A few days ago, while I was working out at the fitness center, I met a young man who pleasantly distracted me. Unfortunately, I was only able to complete about half of my regular workout, but it was worth the conversation that would ensue. There was a fit, attractive young woman also exercising at the fitness center while we were there, so the young man stroke up a conversation with me after completing a set of bench press, "Would you f*** that girl?" I replied, "Nah, man, I'm married." Thus began a 45-minute conversation on love. He talked about how he'd recently gotten his heart broken by a woman whom he had been dating for four years and he was worried that his "game" wasn't good enough to find anyone else. So we began to discuss the difference between infatuation and real love, playing the emotional dating game versus the lifelong commitment of marriage, how good it is to commit to one person, while exploring the depths of what love is. He spoke in relative terms (as is the custom of our culture) and I spoke in absolutes. I told him that Love is a Chisel and a committed act of the will, but he kept insisting that it is merely an emotion, that a person can potentially fall in and out of love at a whim. Somehow the idea of love in our culture has become so romanticized that it has evolved into a fairy tale Chick Flick involving a baby angel in a diaper shooting arrows at unbeknownst strangers, so that they may magically "fall in love." But there's also a chance that this flying meddler might shoot someone else to love you, thereby creating an absolute insecurity of any semblance of commitment. Sure, it's a risk. Sure, it's uncertain. But a person can also be sure that it's worth all the risk and uncertainty. It's a shame that the pop-culture definition of love these days has been so distorted and twisted that we "love" anything, from lamps to tacos to puppies to people. I'm sure God is quite annoyed with what has become of something he intends to be the most valuable intangible that our hearts can ever experience, yet he knew our wickedness would pervert such a precious thing, for it is our nature to commit such travesties. 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 Jesus once said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he would lay his life down for his friends." It is a sad condition in which we find ourselves when love becomes selfish. We worry far too much about our "game," our image, our appearance, and how far it can get us. Masks, facades, fakeness. It's what we do. For some of us, it becomes who we are, forbidding anyone to truly know us. But, as it is, many will never know what love is. A person might think he knows what it is, a la Forrest Gump, yet never taste the deepest beauties that lie within. Some would say that it is a gift in a wrapped box that must first be "accepted" and then opened. The acceptance of the gift includes many elements, chief of which is a willingness by the recipient to take the gift. In order to accept a gift, the recipient first takes into account the character of the giver -- is he selfless or is there a hidden selfish agenda for him, does he actually offer a gift that can bring a smile to my face, does he even know what can make me smile, etc. Based on this information, the recipient can choose to reject or trash the gift before it is opened. If the recipient perceives that the giver has pure motives and is concerned about the best interest of someone other than himself, then he might accept the gift willingly and proceed to open it. There is a conscious decision being made both by the giver and the recipient, a synergistic act in which the recipient can actually take partial credit for the benefit of the impact of the gift, since he decided to accept it. To put it all in perspective, the reason God showers his people with grace to believe in him through Jesus is that love is pure as He is pure. He gives the greatest gifts. And we reap the benefits. There's no striving to please God. We don't have to put on our best "game" or use crafty lines to perk God's interest in us. He loves us because He can, because He is love. And He loves us even when we rebel against him, choosing to follow any other kind of fakeness that will never grant us lasting happiness. Like Hosea repeatedly returned to his unfaithful wife Gomer (read the book of Hosea), so God is with us.
"Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ."
The most miraculous event that can ever occur in a person's life is the transformation that occurs in the depths of the soul, for the sake of knowing God. Why does this happen? It all goes back to the character of God: He not only knows love and gives love, but God is love. But what is the process by which this transformation happens? So many people will say that they "accepted" the gift of the grace of God and it changed them forever. A few might say that they "received" the gift. Almost everyone will interject that there's no difference in either case, that it's all semantics. I disagree. I think it's more than just words.
Here's my point... There is something out there that everyone wants: happiness. There is only one way to get it. God has the gift that produces happiness in his hand and there are two perceived ways to obtain the gift. Obviously, God knows exactly what creates true lasting happiness within a person, and he is certainly willing to give that gift.
The other side of the coin is when a person "receives" the gift already unwrapped and it clothes him with gladness and transformation, without even a hint of refusal, for it is far more beautiful than any other gift that he has ever been offered. There's no concealment or even a potential for selfish motive on behalf of the giver. Everything is pure, everything is open, everything is good without distortion. The acceptance of the character and the motives of the giver comes first so that the receiving of the gift need not come with a choice. It is a ultimately a passive act for the recipient, while the giver lavishes the goodness of the gift upon him with great joy. Because the giver knows exactly who he himself is and knows exactly who the recipient is and what he needs, this idea is that a monergistic act on the part of the giver creates within the recipient the deepest satisfaction, gladness, and fulfillment imaginable, which is the perfect completion of the recipient's desire to be happy. All credit belongs to the giver while the recipient simply receives the benefit.
Let us enjoy His favor as we receive more and more of His goodness while He accepts us as his own, for He is good! What a precious gift!!
Jan 30, 2009
"Accepted" or "Received"?
Jan 20, 2009
A Speech for the Ages
The inauguration speech of the 44th President of the United States of America:‘My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."
America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
Jan 18, 2009
Does the New Covenant Innately Entitle Ease in Life to Those Under It ?
The new covenant: what a glorious plan that God has implemented for us! Everything points to it and everything flows from it. Without the realization of Jesus and his story, there is absolutely no hope for anyone, ever. It is the fulfillment of everything leading up to it, the illumination of the ancient shadows of God's promises from generations past. Yet it is also the point to which every future generation points, the only event in history that can actually bring hope to a hopelessly broken soul. It is the inescapable beauty of God's wisdom fulfilled through His own Son, for the sake of His own name and renown, that His own people may have ultimate joy in Him. This is reality. But so is life here on earth. The man who leaves his carnal passions unchecked picks up a gun and starts shooting. His life becomes the embodiment of suffering, the very definition of a miserable existence. He suffers relentlessly. "To the woman he said, "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
Lately, it seems like the media has escalated the propaganda of suffering. I have Facebook friends continually posting videos depicting the carnage that is currently taking place in the Gaza region. One day, I viewed a video in which a conservative Jew defends Israel rightly, in the sense that Israel is a people, not a place, and that the warring Israelis are as radical a misrepresentation to Judaism as fundamental Islamic terrorists are to Islam. The next day, I skimmed over a video depicting graphic war images of the typical carnage that happens during any war: dead women and children, charred by the damage of weapons of mass destruction. But who has the hope? Is there any? Who is virtuously defending their cause? Is there even a cause worth defending? And what about the places, say in Africa, where genocide has been being propagated for generations, yet no one seems to care? Where is their hope?
Cease fire? Doubt it. At least, not for long. Unfortunately, there is a war imbedded deep within human nature that, when misguided, cannot be satisfied by anything other than the exertion of power over something else, a prideful demonstration of a man's rebellion due to sin. There is no one without it. Everyone has it. There is a war in everyone, either physical or spiritual, or both. There is likely not a person who doesn't, at one time or another, beg the question, "Why all this suffering if there is a loving God hovering over us all?" Others, who have faith in Jesus, may ask, "If then we are under the new covenant of healing grace, then why do we let ourselves suffer? It doesn't have to be that way!"
It's interesting to think about the different types of spiritual awareness of suffering...
For those who are found by Jesus, suffering is never absent. In fact, Jesus promises it to those who earnestly follow him. Until he returns to reconcile all things to himself, to make all things new, there will be sin and the resulting effects of it. So how much more, then, is suffering prevalent to all people!
The man who finds religion restrains his carnal passions so that he doesn't screw up his life and goes on doing all the rights while avoiding all the wrongs. Yet he hates many things about his life for no particular reason, unable to find his worth in anything except his religiosity. He suffers every day except Sunday and Wednesday, when he's able to renew his devotion to religion.
The man who finds spirituality attempts to transcend his carnal passions by taking control of his life and everything in it. Suffering ought not affect him because he has found a higher place, far away from it. Yet he is ungrounded, dismayed when he is inevitably faced with suffering. He suffers when things are uncertain and suffering looms heavily upon him. He suffers even more when the suffering actually comes.
The man who is found by Jesus relinquishes all control of his carnal passions, knowing that he will fail from time to time, yet trusting that he is accepted regardless of his imperfections. He realizes that there is suffering in store for him, yet he hopes in the sovereign providence of his God to persevere him through it. He doesn't try to escape it, but instead digs his heels deep in faith, knowing that God will never leave him to face it on his own. He asks confidently for deliverance by his God, according to God's perfect and infinitely wise will. He suffers frequently, yet overcomes it and conquers it.
When Adam and Eve rebelled against the one command of God in the Garden of Eden, certain things followed:
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”"
Genesis 3:16-19
So why do I say all this? Well, I have some well-meaning great friends and brothers in the faith who sometimes entertain the idea that these things can somehow be different. In an attempt to encourage, one of these brothers might say, "It doesn't have to be that difficult; we are under a new covenant!" In other words, we don't have to settle for sickness and hardship, for God must deliver us from those things since we are under grace and not the law only. "The prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much" (James 5:16b) and "many are the afflictions of the righteous but God delivers him from them all" (Psalm 34:19), but where is the line drawn between faith fueled by ignorant zeal and faith informed in deep biblical teachings?
I believe that the only thing to which we are entitled under the new covenant is death and hell, for it is what we deserve. Yet the grace and kindness of God affords us faith in a gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus. And that is enough. We need not order God to simply take suffering away from us. Jesus is enough to persevere us in the midst of suffering and pain. He'll be there and in the darkness of our weakness he'll be our strength. Those who trust him will consequently endure.
-Romans 5:3-5
Jan 3, 2009
2009: A New Year of Our Lord's Neverending, Precious Grace
A few examples of New Year Prayers, from a spiritual ancestor...
1830
Be pleased, dear Lord, to grant me during the present year--more of Your gracious presence, more tenderness of conscience and fear of offending You; more humility, stronger faith, and more entire devotedness to Your cause. Enable me to leave my temporal concerns entirely with You, to walk by faith, to have my treasure in heaven, and to manifest by my conduct--that I am Your disciple. Let me not grow cold or lukewarm--but may "I lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset me, and may I run with patience the race set before me, looking unto Jesus. Amen."
1832
"Here I raise my Ebenezer." Thus far the Lord has brought me. Though the past has been a year of multiplied transgressions and backslidings, I trust, through His abundant mercy, my face is still Zionward, and that my prevailing desire is to be devoted entirely to His service. Take me, dearest Lord, and form me for Your own glory. I feel much bodily weakness. Oh, that through the crevices of this frail tabernacle, I may see some of the glories of the eternal world!
1840
Most dear and precious Christ, I had not thought to see another new-year's day--but hoped before now--to have beheld You face to face! Like him of old, who was possessed of a legion of demons, I besought that I might be with You. But for a season, You have seen good to withhold the full answer to my request. "May Your will be done!" Glorify Yourself in me, and be much, very much with me, until You shall say, "Arise, my love, and come away," to be with Me forever! I desire most humbly and unreservedly, in Your own strength, to yield to Your Divine disposal--all I have and am, and to continually lose my wish and will, in Yours. I would lay at Your feet all creatures and created good, with every seeming evil--and embrace Yourself, my Jesus, as my joy, portion, happiness, wisdom, strength, peace--yes, my all in all--for the coming year, or so much of it as I tarry upon earth; and then, as my joyful, blissful portion through eternity! Oh, lead me, Holy Comforter, more into Christ--and out of SELF! I have had much of blessing--but I long and pray for more; in Jesus' name. Enlarge my expectations more, I beg You--and more I shall receive. "Lord, increase my faith."
1842
Precious Christ, I come with a large request for 1842: it is that You would be the "Alpha and Omega" of it. Do You not say, "Ask what I shall give you?" Yourself, Lord! You have most blessedly given Yourself to me. But I find sweet liberty to entreat more unfolding, revealing, and opening of Your glorious person, amazing work, and matchless love, than I have yet had; and more losing and treading down of SELF, too--that I may be lost in Your fullness, and forgotten and forsaken in Your soul-absorbing glories. Oh! raise me higher, draw me nearer, that I may daily die, and You live in me more manifestly. I just give myself to You, to live on You, to live in You, to live for You, more and more than heretofore, and that by the power of the Spirit resting on me. I humbly ask that mine may be a large and still-increasing portion; that, under fresh anointings, You, most lovely Jesus, may be more fully known, more loved, more served; for it is to You the Holy Spirit leads, of You He testifies.
Oh, do make this a large, rich, full year! You being increasingly honored in me, and I increasingly lost in You, and made an increasing blessing to Your dear people. An Ebenezer for past mercies befits me; large and magnificent have been Your bestowments; bountiful and constant Your favors to me--a poor worthless nothing! "Bless the Lord, O my soul--and all that is within me, bless His holy name!"
As 2009 ensues, may we reach a spiritual depth into the presence of God Himself that will radically transform who we are. May we not be spiritual or intellectual weaklings that are tossed around by every empty philosophy or wind of doctrine or latest fad or media frenzy. Rather, would it be that we would dive headlong into the Scriptures so that we may fully worship God with our minds, refuting every false thought or teaching, discerning that which is good and true in the midst of a multitude of lies. How sadly is it that we so easily submit to the strong arm of deception because we know not the Scriptures well enough!
May the Lord alone be preeminent in our lives, above all things. Jesus is the first and the last, the Head of all things, for all things were created through Him and for Him. What would happen if we truly lived every moment of 2009 completely submitted to His wonderfully perfect Lordship? Then, perhaps then, would we become true disciples. May it be so, Lord. Amen.
