Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Man in the Mirror, Part 1: The Love of God

Episode Date: May 30, 2015

You were never meant to be perfect. You were created to be loved. So why is it so hard to love ourselves? It's not a simple answer. Maybe it's time to take a look at your relationship with the Man in the Mirror. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, it's awesome to have you with us today, and you're going to be amazingly blessed by an incredible guest speaker. Before I introduce him, I want to tell you about our June series. I'm actually going to be teaching from the best-selling book that I've ever written. It's called The Christian Atheist, believing in God, but living as if he doesn't exist. Which really cool is our publishers have given us permission to make those available for only $5 to our church only so you can get one for you and maybe for someone else. I'm going to be teaching about those who believe in God but do not know him. Week two, we're going to talk about those who believe in God but do not fear him. Week three, we're going to talk about those who believe in God but don't want to go overboard.

They don't want to be too serious about the things of God. And then finally, we're going to talk about people who believe in God but do not trust him fully. And this is a message series. Many of you will know people who really need to hear this. We believe in God, but we live as if he does not. exist, a Christian atheist. Today, I want to introduce to you a very good friend of mine, one of the greatest spiritual leaders alive today, truly one of the most gifted communicators I believe God ever created. Louis Giglio is the founder of Passion City Church, an amazing

booming church in Atlanta. He also leads passion conferences all over the world, literally impacting tens of thousands of young adults. He's a leader in worship music. My favorite thing is, He's got an amazing wife, and he's a man of God. Would you show love and honor to our speaker today, Pastor Louis Giglio? Appreciate you. Thank you. Wow. Man, I cannot tell you how excited I am to be with you today.

And I just want to say thank you to Pastor Craig, Amy, as well. They are phenomenal people. And Shelley, my wife, and I love them very much and respect so much what God is doing through their lives. And it's an incredible honor just to be with every one of you today. I want to talk for the next two weeks together under this title, The Man in the Mirror. And I don't know if you know much about music, but the greatest pop song of all time, hands down. There is no vote. This is not up for discussion or debate is called The Man in the Mirror.

If you don't know that, you'll have some time to research that before next week's message. But I want to talk about the two greatest commandments. and I want to talk about the implications of those to the two most important relationships in your life. The two greatest commandments, you probably know one of them, right? The passage of scriptures Matthew chapter 22, Jesus is being confronted by these religious leaders and they're trying to trap him with their question.

It's a heads up for you and me. It's not a great idea to try to trap the creator of the universe with any of our questions because he understands our thoughts, the motives of our hearts. You don't even have to talk for Jesus to know what you're thinking or for him to respond to you, but the questions always gave Jesus a great opportunity to say what he wanted to say. And these questions did the same thing in Matthew 22. I want to read the text for us. It's a passage that if you've been around church in your life, you're going to know this text.

If not, this is going to be excited. for you to hear for the very first time. This is what happens in Matthew chapter 22 beginning in verse 34. It says, hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, now that's one segment of the religious leaders, the Pharisees got together. So you would think if he's already kind of quieted one group, you would say, well, let's don't mess with this guy, but the Pharisees weren't like that. They thought we can figure out a way to corner this guy. What were they trying to do? They were trying to prove that Jesus was less than who he claimed to be. And so they got together and one of them, an expert in the law, tested Jesus with this question. Teacher, which is the greatest commandment

in the law? Now, for us, we're thinking ten commandments, but by the time that Jesus had arrived on earth, there were hundreds of other addendums to the original Ten Commandments. There were a lot of things that you had to do the right way, say the right way, show up at the right time to be in good standing with God. And this lawyer thought, I can really probably zero in on this guy's real motives if we can ask him, what's the greatest of all these commandments? And so I love Jesus because he didn't turn to his consultant. He didn't say, can you give me more time?

I need to make a phone call. Just like that, he responds immediately to the questioning. of this group of people and this one man in particular, and he replies, love the Lord your God with all your heart. Don't you love how the hostility gets diffused in an instant by that statement? Oh, you're trying to pin me against the wall. You're trying to try to understand whether or not I am from God. Well, here's the answer to your question.

If you want to know the greatest commandment, love God with your whole heart. You know why that answer is so cutting? It's because that answer immediately resonates into the tone and tenor of what was woven into our hearts at the moment of creation. When God knit us together in our mother's womb, he knit us together to be in a relationship with himself. So inside every human being is a violin string set, if you will, that was created for the bow of the almighty God. And in the harmony of his bow and the strings of our heart, something happens. It doesn't happen anywhere else on planet Earth. And so when he said, here's the great commandment, love God with all your heart.

Immediately something inside of each one of them was going, uh-oh, I think I know what this guy's talking about, and I don't even know yet what he's talking about. He said, love God with all your heart, with all your soul. so he's now sort of assuming that there's more to us than what meets the eye. There's something else going on inside of you and me. And he said, and love God with all of your mind. It's a small footnote there. I love that because people always look at followers of Jesus and say,

oh, you people just will, you know, you're out on that limb of faith. You really don't think about anything. You just believe everything. And I'm like, no, God is the God of all creation. He's the scientist of all the scientists. He's the Einstein of the Einstein's. He's the most brilliant of all the most brilliant people that ever existed. And God doesn't want from you and me.

He doesn't want blind faith. He gave us a brain and he wants us to use it. So he said, love me with your heart, love me with your soul, love me with your mind. This is the great commandment. And they're thinking, I'm sure I didn't see that coming. And then he takes a breath and he says, this is the first. And the greatest commandment, and the second is like it. So there are two things coming to your one-thing question.

There are two answers coming. Doesn't God do that to you a lot? I just needed to know one thing. He said, no, you need to know eight things. And here are the eight things that you need to know. I just need to know her name. And he goes, oh, it's not her name that you need to know. It's this other person's name.

I just need the address. And he goes, no, it's not the address. You need the right day of the week. You're in the wrong calendar year looking at the wrong thing. God knows what we need. And he knew that it wasn't one answer to their question. It was two answers. And the first one was love God.

With everything you've got, heart, soul, mind, another gospel writer adds strength. Everything that's in you, love God. And he said, oh, and there's one other thing, if you want to know the most important thing. And it's just like the first thing. So what he's saying is they're equal to one another. And it is this, love. Do you know this one? Love your neighbor. Oh, that gets tough already. So that first one felt great. That first one felt great. And now we're talking about the Robertsons and nobody loves the Robertsons.

And up there, move the car out of the front yard. We'll think about it. But, you know, until that happens, we're not even going over there. I mean, so immediately now, it's like, yes, love God. That feels good. And love your neighbor. I don't want to love my neighbor. We haven't even met our neighbors. We're not even really sure we're ever going to meet our neighbors. But then listen to the last part of this phrase. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor.

Do you remember how this goes? As yourself. And then he sort of drops a bomb on their question. He says, all the law. So you just think about everything that's been added to those 10 commandments, everything man has put into the equation. But all of God's laws, what he is referring to, and all of the prophets, what does that mean? All of these message that have been foretold for centuries and centuries about what God's plans are for our lives. All of the law and all the

prophets hang on these two commandments. In other words, everything God has ever thought about doing, is doing, and is going to do all His own. hinges on these two things, that you and I understand the two great commandments in life, the two things we must be about in life. But then we understand what's more important, I think, for the way we live this out today, that these two great commandments inform our two greatest relationships. So when you think about the man in the mirror, and we don't want to leave out the ladies today, So when you think about the woman in the mirror, so the man or woman in your mirror, how are you doing in relationships?

I mean, relationships is a hot topic. I don't know about your church, but at our church, if we preach on sex or dating or marriage or sex or dating or marriage or dating or dating, I mean, people show up because people want to know how to work out relationships. If you talk about parenting, people show up. If you talk about resolving conflict, people show up because we're not all doing as great in our relationships as we want to be. And what I want to try to zero in on over the next few weeks is that our ability to get the primary relationship right, which is our relationship with our creator, is the single most important factor in us getting all the, getting all of our other relationships right and having meaningful and fulfilling relationships with other people in our lives. But guess what? Do you know what the second most important

relationship in your life is apart from your relationship with God? You think, you know, it's my relationship with my wife, or my relationship with my son or my daughter, or with my boss. You know, I've got to keep him happy or keep her happy. No, the most important relationship that we have apart from our relationship with our creator is the relationship that we have with ourselves. Think about this. You spend more time with you than any other human being alive. So how's that working for you? You listen to you more than you listen to any other human being alive.

You talk to yourself the most. So whatever you believe about you is mostly what you told you about you to believe about you. However good you think you can do is mostly predicated on how good you told yourself that you could do. How worthy you feel about life is mostly predicated on how worthy you told yourself you should feel about life. And so obviously our relationship with God is primary. but second to that our most important relationship is the relationship that we have with ourselves and that's what we're going to really unpack more next week. I don't want to focus just for a moment on the relationship that God desires to have with you and me

and I want to do it from an angle that we don't normally come from and I want to ask you this question today. Can God relate to you? I think sometimes we show up at church, we roll into, a gathering like this. A lot of us own a Bible. A lot of us believe that there's some supernatural being or a higher power. But when you get right down to it, you wonder, can God really get into my space? Can he get into my shoes? Can he get into my skin? Does he understand my business? I do derivatives, Louie. I'm in high finance, and I know that's a little complicated, and I don't know if God really understands some of the exotic investments that I'm a part of. I'm down here working the soil.

And I don't know if God really understands what it means to have dirt under your fingernails and mud on your boots. And I don't know if he really gets what it is to be out there before sun up and to be in that layer of life. Or maybe you're in the middle of a collapse right now or all kind of disasters come into your world or stuff's just gone flying off the handle. And you're like, I don't know if God really understands what it's like to have a son who's an alcoholic or to have a wife who had an affair. I don't know if God can really, you know, relate to what I'm in right now. I just want to answer that question in three ways. Yes, God can relate to you and me. He said, well, how can you say that?

Because this text is written in red. Yeah, so you say, well, what difference does that make? What difference does that make? Well, that's just these Bible printers way of helping us find the teachings of Jesus more easily. in our scripture. No, this is signifying that these are the words of Jesus. So these two commandments that inform these two relationships are not just somebody's opinion. It's not just a guy showed up at church and decided to tell me how to have a better relationship. No, what we're talking about today is that a guy showed up on earth. And he wasn't just a guy, he's actually the maker of heaven and the

maker of earth. The scripture says in many places about Jesus, he's the one who created the stars and the galaxies and the cosmos in everything that is. And yet he somehow squeezed divinity into a manger and willingly chose to take on flesh and blood

so that forever he is the God man. Forever, he is equally God and equally man. And when Jesus is speaking these words, he's around 31, 32 years of age. So he's logged in three decades on planet Earth. He knows what it means to be alone. He knows what it means to be tempted. The scripture says he's tempted in every single way, just like you and me, yet without sin. He knows what it means to be frustrated. He knows what it

means to just lose it. Remember the time he was in the temple and they were making money off the sacrifices that the people were bringing to God and he just said, I'm done with us and just started turning stuff upside down and pushing things against the wall. He knows what it is to be betrayed. He knows what it is to be reviled. He knows what it is to be abused. He knows what it is to be in that point of suffering alone. And Jesus didn't come for an hour or a day or a week. he came to spend 33 years on this planet so that when he said to you and me, I want you to make priority number one

falling in love with me. We would know right away you get me. You understand me. I don't know. Most of you probably never been down this road, but I was talking to a guy recently. He's on this thing called, well, I won't say the name of it, but he's looking for a wife.

And so he's on this website where he's going to find this wife. And I said, well, how does it work? and he's explaining it to me because I'm not looking for a wife right now, and he started explaining to me how it works. And he said, well, this, at the other, and they put these things in my deal, and I get these profiles in my account, and then I go through these profiles, and I said, well, how long does that take? He said, oh, man, I do it at work.

Please don't do that. He goes, I do it at home. I do it on my phone. I'm always checking to see if they put someone in my folder. And when I'm looking down through the things, you know, immediately he said, you know, I'm not obviously looking at what the person. It looks like, because that's not important to me, I'm looking at her heart, you know, and her character, and I'm like, yeah, right. You're like, no, no, no, maybe, maybe, yeah, maybe.

Who's she? You know? But at the end of the day, he's looking at somebody who gets him. See, that's what we want. All of us want that significant relationship that we have with somebody that gets us. When you say something that you think is funny, you want this. them to think it's funny. When you make a poignant comment that is earth-shattering and tweet-worthy, you want them to tweet it. You don't want them to go, uh-huh. What'd you say? You want to go,

oh, wow, that was fantastic what you just said right there. If you like basketball, you want them to like basketball. If you read science books, you want them to like, or at least like to hear about science books, you want somebody who gets you. And Jesus is saying to us, I just need you to know, that I want you to love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I need you to know that I get you. Not only did I make you, so I wove you together, I know you, more than you know you, but I've also lived life just like your living life. And trust me, whatever you're going through, I've been through. Whatever you're feeling, I have felt, I can relate to you. Second question is, How does God relate to you and me?

How does he relate to us? And this is mind-boggling to me. The way he relates to us is a couple of things. Number one, he relentlessly pursues us, even though we often do not pursue him. Number two, he does not give us what we deserve. And number three, he never meets us halfway. He meets us all the way.

I mean, you do good to find somebody who'll meet you halfway. I mean, you find somebody who'll meet you for lunch halfway. That's a good lunch. But we'll find a place in between you and me. We'll meet there. You won't have to come too far. I won't have to come too far. You get into a conflict and find somebody who'll meet you halfway.

You're really happy. You get into a lawsuit and find somebody who'll meet you halfway. You are rejoicing. God doesn't meet us halfway. He meets us the whole way. He didn't come halfway from heaven to earth and say, You know, I got from the throne of glory down to here. Now, if you can get from whatever town you're in up to the stratosphere, I'll meet you halfway.

No, he came to Bethlehem. That's on earth. That's on earth. He came all the way. And so here's the thing about how he relates to us. He relentlessly pursues us when we don't pursue him. He meets us far more than halfway. He comes all the way.

he'll come all the way to wherever you are. He found the prodigal son in a pig farmer's stall in the muck. And that's where he met him. That's the place where that son came to his senses and stood up and said, I'm going to turn my life around. The father, you say, well, the father was God in the story. That's right. And he was on the porch when he saw the son come over the hill.

But what did he do? He left the porch and he ran down the lane. into the village to meet his son. And the other thing that God does when he meets us is he doesn't give us what we deserve. Psalm 103, what does it say? He says, he does not treat us as our sins deserve. But as a father has compassion on his children, so our father has compassion on those who fear him.

And then the last question is, what difference does it make in our world? Well, here's the thing. When God sees you, you know, a lot of us spend a lot of time looking in the mirror. Anybody here? Anybody got a mirror on them? Ladies, come on, help us. Does any of the guys have a mirror on here? That's going to be maybe interesting. This is what God looks at when he sees you in the mirror. He says, I want you know a couple of things. I want you know that I love you. I want to prove that to you. I'm not just going to say it. Amen. I want you to know that I'm grateful for you. I added this because I just, think it's important for us to know today that God doesn't just generically love the world,

but he's actually happy that you're alive today. He's actually happy that you're on the planet. He's not sad that he made you. He's looking at you going, I'm so glad you're here. I'm actually grateful for you. I appreciate who you are, the way you're living your life, what you're trying to be about. I just want you to know, I appreciate that. And don't you want somebody to appreciate something for crying out loud. And he's telling you, I appreciate you. He's saying to you, you are a rare and beautiful treasure. Hello?

You're rare because there's nobody else like you. And you're beautiful because you have God woven into you. And God is amazing. He says to you and he sees you in the mirror, I want you to know that I forgive you. Past, present, and future. There's something in history called the cross. And because of it, all your sins past, present, and future

are covered, finished, done, paid for, atoned, washed away, canceled out, and I forgive you. I forgive you. He says to us, I just need you to know that I'm going to hold you to a high standard. Amen? But, I'm abbreviating here, and I can't write anyway, but I'm going to give you grace and mercy in appropriate ways. Why? Because that same passage in Psalm 103 says, God knows our frame. He understands that we are dust. So he's not expecting you to be perfect. Hello? Because he said even the youth will stumble and fall. Even the strongest of us will get tired and grow weary. That's why he's going to raise us up on angel wings, right, and give us that God power that keeps us moving.

So he's going to hold you to a high standard. He's not going to say, oh, don't you worry about it. Oh, your seventh marriage? Oh, that's fine. Go for 10. Go double digits. It's okay. No, he's going to hold you to a high standard because you're his. You have the DNA of God.

You have the spirit of God. You have the life of Christ. You have the body of Christ. He's going to hold you to a high standard. He's going to say, you should become like Christ. But if you stumble, I'm not going to throw you off the bus. I'm going to inappropriate ways give you grace. and mercy because you're made out of dust.

And I understand that. He's going to say to you and me, I have a special calling for your life. So nobody's just going to a cubicle today. Everybody's going to a divine appointment today. And then he's going to say to us as he sees us in the mirror, and I just want you to know that I'm cheering for you. And I believe in you. Anybody wish somebody was cheering for you?

and God is saying, I need you to know, when I see you in the mirror, this is what I see. So when heaven looks down and sees you, heaven says about you, heaven says, I love you. Heaven says, we're grateful you're alive. So don't do anything stupid, okay, today, because we like you. Oh, nobody cares about me, my life's insignificant. again, nobody would even care if I wasn't here. Wrong. Heaven would care if you weren't here because heaven's grateful that you're on a planet today. Heaven is saying you're rare and a beautiful treasure, and it does not have anything to do with whether it's a good hair day or a

bad hair day or you're tucking it in or sucking it in. You're rare and beautiful treasure. I forgive you. Heaven is telling you, I forgive you. we're going to hold you to a high standard so this isn't going to be some you know free for all but trust us from heaven you're always going to get grace and mercy in an appropriate way six we got a special calling for you today and seven as you go out the door today heaven's cheering for you heaven is cheering for you and you say well what difference does that make in my relationships with me and my relationships with everybody else Well, it's important that you and I come to real terms with whether we believe that or not,

because it's going to inform, hello, our second most important relationship, which is the one with ourselves, and it's going to domino into every relationship we have. And you know what I found about me? I found about me that I can easily say, oh, man, I absolutely, yeah, all that. I believe all that. but you know whether or not you believe that not by your primary relationship with God but you see it reflected in the relationships with everybody else

can I show you something you won't forget so God is a shoveler it says his mercies are new every single day isn't that good news so every day God's got mercy for you and for me and God is a generous God so think about this every morning when you

wake up. God is saying from heaven. I just want you to know I love you today. You need it? You need some more? Got some more. Four? Okay, great. Got four. You need mercy today? I got mercy for you today. You need compassion. I have compassion for you today. You need to know that you're forgiven today. I'm just going to remind you again today of the price of Christ paid for you. You are washed. You are righteous. You are completely brand new. You are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. The price is paid.

The debt is canceled. You more. Six hours on the cross. Innocent for the guilty. The righteous for the unrighteous. The just for the unjust. So that you could come to God. He just pours on us.

Love, mercy, kindness, compassion, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, cleansing, acceptance. And he's a shoveler, our God. And we come to church a lot of times and we're like, thank you, Lord. Your love never fails.

It never gives up. It never runs out on me. And we just sing that with all of our hearts and we say, that is my truth. But do you know how you know that that's true about you? You know that's true about you in the way that you interact with the people. around you. Because what I've discovered is that we love to celebrate the shovel, but we're really

better at dispensing the spoon. Oh, you messed up. Again. You need some compassion, don't you? All right. Well, I'm going to give you some compassion. There you go. And that's because I'm a Jesus person. I just want you to know that. I just want you to know that. I just want you to know that. That. There you go. Oh, you need to be forgiven. Well, I'm going to pray about that. Talk to my small group, my accountability group, my prayer team. I'll look fast for four years during the night. And I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you. Oh, yes, forgiveness. You're going to get some. There you go. Isn't it amazing? that we celebrate the shovel, but yet we dispense with the spoon.

And what this says is extremely important. Because when we, I, dispensed with the spoon and not the shovel, it's not about you, it's about me. And what it says is not that you're not worth more acceptance. What it says is that I haven't received enough acceptance to feel like I could shovel some out to you. And so what the spoon says, what the spoon says is that I haven't really received the shovel. Because when I have received the shovel, then the shovel is what I use to dispense to you. So our primary relationship is our relationship with God. and in that relationship with God, everything starts with God, coming down from God to you and me.

And it's a daily thing because, I mean, I'm telling you, nobody's leaving a house without stopping here. Nobody's going to work without stopping here. Nobody's coming to church without stopping here. Nobody's going into your important meeting without stopping here. And when you stop here, you've got to understand heaven is talking to me. Jesus is talking to me because of the cross. All this is true. I'm loved.

heaven's grateful for me. I'm a rare and beautiful treasure. I am completely forgiven. I'm going to be held to a high standard by God, but get grace and mercy. I got a special calling on my life, and heaven is cheering for me today. And the degree to which I believe that is going to change my heart completely. And it is going to infect in the most amazing way every single relationship in my life. And so the beginning point for us.

Next week we're going to unpack a little bit more what this looks like to love ourselves. But the beginning point today is just to believe that there is a God who can relate to you. There is a God who's met you more than halfway. There is a God who's given you not what you deserve, but he's given you grace and forgiveness, mercy, and kindness.

And it has done all that, just so that your life can be changed, but so the lives of all the people around you can be changed as well. Jesus, thank you today that standing in all of our story right now is a cross, and that that cross is the central reality that allows us to know you, and out of that relationship with you allows us to love each other. And so we just trust today that you will open up our minds, our understanding, our capacity to believe and receive. So that it's not just words that we've heard, messages that we've checked off, songs that we have sung, but it is the reality that we breathe.

And it is the love that we embrace day by day by day. And we just trust that you'll give us the ability to do that. We need your help to receive your own. love, and we thank you for the possibility of that through the person of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you, guys. What a great message. Let's continue in an attitude of prayer. Father, thank you so much that you brought that message, especially God administered to me, and I know to so many others as well. As you keep praying all of our churches in an attitude of prayer, I wonder how many of you, when you look in the mirror, you often don't like what you see. You feel insecure.

you feel inadequate, you maybe feel guilty, maybe even at times feel unloved. If this message spoke to you in a very personal way today, and you really want to be one who not only receives the shovel, but also dispenses the shovel, and you want to see yourself as God sees you because you often feel inadequate or not like enough. Would you lift up your hands right now? Just all of our churches God is speaking to you. Father, I thank you so much for so many people who are receiving from you. I pray, God, that your Holy Spirit would just seal this message into our spirits that, God, you see us as lovable. God, you've called us, you dispense your grace upon us. You have a very special calling for every single person. And, God, I pray that as our identity is formed

in our love for you, that we truly could love others as we love ourselves, God, because you did not give us what we deserve, but God, you first loved us. when we didn't deserve it, God, you showed us your love. As you keep praying at all of our churches today, I know there are a lot of you that you may be exactly like I was some 27, 28 years ago. I honestly remember looking in the mirror back in college and just saying, I don't like the guy that I'm looking at.

And the reason is I felt so guilty, I've done so many things wrong. And I remember feeling drawn toward God, but feeling unworthy to come to him. And the reason is I didn't understand that God didn't love me because I was good or bad. God loved me because he's good. And he sent his love. He didn't meet me halfway. He became one of us.

In the person of his son, Jesus, who was without sin, who bore the weight of my sin on the cross, died and on the third day rose again, so that anyone, and that included me, who didn't deserve it, Anyone who would call on his name would be saved, forgiven, and transformed. And when I called on Jesus, I became a new creation. The Bible calls it. The old was gone, and everything became new. And there are those of you today, this is the very reason that God brought you here. Because you may not like yourself.

You may feel unworthy. You may feel unclean. You may feel dirty. But when you turn from your sins and when you follow Jesus, he makes you new. And there are those of you, this is the very. reason you experienced this message today. And all of our churches, those of you who say, yes, I need his grace. Yes, I need the mercy of Jesus. I want to believe and embrace that he loved me and he came for me. So today, I turn from my sins and I completely surrender my life to him. When you do,

you will become brand new. Your sins forgiven and you become a new person in Christ. And all of our church is those who say, yes, that's me. I want his grace. I need his forgiveness. Therefore, today I give my life to him. I want to know him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now. And all of our churches, and you say, yes, I want to pursue and give my life to Jesus. As there are hands going up at all of our churches. Church online, you click right below me. And I would love for all of you to pray aloud with those around you. Just simply pray, Heavenly Father, I need your grace and your forgiveness through your son, Jesus. I believe Jesus died for me.

and he rose again so I could know you and follow you. Jesus saved me. Be first in my life. My Lord, fill me with your spirit so I could follow you and live for you for the rest of my life. My life is not my own. Today I give it to you. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine.

In Jesus name I pray. All of our churches, would you worship big? Welcome those born into God's family today.