God sees us differently from how the world sees us. Be encouraged as Ashley and Carlie reveal how God has intentionally chosen us despite our imperfections.
Transcription
Announcer: Why live a normal life when you could be living the Abundant Life? Welcome to the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.
Ashley: Hello, and welcome to Abundant Life. We’re so glad you joined us today in the lounge. Praise God. We’ve got a great program for you today, so we’re excited. We’ve got some great things to teach you today and to share with you today. Amen.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: What we’re looking at today, Carlie?
Carlie: Today, we’re looking at the beginning of a new series. But today it’s specifically we’re talking about God’s man. Now, if you’re a woman, don’t tune out, don’t think this is not for me. God’s man. God picked us, did you know that?
Ashley: You’re saying God’s person.
Carlie: God’s person.
Ashley: God’s person, rather than God’s man.
Carlie: I’m not PC. I’m not going to get all politically, correct. God’s man.
Ashley: God’s person.
Carlie: Oh, my goodness. The point is, God chose us. There’ve been plenty of times when I can think about just growing up where, especially at sports events… Were you ever there on the field in school where they’d pick team captains?
Ashley: I hate that.
Carlie: That was awful.
Ashley: What happened is, they choose people. That would be bad. They’d pick, pick, pick, and then the people at the end would feel like, “We’ll just take those.” And then it got really bad when they were choosing teams. They’d say like, “You just have him. We don’t even want him.”
Carlie: When you get down to the dregs at the end.
Ashley: You felt really [inaudible] valued then. In fact, we was playing the other day with the kids and they said, “Let’s pick captains and let’s have you choose teams.” I’m like, “No, don’t go there.” Because I can imagine these kids at the end who get chose last or chosen last, they’re going to be crying.
Carlie: Someone’s always devastated.
Ashley: We just said, “Let’s just split them.”
Carlie: Exactly.
Ashley: In fact, they actually said, “Let’s have the old people against the young people.”
Carlie: Kids against adults.
Ashley: I started walking towards the young people, and I forgot that now I’m on the old side.
Carlie: Oh, no, honey, you’ve crossed over the old side now.
Ashley: I’ve crossed over. I know. Anyway, carry on.
Carlie: God’s man.
Ashley: Person.
Carlie: I remember being there as a teenager, especially going through high school, when the team captains, they’re picking sides, and I’ve always been short, it’s not a new thing.
Ashley: You’re vertically challenged, I think is-
Carlie: No, I’m just built for travel.
Ashley: Built for travel.
Carlie: I’m compact.
Ashley: Every seat she sits in in an airplane it’s like first-class. She has lots of leg room. She never has to complain about leg room.
Carlie: It’s great. I love it. It’s awesome. God just made me perfect for travel. But because of that, I was always one of the last people to be picked, and growing up I was like, man, I just wish that I could be taller. I wish that I could be stronger. I wish that I didn’t have red hair. Because I used to get picked on at school. They’d say, “You’re like a battery. You’ve been left out in the rain to rust.” [crosstalk]. Kids are so mean. They will always find something about you that’s different to pick on.
Carlie: At first, when I was younger, it really bothered me, and now they have all these anti-bullying things. Well, when we were at school, it was you just tough it out. Just get on with it. Suck it up, honey. And off you go.
Ashley: Just to clarify, you’re not against the anti-bullying things.
Carlie: I’m not. But we didn’t have those.
Ashley: You’re just saying in our day, we didn’t have them. I’m just making sure that people know that.
Carlie: We didn’t have them.
Ashley: We’re not for bullying, we’re just saying that in our day we didn’t have the anti-bullying programs.
Carlie: Now you sound really old.
Ashley: I know.
Carlie: In our day.
Ashley: Back in our day.
Carlie: Back in our day. But here’s the thing, when we start to compare ourselves among ourselves, the Scripture says that we’re not wise and it’s easy to look at our own failings, at our own shortcomings, our own misgivings, and think, well, if only I could lose 100 pounds. If only I could be a bit stronger. If only I was a bit taller, or a bit skinnier, or a bit smarter. If only I’d gone to college and got that qualification, or completed a course, or done something. If only I’d married a different person. If only my kids were more well behaved. Whatever. There’s always things in our life, when we start to look in ourselves, that we can pick holes in.
Carlie: There is no one easier to do this with than with ourselves, because we’re very aware of our own failings. However much we try and cover them up, we know where our inadequacies are. And what I want to show you today is you didn’t have to be perfect for God to pick you. Amen.
Ashley: That’s a good job.
Carlie: That’s a good job, right there.
Ashley: That’s a good truth. Praise God.
Carlie: That’s a good job.
Ashley: I’m glad about that. Praise God. If God only chose perfect people we’d be in trouble. In fact, there’s only one perfect person who’s ever walked the earth, and that’s Jesus.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Every person who’s ever worked for the Lord, New Testament, Old Testament, pick your Bible hero, pick your modern day hero, every single person God’s ever chosen is imperfect. So you’ve got that in common with them.
Carlie: Amen. In fact, if you look through the Scriptures, there’s a catalog of failures right there in people’s lives that you can learn from. The people that God used throughout Scripture, they weren’t perfect. They didn’t have it altogether. They weren’t the best at anything. But they were people with the right heart. A.
Carlie: When I look at this Scripture, this is in John 15:16, it says, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” God picked you. And he says, “And appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” God picked us to be a success. He’s never made a duffer yet and he didn’t start with you.
Carlie: At the end of the day, he hasn’t picked us because of our accolades, or our experience, or our charismatic personality, or our great list of accomplishments, he picked us because we are made in his image and God sees us differently to what the world sees us.
Carlie: This is something where I want to focus today, because when we start to look at ourselves only in the natural man, only by our flesh, by our talents, by our abilities, by our experience, we are missing out on the part of us that God sees. And in 1 Samuel 6:7… Can you look that one up? 1 Samuel, this is 16:7, actually. I’m going to find it as well here.
Ashley: It says, “But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at the physical appearance or his physical stature.” Good job they didn’t look at your physical stature, I guess.
Carlie: Right? Exactly.
Ashley: [crosstalk] physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” That is 1 Samuel 16:7. Good verse.
Carlie: This was so important because this is jumping right into the middle of when Samuel the Prophet came to pick the King of Israel, and Jesse had a whole host of sons that he brought out before the prophet, and Samuel was there and he went all the way through them, and said, “Hang on a second. Do you not have some more sons? And they’re not some other sons?” And you go on down to read in this passage here, in verse 10, it says, “Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these.” And these were strong, strong, mighty men, but he hadn’t chosen any of those.
Carlie: Verse 11, “And Samuel said to Jesse, are all of the young men here?” You know he’s in trouble at this point.
Ashley: You know Sam’s a prophet, because Jesse’s brought all his son’s out.
Carlie: Everyone was afraid of him.
Ashley: Jesse’s brought all his sons out, so there’s all his seven sons, he lines up his seven sons, Samuel goes through the seven, and you’d think by the time he got to the last son, you’d be like, “Lord, this must be the one. This is the last son.” But then he’s like, “No, there’s someone else outside of here.” So that shows you what a prophet Samuel was. I mean, he could see there was someone else, even outside of who Jesse had presented. So Jesse must’ve felt bad then, like, “Oh yeah, there’s that one son I left. I didn’t even nominate him.”
Carlie: The stray.
Ashley: “I didn’t even let him come and participate. He’s back in the back 40.”
Carlie: He didn’t bring the runt of the litter out.
Ashley: Runt of the litter. Must have felt really valued.
Carlie: This gives me hope, anyway. Verse 11, “Samuel said to Jesse, are all of the young men here? And then he said, there remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.” Man, David wasn’t even invited to the party. He was left out on the back 40 looking out after the sheep. He wasn’t even invited to come on in and meet the prophet. He’s just the young sheep herder. “And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down until he comes here.” That must have been a little awkward.
Ashley: I like it. I think it’s great.
Carlie: They didn’t have an ATV, just hop on the ATV, go across the hills there and go and collect David. It could have been miles.
Ashley: It must’ve took some time. Even if it was just 20 minutes or half an hour, it must have been pretty awkward, everyone just had to stand there, waiting
Carlie: Just standing there. That’s like one of those awkward family reunions.
Ashley: We know the youngest son, probably if it’s anything like a normal family, the youngest son probably got picked on a lot and everything else, and all had to stand in honor and wait for the youngest son to come.
Carlie: He comes in smelling of sheep.
Ashley: I love it.
Carlie: He didn’t go and shower and change. And you know all the other seven boys, they’ve scrubbed up, they’ve trimmed their beards.
Ashley: Got themselves looking nice.
Carlie: They’ve got themselves manicured, they’ve got the sheep poop off them. There’s David, fresh from the field, covered in mud, probably.
Ashley: I may be getting ahead of you here, but this just shows you, God sees us wherever we are. Even if in the natural, we’re not in a position that it looks like we’re going to be promoted or it looks like God’s… God can see us wherever we are. Praise God.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: He saw Joseph in the prison. He saw David here keeping the sheep. He saw-
Carlie: When God looks at us, he sees our potential.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: That’s huge, because it gives us hope to know that we are very aware of our failings, we can sit down and talk about all, Ashley and I could, about all of the things that we’ve done wrong in our lives. [crosstalk] In fact, some of our stupid stories we do tell you, because it makes you feel better about yourself.
Ashley: If we told you all the times we got it wrong, we would need a long-
Carlie: That’s a book.
Ashley: It’d be like a four hour show.
Carlie: We cold write a book om how to miss God.
Ashley: How to miss God several times over. How dumb can you be?
Carlie: Right. But here’s the hope in this, is that God sees not our mistakes, but he sees our potential. He sees who he created us to be. And he has plans for our life that don’t change just because we mess it up sometimes. This is huge. So when God picked David out, he wasn’t the brightest, he wasn’t the tallest, it said he was ruddy looking, actually. But look in verse 12, it says, “So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and bright eyed,” it says, “Good-looking. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is the one.”
Carlie: In Verse 13 it says, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” And I love this. To me, it’s like God favors the underdog.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Even as a parent I can relate to this. When our kids go out to play on teams and they seem like they’re going out to fight another fight, our son plays competitive soccer, but play against a team that may be stronger, the boys are bigger, they’re stronger, they’ve won more games. There is something about the underdog where the crowd gets behind them.
Ashley: Everyone loves an underdog. Everyone loves the possibility of a weaker team or a less accomplished person beating the person who’s much, much stronger or much more accomplished and stuff. We do that in England. For the English viewers, we have a soccer competition called the FA Cup, where they let all the underdog teams, some of the teams like semi-professional teams, play the big teams, and sometimes they beat the big teams because they’re more up for it. [crosstalk]. That’s the biggest game of the year for them.
Carlie: They’re passionate about it.
Ashley: Everyone loves an underdog story.
Carlie: They do. And here’s the thing, God exalts the humble, doesn’t he?
Ashley: He does, right.
Carlie: I forget the [crosstalk].
Ashley: James 4:6.
Carlie: Thank you, darling. James 4:6. “He resists the proud, but he exalts the humble.”
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: We can take heart from that. It’s a good thing to admit where the end of ourself is, I think. But we don’t have to stay there. We can praise God. I might make it a position right now, Lord, where you’ve asked me to do something and I don’t know how that’s going to happen. I don’t feel equipped. I don’t feel ready. I don’t feel experienced. I don’t have the resources to do what you’ve called me to do. But praise God, I can trust you. Praise God, I thank you, Lord, that you have put inside of me the mind of Christ. That you say that everything my hand touch prospers. That you have given me gifts, that you have given me talents.
Carlie: Rather than being depressed by our weaknesses and looking at our shortcomings, we can actually rejoice in them because that’s an opportunity for God to show himself strong on our behalf.
Ashley: Amen. Sometimes I think it’s actually a hindrance if you’re a particularly talented person, you have a lot in the natural, from the world’s point of view, you have a lot of giftings, a lot of success and things like that, sometimes that can be a hindrance because it can be easier to rely on your own strength than relying on God’s strength. I’ve got a lot of friends who have come from backgrounds where they got born again later in life and things like that, and they just, I mean, they are just all about God and God’s using them because I think it’s easier for them to realize it’s all God. It’s all you, Lord. I couldn’t bring anything to the table. Before you, I was a down and out, basically, and now you’re using me.
Ashley: Sometimes I think those of us, I’m not saying us, I shouldn’t say us, but people who have natural ability, it’s harder sometimes for them to trust in God, because the natural thing is just to trust in yourself. So I like the Scripture 1 Corinthians, I think it’s in chapter one. It says, “God chose the lowly things. God chose the foolish things to confound the wise.” Always stand that Scripture. God chose the foolish.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: I can stand on that Scripture. God chose the foolish. It says “God chose the lowly things.” I was born on Canvey Island, which is a little island in the London Thames estuary that’s actually below sea level, officially below sea level.
Carlie: They have a huge sea wall that they’ve built around it to keep the water from coming in.
Ashley: And there’s no hospitals there. But I had a home birth and I was born on an island that’s below sea level, and now [crosstalk].
Carlie: On your mom’s bed.
Ashley: On my mom’s bed, I guess, TMI, but I guess so. I think that’s where I was. I was born in the house. And now we live on top of a mountaintop, on top of 6,500 feet.
Carlie: That’s right.
Ashley: God chose the lowly things and now I live on a mountaintop. That always makes me laugh. But I can definitely stand on the Scripture. God chose the foolish. So he chose me, because I can do foolish.
Carlie: Amen. Yeah, he can.
Ashley: When you realize It’s all God in you, anything good coming out of you, anything is God. And when we start relying on God, that’s humility. Humility is, you know what, God, without you, I’m nothing. Without you, I could do nothing. I could achieve nothing. But praise God, I’m not without you. Now I have you living on the inside of me, Christ in me, the hope and glory, and then you can realize, you know what, everything good coming out of me is God. And that keeps us humble when we realize that.
Carlie: Amen. In our weakness, God is strong.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Amen. So we’re going to look at some of these characters here. We’ve been talking about David. Now, David, I love David particularly because the Lord says, he’s a man after my own heart. And you know, this is even more powerful when we start to look at the life of David. He was crowned king as a young man, but there was a period of time before he really saw anything coming to pass. He was crowned king, and then what happened? He went out to looking after the sheep again. There was a period of time before David saw that come to pass the manifestation of that kingdom, kinship, whatever it was, whatever you call it. He didn’t look like a King. Although he had been crowned king by the prophet, he didn’t look like a king. He went back out to doing his day job. There was a period of time before he saw that came to pause.
Carlie: But as you look through David’s life, the fact that God called him a man after my own heart is even more powerful when you consider some of David’s mistakes. Sometimes, especially in the realm of ministry, it’s very easy to discount ourselves or just to cast aside somebody else because they’ve made a mistake in an area. And God is not… He doesn’t have a perfect vessel to use, but he’s looking for men and women that are after his own heart. Amen. That’s powerful.
Carlie: I want to look, this is in 2 Samuel, chapter 11, and this is David and Bathsheba. And it says, I’m just going to jump right into verse 11, it says, “It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when the kings go out to battle and David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.”
Carlie: That was a mistake. This was one of David’s downfalls. He found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the time of year when kings are supposed to go out to battle, David stayed home in the palace and look in verse two what happened. “Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof, he saw a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful to behold. So David sent and inquired about the woman and someone said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah, the Hittite? David sent messages and took her, and she came to him and lay with her, and she was cleansed from her impurity and returned to her house. But she conceived and she said, I am with child.”
Carlie: So in other words, he’s out there on the palace roof when he should have been out at battle and he’s eyeing up the neighbor’s wife.
Ashley: Not good.
Carlie: Not good.
Ashley: And you know what, it says here that he arose from his bed in the evening, so it sounds like, we’re reading between the lines, but if you arose from your bed in the evening, that means you’ve been in bed all day. So it sounds like David had so much success at this point he wasn’t needed on the battlefield, or he thought he wasn’t needed on the battlefield, so he stayed home. And not only did he stay home, he stayed in bed. He’s acting like a teenager, staying in bed until evening.
Carlie: Man, it’s easier to raise the dead than raise teenagers from the bed.
Ashley: Raise teenagers. So it sounds like he stayed in bed until evening, so he was in bed all day, and then he gets up, and basically, the old wives saying, the old wives tale, or the old saying, the devil makes use of idle hands. It’s almost like he was bored. He wasn’t out to battle. He’d been in bed all day. He gets up, he’s looking around. Like you said, he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ashley: But you can avoid that by doing the Lord’s work and actually making sure you’re in the center of God’s will and not just hanging around doing nothing. Hanging around doing nothing is a dangerous place to be in, I think, because you need to be doing something. You need to have some sort of purpose.
Carlie: Right. This is partly why we need to be so steadfast in our relationship with the Lord. See, David had gotten off track. Even though he had been crowned King and he’d killed Goliath, he’d been through some battles, he’d gotten himself into the palace. I mean, he had some great accomplishments. But he’d gotten a little bit slack and maybe even stopped relying somewhat on the Lord and started to rely on his accomplishments or his talents.
Carlie: You could say I’m reading into this a little bit, but whatever it was, he got off track and found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the consequence of that decision was huge. He ended up committing adultery, having an illegitimate child, and then, to make it worse, to cover up his mistakes, he called Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, back from battle, tried to get him to go sleep with his wife so he could cover up the fact that David was really the one that got her pregnant.
Ashley: To go cover it up.
Carlie: Uriah was such an honorable man, he says, “I can’t go sleep in my house when my troops are out on the battlefield.” So David, at the end of the day, had Uriah murdered. Man, this was a whole evil web of deceit, and that he had to lie, to lie, to lie, to cover up another lie. David found himself somewhere he didn’t want to be.
Carlie: But the prophet came back again, prophet Samuel came back and he challenged David on this and brought some clarity, and David repented. You see, and this is why it’s so powerful when the scripture said that David is a man after God’s own heart. David made some terrible mistakes. It cost people their life. But yet he was still a man after God’s own heart.
Carlie: It came back to the fact that he was repentant. And you could say, well, do you think God knew all of those things that David was going to do before he picked him to be king? Well, yeah, he’s God, he sees the end from the beginning. He picked David knowing that these mistakes were going to happen. Now he didn’t cause those mistakes. David had a choice. But God knew what David’s decision was going to be before he made it, and he picked him anyway.
Ashley: That’s good.
Carlie: That’s powerful.
Ashley: That’s hope for us.
Carlie: That is.
Ashley: That’s hope for anyone.
Carlie: That is. And it’s not just David. I mean, there are plenty of examples in the scriptures of men and women of God that made mistakes, but God did not cast them aside. So if you feel like you’ve made a mistake in your life that’s just too big, that’s just unrestorable, that you can’t move past it, you’re only seeing yourselves and your past history through man’s eyes. But God sees your heart. If you have made a mistake and you are truly repentant, God is the God of restoration.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Amen. And he does not throw us out like yesterday’s old newspaper. He still has a plan for your life, and it’s good. And it’s God. Amen. And so it says in the Scriptures that the gifts and callings of God are without reproach, without repentance. The talents and the gifts and the abilities that God, and the calling of God on your life, still stands today. Even if you’ve made a mistake. But repentance and heart is the key to moving into the things that God has for us.
Ashley: Amen. Romans 11:29. That is Romans 11:29, “The gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable.” And that’s the truth right there. God had a calling on David’s life, and even though he made those mistakes, and I think even worse than the mistake he made, the way he covered up his mistake, even though he went through all that, because he was repentant, he said, “Against you Lord, and you only, have I sinned.” He was genuinely repentant to God for the mistakes he’d made and for the things he had done. He was genuinely repentant, and therefore God was able to use him just like before.
Ashley: It’s powerful to think that God is looking for us to have a pure heart towards him, not necessarily perfect, but a pure heart towards him in terms of being honest with him and open. And that’s what I love about David’s story. Even though he made all these mistakes, he was so honest and open to God, he was so transparent. He was like, God knows it anyway and I’m just going to repent and be honest to God. When we try and hide things from God, that’s never a good move.
Carlie: Right. Exactly. And let’s look, this is in Luke 15, this is the Parable of the Lost Son, or the Prodigal Son. I love this story. Verse 11, it says, “Then he said a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, father give me the portion of goods that falls to me. And he divided them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all,” he spent everything, “There arose a severe famine in the land and he began to want.”
Carlie: He said to himself, I’m going to go back and see if my father is going to take me back. I’d be better off feeding my father’s pigs, if you like, being the lowest in my father’s household, than where I’m at right now. This is a powerful story because the son had basically gone to his father and said, “I’m not going to wait till you die. I want my share of the inheritance now.” Man, that’s offensive. I mean, any parent, that’s offensive to start with, but then he went off and he just spent it. He went crazy. He had the ultimate college party.
Ashley: Righteous living.
Carlie: Righteous living.
Ashley: I’ve heard some people say he spent it on righteous living, and parties, and the rest he wasted.
Carlie: Oh my goodness. So he didn’t even spend it on anything that was useful. He just lived it up, until eventually he came to the end of himself. But this is what the heart of repentance does. You see, he realized the error of his ways and he decided he was going to go back and apologize to his father.
Carlie: He says in verse 18, “I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” And so his heart truly was of repentance. But look at the restoration in this.
Carlie: Verse 20, “He arose, went to his father, and when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” While he was still a long way off. What that tells me is that his father was there maybe at the edge of his property line, or the edge of his boundary, looking out across the field, he was looking for his son. He was there. He saw his son in the distance, while he was still a long way off and he was so excited.
Carlie: His father could have been angry. He could have been upset. He could have been deeply offended. He could have rejected his son. The son was risking rejection coming back to the father. But the father, the whole time his son was missing, he was looking for him. He’d already forgiven him before his son had even apologized.
Ashley: That’s huge.
Carlie: That’s huge. This is the grace and the restoration of God. And as we move on down, look at the father’s response. The son goes through his apology here in verse 22, but the father said to his servants, “Bring out the best robe and put it on him. Bring out the ring on his hand and the sandals on his feet. Bring out the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry, for my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be merry.”
Carlie: We don’t have time to go into all of the different things in this, but the different attributes that he gave back to his son there, was a picture of restoration. He put a robe on him. A robe in Scripture is a picture of identity. He gave him back his identity. He put sandals on his feet and honored him. He put a ring on his finger. That ring was was like a seal of the kingdom, a place of authority. He gave him back his identity and his honor and his authority.
Carlie: I believe that if we come to the Lord with a heart of repentance, he will restore back to us even the things that the locusts have eaten away, and the end of your days will be even more glorious than the beginning.
Ashley: Amen. Isn’t that neat? Praise God. We’re at time. Do you want to pray before we go?
Carlie: Amen. Amen. Father God, I just thank you that your heart towards us is only good. That you only have good things for us. And Lord, we come before you in all of our weakness and our humility, and we say, Lord, we want you to have your way in our life. We lay out our hopes and our dreams and our talents before you, that you might use us, that we might become vessels for your kingdom, for your glory. And Lord, we receive your forgiveness. We come to you in repentance for those times when we’ve messed up and Lord, we receive your restoration. And Lord, we thank you. We thank you that it is because of your goodness and your holiness that we have a future. That Lord, that you say that you have plans for our lives that are good and only good, and regardless of what’s happened before Lord, we agree with the plans and the purposes that you have for our life and we receive them in Jesus name. Amen.
Ashley: Amen. I believe there’s people watching that think you’ve done too much. You’ve disappointed God too much. You’ve gone too far from God. And we’re here to tell that’s not true. If you turn to God now, God will accept you. God loves you. He’s already forgiven you. He’s already accepted you. All you got to do is turn to him. Stop running and turn to him. There’s nothing that you’ve done that is too big for God. Praise God. So come back to God.
Carlie: You can run, but you can’t hide from the love of God.
Ashley: That’s right. Amen. You can’t hide from the love of God. And God is calling you back. So right now, wherever you are, just give your heart back to the Lord, and he is just like this father in the Prodigal Son, he is looking out, waiting for you to turn back, and he’s not going to start pointing all the things you’ve done wrong, no, he’s already forgiven you. He’s going to hug on you and love on you and you can carry on your relationship with God. Praise God.
Ashley: [inaudible] turn back to God, because he loves you. Amen. Amen.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Praise God. Thanks for watching. We look forward to seeing you next time. And until next time, don’t just live a normal life when you can live the Abundant Life.
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Ashley: Hey, I want to thank the partners of Terradez Ministries. Thank you for your support. By your financial support, we’re able to go out and touch the world for Jesus. We’re seeing people’s lives turned around. We’re seeing people healed. We’re seeing people set free. We’re seeing people born again. And your gifts are enabling us to do that. So we want to thank you and thank you on behalf of all the people we’re touching. Praise God. Thank you for your partnership. We appreciate you. We’re praying for you. We know you’re going to increase as you sow seed into this ministry. So we’re praying for you regularly. Thank you for your partnership. We love you all.