“Here I am… use me!” I prayed in quiet desperation hoping that the God of the universe would hear my simple sentence prayer and know that my heart was to be used by Him. But was that really my heart? Was I really asking Him to use me or was I simply asking to use Him? The more I reflect on the deceitfulness of my own heart the more I realized just how far from God my heart really was. Like a child begging to be lifted up by his parent only to reach something formerly out of his grasp I was begging God to exalt me so that I could grab a hold of something cheap and tawdry like the approval of others.
Why do we chase such small things as money, power, recognition, etc. when the only one who really matters in never far away? I used to read biographies of great men and women who had blazed a trail in history and ask God to make me like them. I would read about their devotional habits and tied to hard to mimic them thinking that was the key to unleashing God’s power in my life… Oh how foolish I was. They weren’t looking for God’s power in those early morning sessions, they were looking for God!
This is what it means to be righteous. They were not looking past the Creator for his blessings, they were looking to their Creator as their blessing.That’s the secret! It was there all along! Those who are greatly used by God are often those who seek only to humbly obey Him and walk in righteousness. They are not righteous for the sake of having others look at them (that’s what the Pharisee’s did). They just honestly have looked for and trust God and somehow in the mix, these are the people God uses… the one’s whose greatest ambition is to simply please Him. And at the end of the day, isn’t that all he is really after? The full devotion of my heart (Then he can use me however he wants).
I ran across this convicting Bonhoeffer quote this week and thought I’d pass it along here.
If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not go God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God; and if this be the case, let him thank God for leading him into this predicament. But if not, let him guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do and thank God.
Is it me or is there something seriously wrong when a company makes over 50% of its profits in the 3rd quarter? Are we really that consumer driven as a society? Is that what Christmas really means to America? Spend your cash or take out credit and “help” the economy?
Is that really what we have made it? Are we really that worried that aunt sally won’t like us if we don’t buy her a toaster? Our kids won’t have anything to brag about if we don’t buy them the latest video game accessories for Christmas?
I know families who go into debt every year to “buy Christmas” and spend the entirety of the next year paying it off. Others are a little better at planning and so they set up a Christmas club account. Threaten not to buy presents this year and in some families you will be disowned (or at least it will feel like it). Because Christmas is all about the gifts, right? I mean it wouldn’t be Christmas without the gifts, would it?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against gifts. I’m against Idols. If Christmas isn’t “Christmas” without the gifts, then you are worshiping the wrong person come December 25th. It might be your aunt sally who will threaten to disown you and collapsin a pile of tears if you don’t get her anything. It might be the imaginary judgments made by your kids friends and parents when they hear that you didn’t get little johnny or Suzie everything on their little Christmas list. It might be the reporter who shares that sales were still down this year. It might be the little voice inside your head that tells you that people won’t like you if you don’t give them gifts.
You might say, “I give gifts to honor Jesus.” That’s right, we do celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas. Jesus who stepped out of heaven, came to earth and was born practically homeless and in the care of teenagers. Jesus who humbled Himself and gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. We owed a debt we couldn’t pay and He payed a debt He didn’t owe. Jesus.
If we would truly honor Him, then lets give as He gave. Give to those who cannot repay you. And don’t just give them the left-overs, give them the lion share. Fill the shoebox for your kid and give the rest away to those who have no way of paying you back. I think the folks at Adventconspiracy.org are on to something. Check out the video below.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – Matthew 5:46-48
My parents had a few strange customs around our dinner table growing up. First, we ate at the table. It was a discipline because dinner time usually happened around the same time that our favorite TV shows would come on. Second, My father would read or share a devotional from the Bible or an inspirational book. Third, we held hands and would all share something that we were thankful for. Nobody ever bothered to tell my parents that this was “Thanksgiving day thing” and not for the other 364 days out fo the year… at 2-3 family meals a day, times 365 days a year times about 18 years at home and you get the idea that we were a thankful bunch.
In those early years I was thankful for sweet and endearing things like my “momma” or my “daddy.” Around the age of middle childhood I was thankful for petty things like, “I’m thankful that I can beat my brother at basketball.” (Since then, he’s beat me a few times). In to the teen years it became, “I’m thankful for the food, now lets eat!”
Here lately as I try to observe our customs from the outside it dawned on me that sometimes arrogance parades as thankfulness. I wish I could take all the credit, but the thought really occurred to me when I woke up at 3 AM one morning and heard a few voices clearly speaking in the darkness of my room. They said…
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus:’God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
God really spoke to me that night, but before you go jumping to conclusions, I went to bed that night with the audio Bible cued up to play while I slept (and allow my subconscious to digest the scriptures). However, I was waking up from a deep sleep, was disoriented and it took me a few minutes to realize it was just the audio Bible and not a few strange British men who had broken into my house to dramatically read to me from Luke 18.
None-the-less, the seed was planted and I began to consciously think through the implications of how we show our gratitude to God and others. Real thankfulness doesn’t arise out of a comparison to others, it arrises out of a genuine dependence on God. The Pharisee wasn’t thankful, he was arrogant. The things he was “thankful” for were the things that he wasn’t. He was thankful that he wasn’t like this “sinner” beside him. The tax-collector was just calling out for mercy.
There is difference in being thankful that I have a home and being thankful that I am not homeless. The first way is thankfulness, the second is arrogance. Its subtle, but it’s there. One way is gratitude for the blessings of God, the other is to make myself better than others.
This Thanksgiving I’m aiming to be truly thankful to God for all the blessings he’s given me… and to not be arrogant. Though in a moment of weakness I might say that I’m thankful I’m not an Alabama fan.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” (John 4:31-32, ESV)
Now the disciples are getting to know Jesus. They were around when he cleaned out the temple, they may have been around to overhear Jesus talking with Nicodemus, they know that sometimes Jesus speaks a little funny. They also know that they just saw him talking to a Samaritan woman which was a very socially unacceptable situation. They also know he is hungry and tired.
Right now they see that he needs something to eat. They knew how hungry they were when they went into town, they know how tired he was when they left him by the well, so they imagine that his number one priority right now is to get something to eat. Jesus, you’re hungry, eat.
They don’t see a man on a mission to save the world, all they see is a hungry and tired teacher. They miss the reality of who Jesus is. They won’t get it until later, much later.
So then they start to look around and see if someone has taken their spot of getting Jesus lunch?
So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”(John 4:33, ESV)
They see themselves as providers for Jesus, they don’t get that ultimately He is the one who is going to provide for them. They imagine that someone else has brought a party tray by and fed the master. Perhaps they become indignant. It was their job to go into town and buy lunch. Great, now they have too much lunch.
Jesus lets them wrestle with the issue long enough and then fills them in on what he really means when he says, “I have food that you don’t know about.” They need to know that they ultimately do not provide for Jesus, but that Jesus provides for the whole world. They need to see what really drives their master, beyond human appetite. Beyond the desire to have a full stomach, Jesus desires to obey they father. This is worship.
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. (John 4:34, ESV)
He challenges his disciples to see past hungry stomachs and see hungry souls, to look beyond the physical reality of a hungry tummy to see that true worship is a heart rightly submitted to God. What fuels Jesus? The disciples must learn here that food is for the body, but worship is for the soul. Jesus is seeing past the physical into the spiritual. If the disciples are ever to be like him they must come to a place where they desire God’s will to be done more than they desire their daily bread. Indeed later Jesus will teach them to pray to the father and before daily bread comes the request that God’s will would be done.
Now like the Samaritan woman before them, he presses his disciples to see all the people coming out of the city. See them with spiritual eyes. They walked into the city to get food, never once did it cross their minds to see the great spiritual need, but now they see it as the whole city comes out to the well.
Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” (John 4:35-42, ESV)
It was a common saying in the day of Jesus to say, “there are four months till harvest.” It was a way of saying, “relax,” don’t worry, don’t be in such a hurry, there isn’t anything you can do right now. Our modern saying is something like this, “Good things come to those who wait.” Here Jesus is saying the opposite. He is saying, “look! You didn’t plant anything and now there is a harvest field.” You didn’t tell anybody in the city about me and now the whole city is coming out to meet me.
I can’t help but be reminded of one of our Wednesday nights a few months ago. I was running around trying to get everything set up. I’m a firm believer that service is more caught than taught and so I set out all the chairs, place connect cards and pens in the seats, open the student center, help count out the cash box, etc. I also speak.
One of our girls was talking about her life. Something told me that I needed to sit down with the band who was already engaged in talking with her. She had several great questions and we listened and prayed with her and then it struck me that God was really dealing with her heart. Long story short she prayed to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior. What was really interesting about the situation thought was that while she was praying, I was thinking, “you have this all backwards. I haven’t even spoken yet. I’m supposed to preach and then people are supposed to respond.”
The truth of the matter is, it rarely ever works out that way. Sure people may respond after a sermon, but most often times someone has been there before. A praying parent or spouse, a concerned youth worker or Life group leader. I may be the one that someone prays with, but seldom do I sow the first seed.
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” (John 4:15-18, ESV)
She says, almost sarcastically, “give me this water.” And then Jesus does something strange by telling her to go get her husband. To us it looks like he is changing the conversation or we think she may have turned a corner and is really interested at this point in what Jesus is saying. But Jesus is doing heart surgery here. He is helping her to see who He is, by asking her to be honest with herself.
It is not as though divorce in Jesus day was unheard of, or that people didn’t get remarried, they did. So it was socially acceptable to have been in one or more marriages. However, if the marriage ended in divorce, it was the woman who was generally though to be at fault. And even if all her husband’s had died, the rule of the day was 3 marriages, beyond that and you were damaged goods. So for a woman to have had 5 husbands and shacked up with another guy there is no hiding the fact that she is a sinner and now this strange Jewish man knows it.
Jesus knows the weight that she carries around on her shoulders and he presses the conversation in a way that must hurt her. I can imagine that her whole life is spent trying to ignore how many bad decisions that she has made; trying to avoid the stares of the town people.
Some people assert that at this point the pain is unbearable and that she is trying to focus the spot light off of herself and so she brings up a theological question; one to steer the conversation away from her painful personal life. But that’s not it at all. Her question actually centers on the proper place for a sinful person to offer sacrifices for their sins. Her question is about worship.
The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:19-26, ESV)
This woman’s question is about the right place for worship. When we say worship, we may think of songs and preaching, but when she said worship she was talking about making restitution for her sins. In our day the question might look like this, “The Catholic’s say go to a priest and confess my sins, my Baptist friends come forward at an invitation and rededicate their lives. Which way is right?”
Jesus answer is designed to help her see past the physical reality. She is looking for a place, she doesn’t know that worship isn’t about the right place, it’s about the heart. Jesus tells her that the place is about to be made irrelevant. His sacrifice will be the last sacrifice ever needed. What is needed is a humble and contrite spirit; an attitude of the heart. She also needs to know the truth; worship the true God.
She knows that the messiah is coming and she looks forward to that day and there she makes a startling discovery and Jesus makes a bold claim. I am the messiah.
Jesus declares that he is the messiah just in time for his disciples to come up on the conversation. The next few verses will reveal their thoughts and we will look at them, but first see how this woman responds to his declaration. It is as though a veil has been lifted. All at once she see’s who Jesus is; she sees who she is; she sees what worship is really all about and now she sees her home town of Sychar different than she has ever seen it before.
Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him. (John 4:27-30, ESV)
She runs back into town, leaving her water jar (as if to say, “I don’t need it any more, I’m satisfied in Jesus). She runs to all those people who’s stares she has tried to avoid. She is no longer worried about how they see her, she see’s them for the very first time. They are thirsty just like she had been. They need to meet this man. Who cares what they think of her. The reality of her situation has just changed. Before her sign might have read, “looking for love in all the wrong places.” And now it reads “rescued from my sin and shame.” She is different and she sees the world as different.
Her neighbors take note. What has caused this shy sinner to now go running throughout town compelling everyone to go out to the well? Something has changed this woman!
In the meantime Jesus is about to help his disciples see the spiritual reality around them. They have just come from doing business in town to buy lunches for everyone and where they saw filthy Samaritans, this woman was now seeing people who needed to meet Jesus.
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. (John 4:1-6, ESV)
Between Jerusalem and Galilee was a territory known as Samaria. Samaria was filled with a people who could trace their ancestry back to Jewish peasants who intermarried with the foreign people brought into the area when Israel was away in Babylon. The Jews hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jews. Most devoutly religious Jews avoided the whole area like the plague. When they had to travel between Galilee and Samaria they would opt to go a longer route and cross the Jordan river and head north that way. The fact that Jesus is traveling through Samaria shows that he is not taking his time getting back to Galilee and perhaps God has some big plans for Samaria.
We learn just a few verses later that Jesus’ disciples go into town to get food, leaving them at the well alone. As he is sitting their tired from their long and hasty journey a woman comes to draw water from the well. Now as she approaches the well, let’s look at things through her eyes. Who does she see when she sees Jesus?
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:7-14, ESV)
Does she see Jesus, savior of the world or does she see a Jewish man? She just sees a Jewish man. A strange Jewish man, because men don’t talk to women in public and Jews don’t talk to Samaritans, so for a Jewish man to talk to a Samaritan woman, he must be strange.
Jesus isn’t content with her just thinking that he is a strange, thirsty Jewish man, there is a greater reality to who He is and he is going to help her see that. He tells her that if she just knew who he was that she’d be asking him for water. But she doesn’t get it. Who does this strange Jewish man think He is… he doesn’t even have a pitcher to draw water with, how can he give her water? Is he greater than their ancestor Jacob? She asks as much assuming that he is just a strange man, never quite grasping that she is having a conversation with the Messiah.
The irony here is that Jesus is greater than Jacob! The first readers of this gospel, like us would have understood that right away. It is obvious that this woman doesn’t know who she is talking to. So what does Jesus do? He gently states that he is greater because his water satisfies where as Jacob’s well leaves those who drink from it thirsty again and again.
While she can’t see the reality of who Jesus is, He sees the reality of who she is and he knows that she is thirsty for a real relationship with a holy God and so his next move is to help her see herself. Look at how she responds and what he says.
When I first saw that video I immediately was convicted. Too often I’m the guy in the first part of the video. I get frustrated at things like traffic and long lines at the coffee shop. I don’t ever pause to wonder or think that someone’s mourning the loss of their best friend when they pull in the parking spot ahead of me… I just think that they’re a jerk. And when I get in the parking space ahead of someone else, I just think that their a loser. (Just kidding!)
I do wonder what life would be like though if we really saw everything that was going on? What would it be like if there were an eye-wear service that would let you know more than what meets the eye? More than just someone’s emotional state, but who they really were?
Often when Jesus spoke with people he was pushing them to see past just what met the eye and see a deeper underlying spiritual issue. In John chapter two he drives the money changers out of the temple and people ask him by what authority he does this… and he answers, “Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up.” They thought he was talking about a building. They thought worship centered on a place. Jesus was talking about his body, worship centers on the person and work of Jesus. They thought worship was making animal sacrifices, Jesus was saying, “I am the sacrifice.” They thought death defined their world. Later they thought they could kill him and it would be the end. They didn’t know that Jesus was on mission to beat death, deliver us from hell, and that his death was just the beginning.
Later in John chapter 3 Jesus speaks with a man named Nicodemus. Jesus tell Nic that if he wants to see the kingdom of God that he must be born again. Nic doesn’t get it. Nic thinks that it’s impossible for old life to have new life. Jesus wasn’t talking about the physical, he was talking about the spiritual. Nic didn’t understand that you don’t enter heaven because of who your parents are, you enter heaven because of who God is. You don’t enter as a master teacher trying to offer God your services, you enter as a helpless babe completely dependent on God for everything.
Tomorrow as we come John chapter 4 and the story of the woman at the well. As we read this story, as we examine this truth, I want to ask you to put on your glasses. Ask God to give us a glimpse of how to see the world as He sees it. Ask him to help us look past the every day and into the eternal. Ask him to apply this truth to our lives. Ask him to help us see people as he sees people
When I was in college I used to drive 16 hours to go home and see my parents. It was quite a drive. Along the way I passed by countless towns and cities all with their own off ramps complete with signs touting the local eateries, gas stations, and hotels. Despite the long drive I rarely ever stopped. In fact, I tried to shave hours off the trip by stopping only to use the restroom, fill up the truck and grab a bite to eat (Usually all in the same location).
Then one day somewhere in southern Illinois I did the unthinkable. I pulled off the interstate and went to a town about 8 miles off the beaten. I don’t know what prompted me, but as I drove through that small town I began to ask God to move in that place. I asked him to reveal himself to the people. I asked God to give me a heart for those people.
When I got home, I looked up the town on the internet and got all the statistical information that was available for free. I wasn’t aware of church planting at the time, If I had been I might of been tempted to go plant a church. The urge to pray for this small town was so great and so profound. I ended up praying for the people of that town for about a year. I asked God many times if I was supposed to go, but sensed his call to stay.
I don’t really know what that whole experience was for, other than this… I was never able to pass that spot on the interstate again with out a burden to pray for the people of that town. It was one of the first times that I was able to see past my own needs to see the needs of others and pray for a town just south of the interstate in southern Illinois. The adventure of going off the map in Illinois lead to my beginning to see the Gulf Coast and the people around me as a mission field. God was teaching me to see people with His heart.
A similar story is told in the New Testament. Jesus and his disciples are traveling from Jerusalem to Galilee. Their rout takes them right through Samaria and by a town named Sychar. Weary from travel the disciples leave Jesus by a well outside of town and go into Sychar to buy lunch. It is obvious that this place is just supposed to be a stopping off point along the way. But a conversation with a woman at the well changes everything. The story ends with Jesus telling the disciples to look at the town and see all the people coming to hear about him. While they were busy buying lunch. God was already at work in the lives of the people and many professed belief on Christ that week.
I wonder if while we go through our daily routines and habits if like the disciples we miss what God is doing in the lives of people around us. I bet the disciples started looking at commerce and buying lunch differently after that day. I bet they saw Sychar differently after witnessing the town flock to believe in Jesus. I imagine that the disciples began straining to see things the way Jesus did, looking for the needs of people and the opportunity to proclaim the good news of Jesus. After all, Jesus promised to make them “fishers of men.” And part of fishing for men is to see them; really see them and their need for a Savior.
Stay tuned for a series of blog posts entitled- Seeing Sychar: Seeing Spiritual Realities in a Physical World
What is the one thing that we all come across on a regular basis, but have absolutely no desire to keep. We don’t collect it. We don’t save it up. In fact we have devised creative ways to remove the stuff as far from us as possible as soon as possible. We actually have invented devices and systems to remove this stuff from our house, usually at the push of a button (sometimes 2 buttons on the nicer Eco friendly models). Give up?
It’s “poo!” yes there are other names, but we won’t get into that here. You may find yourself asking… What’s the big deal? Answer: Paul said in Philippians 1:8 that he has suffered the loss of lots of things, but compared to knowing Christ, he counts it all as “poo.” granted your version may say, “rubbish” or even “dung,” but those are just fancier ways of saying the same thing.
The point: You don’t miss your “rubbish!” And Paul is saying He didn’t miss the stuff, power, or popularity he had before risking it all to follow Christ. Not in the slightest.
You see… Stuff, power, popularity… All temporary. Even if I live to 120 years of age, most of the stuff I cling to will be sold at a yard sale for a couple of dollars. Compared to knowing Christ it’s nothing, it’s worse than nothing, it’s something that I can’t get rid of fast enough.
Application: how worried are you about stuff? Does that fancy truck, car, or boat really compare to knowing Christ? Are you over concerned about office politics? Do these things really deserve the amount of affection we give to them? Is it wrong to have stuff… No! Have stuff! But don’t treat it as though it’s anything more than it really is… It’s just stuff and it will pass away like your rubbish is flushed away. We don’t live for stuff, we have been raised to a new life in Christ.
The Hill House 