1 Peter: Your Threshold for Pain

In the Secular West, suffering has no role in the meaning or purpose of life. Therefore, you are considered “blessed” if you somehow find a way to mitigate disappointments and minimize pain.

But can anyone really get away with a life free from pain and disappointment?

In chapter four, the Apostle Peter gives us hope by paradoxically giving us a dose of reality. In this life, you will experience the pain of temptation (1 Peter 4:1-3), reputation (1 Peter 4:4-6), and expectation (1 Peter 4:7-10). But in Christ, your pain can become a key ingredient to the life God designed for you to live (1 Peter 4:3).

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

Hello, I’m Celenn and I serve in Kids’ Ministry and Welcoming, and tonight I’ll be reading First Peter chapter four verses seven through 11. The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and sober minded for prayer. Above all, maintain constant love for one another. Since love covers a multitude of sins, Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God. If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words. If anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ and everything to him be the glory and the power forever and ever.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Celenn. open your Bibles. If you have a King James, open that cuz that’s what Pastor Caleb opened with. Did you know, just halfway through, you’re like, oh, th that was strengths. I was very encouraged. I just felt so connected to God when you did that. Open your bibles. The first Peter, chapter four.

I had to address the elephant in the room. And we’re gonna be preaching from the csb. Little bit more understandable version. I wanna begin with this line. This is a theme for. Your threshold for pain can withhold your purpose. Some of us missed out on the purpose that God has for us because we just can’t take the pain.

This is where elementary school teachers don’t get enough credit. By the way, one day when I was in high school, I decided to ditch, but it was for good reasons. I skipped school because my mom had just entered into a new school and she needed a lot of help just setting everything up for the new year.

And so I decided just to go in there with her and help her, and of course, What Junior in high school doesn’t love to ditch school when they can. So she had a lot of tasks that needed to be done. So the whole day I just helped her. She teaches second graders. It was a great time and it was really fun for me to confirm for her that I am, in fact her favorite son by ditching school to help her out.

I am her only son, but let’s not focus on that. I am her favorite. And so towards the end of the day though, I’ll never forget, there was this little cute little second grade girl walking up to Mrs. VanCamp and said, I and I could never hear what she was saying in the beginning, but she was saying, Hey, I need this.

Hey, I need that. And constantly, Mrs. VanCamp, my mother would just like, push her away, just kinda just go back to your seat. We only have about 30 minutes left of school. Go back to your seat. And so finally I was in the area when she came for the fifth or sixth time. And then she said to Mrs.

VanCamp, Hey Mrs. VanCamp, I am going to throw. And I thought, oh no, not don’t. If you know me, it’s not, how can I help this poor girl? It was, how can I get out of this room cuz I don’t do throw up. I can’t even think about throw up. If I talk about any longer, bad things will happen, so let’s move on. So I was so stressed out about this moment and my mom didn’t even bat an eye.

She said, okay, that’s fine. Just wait until school is. I thought how heartless, how ruthless you could care less about this little girl. And so she was like, okay. And just went back to her seat. Praise the Lord. Never threw up. Ended school and moved on. She went on to explain how, apparently second graders are liars and dramatic and if you believe everything they say, you’re not gonna be a very good teacher.

But I learned even in that moment, Mrs. VanCamp wasn’t just teaching. She’s taking, teaching a principle in life that you need to learn how to withhold pain to withstand maybe some discomfort, and just to push through uncomfortable situations. See, true leaders don’t cater to your fears. They don’t give in to every whim that you have.

They call you to rise above it. True leaders don’t give in to the demands of a quick fix and so powered by the Holy Spirit, neither does the Apostle Peter. This word that we’re gonna read together, starting in verse one, is a bit of a harsh word. It’s an encouraging word, but it’s also difficult when you realize the things that he’s calling us to.

So the title for today’s message is Your Threshold for pain. I wonder what your threshold for pain is. Let’s pray. Father, I just ask you, holy Spirit, that. Just use this passage to build our church, to build our souls up. God, I pray for the person in the room who’s tempted to quit the person in the room who is so tired of a source of pain in their life.

God, I pray that this message wouldn’t just be a motivational message that the world can offer, but God, I pray this message would be a gospel message, God, that we’re called to persevere, but not just for per. For perseverance sake, but God, we can do it because of the power of the Holy Spirit. And so God, we’re surrendering to you.

We’re submitting to you, and we’re asking you to give us hope and to give us courage to press on another day. In Jesus’ name, I pray everybody says. Amen. Amen. The apostle Peter, he was well acquainted with pain and he points in this passage of, determined in this passage, there’s three thresholds of pain that often withhold us from living and walking in our purpose.

And I wonder if you can maybe even by the end of this message identify if one of them, or maybe all of them are a source of pain for you. The first one we’re gonna look at is the pain of tempt. There is a pain you and I are going through that are keeping us from the kingdom, keeping us from advancing living the Christian life because of temptation.

Let’s look at verse one together. It says, therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, he’s referring to the cross, but also referring to him living this holy life. He never gave into the flesh arm yourselves also with the same. Understanding this word arm yourselves. We’re gonna look at this in a little bit, but as a military metaphor, he says, arm yourselves with the same understanding or same way of thoughts.

Because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin in order to live the remaining time in the flesh. No longer for human desires, but for God’s. For, there has already been enough time spent doing what the Gentiles choose to do. The Gentiles is sometimes reference to a people group that just aren’t Jewish.

But in this case, in this letter, Peter uses the phrase Gentiles, just to reference anybody who doesn’t proclaim the name of Jesus, who is not a Christian, doing what the Gentiles choose to do, carrying on an unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, or. Carousing and lawless idolatry. I want us to see even here, he’s talking to the church.

He’s saying, Hey church, quit engaging in these types of sins, which I think is actually really encouraging for us because if you’re entering in this room, we’re not asking you to be perfect. We’re not asking you to have life figured out. What we are inviting you to is to something different, to something new.

But Peter acknowledges, even in the church, these are behaviors that people are engaging in. Especially this is a church full of first generation Christians. It’s not like their grandma. Taught them how to follow Jesus. All of this is brand new for so many of them, and so they’re trying to figure out how to live this new way of life, but I love that encouragement that even the church, the early church that we try to act was so perfect, still dealt with a lot of sins that even nonbelievers would probably agree is not very good behavior.

Let’s look a few of these lines here in verses one through three. Again, arm yourselves with the same understanding. It’s essentially saying putting on your armor, getting ready for war, putting it on to put on Christ’s attitude or his thought life. So we’re actually gonna talk a lot about this in the new year, but it’s to engage in practices like scripture, reading, memorization, meditation, worship, right?

You’re saying arm yourselves, take the truth and put it on you so you can. This takes a lot of work though. This takes discipleship. This takes coming weekly. Being involved in groups, doing these things so that we understand how to do it. Write this down. Refusing to arm yourself is choosing to harm yourself.

Is there somebody behind me? I’ve been hearing footsteps and stuff and it is terrifying me. I thought somebody was gonna jump and punch me in the face, but there’s nothing behind me. I’m not nervous. Okay. I’m not nervous at all. Oh, it’s the kids outside. Oh, hitting the wall. I’m here. Think. Who, okay, anyways, all right.

Arm yourself. Come on, somebody Now refusing to arm yourself is choosing to harm yourself, meaning suffering will come in your life. The question is, what kind of suffering do you want to endure suffering from sin? Leads to your harm. So if you don’t arm yourself with truth, if you don’t put on truth and walk in it, you will suffer.

But it will be from being stupid, just being honest. Or you can suffer from righteousness, which is still suffering. But Peter will go on to say, that leads to your good. So suffering just to engage in sin will lead to your harm, but suffering for the sake of Jesus will lead to your good. In other words, no matter what to be a human welcome to church is to suffer.

You might as well suffer from something that’s eternal and builds you up. But then he has that next phrase because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin. Some wonder if this is talking about Jesus, but in fact he’s talking about the everyday. When we suffer, when we fight the good fight, we actually learn to be finished with sin.

Meaning, of course, this doesn’t mean that you are perfect, but what it’s insinuating is you no longer have those same burning desires to engage in the flesh. You’re able to say no to temptation. Eugene Peterson, he has a paraphrase version of this. It’s called The Message. I think it’s a great. Thing to read when you know it’s not a translation, it’s just a paraphrase, and this is how he paraphrases these few verses.

I think it’s really good. Go ahead and put it on the screen. The next slide. Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. That’s why it’s suffering, because you’re not getting what the flesh wanted.

Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being ized by what you want. Write this down. What he’s saying here is you cannot be finished with sin until you are committed to suffer. . Our flesh, our sinful habits are used to getting its way things likeany, gossip, envy, manipulation, and honestly, like an addict in recovery.

Freedom to truly want what God wants involves a lot of suffering. It involves some pain and your threshold for. Can withhold your purpose, can you deal with the hard part of the Christian life? Something I think a lot of us are fascinated with is this idea of a quick fix. Honestly, it’s the biggest lie of politics is promising a quick fix.

Just vote for me and everything will be better. And so some of us were on the edge of our seat the last couple weeks. Some of us are so heartbroken, others are not. Whatever, thinking, oh, no, or, oh yes, here is now the quick fix. The reality is, We have a lot of work to do. It’s gonna take a lot of time.

And if you really want to change, it involves perseverance. It involves sanctification. It involves suffering. Peter’s trying to encourage him, saying, Hey, we’re gonna be real here. If you wanna change, you’re gonna have to suffer. So we can get to the point where we pursue what God wants instead of being terrorized by what we want.

But what that means is you go through the hard process of saying no to your cheap desires so that you can say yes to your deep desires. Which we think that’s why you should come to church to be encouraged about that journey. We think that’s why you need to be part of a group to process where you’re at in that journey.

We also love to talk about at our church, it doesn’t matter where you’re at in the journey, as long as you’re just taking one next step. The next steps look different for all of us, but that is the first pain, the pain of temptation. Some of us are missing out on all that God has for us because of instead of pushing through the pain, we just say yes to relief.

We say. To sin and it pushes us back from our purpose. Maybe you can stand under the pain of temptation though, but what about reputation? That’s number two, the pain of reputation. . This is difficult for a lot of people who first start to follow the way of Jesus because praise the Lord. You have a lot of friends who are not believers and there becomes to be a rub because you begin to live differently.

Look at verse four. They are surprised that you don’t join them in the same flood of wild living and they slander you, but they will give an account to the one who stands ready to judge the living and. He’s saying yes, they’re gonna slander you. They’re gonna embarrass you. But here’s the thing, you have to remember.

You’re worried about their judgment, but be more concerned about God’s judgment so you can begin to recalibrate how terrifying their slander is when you realize the true judge will have the last word. For this reason, verse six, the gospel was also preached to those who are now dead. Although they might be judged in the flesh according to human standards, they might live in the spirit according to God standards.

This is a little bit of a hard verse. I just, I have to admit that what this essentially is saying though, is some of them were slandering Christians saying, Hey, you’re not that great because we all die. It’s not like you’re any different. It’s not like your way is better because we all end in the grave and he’s encouraging us saying, no, we may die in the flesh, but now we will be raised again.

He’s trying to encourage the saints of that. So in college, anybody ever heard the phrase BC days? Anybody heard that before the before Christ days? Nobody uses that. Like it’s in Christian college, I get it. And so we would say Hey, how was your BC days? And we were only like 18, 19. So it’s not like our BC days were that incredible.

But we would just share stories and we would talk about. I remember in Bible college, in class somebody would talk about a girlfriend and we’d be like, oh, was that BC days or a D? Like, where are we at? Was this a crazy girl? Were you crazy? And so that’s what we would talk about.

And so BC days are something for us is a cause for celebration. We celebrate that. You used to live this one way and now you live another, but the same thing. That’s a cause for celebration within the church. Let’s be honest. It’s a call, a cause for slander outside the. I know when my wife first got saved, there was a lot of ridicule cuz she was changing her habits, even changing the movies that she was watching, the language that she would use cuz she was such a potty mouth, and before she believed in Jesus. But that’s honestly a really hard bit about, like hard thing about being a teenager. Like in youth ministry, this would be the main thing we would talk about. Hey, it’s okay that your friends are making fun of you. Fight the good fight, keep pursuing Jesus because this will pay off the Christian life, man.

Is d. Because you have found freedom by refraining from the things that your friends still love to do. Does that make sense? So you’ve actually found hope. Your story is, man, I used to go out and party this way, but now you’re partying. Friends are like, whoa, bro. Can you be a little bit nice to me?

Are you acting like I’m just. Worthless now. And so it’s a really hard thing to do, right? It’s hard, and some of you deal with this experience of you’re saved and you want to be with Christians, but you do know you need to share the gospel. So we always say, keep your non-believing friends. You should have so many non-believing friends or else you’re not doing it right, Jesus with friends, with sinners and the least of these, right?

But the quick fix that I have found a huge temptation for us is just to become a cham. . You even notice that. So if you’re with your non-believing friends on Saturday night, you talk and walk just like your non-believing friends, and then you come on Sunday and then you just talk and walk just like your believing friends.

And so reality, you don’t really have anything within your character. It’s just that you do whatever anybody around you does. And I’m just telling you I, that’s fine. But I think it’s keeping you from your purpose, right? Your threshold for pain can withhold your purpose. And if you choose to just be a chameleon, you’re missing out on what God has ordained for your life.

Peter is calling us to resist this urge by saying, look. I don’t, I know the judgment hurts, but God’s judgment’s gonna hurt way worse. So how about you just calibrate that, change the scales and just live your Christian life in front of your non-believing friends. Mark Sayers has such a great line in his book, the Non-Anxious Presence, very close to my book titled The Non-Anxious Pastor.

I thought he would sue me cuz his book came out before my, but he didn’t. Praise the Lord. At least not yet. I love you, mark. Now he says, to grow in spiritual authority, we are going to have to step outside of our comfort zone. and break away from the grip of the myth that life is going wrong when we are not feeling good.

Peter is saying to live this life of abundance, it actually leads to a lot of suffering. But don’t worry, just because you’re tempted to quit, just because things are getting tough does not mean you should stop doing that. It usually actually means to keep going because you’re doing something right and the enemy is not happy about it.

Does that make sense? We need to get away from that myth that life is going wrong when we are not feeling good. . Now for the sake of time, I want us to look at the last source of pain. So you have the pain of temptation. Some of us are missing out on our purpose because man, the pain of just man you, you feel broken, you feel wounded, and it’s so easy to go to that relief.

It’s so easy to go to that sin to give you that temporary hope. But the second pain that it’s very real is when you change your parents. Look at you different now because you now have been baptized in the church. , right? Your friends don’t invite you over it as much anymore because now you’re the guy who makes them feel bad because you don’t talk like they now talk, right?

That’s a real pain. The third pain is really hurtful as well. Look at verse seven. First it says, the end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and sober minded for prayer. He says this phrase all throughout the letter, I think it’s so good, but he says, above all, so this is the main thing.

Maintain constant love for one. Since love covers a multitude of sins, be hospitable to one another without complaining. I just preached on this passage just a couple months ago, so I’m gonna be brief here. But he’s saying actually invite people over that you’d be tempted to complain about, right? So don’t invite the people you like at church.

Also invite the people you don’t like at church, which is gonna make it awkward if today you finally invite somebody, you’re like, oh, I get it. You don’t like me, but let’s go have dinner. We must be hospitable. Verse 10. Just as each has received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

Write this down. We also have the pain of expectation.

The biggest source of pain when I hear from Christians who’ve been involved in church is the church. And I think the reason we get so hurt is because we expect the church, which we. To be a source of love and unity and honor. But what happens? So now because you’re like, okay, now I’m a part of this great community, your expectation is, okay, I can be myself now.

Your expectation is I’m gonna be loved here. I’m gonna open myself up. And yet sometimes people take that vulnerability and they use it against you, or they take you, you have invited people over, over and over again, but they have yet to invite. And that hurts. It hurts because man, you’re giving yourself out there and it’s so hurtful when they don’t reciprocate.

But this idea maintained constant love. He’s actually implying the image of a runner straining to cross the finish line, doing whatever it takes, taking all the effort you have left in your tank to do this thing. So Peter’s saying, Love in this way where you’re straining to love This word love means to love someone even when they let you down.

Cuz I don’t know about you. I love loving, lovable people. They’re great. It’s reciprocal. It’s amazing. All happy go lucky. It is so hard to love the people who are not as lovable, right? Peter’s saying, no, love those people just as. This is hard because how can you love somebody after you know they’ve gossiped about you?

How can you love somebody after you know that they’ve slandered you behind your back? How can you love somebody if they keep ditching you? And what I hate is most of us have just agreed that’s impossible to do. Yes, I’m gonna love the church. I’m gonna love relationships here, but if they hurt me, I’m just gonna make sure I love everybody.

That’s Antigo and antivial. You have to love those who let us down. This is hard, but man, I want us to build a community of actual love, and this means we lean into these hard conversations. I love, again, verse nine, do all of this without complaining. So host somebody, and even though they don’t thank you for the food, you still love them and invite them over again.

Write all. I was talking to a pastor. See, this is a huge source of pain for pastors. And I think the latest stat was like 70% of pastors have been tempted to quit since 2020. And there’s all sorts of things. It’s mainly politics and all that kind of stuff that’s just been really hard to lead in this moment.

But, so I was talking to a pastor about that and he’s retired he kinda laughs at our situation cuz he can just go live his life. But he actually told me such a great line. He said, Trey, did you know that most pastors quit because of five?

even if they have 200 amazing people that love them, hospitable to them, care for them, give to pastor, appreciation, all that, there’s just five people on average that nag them, that are hurtful, that slander, that post stuff online about them. I’m not gonna, I’m gonna stop giving you ideas. Okay. , you’re like, what else?

Most pastors quick is of five. In reality, I think most members leave their church because of one misunderstanding, cuz of one bad interaction. And that’s just so sad because that’s not gospel. Like the gospel is able the same power that rose Jesus from the dead dwells within you and me. I think we can get over conflict.

Your threshold for pain can withhold your purpose. Life is hard. It’s full of pain. We have temptation on the inside. We have reputation to be worried about on the outside, and you have expectations on those by your side, and you will find pain in every scenario. So write this down again on the next slide.

Your threshold for pain can withhold your purpose, but I have good news. Write this down your threshold for. Can tenfold your purpose.

If you have a low threshold, you lower your purpose. High threshold, you hire your purpose. A famous pastor once said, you don’t determine a man’s greatness by his talent, wealth, or education. You determine a man’s greatness by what it takes to discourage them.

Peter, Fight the good fight. Be sober minded, persevere, stay hospitable without complaining. Love the unv. Push through the slander. Fight against that sin. Just don’t quit. Some of you came today and you need to hear that message. Resist the quick fix. You need to persevere. That means I believe in this text.

You need to change your perspective. Putting on the attitude of Christ, knowing truth, knowing that God will judge and so realign your. But you. You need people. You need to love people. You need to serve people. Cuz there is so many blessings that come on the other side of maintaining constant love, maintaining, never ending, always going.

And some of us have such a low threshold for pain. We’ve never experienced the blessing of perseverance. Do you know there is so much joy when you push through and you stay hospitable to. Even though you want to complain, there is so much joy. When you resist temptation, resist the quick fix. And so instead of a practice which we typically like to end with, I want to offer a time of reflection.

I wanna ask you this question. Where do you need to resist the quick fix? Is it an area of temptation? Is it slander? Is it how? And serve the church. Let me put that more specific first question for us to process together. Is it a temptation you keep running to for relief?

Your threshold for pain can withhold your purpose. Are you missing out on the purpose of the favor of God that has, that God has on you? Because every time a temptation comes, you budge.

The enemy knows that you’ll give in. The enemy sees the track that God wants you on, and instead of saying, yes Lord, I’m gonna fight, I’m gonna stay in the wilderness, I’m gonna fast, I’m gonna pursue you instead, the moment a temptation comes, we just budge with so quickly, wanna go, oh, I just need relief.

People don’t understand me. Peter’s saying, no, push through that butter, brother. You need to engage in suffering so you could be finished. With sin. The Christian life is full of joy. It’s light, it’s easy, but at the same time, ironically, the same Jesus who said those words also said, you need to die to self.

That it’s a war. What temptation have you been running to for relief and you think it’s a relief, but it’s really been killing you? I want you to offer that to the Lord today. The second question, I want us to process together. Maybe it’s not a temptation or maybe it’s also a temptation, but.

Question. Is it a friendship you keep looking to for approval?

Is there something, maybe even it’s a spouse, it’s a family member, a parent, right? But because you’re so intent on finding their approval, you are missing out on what God’s called you to do.

Sometimes it’s the form of slander. Sometimes your friendships is just in the form of sarcasm. Those little jabs have actually kept you from pursuing all that God wants for you. The slander hurts, but missing out on your purpose hurts even more. The last question. Is it a church conflict you keep holding onto or running away from?

There’s two different ways we respond to relational conflict. One is to be bitter, to think about it over and over, and the reality is, I’ve heard bitterness is like holding a knife and holding onto it tight and it’s just it’s making you bleed and so you wanna maintain constant love, but not for that person.

It really does hurt me how often I’ve seen broken. Relationships happen in the church, and instead of having the hard conversation, instead of believing the best in the other person, they just part ways. And usually our church is, we’re left to dealt with the fallout, or you’re running away from it.

You’re not thinking about it at all. You’re avoiding it all together. Maybe you don’t come to church because that person is there, right? This is real. This happens all the time. And it’s so sad because we say, man, Jesus is better. He saves us. He forgives us. We forgive others, man. Let this passage be a challenge for us to walk the walk.

So again, is it a temptation? That you keep running to for relief. It is a friendship you keep looking to for approval, or is it a church conflict you keep holding onto or running away from? Now let me be clear. The answer here in this passage is not to pick yourself up off your own boot bootstraps. Every other religion will tell you that.

Every other religion will say, try harder, do more yada. The answer though that I want us to lean into today is the grace of Jesus. There is a reason you feel like what I just ask you to do is impossible because in your own power it is. But we need to step into the revelation that what God calls us to, he equips us to, and he gives us a supernatural strength that we can.

On our own. So really, I’ve been praying all week for us that something significant would even happen this afternoon that we would say to Jesus we actually believe in your words and we actually want true freedom. We want your presence. We want our purpose. And for too long our threshold for pain is so low.

It has, it can with. Purpose, but may we recalibrate and realize our threshold for pain can tenfold our purpose. That in Christ we can endure a lot more than we think we can. In Christ, you can engage in that awkward conversation. In Christ, you can engage in conflict in Christ. You can say no to the temptation and Christ will give you a way out in Christ.

You can look at your. And love them, but not engage in their lifestyle anymore. In Christ you can cuz the tomb is empty and that power is yours. When we believe and receive, this is Peter’s prayer. Look at the this next verse. It’s in chapter five, and I pray this over you and the God of all grace. This grace means gift.

It means love and abundance. It means it’s not something you’ve earned, it’s just given. If you receive it, it implies power. It implies resurrection, power, the God of all kinds. Grace, who called you to is eternal glory in Christ. You have such significant purpose in life, eternal glory, forever and ever.

Glory because of Christ. He’s called you in the room. He’s called you to this. The God of all grace has called you after you have suffered a little while. A little while might mean a decade. I don’t. It could mean the 30 minutes you have that hard conversation. I don’t know. Throughout your Christian life, we have been sold this lie.

Come to Jesus. Everything’s easy. Come to Jesus. It’s just one nice, beautiful thing. To the next, no, sometimes to be finished with sin, to be finished with slander, to be finished with division. You suffer a little while after that though. This is the hope. After you have suffered a little while, will. Self.

This God of all grace himself, he’s not sending his angels to do it. He’s not sending your pastor to do it himself will restore you. God, I pray for restore relationships in this room this afternoon. I pray for restored desires in this room. God who’ve been floor floored and disordered running. This world and trying to find hope, restore them God, and make you strong.

You can resist the pain. Friends, you can resist the temptation. You can stand against the slander. He himself will make you strong. Firm instead fast. This is the hope of the gospel. The last thing I want us to do is to leave here and not apply it. To leave here and think That’s too hard. No. He will do.

What we do is we ask for it and we take that first step. We ask for it and say, okay, God, I’m re, I am churning away from that temptation. Please provide for me. Okay, God, this friend is gonna slander me, but I’m gonna keep sharing his love. Please provide for me, okay, God, there is a relationship conflict here that I wanna run away from, but God give me the power.

I’m gonna dial the phone number and do it right now. Is calling me right now. Maybe they’re really applying this message. Will we do it? Will we be people who do when we do that, there will be suffering. It’s not gonna be perfect, but man, the restoration, the becoming strong firm and steadfast makes it all completely worth it.