Principles of Position, Lesson 7

Alright, we are on lesson seven. I think we got through a whopping two questions last week. So we are on question three, I believe. And again, we are on the topic of acceptance. And we did reconciliation, now we're in the acceptance. Mike and I were talking actually on Friday night a little bit about this, how important this is, the topic of acceptance. A lot of what Mike shared on Friday night touched on this, and what we miss by not fully understanding our position in acceptance. And so, as we go through this, it is an important topic, and I think one that impacts a lot of believers. So, let's start with question three.

How does God use the condition-centered viewpoint in a believer for their spiritual growth? So, condition-centered, that's the self-centered. How does he use that for spiritual growth? He does it just for fun? We do it just for fun? How does he use it?

It's probably, I don't know, I just think of myself. Because when I try to do something, I get very fearful. And that's, I think that's condition, like me. So it helps you to see that you're not in charge. and that I don't know how to express it. Okay, I'll touch on the other people. How does he use the condition, the center condition or condition centered issues or how does he use that for your spiritual growth? What does it do? Echoing silence. that we're getting there. Others?

None of you? You're all perfect. You're in your position. No condition-centered problems at all. I think it just creates a point of contrast between who you are in private and who you are when you're depending on yourself and not abiding. Yep. Others? I put it creates a need. Creates a need. Okay. Others? It also makes us recognize that only Christ is sufficient. You know, it's an experiential thing. Well, I failed again. You've got to help, Lord. You've got to be in control. It's your life I'm looking for, not mine. Yeah, we're kind of going around the peripheral a little bit about this.

I think these are all true. But the other thing, what does it really point out? How about the utter worthlessness of our self? You know, I think you kind of pointed to kind of the positive side of it, that we're going to our need in Him and some of that, but I think what it really does is point out what is the end of Romans 7? Christ is the answer.

Before that. Oh wretched man that I am. Because he went through all of that condition centered, I can do this, I know I want to do this, I really want to do this, I'm trying as hard as I can. What was his result? Oh wretched man that I am. It pointed to the worthlessness of human or self efforts and self. That's what, going through this condition center, it points to how worthless it is, which then points out the value or Christ crucifying us was the best thing that ever happened. You know, it really Going through these conditions really points to the fact that there's nothing good in us. No matter how hard we try, no matter how much you bake cookies for people, walk the little old lady across the street, no matter how good you feel about yourself, there is nothing good in the old Adamic man. And these conditions, when you get into that, points to that. And it's not until we understand that in our flesh, what does it say in Romans 7, 18? Dwelleth no good.

So a little bit of good? You know, I really helped out last week. Was that, you know, because I really thought God would smile on me a little bit more. Was that just a little good in me? No. So I've come to class and I hear you say this, but then in my heart I think, well, you know, someone's telling me that I've got to go through this difficult situation where I must allow that in my flesh there is no good thing, but if I'm honest with myself, I'm not there. So the point of the question is, it's okay to recognize you're not there, but trust me, God will get you there.

It's not outside the purview of his natural methods of causing us to grow, to have us enter into this understanding. Well this is, yeah, he's using this. And what I had in here too is that, remember this is pointing to our position of acceptance. The Lord uses all these things to root out anything that says that it's because of us. That's all this purpose is, to root out all those things.

As Mike said, I've got a couple other questions like this that I really want a lot of people to try and answer because in your heart of hearts, do you really think you're worthless? Yes. I mean, in the very corners, deep down, You're kind of an all right guy.

Doesn't it also show up that God is bigger than what we envisioned? I think the phrase is God is good when things turn out good in an operation. God is bad if they're not. And I'm saying, hey, wait a minute. This is his way of working. I mean, it's natural for him to expose us to these things.

Yeah, I think Hal had it that there are no tragedies in a Christian's life. That's really hard, but when you really understand, I go back to a lot of the two things that I really cling on to a lot. He's in control of all things, and he loves me with an eternal love that I can't be separated from. So when the operation doesn't go well, or something that we don't understand happens, does he not love us with the same eternal love?

That's the question that we look at. A lot of times we think, yeah, he's bad or he's not, you know, oops. Does God ever say, oops, he missed something? Oh, he should have been in that, he should have had a better doctor. He should have, you know, he should have, he should have, he should have. No, he knows exactly what he's doing. And the thing is, he loves us with an eternal love. No matter what circumstances, he loves us. And he's using all these things.

Actually, one of those questions coming up is going to talk about that. I was just going to make a comment that I think one of the tricks is that when you realize that you have failed or you've relied on your condition, then you feel bad. Yeah. Getting to our position of acceptance. And that's really what, again, all of this is pointing to is our position of acceptance.

We talk about this, and this is kind of what we talked a little bit on Friday night about, and we'll get into it a little bit more in the questions, but we talk about this about a lot of Christians beat themselves up for a sin or whatever and they just can't get over it or they just are How could Christ love me? How could I?

Because I did this. Did Christ pay for that sin? Is God done with that sin? Why aren't you? And we beat ourselves up, and I think this goes to the acceptance. How could He accept me if I'm such a sinner? How could he do that? We don't understand the position of acceptance. And there's so many Christians that beat themselves up repeatedly without understanding this point of acceptance. And what it points out is that it's nothing of us. Nothing. It's because he crucified our old man and then placed us into Christ. totally in Christ.

So, you know, the question before was, in the deepest, darkest recess of your heart, do you think there's a little good in you? In the old man? You hope so. You hope so. And I mean, if I think we're really honest with ourselves, there's something that says, yeah, you know, there's a little bit of good. There's not. Romans 7, dwelt nothing good dwelleth in here.

So that goes back to this position of acceptance and how important that is that we understand that. There's a thing in the Green Letters with Miles saying, I like this, to abide in Christ and to consent to be loved while unworthy is a believer's positional privilege and responsibility. Love functions according to its nature, not according to the quality of its object. What page is that? It's in chapter 3. As many times as I've read it.

But listen to what that says, to abide in Christ and to consent to be loved while unworthy is the believer's positional privilege and responsibility. You know, think about what that means. Loved while unworthy. I think we have a really hard time about that. But that's because we don't really, I think, appreciate our position in Christ, which then gets us to that position of acceptance.

I look at it as God... I can't... It's hard to get to this point, but how God sees us. No matter what's going on with us, how does God see us? In Christ. That's how He sees us. No matter what, He sees Christ. We may think we're unworthy, we may think all this, but God looks at us and He sees Christ.

That's the position of acceptance. What I was wondering is it says condition over here and you keep calling it position of acceptance. So I'm confused about what says condition over here. It says condition and you keep saying about position. There's a position of acceptance and the self-centered or we tend to on a conditional basis think about what I did wrong. And it's, if I just do a little bit better, you know, that type of thing is where I'm looking at self, and that's a conditional. But, you know, eventually our condition and our position will be together. But it's really the believer's understanding of what our position is in acceptance.

And again, that's solely and only because of Christ. And, you know, when I say the believer A lot of believers beat themselves up because they're thinking that God is looking at all of that bad stuff that's still in the flesh. He's not. He crucified it. And He sees us in Christ.

Is it not our condition as to whether we believe that or not? Yeah. Well, it goes back to what we talked about too, which was our last class about faith. Do you believe that? And that's where I'm going to get at another question. Do you believe that? It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. The point is still the same. That your condition is affected by whether you believe it or not.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm thinking as you're talking, in today's society we have a lot of problems with two issues. Anxiety and depression. The interesting thing about both of those is that they're self-centered and they're the kind of thing that anxiety can be caused by how you view yourself as not being acceptable or not living up to some standard or so you're anxious about it or you're a dad and I'm not being a very good dad or I'm not a good provider or I'm not really accepted in the tribe, or whatever it is, and then I get depressed about it. And I think it's important to understand that the world has a supposed solution for that, which is medication. The Lord has a solution for that, which is the cross. That this old man who is depressed and anxious, was crucified. And like you were just saying, my whole responsibility before God is just to believe Him. And a lot of times I have to go against what I'm thinking and feeling and all of that. Absolutely. Just take Him at His word. Yeah, you know, the other thing you say, Medication, the other thing the world always says is self. Fix yourself. Absolutely. This is the Roman 7. You know, how do you do it by yourself? You don't.

That's such a tendency too to compare yourself with someone else and everybody's doing better than you are or you know that kind of equality where you're talking about acceptance being in price and that all people Everybody is exactly the same, regardless of how successful or unsuccessful they are in the world. Right.

You know, a lot of believers are great Christian leaders. I caution people always to look and think, oh, that's a great... I want to be... Usually about two years later, they're caught in some horrible sin or something like that. But, you know, it's never should we put our focus on man. The focus is always on Christ. And, you know, the thing about the depression and all that is, it's these illogical choices that we make. Oh, please. Wow.

I have, we've talked about this way back when I started coming to church. I have problems with depression. I have problems with anxiety. and I don't want to feel bad about it. I have been beating myself up ever since Friday night because I was, in my making humor, I jumped on him about his new haircut. And I was giving him a bunch of grief about that. And I thought, well that, you know. And I assume it was probably St. Baldrige? You did a St. Baldrige thing or something? Is that, yeah? No, no, that's not right.

Oh, well maybe I've been beating myself up for nothing, but I was giving him a bunch of grief and I thought, well that's really good, I'm good Friday, I'm beating him up and telling him about his haircut, you know. And I've been beating, I've been waiting to talk to you, I didn't mean to do this publicly like this, but I'll take the opportunity to do that. How long does your haircut take? So anyway, I've been beating myself up thinking about this, and I shouldn't have given any grief, and I was like, you know, and I think, I guess back to your question, and the illogical choice, and we all make it, not you, we all make this, is we choose not to believe what he told us.

And I think about the freedom that we have by our position of acceptance, when we understand that and we believe it, it takes all of this garbage out. I make these dumb mistakes and I beat myself up. You can do some things and there are consequences. If you shoot somebody, you're going to have consequences. There will be consequences to that. But in God's eyes, if you're a believer, you're still in Christ. But you're going to be hauled away, you may be executed, you may be whatever.

But we make the choice of not believing these things. I go back to the freedom that we have in this. Every once in a while, the Lord dumps this on my heart, I think, is a ministry to prisoners about the freedom we have through identification. grace, and just what we're talking about today, acceptance. Think of all the people who are in prisons who are thinking about all the bad things they've done and are locked up, not only in their physical prison, but the prison of all the things that they think are bad and dumb and all that.

Think about how freeing the message of identification is. crucified. Everything that you have had happen to you, that you've done, is all been crucified and taken away. And you're now placed into Christ. All of that is gone. All that that you have, I'm not saying you understand that right away, but how freeing that is to a prisoner. How freeing that is to us. Truly understanding that and believing that, what freedom that has for us. Well, that isn't the thing that... I mean, I know that God's forgiven me for, you know, just like he's forgiven everyone else that believes. That's not it. It's other things. Well, you know, and I don't want to get into all that. No, I don't either.

And, you know, I just think that the thing is... That you can be depressed. Yeah, but when you have two granddaughters that are very sick and my daughter's husband, who has cancer, I'm not saying that every other family doesn't have problems. I'm here because I want to learn how to handle these things.

And most of the time I do. And you are. You have come so far. You have come so far. We talk about this. It is amazing to see how far you've come. We live in a fast food society. I want it now, I want my coffee in 30 seconds out of the microwave, I want all this right now. So these things take quite a while to get to, but the Lord takes us through these things to get us to a point.

I believe that now, I understand that now. You go, and I see how my daughter has grown in her belief by And she even said that. She said, I would never have had the faith I have now, had all these things not happened to me. I know. She's stronger than I am.

But see, that's the things that he's, just what we're talking about in this question. I understand that. And I'm sorry, but I'm having nine people over to my side. I'm sorry, it's your family so I can... And that's exactly it. But I want to tell you, you know, you have grown considerably through this, you know, from, you know, an understanding. And it's a process, it's spiritual growth, you know, and mine is, you know, and I look in the mirror, I have to say the same things.

You know, do I believe this? And really, after our faith class, it really hit me hard. I've been putting together a whole bunch of stuff after that class. Because, do I believe this? Do I believe this? There are so many promises that he has. So many facts. And do I believe it or not? Do I have the personal faith? We know what the faith is. It's not of us. It's the things of God. Hebrews 11. But the personal face, do I believe that?

And if I don't, why not? Why do I choose not to do that? That's my question. I go through this a lot. I go through it probably more than you do. About questioning, why don't I believe this? I see all this. Fifteen pages I've shown of things. Why don't I believe this? Well, you do. I don't. There are many things that I look at and I don't. And I wonder why I don't.

I think on the topic of depression and anxiety, there has to be a footnote added to that, but it can't be violent. I mean, I think you said the discussion is good, but you do need to insert footnotes for that, because I've seen people, that was all that was needed. Right. And there's a lot of different things. I don't mean to, if I did that, I didn't mean to trivialize it. That is a fact. And he said it, medications. I was addressing the other half of that. There are that need medication.

I don't want to discount that too. So kind of an ongoing thought here. This question number three, it has a stinking condition, which is sort of a short-sighted effort to answer a question in the sense of there's more to that. We never allow ourselves to stay in question three and not leave Romans 7 and go into Romans 8.

So with that footnote, there's this other thought that's kind of occurred to me. With this concept of self-reflection and why do I allow myself to do those things and I, I, I, we're going to think along those lines for just a little bit. I think it would be good to just refer back to something that you mentioned back in January about that essential identity in terms of personhood and who we are. In fact, the Lord made each and every one of us unique in eternity past to be exactly who you are.

And that's not the person you need to be beaten up. And it's literally the sin nature that is the problem. And so you don't hate the essential personhood of who you are. You hate the sin nature that you're trusting in. And that's where your frustration lies, is in the sin nature. and the choice that you made to trust that sin nature, not in who you are and how God made you.

So there can be frustration in our conditional walk. Question 3 talks about that. How do we view that conditional situation that we're in? But don't have frustration with who God created you to be. The frustration is towards the sin nature and how you trusted.

Yeah. Would you say the way God originally created you or recreated you in Christ? Recreated. In fact, that's that whole person and there's a progressive transition in that person before the believer. Right. And that recognition of who is anxious, who is disappointed, Is it who I am in Christ or who I was in Adam? That's being manifested in that disappointment or that discouragement or that anxiety. Recognizing the new man that God has made us is not that way. It's Christ's life that would be suffering. I think there is a suffering, however, of the new man through that. When sin occurs, there's consequences and there's penalties to be paid.

I just have one more thought. Sorry, I wanted to make sure I get this out. Vern mentioned it a while back. Do we sit there and focus on our hate for sin, and in our case the sin nature of the condition? That's what's in the way. Vern often talked about, at one point during the Law of Grace series, he just wants sin out of the way so he can have an abiding fellowship with you in the moment.

Don't focus on the sin nature and the issue. It's about the abiding. That needs to be out of the way so that abiding can take place. That's the issue. So focusing on sin and our hate for sin, but why do I have to deal with this sin nature? That's in the way.

The point is personal fellowship with who you are in Christ. That's the Roman 7. And again, remember the importance of position and what we're discussing is our acceptance before God. That's the point. The position that we have, the position we have, the acceptance in Christ. That's the focus. Not all the extraneous stuff. That's the real. The other is a lie. Yeah. I mean, the real is our position.

And again, what kind of goes back to whether you believe it or not, it doesn't matter. It's still true about you. But it does matter because if you don't believe it and you can't live like you do, You're miserable. Right, but you're choosing to do that. But you're not miserable all the time.

But my point is, focusing on our acceptance in Christ, if we focus on the other, like Paul in Romans 7, It's the wrong focus. Our acceptance is His acceptance. Exactly. That's what, you know, where are we seated positionally right now? In Christ, at the right hand of God. That's where God sees us. That's my whole point of the importance of the position of acceptance. Again, what JD's saying is, you know, all this other stuff is extraneous and gets in the way. Focus is on the position of acceptance. And that's where The freedom comes.

That's where, you know, the Galatians 5.23, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy, peace, all those things. When we have all these other things, are they the fruit of the Spirit? When we have frustration, when we have anger, when we have all these things.

Depression. So that's not who you are. Of course that isn't who I am. I know that. That's the conversation in your own spiritual growth that takes place. For me it's a different one. But depression in the sin nature, that's where it lies. It does not lie in who you are in Christ. And it won't be an eternal state for you because that's not where you're... I mean, when you are face to face with the Lord, That sin nature is no longer going to play. See, and I think that's it, you know, J.D., and what I try to say, too, is you may struggle with those.

Every one of the other people in here... Every one in my family, like seven. Some of them were nuts. You haven't met my family. Not this one, but my family growing up and who my family is. I could go tit for tat for you on family if you want. Not my immediate family now, excluding that. I could go with you on that forever. J.D. is right, though.

What I try to say, too, is the Lord has us in different positions, going through different things. We all go through these different things. The point of the question is, why does He use that, or how does He use it? It's to refocus us on our acceptance in Him. All these distractions, all these other things, He uses point, who are you depending upon? Who are you relying upon? Who is your focus on? All those are meant to focus us back on Christ and our acceptance in Him. And I just got to pound that more. Just think what that is. Your position of acceptance in Christ. All this other peripheral junk, He doesn't even see. He sees us in Christ.

The Holy Spirit is working, convicting and convincing us, trying to get us to focus back, using all these things to focus our attention back on the Lord and our position in Christ, our acceptance in Christ. I think you just made an interesting point. Just because I have the knowledge doesn't mean I'm free. And so the work of the Spirit is to actually condition and free me from what I already know is true of me positionally.

And so therein lies the struggle. You know, it's one thing, I remember I called up Miles one time years ago, I'm in the middle of this whole thing, and I said, Miles, when am I going to get free? And he said, you'll walk away from self when you know you can. And I thought, OK.

The point being is that this whole enterprise and exercise has to be carried on in me by the Holy Spirit. I can't decide, I can decide to believe that I cannot implement it. He's got to do it. And I think it's important for us to understand that. But just because I think, OK, Yeah, I believe you. But the actual conditional freedom and abiding in Christ is something the Spirit has to do. I can't do it myself. But I can trust Him to do it.

You know, one other thing I think I've learned is that He doesn't say that God made me righteous. He declared me righteous. Then there's a difference. in Christ. Righteous in Christ. He didn't make me righteous, so I'm just imperfect. He declared me because of what Jesus did. Because of where He positioned us. Yeah. Not because of anything good in me. And that's why the Roman 7, nothing good dwells in me. Or not 7, what is it? Yeah, 718. Dwells no good thing in me.

That's what I was thinking about when that veil ripped in two. That was a perfect Proof that our acceptance was in here. I was thinking that the other night too. And the other thing is, you know, it's both ways. Both ways. I can go in. He comes to me. It's now an open relationship. Open. 100%. Nothing in the way. I can pull my thought together. I wanted to address for a minute the question of depression, because I think it's very real, even among people who know the word well and have walked with the Lord a long time. I've struggled with it tremendously, less of later years.

But I think if we know the word, as we grow in our reading of the word, in our understanding of the word, The Holy Spirit brings to mind things that are applicable at various times. And there is a verse that says, the sin that does so easily beset us. And I used to think that that was the fact that I did this wrong or I did that wrong or I did something else wrong. I had a bad thought or I was jealous or most of it was inside and not overt. But I don't think that's what it is. I think it's the sin nature so easily besets us.

And I think in recognizing the fact that we're free from that and yet the Lord tells us that we are beset by this thing that we still have within us. Which of course doesn't want the relationship with the Lord. And so, we have these insecurities and things, and it helps to know that the Lord knows why we have that, that it's our sin nature. And then it says, come to Him to find grace to help in time of need. So in recognizing that I have this sinful nature, that's fearful and doesn't want to trust the Lord, even though I've walked with him more than 50 years now. He has grace. I mean, we have all of it all the time available to us, but there are times when we need more. I don't know what that means, but it's practical.

Let's go to question four actually. What will allow us to increasingly willingly to reject self and to leave all that sinful source on a cross for daily crucifixion? Kind of addressing what you were saying, what will allow us to increasingly reject the self. As we grow in our love for the Lord and our understanding of who we are, where we are, not only as a human, that we have our human nature still, recognizing that and recognizing his love for us and where he's placed us in himself and what he's done for us and what he will do for us. And it's a response of love. Okay. Others? Quickly?

What is daily crucifixion? I mean, you have to get up every morning and say, I'm crucified again today. I mean, is it just that you're crucified with Christ? Or is it like... I don't know. I go back to the Romans 6. What's it say? Reckon yourself dead and alive unto God. Reckon yourself dead to sin and alive unto God. Wouldn't that be reckoning that I have been crucified, not that thank you Lord I'm being crucified again today. Yeah, it's understanding your position.

It's all done. It's finished. But realizing that there's still a sin nature in you. Right. Reckon yourself dead unto this sin. and alive unto God. That's what I take that to be. Well, you know, Paul, and this is something when I first started coming, Paul asked, he prayed three times and asked to be delivered from the thorn in his side.

So I think, you know, maybe I would, not telling what I might have done, maybe if I hadn't I don't know. See, but I think that goes to the understanding of... He understood at that point the position, you know, his weakness was what God was using. If he was strong, Paul would have gone... Oh, I see. Okay. Alright. With a thorn in the side, he has to rely upon the Lord. If he takes that away, Well, that's what I was saying, but in a different way.

I mean, theater was my background. And so, maybe if I hadn't had this problem, which I've always had, that I might have gone crazy. You know what I always to that kind of stuff? Because I look back in my past and I think of all stuff. And you know what, I praise God because He had me exactly where He wanted me.

That's right. To get me exactly to this point today. Exactly right. He got me right here today for this day. And He never gave up on me and brought me here when I was 80 years old. You know, this goes back to my ism. Does God ever say oops? Did He miss you back then, 20 years ago? No. Did he not know of you? Did he not know everything about you 20 years ago? What about 20 minutes ago?

What about two hours ahead of here? That's where the peace and the rest comes from is understanding that in our position in Christ. I can't predict what's going to happen two hours from now, two days from now, two minutes from now. But I rest in the fact that He does. And He's allowed me to get to that point for some reason. And it's to have me dependent upon Him, to realize that I'm... It's just worth saying, He uses all these things to point us to Himself. And I can't stress that anymore, that the acceptance that we have is full and complete in Christ.

And when we think depression or this in me and that in me, where is our focus? And this goes back to, we're going to go on question four next week because this is where we want to hit. I want to hit you guys on personal thought on this and what it means.

Because we talk about a lot of flowery terms and a lot of things, but what does that mean in shoe leather? We talk about things, we eloquently say this, that, or the other, but I really want to get from you a couple of ideas. When we say some things, what does that truly mean to you now? And what does that mean? You know, Sam Dalton, a friend of ours with the Lord now, you know, when the rubber meets the road, what's in shoe leather? You know, when we talk about this, what do we really mean to you today? And we'll get into that in question four. But I really want, you know, think about it. Great discussions.

They open. It's great. The keys are, again, and I go back to, unfortunately, Mike, That, you know, he pointed me years and years ago when I first met him, just read the scriptures to know him. I can't thank him enough for that. You're lying next time. Yeah. That's a whole different matter. But to know him, that's the key. Because as we spend more time looking at him, we spend less time looking at ourselves. Right.

And I regret the day that I said, I find it hard to read the Bible every day. And then I said, because it's boring. And I didn't really mean that. I meant that when I just sit down and read it, it doesn't refer... I'm so used to Bible studies for years and years and years.

That's what he basically told me to do, is don't read it to study it, just read it. Okay. Just read it. By the grace of God. You know, mine is, and I think I've told this, and this is not a program, not a law, not a rule, not a way, this is just me personally.

You know, every day I start with John and I go to the beginning of Revelation. I read one chapter a day, just read it in the morning. And I just read it. I don't get out my PC study Bible and go through every word and go through every whatever. I just read it. I just read it. And I really thank Mike for that, because it is. I just read it to know him.

And it's amazing how much comes out of a scripture. And I've read it repeatedly. But it's a living document. And when you read it that way, it comes alive. That's why I've got 15 pages of all these things I want to teach on at some point. It's because each time I go through it, it's like, oh, wow! Wow! All right, we need to close. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you again just for what we've been studying, position, what that means.

It's eternal, never to change. And as we realize what position means when we have acceptance, and that position will never change when we're in Christ. It is full, complete, nothing added, nothing needed. It's a hundred percent acceptance in Christ. Our position in Christ and our position of acceptance is eternal. Nothing that we can do can ever change that acceptance. And we rest in that fact. We have peace in that fact. We have strength in that fact. And we thank you for the Holy Spirit who convicts us and convinces us of our position in Christ and our position of acceptance.

We thank you for that. We thank you even through that process that is sometimes painful and long to get us to where we rest in our positions. We thank you that you're never done with us. You're always working on us. Again, we just thank you for your many, many blessings to us. We just thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.