Turn your Bibles if you will to the book of Philippians, the book of Philippians chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3 and we are going to be looking at verses 13 and 14 today. And of course through the month of December I've been preaching on some Christmas messages on Sunday morning. And I've had some men preaching Sunday evenings as well. And I have Brother Sean preaching this evening. And then Brother Boehner is going to be bringing a message to us next Sunday evening. So looking forward to that. And I've enjoyed hearing our men preach and the Lord's worked in my heart through that. And I know through your hearts as well. And as soon as we get into the new year next Sunday, of course, I'm going to be preaching on our New Year's theme. then after that we are going to be jumping back into the book of John, and looking forward to finishing that series there. And also Ezra on Sunday evening. So, a lot going on, but the Lord wants to speak to us from His Word. It was interesting as I was studying for this passage I hadn't even seen the front of the bulletin covers yet. And then once I came to print the bulletin covers, well then I saw that it's Philippians chapter 3, and and this passage that we're dealing with today. Philippians chapter 3 and verse 13 and 14. Notice the Word of God says this, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Notice here in this passage we of course know this is the Apostle Paul who wrote this book under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And as he's writing to the Philippians here he says that there are some things that he must do. And one of those is forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before and pressing towards the mark. But it's not the mark to just be a little bit better than everyone else or just to be just turning over a new leaf. No, he says, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You know this year is coming to a close. By the time we meet again on a Sunday morning we are going to be in 2025. And throughout this year there were highs and there were lows. In your life and in my life there were mountain tops, there were valleys. There were times of rejoicing, there were times of sorrow. As we look back over this year, we can all say that those things were true. There were loved ones who were with us this time last year who are not with us now. And the reality is there are some things that we had accomplished, some things that we did that we were okay with. There's other things that we look back and we say, I really messed that up. You know, there are things that, that we would say, you know, I need to, I need to fix that. And we're going to deal with some of those things today. I want to preach to you a message this morning entitled this, and it's a play on words, a rhyming title this morning. Amen. How to spiritually thrive in 2025. I think all of us would say we want to thrive spiritually. want to live a life that is just mediocre. We don't want to live a life that is just run of the mill, if you will. No, we want to live a life that is giving glory and honor to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are going to deal with how to do that today. Let's go to Lord in prayer, we'll get started here this morning. Dear Heavenly Father we come before You today. And Lord it is all of our desire to thrive in this year to come. Spiritually speaking we know that That's your desire for us. Lord, we know that you desire for each and every one of us to draw closer to you, to live a life that is wholly given unto you. Lord, I pray that you'd help us to, Lord, not live in the past, but to realize that, Lord, there are failures in the past. There's going to be failures in the future, but they don't have to hold us down. Lord, we can get back up and we can keep going for you. Lord, I pray that You would speak to our hearts in a way that only You can. And if there is anyone here that has never trusted You as their Savior, I pray they would do that today. Lord, I pray that You would be with our church, continue to guide us and direct us and help us to move forward for You. We ask all these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I want you in your mind today to imagine a young oak tree that's planted in the middle of a field, and it's not particularly large, but it is growing strong. It's something that had been planted for a few years, and as the seasons pass, we know, Here in Oxford, I call it mini Chicago, not because of the size of Oxford, but because of the wind that comes through this place. It is the windy township, not the windy city, amen? But I want you to think about all the seasons that come and go. You think about the heat in the summertime. You think about the fall and the wind that comes through. And you think about the wintertime and the bitter cold and snow. and the wind that comes through during the wintertime. You think of springtime and sometimes we get some pretty heavy storms during that time and a lot of rain, but yet the trees are budding and things are beautiful in the spring. And I want you to think about as all of these seasons pass and all of these storms roll through the area, the winds whip through the branches and the rain pours down. After each storm, that oak tree is still standing firm. Its roots are digging deeper and deeper into the soil. We'll get back to that oak tree in just a moment. If we're going to spiritually thrive in this next year, first of all, I want us to notice here, we must reflect on, but not dwell on our past failures. It's okay to remember our failures. In man's minds today, and this is the way it's been since the beginning of time, mankind will say this, well, forgive and forget. The reality is this, our mind is not going to forget some things. There are some things that left some scars in our life. There are some people that left some scars in our life. And I'm not saying that all we have to do is flip a switch and all of a sudden it's gone from our memory. It's okay to reflect on things, but we cannot dwell on those failures of the past and yet expect us to live a life that is spiritually thriving next year. Here in Philippians chapter three, verse 13 the Bible says this brethren I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth under those things which are before how many here can say I had some failures in 2024. My hands up. Yeah, we can all say we've had some failures. I think all of us can. For some, it was failures and how we reacted to situations. There's situations that come at us every single day. There's things that were that were dealt every day. Sometimes it was coworkers, sometimes with our spouse, sometimes with our children. Sometimes with friends or family. Sometimes it's with complete strangers, whatever it may be. We have some failures in how we reacted to situations. For some of us, if not all of us, we've said some things that we shouldn't have said, or we have said some things in the wrong way. There's a right and a wrong way to say things. We've said some things or acted in the wrong attitude. Boy, that's a failure in our lives. We've failed to be in God's word as we should have. We've had a failure to spend adequate time in prayer. A failure to witness as we've been commanded to from the scriptures. Failure to treat our spouse with the love and the appreciation that they deserve. All married people can say amen to that. We've all failed. Failure to live our life daily for the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we've been commanded to do in scripture. I'm not saying we're going to live a life that is sinless. That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying here today is there are many failures in our lives and especially over this past year, some that are recent to us, that if we allow ourselves to dwell on those things, then all we're going to see is ways that we failed and we're going to refuse to see the way that God can help us through this next year. Every one of us, we should give those things to God. Maybe for some it was a failure to beat some addiction, failure to be faithful to the house of God, failure to get involved in ministry, as you should have. You can fill in the blank, whatever that failure was that you dealt with this year. And I'm in no way trying to discourage us this morning, because I think it's important for us to remember things. The word remember is mentioned over 140 times in the Bible, it's important to remember, but we cannot dwell on those things. Failures are going to happen. Pain is going to come. Struggles are real. We know they are. None of us would say, well, I love living a life in pain and turmoil, but something that every one of us would have to say I agree with is this, that pain and turmoil is a part of all of our lives. It's not easy. It's not something we, we want to sign up for, but failures are going to come. Remember the, the apostle Paul, and in my opinion, he was the greatest Christian to ever live, but he had failures. You know what the apostle Paul said? He said that he was the chief of sinners. are going to come. Does the chief of sinners understand he was not speaking of only before he was saved? But I want you to look at 1 Timothy chapter 1 if you will. 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15. Remember here the Apostle Paul is speaking to young Timothy, this young man in the faith, and as he is trying to teach him, he is trying to tell him to beware of certain things. He is trying to teach him how to run the house of God, how to be how to live a life that is acceptable in God's sight. And in 1 Timothy 1.15 the Apostle Paul says this, Notice the Apostle Paul is not speaking in past tense here. This is speaking of after he had trusted Christ, after he's in the ministry, after he's planting churches, after he's training these young men to live for the Lord. And he says this, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of who I am chief. We're all going to sin, but we don't have to dwell on those things. It's okay to say, you know what, I've had some failures in the past. And you know what, I'm going to have some failures in the future because I'm a sinner. But by God's grace, I've been forgiven of those things. I've confessed those things unto God, and I'm moving forward into this next year, not allowing my failures of this year that we've just gone through, not allowing those things to run my life and to ruin my life, but to say, Lord, I've had failures back here, and Lord, I pray that you would help me to have victory over those things in this year to come. and the failures that I have in this year to come, Lord, I pray that I would be quick to confess those things unto you. We need God's help. We can all reflect on the failures of the past because remembering how we failed should help us to be on guard in the future, but also help us to pray that God will give us the victory over that in the future as well. As we read this passage in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 13, when it says this, this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind. I want us to notice that word forgetting. It's not just to forget as we think about it. in our language today, in our culture today, when we think about forgetting, it's completely removed from our mind. But this forgetting, as we think about it, is speaking as spiritually forgetting those things. I'm not allowing that to ruin my life. I am neglecting those things, and I'm moving forward to something else. You know, in counseling sessions, A counselor will oftentimes tell someone that has been through a traumatic circumstance, they've been through something that's very real, the pain is very real, and they'll say this, you cannot change what's happened to you. All you can change is how you're going to react to what's happened to you. Every single one of us have had pain and we've had different things, failures that have came through our life throughout this past year and in years past. We cannot change those things. And I'm not saying that that pain is not real, but what I'm saying is this, there's a God in Heaven who loves you and you do not have to live under the bondage of things that have happened to you. You can leave those things in the past and say, Lord, I don't know why I went through those things. I don't know what you were trying to teach me through those things. But Lord, whatever it was, teach it to me now and help me to have the victory over those things in the future. You can live that way. Reflect on, but do not dwell on those failures. This forgetting is to not allow those things to run. I believe that there's some people in this room today who are plagued by past failures every single day. Those failures haunt you and rather than putting those things behind you, you've been allowing those things to cripple you and you're living your life in a rear view mirror and it's holding you back from what God wants you to do in the future. Your past failures are crippling your future. Remember that story about the oak tree going through those seasons? Well, one day, a nearby neighbor who had been watching that tree all throughout the seasons asked the owner, why do you think that tree keeps standing so strong through all of those storms? Why hasn't that oak tree fallen over? The farmer replied, you see, every time a storm hits, the tree is forced to grow deeper roots. The winds push the tree to bend and to stretch in ways that it wouldn't have without the storm. The tree doesn't just survive these trials. It thrives through them because with every storm, it becomes stronger. You know, the most spiritual people that I've ever met in my life, the spiritual giants in my life, the prayer warriors that I've had the opportunity to meet and to fellowship with, you know, every single one of them, when you get to know them, you find that they have been through some things that, to be honest with you, I don't know that I could have made it through. And when you talk to them, all they discuss is how God's grace was sufficient for them through those storms. There are some storms that you may have gone through this past year in your life, and you can look back and you can say, I don't know why I went through those, but by God's grace, I'm stronger because of that. I have a root system that's deeper in God's word and deeper in God's love, not because I was supposed to fail in these ways, but because I failed in those ways, but then leaned upon the Lord. He allowed me to dig my roots deeper into him. With every storm that that tree became stronger. You see, the storms that we go through and the trials that we endure throughout our life, if we respond to them correctly, they should not hurt our spiritual growth, but rather cause us to dig our roots deeper. There are pictures that you can find and beautiful paintings that people have painted and you'll see there was a small pocket on a large boulder and there was a tiny tree that started to grow and as those roots begin to penetrate It looked as though that tree, there's no way that it was going to be able to grow. There's no way that it was going to be able to thrive. Look at this great boulder that's been planted upon. Look at the trials it's going to have to go through. Look at the struggles that it's going to have to do. But the rain kept coming onto that tree. And you find eventually the roots press through that and the boulder has broken in half. Why? Because of persistence. I'm not saying that everything is going to be easy, but what I'm going to say is this. I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. For with God, nothing shall be impossible. Well, I don't know how I can put this failure behind me, pastor. I just, I just don't know you. Uh, there's just, people have just hurt me in such a bad way. I just, I just don't know that I can ever forgive them. You're hindering your spiritual growth. If you refuse to forgive, they say, bitterness is a poison you give yourself to hurt someone else. If we refuse to forgive, that's what's happening. And if we refuse to forgive and we refuse to leave those things behind, we're not just reflecting on those things, we're dwelling on them. And dwelling on past failures is going to hurt your tomorrow. Don't allow that to be the case in your life. Reflect on, but do not dwell on the failure. Second of all, let's praise God for the victories through 2024. I asked a question just a moment ago about how many people had failures in 2024 and all of our hands went up, heads were shaking. Yeah, we had some failures and all of those things, but can I ask you this? How many had some spiritual victories in 2024? Hands all over the place. You know why? Because even through those failures, God is still good. Because even in the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. Even when I fail, He still loves me. Thy rod and thy staff, the thing that comforts me and the thing that beats me back into shape, amen, hits me upside the head when I'm getting out of the way, the rod and thy staff, they comfort me. There's been some victories in 2024. We should be praising the Lord for those things. is used 216 times in the Word of God. And all throughout the scripture we read about God's people praising Him after the victories that He gave them. We saw sorrow and then we see praise. But the greatest thing that we can do when reflecting on the victories of this past year is to praise God for them. A moment ago, of course, I asked how many had failures. We should be praising the Lord for the victories we had. Even though those failures were there, the Lord gave us some victories. Every one of us have had some victories. We're sitting here today in the house of God in a free country where we should be hearing from the word of God. That's a victory today. The Lord gave you another day to live for Him. That's a victory. You say, well, it was, boy, it was such a hard year. I had some things I didn't know I'd have to go through this year. I just can't think of any victories. I can give you 365 victories throughout 2024. And that's being able to put your feet on the floor every single day and having the opportunity to live for and work for the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. Having the opportunity to do something that's going to amount in eternity. Something. We've had some victories. We've had failures as discussed earlier. We've had victories. You know Moses doubted God, did he not? Remember Moses is standing there on the back side of that desert and he's there at that bush that was on fire but not being consumed. No doubt it was the God of heaven speaking to him. And it was holy ground and he took his shoes off there. And the God of heaven who knows everything, He told Moses exactly what he needed to do. And what did Moses say? I can't do that. He doubted God. What he was saying is this, God, you must have gotten it wrong because there's no way that I can do what you've told me to do. And throughout Moses's life, we saw some failures. We saw some victories. David failed. But later on, even though it cost David a lot and he had to fight for his own kingdom, all through the Psalms we see King David, a man who was a failure at different times in his life, he was also able to do great things for God. And when God worked miraculously in his life, you know what he did? He gave praise unto God. You read through the Psalms, it's impossible to read through the Psalms and not get encouraged. Impossible, because you read about a man who was going through some things that were some deep valleys, there were some trials, there were some failures that he had dealt with, but yet he saw that God brought him through to the other side, and he was praising God. All throughout there's some Psalms where every single verse he's praising God in some way because of how God helped him through those things. He failed, but yet he gave God the praise. When the children of Egypt doubted God, I'm sorry, the children of Israel doubted God when they were released from Egypt on one side of the Red Sea. We would call them spiritual failures, would we not? Well, God has released them from Egypt, and here they are walking up to the Red Sea, and God's done some miraculous things for them, and all of a sudden, because Pharaoh's army is behind them, now they're doubting God, and they say, wasn't there enough graves in Egypt for us die in to be buried in, we would say, well, that's a spiritual failure there. And it was, but then what we see is God miraculously led them across on dry ground on the other side, just a few moments away from their utter failure of doubting God. They were praising God for his goodness. There's going to be failures, but there's going to be blessings as well. Listen, I'm not saying that we're on cloud nine all of the time. I'm not saying that everything is always going how we want it to. But what I am saying is that as we reflect on our lives and when we reflect on this past year of 2024, we should be able to see the blessings of God all throughout the year, even in the valley of the shadow of death. As I mentioned a moment ago, thou art with me. That's a blessing. That's a victory that we have God with us. Just as we read on Tuesday night, Emmanuel, God with us. If you desire for God to help you in 2025, you must continually praise Him for what He has already done. The Bible says that our God is a jealous God. We need to praise him. He deserves the glory and he will have all of the glory. And the Bible says this, that if we do not cry out, the rocks will cry out in our place. I don't want some inanimate object crying out in my place. I don't want some rock that can't do anything for itself, but because I refuse to praise God for the victories that He's given me, the rock would have to cry out? I don't want that to be the case. How selfish would that be of me? Something that I know to be true is that I need to praise God more. I need to give him the glory he deserves. I need to share more praises with the brothers and sisters in Christ. I need to share more praises during our services, especially our Wednesday night prayer meetings. They should be times of praise as much as they are of prayer. We should be praising God for the way that he answers our prayer. Remember in the first point this morning we said that praise is mentioned 214 times in Scripture? Well, that sounds like a lot, does it not? 214 times. Well, there's only 66 books in the entire Bible. That's quite a few times that praise is mentioned there. Sounds like a lot until you realize there's 650 prayers recorded in the Bible, and only a third of them resulted praise unto God for how He answered them. Only a third. I was talking to the teens this morning in class, we were going through a study on prayer in the ABC's of Christian Growth and we studied how the Lord answers in three ways, yes, no, and wait. Three different ways the Lord will answer your prayer. Do you know what I challenged the teens to do this morning? To listen to Him no matter what the answer is. If it's yes, praise the Lord. If it's no, praise the Lord. Why? Because he knows better than I do. If it's wait, be still and know that I am God. Lord, help me to wait. Help me to have that patience that I need to have. You see, less than one third of the prayers that were prayed were followed up with praise. Church, that's a problem. And you know as well as I know that we are all just as guilty as they were of praying without praising. Let's praise Him for all that He's done. Let's give Him the glory that He rightly deserves. When's the last time outside of church that someone heard you praise the Lord for something? When's the last time? I bet they've heard us complain about things. I bet they've heard us complain about our country. laws that are being passed, things that are being taught in our schools. When's the last time someone heard you praise the Lord? You see, all I'm saying is this. If we desire to spiritually thrive, we must forget those past failures. We must not dwell on those things. And we must praise the Lord for all that he has done and all that he will do in our lives. Well, preacher, that's easy for you to say. You don't know what I'm going through. God knows. And I didn't write this book. He did. The scriptures here says, it says, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended. But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Everything that's gone on, the Apostle Paul says this, look I don't claim to understand everything. I don't claim to have arrived. to be the perfect Christian. I don't claim to be any of those things, but what I do know is this, I can forget those things which are behind those failures, everything that's in my past, forgetting about those things and pressing forth onto what God has for me. That's what we need to do. I want you to notice number three this morning, and that's this. We must give Him the priority in 2025. We give many things the priority in our life. For some, it's hobbies. For some, it's our job. For some, it's our schooling. And those are all good things. It's OK to have a hobby. We have different things that we enjoy doing. And it's OK to give some time to those things. We are to provide for our families. It's great to work a job. It's a wonderful thing to be productive. We as mankind, we were made to be productive, to be doing something. It's an OK thing to work a job. Those types of things, they're good, but they cannot have the priority. The priority must be serving God. Lord, these are things that are just a part of my life. I have to work. I have bills to pay. I'm going to school. I want to learn these things and all that. That's okay. But Lord, the way that I'm going to live my life and what I'm going to revolve all of these things around is your will in my life for this next year. Lord, I don't know what that path is going to be. I don't know what steps I'm going to have to take. I don't know what failures are going to come along the way. I don't know what valleys you're going to cause me to walk through. But Lord, what I do know is this, you've brought me this far and you're going to take me the rest of the way. Lord, help me to be faithful to you in this next year. That should be our prayer. We are only where we are because of the grace of God. That's the only reason we're here today. Bible says here, reaching forth to those things which are before. Lord, whatever you have for me, I'll do it. Whatever doors of opportunity you open for me, I'll walk through them. You know the problem with many believers today and myself included, and that's this. When I think a door should be opened, I want to kick it open. And sometimes God says, it's not time for that to be open. It's not time. Other times the Lord opens the door for me and my mind doesn't want to walk through that door. Lord, I have questions. He says, just trust in me. There's going to be both of those circumstances in all of our lives throughout this year. Some things that we think is best, God says, just wait. Other things that God says, this is what's best. And we say, no. Lord, help us. Lord, whatever doors of opportunity you open for me, I'll walk through them. Whatever ministry opportunities you lead me into, I'll serve to the best of my abilities. Whatever areas I have failed you in before, I'm not focusing on those failures. I'm learning from them and I'm pressing forward. Lord, I will ensure that my family's in church when the doors are open. Lord, I will be faithful in giving. Lord, I'll be a faithful witness. I'll be a better servant of God. I will treat my spouse with the love and dignity and care that they deserve. I'm going to be in my Bible more this year. These are all great things that we can tell the Lord we're going to do. I'm going to pray more this year. I will and you fill in the blank, whatever it may be. But can I caution us this morning? Whatever we tell the Lord we're going to do, we also need to ask for his grace to help us to do that. and for his strength. Because if we say, Lord, I'm going to read my Bible more this year than I ever have. You know what's going to happen every day? We're going to be busier than we ever have been because Satan doesn't want us in the Word of God. Well, I wasn't able to read the Word of God today. I was just so busy. Well, we had time to do our hobbies this week. We had time to hang out with friends this week, but no time to spend with God. You see, if we say that we're going to be a better servant of God and we're going to be a faithful witness, we're going to be faithful in giving, we're going to ensure that our families in church and all of those things, something is going to come up. We have to make the decision whether or not we're going to allow that to get in the way of what we told God that we would do. We must be faithful. How about this, Lord, I will praise you for all that you have done. And I will live 2025 in light of what you have done and by what you will do. I've said before, we need to live our life with eternity in view. Living our life realizing that we are not here for ourselves. We are not here for just fleshly pleasure or anything like that. No, we are here because God has something for us to do. He has someone for us to tell about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And if we live our life realizing that it is my job to tell someone about the Gospel so they can trust the Lord as their Savior so that they can go to Heaven. If we live our life that way we're gonna focus a whole lot less on the failures of the past and realize God desires to save souls and if this is dragging us down I'm not being the witness I should be I don't know what it is in your life today that you need to give to the Lord but what I do know is this that every single one of us have had failures and we should give those to God today it's sin in our life well it's that's just who I am remember talking to an individual and this individual told me this, well, I know that I tend to see the bad in people and I know that I tend to complain and those types of things, but that's just who I am and there's no changing that. I said, well, the reality is this, when we trust Christ as our Savior, we are a new creature. There's a new song in our heart. Oh, we can continue to live in the flesh. We can continue to to push God out of our lives and say, well, that's I don't want to conform to that. But we've also been told to live our lives wholly acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. Whatever it may be that's been bogging you down over this past year, whatever failures, whatever sins it may be that just keep coming up in your life and you wonder, am I ever going to get the victory over this? Can I ask you here today, give it to God today. Don't think that you can conquer sin on your own. You cannot. You must give it to God. And God said this, my grace is sufficient for thee. for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Well, I'm strong enough. Then God's not going to help you. Because His strength is not made perfect in our strength. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Why? Because we have to come to the point where we realize, God, I am nothing without You. I cannot beat those failures without You. I cannot forgive those people without You. I cannot get over those things that have happened to me without Your help. Lord, I need You today. Lord, I don't want to live next year in the way that I've lived this year, continuing to focus on those bad things that have happened to me. Lord, I want to live a life that is completely given to you. I may not understand all of these things, but Lord, I don't have to because I know you brought me to this point for a reason. That needs to be your prayer today. Lord, help me to have the victory Well, there's just many sins that I've been dealing with. Well, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's what the Word of God says. Well, I don't know that God would forgive me of these things. He will. His Word says that He will. And the same Bible that says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, it's the same Word that says He is God. He cannot lie. He desires to help you. He does. You see, just as that oak tree dug deeper roots, looking for water and establishing a better foundation, that's what we should be doing when we're feeling spiritually dry. We should drink from the well of God's word. When the storms come, that should cause our roots to dig deeper. Some people say, everything that I've gone through has brought me to a certain point. But the truth is, how you have responded to those circumstances has brought you to this point. Whether you've allowed the Lord to help you or not, because if we don't allow the Lord to help us respond, bitterness has brought you to the point that you're at today. If you have allowed the Lord to help you, then that grace has brought you to where you are today. How have you responded? And will you allow the Lord to change that in 2025? Reflect on, but do not dwell on those failures. Praise God for the victories through 2024 and give Him the priority in 2025. That's what we should do. Well, it sounds awfully simple, preacher. It is. This is not a difficult book. What makes it difficult is our flesh, because we don't want to obey. We want to do our own thing. You know, the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing, expecting a different result. Many believers have been living in insanity because we continue to live for ourselves, but expect God to bless us in a different way. And then we get upset at God when we find ourselves in the pig pen, like the prodigal son. God desires to help us. He desires for us to have that joy unspeakable, that peace and that comfort. That's what God desires in our life. But we must give it to Him.