What then, of the moral law? There are moral laws in the Old Testament that were neither ceremonial (part of the sacrificial system) nor civil. When, for instance, God forbids coveting our neighbors’ goods, there is no ceremonial instruction as to what should be done with those who do covet. Neither is there given a punishment from the state. Coveters were not, in Old Testament Israel, subject to jail, fines or flogging under the local sheriff.

All Christians are indeed required by God to obey His moral law, even that which He gave in the Old Testament.  Some Christians, however, object. They say we are under grace, not law. That Christ, not Moses, is our law-giver. They argue that the law is a school teacher that drives us to Christ. To which I heartily concur. As long as we are careful. We are under grace, and not under law. That is, our Father is pleased with us already, because His Son lived a righteous life for us, and suffered the wrath of His Father in our place. The law can no longer condemn us. But, we do not in turn sin all the more that grace may abound (Romans 6:1). Christ is, likewise, indeed our law-giver, and as our lawgiver He tells us that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass away until the heaven and earth pass first (Matthew 5:18).

And finally the law is, as stated, a school-teacher. It powerfully exposes our own inability to please God. It reveals our sin. It is the mark that we so dreadfully miss. How this truth, however, could lead us to believe that we therefore don’t have to obey the law dumbfounds me. If we have no obligation to keep the law, how does the law drive us to Christ? If it shows us our failure, are we then not called to succeed?  Not only do I not understand why someone would feel the need to toss one use of the law (telling us what God requires of us) in order to protect a second use (showing us our need for Christ) but I don’t see how one can even be preserved without the other.

Of course the Old Testament doesn’t come color-coded, with ceremonial laws highlighted in red, civil laws in blue and moral in yellow.  As I said, it can be complicated. But as we wrestle with these issues, let’s guard against our own antinomian temptations as zealously as we guard against our Pelagian temptations. Let us ever and always confess that we do not obey His law, and that we ought to.

When I was a teenager I embarked on a dream.  I wanted to become a writer. My days consisted typically of three things- the things I had to do (like eat and sleep) and the two things I loved to do- read and write. I wrote poems. I wrote short stories. I even wrote a miserable, humiliating, sophomoric novel. I read stories and novels, and books on writing, books on publishing. Like some boys wanted to be a professional athlete and worked toward that goal, I wanted to write, and worked toward that goal.

Of course I also read non-fiction, things that interested me. I read economics and political philosophy. I read theology and apologetics. I began work on my first non-fiction book while still a teenager. I was just out of my teens when the book was published, as Money Matters. That same book, now in its fourth edition and titled Biblical Economics, has been in print now over 25 years.

During those intervening years I spent years in school. I worked taking orders over a toll-free number. I spent a miserable (for me and the kids) summer as a youth director. I taught at the University of Mississippi. I published poetry in a few lightly read publications. I wrote pieces for the newsletter of the local church I belonged to.  I was invited to write pieces on occasion in Tabletalk magazine. Eventually I became Tabletalk’s editor. I had to, of course, plan issues, deal with printers and the Post Office, edit other writers. But I got to write. Not long after I became, if only for a year or so, a columnist for World magazine. I was in turn eventually published in secular magazines, writing on economic and educational issues.

All along the way, I’m sorry to report, I spent more time internally grumbling about the thorns and thistles in my work garden- essentially any part of my job that wasn’t just me writing, than I did giving thanks for the opportunities to not just write, but to be read. All along the way I spent more time wondering why more people weren’t reading my writing than I did giving thanks for the wonder of it all, that I was not only getting read, but getting paid. My dream was coming true, and I was too thick to see it.

Truth be told, that’s still me. There are fewer thistles and thorns. There are more opportunities to write, and more people reading. But I want still fewer thistles, still more readers. When what I ought to want is a more grateful heart. I ought to thank my Lord that He has given me gifts, and uses those gifts as He sees fit. I ought to sit at my computer like a baseball player running onto the field- shocked that I get to do what I so deeply love. I ought, like Eric Liddell before me, joyfully report, “When I write, I feel the Lord’s pleasure.” I ought to cherish the words I choose, even as I cherish the opportunity to choose them.

I ought, finally, give thanks to you. My opportunities to write rest ultimately in God’s hand. They rest proximately, however, in the willing eyes of those who would read.  Thank you for being an answer to my prayers. And thank you for all the ways He has called you to serve His body. May He not only make our dreams come true, but make sure we don’t miss it when He does.

It is not the end in end times that troubles us but everything short of the end. It is the only mostly end that gets us into debates and arguments. We all know that Jesus wins in the end. But what happens before the end? What about the road between that day and this day?

There are, essentially, three different ways of answering that question. There are technical terms and obfuscations, but the gist of the issue is pretty simple. There are those that suggest that before Jesus wins, Jesus loses. There are some who suggest that before Jesus wins it’s a tie. And then there are those who suggest that before Jesus wins, Jesus wins.

What though is Jesus winning, losing, or tying? There is the great rub. Those who believe that Jesus loses before He wins would argue that He loses the great majority of souls, that He loses the created order, that He loses the institutions of this world. He wins, however, a remnant of souls and defeats the devil. Those who believe Jesus ties before He wins would argue that He loses the majority of souls, that the created order is of no lasting significance, and that some institutions will be won (the church) and others lost (everything else.) Those who believe Jesus wins before He wins believe that the great majority of souls will be won, that the created order will be redeemed to the uttermost, that the institutions of this world will be either rightly cleansed or rightly erased.

At this point it becomes apparent that for all our areas of agreement our areas of disagreement are going to carry consequences. How we view the future impacts how we understand our calling in the present. While one might boldly fight against this temptation, if one believes that everything is going to hell in a hand basket, it is rather hard to labor to make manifest the reign of Christ over all things. It’s tough to polish the brass on a ship you think is sinking. Better to drag as many as possible onto the lifeboat.

While one might boldly fight against the temptation, if one believes only the church will survive into the future, if one believes all but the church is going to hell in a hand basket, it is rather hard to assert the lordship of Christ over all things. It’s tough to polish the brass on a ship that won’t sail into eternity. Better to polish the brass on the lifeboat.

While one might boldly fight against the temptation, if one believes that the vast majority will be brought in, that all powers, all institutions will acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, it is rather easy to lose sight of our calling to suffer for the kingdom. It is rather easy to think that the future of the kingdom is dependent on our wisdom, our strategies, our efforts. It can, in turn, be tough to rescue the drowning when you are so intent on sailing the ship to paradise.

I came to embrace the view that Jesus wins before He wins not through a study of the book of Revelation. Instead it came to me when reading the great commission. If Jesus, the one righteous man, tells us to disciple the nations, if that is His desire, His prayer, surely it will come to pass. My conviction was confirmed to me with respect to the different millennial positions while considering Psalm 110. There we read, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand until I make all Your enemies a footstool.” We know that Jesus sat at the right hand of the Father at His ascension. We know He will get up when all His enemies have been made a footstool. That sounds like victory to me.

Confidence in that victory, knowing He is bringing all things under subjection, knowing that His kingdom, that rock uncut by human hands is covering all the earth is our very hope. There is no line that separates His promise to cleanse each of us from all unrighteousness and His promise to bring all things under subjection. Some sinners and some institutions will be destroyed (one does not redeem brothels or government schools; rather one destroys them). Others will be remade.

That remaking, however, is not merely future. The Man will come around, to be sure, but the Man comes around now. He is at work now and all His work lasts forever. What He polishes, whether it is on the ship, on the lifeboat, or at the very bottom of the ocean is not mere brass, but gold that will withstand the refiner’s fire that burns away all wood, hay, and stubble.  He comes around now in His means of grace now. That is, as His Spirit works in me to mortify my flesh, this is eschatological labor. As His Spirit remakes my children into the image of the Son, this is eschatological labor.

Both the Jesus-loses-before-He-wins and Jesus-ties- before-He-wins create a practical vanity. That is, just as Solomon argued that if there is no way to transcend this world, all our labors are in vain, in like manner if there is no way to transcend this eschatological realm, all our labors are in vain. Right now would not count forever, but only for right now. All our days would be but ashes, and they could never be traded for beauty.

My temptation to pride and strategy is not beaten by accepting defeat, but by remembering that the victory is His.  My humility ought to be about what I can contribute to the battle, not about the scope of His victory. Jesus wins, after all, every battle, even those we think are lost.

The kingdom does not, in the end, come through our strategies. It does not come through building coalitions, by shrewd and clever alliances. No. Jesus tells us that His kingdom comes as His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Our simple calling then is to obey. When we love our children, raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, when we encourage one another toward righteousness, when we serve the widow and the orphan, when we love our neighbor, we are adding jewels to the very walls of heaven. He may call us to die for Him, which is victory if we obey. He may call us to prosper for Him, which is victory if we obey. He will not, however, call us to guess the future. He simply calls us to obey. We are in the battle for eternity. Everything is at stake. But be of good cheer. For the sum of the matter is as clear as it is simple- fear God and obey all that He commands.

When God calls us out of the world He does so not to abandon the world, but to redeem it. We conquer by retreat. When we are a set apart people, we are at our brightest, at our most savory. We are not then separating to wait for the end. Rather we separate that there might be multiple new beginnings, that the lost might be found, the elect gathered from the four corners of the world.  We don’t fight like they fight. We don’t fail to fight as they fail to fight. Instead when the Man comes around, we follow Him into battle, as a body, as a people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

Is your eschatology letting you down? Or are you letting your eschatology down? Because ideas have consequences we should not be surprised to find that our ideas, however unformed or uninformed they might be, about the greatest issues will have the greatest consequence. We must be deliberate in our thinking about these things, for they impact everything.  If right now counts forever, how much more does what we think right now about forever impact forever?

Eschatology, we would be wise to remember, isn’t really about the end times. It is more about the End. That is, it is less about how things pan out, more about the One who everything is about. The kingdom exists for the sake of the King, not the other way around. We have been bought by this King. We are His bondservants and the soldiers in His army. Which is why we fight the good fight. Not for our sake. Not for our glory. Not even ultimately for our friends and loved ones in the fox hole with us. We fight for Him. Our whys reach their end in Him. For the glory of God, and for the building of His kingdom.

The question, of course, is not what one can imagine, but what the Bible teaches. And insofar as we are ignorant of what the Bible teaches, our imaginations will prove to be nothing but trouble. Jesus, you’ll remember, told His disciples before sending them out with the gospel, to bring a sword. What though if they didn’t have one? Jesus said sell your cloak and buy one. Jesus gave us Romans 13, reminding us that the state is God’s minister of justice that does not bear the sword in vain. Jesus is not as safe and sweet as we think He is.

This problem, however, is not just from pacifists.  We all face the temptation of taking the flimsiest of evidence, and filling it in with our own imaginations. Were I Jesus, this is how I would look at this issue… But we’re not Jesus. Jesus is Jesus. Worse, sometimes we even put words in His mouth. I had another friend in college that aspired to serve as a minister of the gospel. We opened up our Bibles and I showed her how it forbids ladies from serving as elders in the church. She agreed. For a few weeks. After some distance from our “Let’s open the Bible and see what it says” conversation she was back to her old plan. I asked her how that came to be. “RC,” she asked me, “what are we supposed to do when the Holy Spirit calls us to do what the Bible forbids us to do?” Already blessed with deep pastoral reserves I replied, “Tell that holy spirit to go back to hell where he came from.” Her vague, internal, unverifiable promptings were pushing against God’s Holy Word, and she wasn’t sure which should give way.

The Bereans were noble, not because they constructed a wonderful image of Christ in their own minds, but because they returned to the Word, checked by the Word.  And we are called to do the same. When a text seems to butt up against one of our convictions, may we deal with the text, rather than seek to trump it with our own wisdom.  It may be our conviction is wrong. It may be our understanding of the text is wrong. But it cannot be that something is more right than the text. It alone is the Word of God.

I mentioned in a recent note dealing with the blessing and pain of my imminent return to Orlando that within a few feet of me as I type there hangs a banner. It is roughly four feet wide and six feet tall. The font of the letters, and the color scheme, manifest the painful reality that this relic was created in a different era, the 1970s. It was created to promote an institution that essentially no longer exists. And yet it profoundly shaped my own life, the life of my family, and dozens of other families.

Fifteen years ago this banner was in storage, taking up space in a dark and dusty corner of a warehouse in central Florida. But it, like some ancient amulet purloined by Indiana Jones, was discovered by one of few men who knew its worth. Laurence Windham found it and knew just what to do with it. The banner reads The Ligonier Valley Study Center. Laurence dusted it off, and under cloak of night, when I was out of town, hung it in my office. He says he did so as a lark. He had had to listen to me regale him with stories of the wonder of my childhood growing up at that place. And so it was almost a tease, an injection of a painful dose of nostalgia. Truth be told, I suspect it was one of his Jedi mind tricks. Maybe he had had a vision.

I left the banner hanging for months. During that interim, in the providence of God, the old Ligonier property, 50 acres and eight or so buildings in western Pennsylvania, the very playing fields of my youth, which had been sold to a ministry specializing in drug rehab, came back into the possession of Ligonier. One afternoon, in a moment worthy of the whispering wisdom of that Field of Dreams, I looked up at the banner and determined right there, on the spot- I’m going back home to Ligonier, and will re-open the study center.

Over supper I shared my vision with my dear wife. When supper ended, I called Laurence, and with fear in my voice, fear to be so close to hearing the voice of God, and asked, “Would you come over and visit with me tonight? I have an idea I want to share with you.” We talked that night about how and why we wanted to start a study center. We tried to think through the sundry issues of feasibility. Over days, weeks and months, we dreamed and we studied and we planned. Finally, I found the courage to speak with parents about what we wanted to do. My father, God bless him, has never heard a plan of mine he did not love. Discernment is not his strength. And so we set about seeking to persuade the board of Ligonier to give us this white elephant in western Pennsylvania.

In the meantime Laurence and I travelled there to access the damage, only to find ourselves, in January 1996, stuck in the storm of the century. We trudged across those fifty acres, through snow up to Laurence’s knees, and up to my waist. We measured each room, and plotted how we would use it. And in the lobby of Cedar Lodge, where students had once been housed, we planted that banner, like astronauts on the moon. We hung it over the loft as a testament that we would return.

The board, showing far more wisdom that I’ll ever have, eventually turned us down. The chairman, however, kept hope alive. He suggested that we did not need fifty acres and eight buildings. He suggested that we did need to have more like-minded people around. And soon our sights were set on southwestern Virginia. Ligonier sold its property to a dreamer who opened a resort there, turning the old video studio into a dining room, and Cedar Lodge into rooms for rent for skiers and others who wanted time in the country. My family sold our house in Orlando the same day Laurence signed a year long lease in Orlando. We, the Sprouls, would begin the journey on our own.

That is how the Highlands Study Center, now Highlands Ministries, got its start- because of a banner for the Ligonier Valley Study Center, now Ligonier Ministries. Our dream came true. So too, by the way, did the dream of that dreamer who opened a resort- now called Foggy Mountain Lodge. I went back and paid a visit a few years after my own move to Virginia. I struck up a conversation with the young lady at the registration desk, telling her about how I had grown up on that land. As our conversation wound down, rather sheepishly I asked, “I know you all had to throw mountains of stuff away when you bought the place. But I left a banner right up there. I know it’s a long shot, but have you seen it hanging around anywhere?” “No,” she explained, she hadn’t seen anything like that. As I headed out to the car, however, she picked up the phone to call the boss. As we loaded into the car he raced up in his ATV, delivering the precious cargo.

Within days the banner will be packed up again. It will not, however, molder in a warehouse somewhere. It will grace my office for the rest of my days, reminding me of what God can do, and has done, twice upon two mountains.

So what is it that divides these two groups who affirm the fundamentals? That’s where it gets a smidge fuzzy, more cultural than propositional. Fundamentalists by and large adopted an ethic of separation that evangelicals would not accept. The fundamentalist is one who not only rejects those who reject the fundamentals, but rejects those who will not reject those who reject the fundamentals. Or, to put it in more technical terms, they practice and promote second degree separation.

To grasp this principle, let’s apply it to a contemporary situation. TD Jakes, a wildly popular author, will not affirm the historic doctrine of the Trinity.  As such, any confessional person or body ought to see him as outside the universal church.  A sound evangelical and a sound fundamentalist would not invite the man to preach in his pulpit. But suppose someone, say James MacDonald, were comfortable inviting the man to come participate in an in-house discussion among brothers about how to do ministry. A sound, historical evangelical would not do this. He would, however, be willing to overlook, or forgive Pastor MacDonald for doing so. The fundamentalist, however, would not only reject TD Jakes for his egregious error, but would reject those who don’t reject him, including Pastor MacDonald. Perhaps in turn the fundamentalist would even be willing to reject any who don’t reject Pastor MacDonald.

This distinction, in turn, may reveal something of a deeper divide between the two groups. One cynical, but perhaps insightful wag once described an evangelical as one who says to the theological liberal, “I will call you brother, if you will call me scholar.” Fundamentalists, to their credit, are not terribly interested in the applause and approval of the world. Evangelicals tend to be more hungry for such. There are other distinctions as well. Fundamentalists tend to adopt a more dispensational eschatology. Evangelicals do tend to be more scholarly. Fundamentalists tend to be more separatist, evangelicals more worldly.

What we have in common, however, is far more than what separates us. And, I would argue, what separates us is where we ought to learn from each other. Fundamentalists would be well served to learn to distinguish between actual guilt and mere guilt by association. They would do well to allow their zeal for the authority of the Word to undo their commitment to that eschatology, dispensationalism, which divides and ultimately denies the Word. But evangelicals could learn from their brothers a healthy indifference to the approval of the world. We could learn a deeper hunger for the approval of our Lord, who told us that if we are His, the world would hate us as it hates Him. We could learn from our fundamentalist brothers something of the spirit that birthed us both, that we are called to say to the watching world about the Word, “Here we stand. We can do no other.”

Trouble is, we don’t live in our own solipsistic bubbles. Our worlds do collide. Consider the case of Jason Collins, the NBA player who recently announced in Sports Illustrated, that he engages in sexual acts with men. On the one hand we are not supposed to judge him. After all, there is no transcendent standard that says men should only take their pants off with their wives. On the other hand, we are supposed to not judge him. Wait. How did that get in there? Sodomy is fine because there is no moral standard we all must meet. But we must all approve sodomy because there is a moral standard we all must meet.  Says who? If there is no transcendent moral standard by which we must condemn sexual perversion, where did this transcendent moral standard come from, that insists we must not condemn sexual perversion? Somebody is imposing their own ethic here, and it’s not the Christians.

Jason Collins is the first male professional athlete to admit he mistreats men. For that he has received magazine covers, applause from the entire Good Morning American television crew, congratulatory phone calls from the first lady, and a thumbs up from her husband. Where, I am left wondering, was all this for the first male professional athlete to admit he mistreats dogs? Where was the Michael Vick coming out party? I want to live in a world where dog fighters need no longer live in fear and shame. How many young dog fighters could have been set free from unspoken bigotry if the world had simply affirmed Michael when he bravely acknowledged his habits? It’s a cold world when a dog fighter can’t be affirmed in what he is.

That’s different? Why? Because dogs can’t give their consent, while Mr. Collins’ victim and victimizers can and do? So who made consent the magic word?  (And is it really that magic? What about adult incest? Will we celebrate our diversity, and hand Jackie Robinson’s mantle to the first professional athlete to come out of the adult incest closet? ) Why does consent make all personal moral decisions now become transcendently sound moral decisions? Did God say consent is the key? Or was that just some men? And if other men disagree? Why is consent privileged, thereby making child molesters suddenly become evil? By what standard?

Ethical relativism is not merely absurd. It is instead that tool by which God’s judgments are not just banished, but judged as beyond the pale. The end game isn’t “Nobody gets to affirm right and wrong” but “You Christians may not affirm right and wrong.” Which is why sexual perverts do not merely ask for tolerance but demand affirmation. Their own worldview won’t allow it, but when has that ever stopped them?

It was a good idea my dear wife had. She is eager to exercise. I am eager to exercise. We live in rural southwest Virginia, on a rather flat road that follows the contours of the river that flows beside it. So what we have been doing of late is walking together early in the morning. We get our exercise, enjoy the beauty of this corner of God’s world, and enjoy a little pleasant conversation. The other day I explained to my wife my own theory about what’s wrong with us. The simple answer, of course, is sin. That it is simple does not make it not so. That said, I think it is two particular sins that drive so many of the rest of the sins, two peculiar habits of our darkened hearts that darken our lives.

The first is this. I suggested that we find ourselves in hot water because we so often make our decisions on the basis of how we feel, rather than what is. We are all at root romantics. Though we rightly rail against the foolish postmodern notion that we can create our own reality, we nevertheless practice the decidedly premodern, modern, and postmodern, habit of thinking that our emotions are their own justification, and that the world must learn to adjust for them. More often than not we know what the right thing to do is. More often than not, we don’t do it. We instead act on our desires, thinking we can pull the wool over God’s eyes. When judgment follows on the heels of our folly, we usually knew it had been crouching at the door from the moment we did the wrong.

The second is this. Our relationships are destroyed because of our abominable moral calculus. We judge ourselves by one yardstick, and our brothers by another. We, for instance, excuse our behavior on the basis of our health, “Oh, I know I was short with the children. But I’ve got this splitting headache.” We excuse our behavior on the basis of our progress, “I know I was short with the children, but it’s been two weeks since I did it last.” We excuse our behavior on the basis of our troublesome childhood, on the basis of the bad examples we were given, on the government, on anything that will stand still long enough to get stuck with the blame. When others wrong us, however, we do not turn our attention to our own sins. We do not remember the frailty of our own frame, and then by grace recognize that the one who wronged us has a weak frame just like us. We expect perfect justice from all who cross our path, while practicing perfect grace toward ourselves.

What, I wonder, would our lives look like if we labored mightily to always be just toward our neighbor? What if we, every time our neighbor wronged us, were able to respond with grace? What if we took all the energy we pour into rationalizing our own sins, and used it instead to rationalize the sins that we think have been committed against us? What if we were quick to forgive others, and quick to judge ourselves?

It is certainly possible that if you do this, and your friends do not, that in the end they will take advantage of you. If you do not stand by your rights, you might see your rights trampled upon. What you will never lose, however, is joy. What they won’t be able to take from you is peace. What you will gain is your life. What you will do in turn is make everyone else’s life better as well. Do a brother a good turn, and be gracious.

Even in less seeker-friendly services though we can find the same problem. Here we are willing to preach against sin, but against the sins of those who are absent. We may fuss about the bad theology, or the bad strategy of the church down the street. Or we may thunder against the sins of the world. But it is the sheep of our fold that need to know and repent from their sins.

In what sense then is it wrong to preach against the sins of the congregation? Well, we are not called when we step into the pulpit to deliver a sermon inspired by Mr. Jones’s inability to make it to church on time, or Mrs. Brown’s immodest clothing choices. Now it may well be that someone needs to talk to Mr. Jones, or Mrs. Brown, but the sermon is not the time for that. We do not take up the time we have been given to open up the text of God’s Word in order to do private discipleship in public.  We do not accuse the brethren in a context in which they cannot speak to their own defense. We do not abuse our opportunity to put someone in his place. That’s not our place when in the pulpit.

How do we avoid both of these failures? The preacher should preach to his own sins. It is likely that this will include the sins of his own congregation. But thankfully they don’t exclude the preacher. When we preach against our own sins we can address where “we” go wrong, and are in need of grace and repentance, rather than a situation where I preach against where “you” go wrong.

Preaching ought to convict. Otherwise it’s just wasted time. It ought, however, to also provide the solution to our guilt, in extolling the provision in Christ. May we preachers decrease, and the One we preach, may He increase.

God- Reliance

Some thoughts about how God is teaching me (after my wonderful Valentine evening with hubby who is now snoozing in the hospital bed): Until I was 38 years old I was a very healthy person. Never sick, no allergies even, swim team, track team captain, camp counselor going on 75 mile canoe rides with a bunch of kids, biking 150 miles in a weekend, that sort of thing. The only time I was in the hospital was to have my precious babies. I wouldn’t say I idolized my health, but even though I was a Christian, I recognize now that I felt a certain amount of self-sufficiency. I believed in the sovereignty of God; I prayed to Him that His will would be done in my life. But often I lived as if I could make plans to do what I wanted, when I wanted to. The only thing affecting plans would be financial or time considerations or needs of loved ones (so I thought – or at least acted as if this were true). In the past seven years, having now had 3 bouts with cancer (2 different kinds) and seeing my dear husband suffer through Hodgkins lymphoma during that time, I am learning to see much more clearly my dependence on my Heavenly Father. In my affliction, He is gently reminding me that it’s not up to me. There is comfort even in this though: it’s so much better and more secure that it’s up to Him and not me! I know that I have a long way to go in terms of physical healing and spiritual maturity. I pray that He will continue to make me more like Jesus and that I will be satisfied all the way, knowing that He treats me tenderly because He loves me.

This is why I married this woman. “He treats me tenderly because He loves me.” That’s wisdom from above. Thank you again my sweet, for speaking His wisdom into my life. I love you and miss you.