the results to God.
In ministry, Paul said there's a person who plants and another person who waters, but God is the one who gives the increase. Our job is just to be faithful. That's the idea here. Faithfulness. How can I just do what's the right thing to do? I think that's what Joseph is thinking. We're going to read in the next chapter how he has these other dreams, but he's being faithful where he is right now in the prison and God is going to continue to use him. In 1 Corinthians 15:58 it says – Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Your job isn't to look for the results. Your job is to do the right thing. You just keep doing what's right. Leave the results to the Lord.
In Colossians 3:22 it talks to slaves. So yeah, we're going to talk about slaves, but you might imply from this and apply it to your life if you feel enslaved in any area. You might be feeling enslaved in your employment. You might feel enslaved in your marriage. You might feel enslaved in your home if you're a young person. You might feel enslaved. Listen to what it says. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Who are we focusing our attention on? It's the Lord. We're focusing on being faithful to the Lord and not focusing on the results and allowing the results to come. God will produce those results. He's the one who shares them with us.
Five different decisions that all of us can make in order to excel. Let me throw those up on the screen so you can see all five of them on one page. One, integrate your faith into your life. Number two, determined to pass God's grace on to others. Three, don't get sucked in by sin. Four, remind yourself that God is sovereign over the darkest moments of your life. And five, don't focus on the results, focus on being faithful. There are so many lessons from the book of Genesis about Joseph, so many lessons we can learn from this guy. These are just five decisions that he apparently made in his life that contributed to his ability to excel and to move forward. God had a plan for his life. I don't know what God has planned for you. All I know is that you want to position yourself under the shower of God's grace so you can maximize what God wants to do in your life. These decisions will help you do it. God is the one guiding the process. He's the one protecting. He's the Father who's in charge of the safety and security and the direction and the guidance. That's who He is.
I like the story of a little five-year-old who was looking forward to this birthday party about ten houses down. And he's one of these kids that's just so determined, this little boy. He's counting the days down to the birthday party. He could hardly wait. But on the night before the birthday party, there was a blizzard and there's over twelve inches of snow on the ground. Dad’s saying, “You know what? I think this party's canceled. I don't think they're going to be having anything over there.”
“Oh no. I want to go down there. I want to go find out.”
Dad says, “I don't think so. That snow’s deep out there.”
“No, I can do it, Dad. I can do it.”
Dad says, “Okay, fine. Do you know how to get there?”
He says, “Yeah, I can go.”
He says, “Okay, go ahead.” So the five-year-old gets out in the snow. You can imagine him trudging in only twelve inches of snow, trudging himself down the path to get ten houses down to this other place. He's going, he's dedicated to get to this place. He continues on, and when he finally gets to this house he turns around to see there's his dad following him along.
I think that's the way life feels for us sometimes that we're moving forward in the snow and trudging along. And we need to know that our Father is not only behind us, making sure that we're safe, but He's going before us, in preparing the way. He's overseeing what's going on in our lives. God's grace is so big, I just want more of it. And I hope you do too. As you make these decisions in your life, you’re determined to do what is right. You may not know what's going on down the road. Like Joseph, you can imagine he's saying to himself, “I have no idea what's going to happen. I know that I need to do this and I know I need to do that. Okay. I'm going to focus on doing what's right now, and leave the results to the Lord.” And when you do that, God is the one who's working and we can trust in His sovereignty to work in our lives.
Well, those are five decisions that you can make in order to excel. But there's one decision that you make to even get on to the process in the first place. I just wanted to acknowledge that there may be some people here who aren't saved yet. They haven't asked Jesus Christ to come into their lives. That is the first decision you want to make before you can get into these advanced things. Because you want Jesus Christ resident in your heart. You want to give your life fully to the Lord. In order to do that, you have to recognize this humility. You have to say, “Okay, I'm a sinner. I admit it. I'm a sinner. I know that I need the grace of God in my life. I recognize that Jesus is the Savior and I want Him to be my personal Savior so that I can launch into this adventure of the Christian life. That's what I want. I want relationship with the Father.” You can't have relationship with the Father without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That is the most important decision you will ever make in your life is to trust Jesus Christ with all of your heart. That's decision number one before we get to these advanced things. Amen?
If you're here today, and you've never accepted Jesus and you'd like to do that, would you talk to me afterwards? I'd love to help you. I'll pray with you and introduce you to God in a very personal way. You can have that personal relationship with Him and you can enjoy that with Him in your own life.
Would you stand with me? We're going to sing again about this goodness that’s running out. I just picture this boy in the snow and his father coming out. I picture God's grace is running after us. His goodness is running after us in our lives. And we need that in our hearts and lives. So we're going to sing that in just a moment. But let's pray first.
Heavenly Father, we come before you at this moment and we ask you to touch us and speak to us. Lord, as we sing this song, would you please point out an area of our lives that we need to change or grow in? We want to commit ourselves fully to you and as you've been speaking today, your Holy Spirit convicts our hearts of things we need to work on. So Lord, in this moment we want to do business with you, we want to get our hearts straight, we want to serve you totally in our lives. We ask this in Jesus name, amen.
