Out with the old and in with the new! The 'new' is usually more enticing - but not when it comes to being a 'new follower' of Jesus. So, let's unpack some of those things that make following Christ difficult, as well as staying in and contending for the Faith.

Welcome to the I Can.

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He Can podcast the podcast

for literally anyone.

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However, if you are a woman, you're

probably the person listening on the

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other side of that speaker right now.

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I'm your host Sarai, And you'll

pretty much get to know everything

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about me, including the things that

make me say I can't, but also the

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things that remind me that he can.

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So without further ado, let's

jump into today's episode.

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I.

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All right everyone, welcome back to

episode three of, I Can't, he Can,

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like The Introduction said, I'm

Sara, and today we are going to be

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discussing things that make being a

Christian hard and I don't wanna do

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too much of the small talks today.

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So let's dive in to today's episode.

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first I wanna go over a few

things that, in my opinion.

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Describe a person who is Christian, and

obviously it's being a follower of Jesus.

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It is using prayer when things get

difficult in life, when you need

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just that extra help from Jesus.

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You staying in prayer, obviously, also

staying in your word, reading the Bible.

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Um, forgiveness, mercy, loving

others, dying to your flesh.

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for example, trying to not

sin, not being prideful.

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Not being greedy, no sex before marriage.

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Envy, gluttony, all these things.

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also tithing and being a better servant

is also something that describes,

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Christianity and one of the most important

things, but I think that is also very

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difficult for most people is obedience.

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I'm not sure if I missed anything

and if I did feel free to.

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And call me out.

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Uh, you can always email me.

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I can't, he can podcast@gmail.com.

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now when we follow Jesus, we

no longer follow the world.

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I forgot where I read that statement.

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And it's, it's so true because the

more we grow in our relationship.

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Jesus, we feel even more

convicted over time.

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And if you don't know what the word

convicted is, convicted is kind

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of like when you feel guilty about

doing something But conviction has

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more to do with sins and obviously

with Christianity as a whole.

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However, if you start feeling

convicted about, I don't know,

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let's say, I'll give you an example.

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'cause I know that that's very

common for a lot of people.

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If you find yourself scrolling and looking

at other people's relationships and you're

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like, oh, I wish my relationship was like

that, or this or that, that is a form of

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envy and you start feeling in your heart.

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God, you put it here in my soul

that I need to stop doing this.

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I need to stay away from these things.

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So as we start following Jesus, we

tend to grow in these areas and we

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slowly start to like pull away from it.

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And that is obviously very good.

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but it is definitely a

struggle for a lot of people.

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So, let's move on to

what are other struggles?

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When things get tough, we tend to ask

ourselves too, how can we continue

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to be Christians in today's world?

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this is the kind of doubt and

uncertainty and the lack of

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your strength in the faith.

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That can eventually lead you to sin

and to go back to your old ways.

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So yes, the world is tough.

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Yes, there's a lot of

things going on around you.

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There's a lot of people who don't

believe in God or Jesus, and they

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do continue to lead a life of sin.

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And these are all things that you

have to be awake for and you have to

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know, you need to have that boundary.

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In order to grow if you really want to.

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but if you ever do feel that way,

that being a Christian, like how

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am I gonna continue to do that

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it says, I have told you these

things so that in me, you may have

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peace in the world, you have trouble

and suffering, but take courage.

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I have conquered the world.

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with that scripture, Jesus prepared you

for what's to come in your walk with him.

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He said it many, many times and he

said it to his disciples as well.

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He prepared them for everything

that was going to come.

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And it's also that you're not surprised.

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Jesus conquered it all.

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If he can do that, everything

that he went through.

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Not just, not just with Pharisees and

with the people of his time, but also the

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pain, the suffering, and he was brought

back to life and he rose and he came back.

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He can do something as simple as

helping you overcome whatever doubt

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that you're having in the faith,

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Now let's move on to things

that are the usual suspects.

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I think that people tend to battle

with, swearing and saying bad words.

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that for sure is still something

that I am battling with.

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I just, you know, I love saying

a good curse word and as dumb as

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that sounds, sometimes it just

fits and you just have to say it.

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But now I feel more convicted every

single time I do it, and sometimes

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even as I'm texting before I say.

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Af, and you know what that means?

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I'm not, I'm not gonna say it, but

if I say I'm tired af I even catch

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myself and I'm like, okay, no, no, no.

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I'm tired and I just end

up putting like I'm tired.

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Um, do I do that always?

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No, we're still, we're still human.

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We're never going to

be as perfect as Jesus.

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But I do find myself sometimes

struggling still with swearing.

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Um, but back to things that a

lot of people tend to battle.

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Swearing, anger, laziness, sex

before marriage is a big one, a big

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one, especially in this generation.

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just lust in general.

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Uh, pride.

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Well, gluttony also, I mean, I guess

for me, gluttony, if you listen to

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episode one of food addiction, that's

definitely one of the things that

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can lead you down to food addiction.

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You just want more and more and more.

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but like I said, I'm not perfect.

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No one's perfect.

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We will never be as perfect as Jesus.

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But anyway, so these are just some

common things that I think a lot of

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people really do tend to struggle with.

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I just wanted to share those

because I know for sure that

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we are not alone in that.

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I wanna move on to one of the biggest,

biggest things that is making it

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harder for people to continue to

believe in Jesus and stay strong in

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the faith, and that is the spiritual

warfare that people deal with.

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Now, when I say spiritual warfare,

it sounds so intense, and there can

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be spiritual warfare in your life.

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when it comes to food addiction and,

people just wanting to have sex with

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multiple partners and that, that's

a sort of spiritual attack, that

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you have a spirit of lust, a spirit

that you have in your life that you

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need to learn how to combat because.

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Those things will eventually

grow and fester within you

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and grow to different things.

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So it's really important

to try and tackle that.

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And I wanted to share some scriptures,

not just to, make you aware, that they

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are in the Bible, but so that you can

keep them in your arsenal and be aware

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that there is a spiritual enemy out there

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To just grab at our souls and constantly

entice us and tempt us with all of

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these things that are going to be

pulling you further away from Jesus.

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So it's important that you

don't allow that to happen.

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and now to jump into those scriptures,

the first one is second Corinthians to 11.

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It says, so that we may not be

exploited by Satan for we are

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not ignorant of his schemes.

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we need to be aware.

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That basically says we need

to be aware so that we are not

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taken advantage of by Satan.

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Now the second one is Ephesians six 12.

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For our struggle is not against flesh

and blood, but against the rulers,

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against the powers against the world,

rulers of the darkness against the

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spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

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Now, I'm not too privy

to how Satan came to be.

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Satan.

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I know that he was a fallen angel.

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He was rebellious, and he's skimming.

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And the earth now.

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So please do not, you know,

rip me apart for that.

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Don't quote me on that.

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But I do know that he rebelled against

God and he is now trying to do his

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ways here on Earth, and he wants to

pull you away from God and from Jesus.

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So just know that your struggle

is not always against yourself,

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but against these spirits.

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the enemy.

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so now I want to jump into.

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First John chapter three,

verses 19 through 21.

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And by this, we will know that we are the

truth and will convince our conscience

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and his presence, that if our conscience

condemns us, that God is greater than

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our conscience and knows all things.

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Dear friends, if our conscience

does not condemn us, we have

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confidence in the presence of God.

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Now I wanna break that down because

there was a lot of words in that one.

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But, what this scripture, first John

chapter three, 19 through 21 means

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we need to know that our conscience.

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Can condemn us, and sometimes it's

just us being human, we need to have

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faith that God is greater we need

to be very, very aware of what's

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going on around us so that we can a

hundred percent stay in the faith.

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And just in all honesty, if you stay

in your Bible and you read the word,

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you're gonna know the difference

between things of the world.

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And what's going on around

you versus spiritual attacks.

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so again, I say all of these

things because I want you to

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know that you're not alone.

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the Bible says it won't be easy.

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Many of the people that are

named in the Holy Book also

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dealt with their own struggles.

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we all deal with our own struggles, but

you can go back and just see so many of

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the people mentioned in the Bible and

all of the things that they went through.

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And it wasn't just for a

few months, a few weeks, no.

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These people endured attacks from

people and their time and even.

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People that they loved

but they always had faith.

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And as long as they had the

faith, they were rewarded.

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Or they were rewarded when they went

to heaven and they were with Jesus and

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with God, which is the ultimate reward.

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God can transform and he can

transform even after we struggle

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and we can't forget that because

when we are struggling with things.

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we are being prepared, we are being

made different in that struggle so

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that we can come through it even

better, and we can only do that if

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we continue to have faith in him.

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So the first person that I wanted to.

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Talk about briefly is Paul, whose

name was then changed to Saul.

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So I looked into him a little bit and

he's a curious person in the Bible

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because he actually persecuted Christians.

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At first he was against Jesus,

he was against all of them.

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And then.

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One day he was walking down a road

to Damascus and he actually came

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across, or so they say he came across

the risen Jesus Christ, and after

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that encounter he believed so much.

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His faith grew so, so much that he

became an apostle and he started sharing

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the gospel and the word of Jesus, and

he essentially became an apostle for

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the very early church at that time.

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So even though some people

would argue that it didn't

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happen I don't believe that.

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I believe that something as a crazy

encounter with him walking down that road.

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Is enough to change a person's

perspective that much.

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And it's real because I know that

it has been so real in my life, the

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change that I have experienced that

how can that have not been real?

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But, the other person that I wanted

to touch on, I actually thought was

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so interesting because I've seen

so many things like this nowadays.

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and it's Samson and Delilah.

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Now, this happened a few days ago

where that CEO, I think his name was

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Byron, or uh, last name was Byron.

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But anyway, they were at the Coldplay

concert and he was cheating on his

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wife with the HR manager, director,

whatever, of his company, and.

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When they called him out on

the big screen, they hid and

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Because now that went viral.

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his wife found out, the entire world

knows it's literally everywhere.

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this man was brought down by this woman.

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I mean, in her life too, is

also coming down in shambles

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because of, of that relationship.

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But if I'm comparing it to Samson

and Delilah from the Bible,

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it's very similar to me because.

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Samson was brought down by Delilah

and just like that guy, Byron, or

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whatever his name is, uh, sorry, I

don't have the name handy with me.

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I just thought about it on the spot, but.

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He was brought down by

that woman and that affair.

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And Samson is similar in the sense

he was born, an Nazarite his hair

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gave him great strength and when

he was younger, he needed to take a

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vow to abstain from certain things.

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and it was going to be a

sign or devotion to God.

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He was granted supernatural

strength by God.

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and he famously used that to fight

against the Philistines, which

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were Israel's enemies at the time.

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Now, Samson and Delilah somehow

got intertwined and Delilah was

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part of the, uh, Philistines.

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So obviously they could

not get caught, but.

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When the Philistine, ruler saw that

Delilah was having a relationship with

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this great, powerful, strong man, he

wanted to take that as an opportunity to

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discover the source of Samson's strength.

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They bribed Delilah in order to

do that, to discover his secret.

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And Samson unfortunately fell.

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Into what Delilah was doing and whether

it was through lust or they had sex.

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I don't know what that was.

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they had a relationship and he

fell into that temptation instead

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of continuing what he knew his

purpose was as a born nazarite.

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sorry if I'm butchering that NA, right.

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but instead of continuing in that

path that he was given from God,

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which was to fight for the Israelites.

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He fell into that temptation and his

head was shaved or his hair, was cut

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off, while he slept he became powerless.

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He was captured, he was blinded

and He fell to his temptations.

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that's why I wanted to compare that

to the story of that, CEO and his

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HR director, lady, whatever she was,

because people give into this lifestyle

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and at the end, because it's not.

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The proper way that God had set out for

us to do things, it's not gonna end well.

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And we need to understand that

we need to follow as much of

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a righteous path as possible.

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And of course, I go back and I say

that I am not perfect in any way.

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In any way, but I am

recognizing now my flaws.

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I am being convicted.

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Enough to know that I need to do

better, and that's because I continue

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to have my relationship with Jesus.

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But it's still hard.

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It's still so hard every day.

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It's a fight.

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Every day.

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It's a fight, and it's going to continue

to be a fight, and we are going to

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continue to deal with these things.

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So we just need to always

go back to the beginning.

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We need to pray.

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We need to stay in our Word, and we

need to just continue to seek Jesus.

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in my walk with Jesus, one of the things

that first hurt me the most was how people

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turned away I say that because you are

going to be shocked how many people roll

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their eyes whenever you talk about church.

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Roll their eyes.

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Whenever you talk about reading the Bible.

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Roll their eyes whenever

you talk about Jesus.

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Or even say that you're a Christian.

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And I did feel that in

my family for a while.

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Um, my own mom, you know, one day in

our family group chat just kind of

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said, in Spanish, oh, and essentially

what that means is as if I had taken

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the church life so seriously that

I'm making it such a big deal and.

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They don't know this version of me.

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So they are shocked.

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Well, they were shocked.

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Now they, now they see that I'm serious

slowly but surely, becoming a different

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person and in my opinion a better person.

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But anyway, um, but they were shocked

and people will be shocked because

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people will know that version of you

for so long that it is impossible

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for them to understand how.

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You have become this way.

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And I will say that I know the difference.

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I can see the difference and

feel the difference in myself

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with Jesus and without Jesus.

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And they will too.

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And it's gonna be very difficult

for some people to accept that.

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And that might just be the most

difficult part of your journey

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because the doors will shut,

those relationships will crumble.

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And if they have to let them, friends

are gonna say, you've changed.

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And of course, of course I've changed.

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God transforms.

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You need to die to your flesh if

you don't make any changes, if you

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don't try to be more like Jesus.

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And what are you doing?

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Like Pastor Anthony Mitchell from 2019

Church, he says, you're playing church.

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You're not here to play church.

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You are here to not go to hell.

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You're here for the ultimate gift from

Jesus, and that is living a life with

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him, an eternity with him in paradise.

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But you could only do that if you

continue to die to your flesh day to day.

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And with that, I wanna share.

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Additional scriptures, because

these are just, they're just so,

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so well woven into this topic.

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but I'll let you listen The first

one, Romans chapter 12, verse two.

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Don't be conformed to this world, but be

transformed by the renewing of your mind.

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So that you may prove what is the good,

well pleasing and perfect will of God.

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Now, just like I said, you have

to not conform to the world.

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You have to be so transformed by what

Jesus can do for you so that the world can

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see that he is real, and he is so true in

his words that look what he did for you.

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Look how he changed.

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You.

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Make it so big that people can't deny him.

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The other scripture, two

Corinthians chapter five, verse 17.

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Therefore, if anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creation.

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The old things have passed away.

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Behold, all things have

become new and man, oh wow.

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Um, I'm getting a little emotional.

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Oh gosh.

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If my best friend here says she's gonna be

like, oh, Sariah, you're such a cry baby.

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You cry all the time.

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And honestly, in this moment, I

really do feel like it's the Holy

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Spirit because I'm sharing this word,

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and this is such an important word

because this walk is not easy.

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Life is hard enough as it is.

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Without God,

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I just can't imagine how

people do life without him.

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Anyway.

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Okay, moving on.

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again, that was Romans 12 two and two

Corinthians five 17, so please keep those.

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Close to your heart if you

are on this walk with Christ,

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because you are going to need it.

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Maybe not from your friends and family

all the time, but you will need it.

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And before I continue

talking and rambling,

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Guys, at the end of the day, being

Christian is difficult, but Jesus did

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not promise that it would be easy.

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Like I said before, he did not

promise it was going to be easy.

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He did, however, say and promise that

if you believe, if you have faith

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and declare he is Lord, that you will

have eternal life with the Father.

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And one beautiful example of His love

and grace also showing this promise

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to you guys, that while no matter.

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No matter how hard life gets,

he still comes through for you.

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Right before Jesus's death, before he was

crucified with the two other men, one of

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them mocks him and then he's crucified.

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But the other man repented and he

disagreed with the man that was

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mocking Jesus and the scripture.

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Um.

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uh, gosh, I'm getting like so emotional

that I can't even talk, but that

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scripture is Luke 29, verse 39 through

43, and I just wanted to share it because

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what Jesus can do for you is going

to be so big in your life that

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you cannot turn away from him.

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'cause when you truly feel what

he does for you in your heart.

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And As much as the world tries to

change your view, you shouldn't do it.

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And Jesus shows his love in this moment,

right here as he was being crucified.

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So Luke 2339 through 43.

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One of the criminals who was hanged,

insulted him saying, if you are

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the Christ, save yourself and us.

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But the other answered and rebuking him

said, don't you ever fear God seeing

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you are under the same condemnation.

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And we indeed justly for we receive

the do reward for our deeds.

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But this man has done nothing wrong.

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He said to Jesus, Lord, remember

me when you come into the kingdom.

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And Jesus said to him.

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Assuredly, I tell you today,

you will be with me in Paradise.

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So yes, my friends, life is hard.

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The world is harsh.

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Our purpose may not be clear to us what

Jesus and God have in store for us, but as

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long as we have faith, we remain steadfast

in Christ, our reward will be great.

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So do not fear.

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Do not fear this modern day persecution,

that we constantly have to endure.

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Don't fear it.

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Stay strong in it because one day you will

no longer need to fear what comes after.

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And paradise awaits.

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I hope this has blessed you.

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I thank you for listening until the

next episode, my friends take care.