Jesus Begins to Minister

Mark 1:14-20.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 17, 2019.

Last week, we saw Jesus preparing to minister to the people of Israel.  In the passage before us today, he begins. 

The preaching of Jesus

The first thing that we see is not miracles and wondrous signs.  Rather, we see Jesus proclaiming or preaching to the people.  Mark focuses on the natural transition point of John the Baptist being imprisoned as when Jesus entered Galilee to minister.

It is important to recognize that throughout the Bible we see that people generally resist a true prophet of the Lord who comes speaking the truth of God.  This general resistance can be overcome.  However, we should recognize its prevalence.  An underlying theme throughout all of this is that God’s Word/Voice cannot be silenced.  If one is imprisoned then another will speak forth.  If one is killed then another will take their place.  It is not just a secular thing.  This world, both secular and religious, often operates in a way to try and silence what the Spirit of God is doing through those who listen to Him.  It hates the fact that they march to the beat of a different drummer.  It hates the message that there is something wrong with it.  It hates the message that people need to turn back to the ways of God because they already feel that they have the truth.  This silencing is sometimes with brute force, imprisonments, and violence.  However, it is sometimes with propaganda, narrative-control, disinformation, and manipulative and seductive memes.

In whatever way this world tries to marginalize the true work of the Spirit of God, it cannot stop what the Spirit is doing.  Those imprisoned just preach to their captives and demonstrate the value of God.  Those who are killed are replaced by others who may be even more powerful than they.  God’s Word cannot be silenced because it is empowered by God Himself.  In another way we can say that it cannot be silenced because it represents real reality, which no one can run from very long without running smack into its stubborn existence.

We must understand this about Christianity.  It is not the institutional trappings that Christ is promoting.  Though it may look like the world is winning, we must understand that we are on the side of the God of the universe.  He will not fail, and I must do my part, whatever it may come to be.  John the Baptist probably did not envision imprisonment and later death (Mark 6), but that is what was asked of Him by the Lord.

Thus the preaching of Jesus comes on the heels of one of the greatest preachers/prophets that Israel had seen in a long time.  Now let’s look at what this preaching proclaimed.

Jesus proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God.  All of the Gospels emphasize several things about the teaching of Jesus.  At its core, He was proclaiming the good news that the Kingdom of God was drawing close.  This had been the hope of Israel for over 1400 years, obtaining more and more information from God’s prophets regarding what that would look like along the way.  For the previous 500 years they had specifically suffered under the imperial rule of the kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, which still ruled over them in the days of Jesus.  The faithful still waited and hoped for God’s Anointed man (Messiah is the Hebrew word for Anointed One) who would judge the nations and rule over the world from Jerusalem.  When would this wait ever end?  John the Baptist had shocked the nation with his insistence that he was a forerunner to the Messiah.  He told them to prepare themselves for the coming of the Lord.  Thus Jesus tells them the good news that the Kingdom was drawing close.  The long wait was coming to an end!

In fact, Jesus uses a phrase that the time was fulfilled or completed.  God had determined a particular time in history for the Anointed One to come forth.  Their long wait was done and the transition time was upon them.  Of course, things did not go the direction they all hoped it would go.  We now know that there are two phases to this Kingdom’s arrival on earth.  The first phase focused on spiritually changing those who would be its citizens.  It is a time of invitation and grace.  In this phase Christ rules from heaven over the hearts of those who believe in Him as the number of believers/citizens increases.  The second phase, which will occur at the Second Coming of Christ, is taking up of political control of the earth and removing the wicked leadership of the nations (which will only grow worse and worse).  This is often referred to as the Day of the Lord and as the Judgment of the Nations by the God of heaven.

Believers today live in this strange period where the Kingdom of God is now, but also not yet.  Though we may long for the coming of Christ and His rule upon the earth, we are still in the day of God’s invitation and grace to the people of this world.  Anyone, who so desires, can become a part of God’s Kingdom.  Thus it is important for current believers to keep their hands on the plow and keep working to share the invitation while there is still time.

Like any kingdom, the king has rules as to how one becomes a citizen.  Yes, any who so desired could come forward, but they were called upon to repent and believe in the gospel.  The need for a person to repent literally means to change your mind, or your way of thinking.  In so many personal ways, each person of that day was following the dictates of their own heart and mind.  Some in complete rejection of God’s Word and others with a partial rejection (sound familiar?).  The Spirit of God calls us to change the way that we are thinking, but also in a specific way.  Another metaphor that is used of repentance is turning.  We, who have turned away from God’s Ways into other ways of our own choosing, need to turn back to God in our hearts and minds, and follow His ways.

Repentance is always needed in our lives because we live in a world and a body that continually questions and rejects the ways of the Lord. Christians are not those who repented long ago, but are those who continue to be a repentant people.

So it begins with repentance, but then it moves to faith.  They needed to believe what Jesus was telling them.  Even though Mark emphasizes believing in the good news, Jesus Himself is the good news!  To believe in the Gospel is to believe in Jesus.  God had joined mankind in order to lift us up out of the horrible fate we were plunging towards.  Thus to believe in the Gospel is to believe that God has not abandoned us, and instead He has stepped into the muck and mire with us in order to save us.  This is good news indeed, for who can stop the Lord Almighty!

The disciples of Jesus

In verse 16 Jesus begins to call certain people to follow Him everywhere.  The term disciple is not used here, but they were called to learn from, be students of, Jesus.  In the New Testament, Jesus called 12 disciples to a special task.  They would become his apostles, sent-ones, who would go to the nations and lay the foundation for His Church.  They actually lived and ate with Jesus as they helped Him in His ministry.  Many other people were students and believers of Jesus.  However, they did not live with Jesus day to day.  So we should recognize that even though the outward form may be somewhat different, all of these disciples had one thing in common.  They were now following and listening to Jesus as their master and teacher.

Let’s explore the passage.  Notice that Jesus stands on the shore and calls 2 fishermen to follow him here, and then 2 more fishermen to follow Him there.  These would be the core of the 12 disciples: Peter and Andrew, James and John.  Though Jesus is no longer physically on the earth, he still approaches people through his disciples and calls people to believe upon Him and to follow Him.  None of us today pack up our bags and follow a physical Jesus to Jesus-ville.  However, we do these things spiritually.  To follow Jesus is to quit listening to those things you did before and to start listening to His Words and those of His Apostles.  It is to follow them.  It is to reject the mindset of this world that marginalizes Christ and His teachings, or even hijacks His teachings and twists them to other ends.  To follow Jesus is to have a spiritual journey every day where the Spirit of God leads us, much as Jesus led The Twelve 2,000 years ago.  We must ask ourselves this question each day.  Who am I following?  Am I following a favorite religious leader or philosopher?  Or am I following Jesus and the Spirit of God?

 The second thing about being a disciple of Jesus is that they were called to draw others to Christ.  These men had lived their lives catching fish and thus Jesus uses their life experience as a metaphor for what He was calling them to do.  They would fish for people.  Ultimately their lives would become about drawing people to Christ.

As in any analogy, fishing is a crude one.  God does not use tricks to hook people and drag them to shore in order to eat them.  Thus the metaphor is intended only so far.  God will work with people to live with and speak into the lives of others in order to draw them to Christ, to join His Kingdom.  Part of God’s call on your life is to be a light to the world around you.  You are to be a drawing influence through your life and the worlds you speak.  However, we are not to be drawing people to ourselves, but rather to Christ.

We are told that they dropped their nets and left their father in order to follow Jesus.  This recognizes the sacrifice that is made by all who follow Jesus.  Not every disciple was called to physically leave their families behind in order to follow Jesus.  However, we are all called to spiritually leave our old life behind and the attachments it has made upon us.  If I was a business man before I met Christ, He may call me to become a missionary or a pastor and I would literally leave that life behind.  However, He may simply call me to quit being the old business man that I was and to become a new creation in Christ who runs a business in a whole new way.  Regardless, the point is that if we are truly listening to and following the leadership of Christ, we will leave the old life behind.  I cannot hold on to the old way of living and survive.  I will either be pulled in two, or I will let go of one and cling to the other.  What am I clinging to today?

Let me close by recognizing just who Jesus chose to follow Him.  He was not in Jerusalem picking the top rabbis of the day.  He wasn’t even picking those Pharisees who would even one day believe on Him.  He was in the rural back country of Israel.  He was picking from among the lowly of society.  I do not mean they were lowly in a moral way, though we are all sinners.  1 Corinthians 1:26-29 says it this way, “Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

We must quit looking at ourselves and our lives, becoming discouraged, and letting the enemy draw us away from Christ.  Rather we must rejoice that God loves to use the weak and lowly because then it is clear that it is His power working in us and not our own!  Yes, a rich man can be saved and even a powerful politician.  However, they will have to die to their riches and to their power before they can become a disciple of Christ.  Drop your nets (that which hold you back) and follow Jesus today!

Jesus Ministers audio

Jesus Prepares for Ministry

Mark 1:9-13.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 10, 2019.

I apologize for taking so long to get the article up this week.  The snow definitely puts a crinkle in all of our plans.  We pray that you are all safe and have what you need.

Today we are going to continue in Mark chapter 1 as Jesus prepares to begin His ministry.

The beginning of the ministry of Jesus

Very little is said about the activity of Jesus before His water baptism in the Bible.  We are told of an incident at the temple when he was 12.  Other than that and the time around his birth and toddler years, nothing specific is revealed to us.  Jesus simply grew up as another Jewish boy in an Israel that was occupied by the Romans.  There are specious stories that developed later by people who had ulterior motives, but none of these have a shred of evidence that they are true.  As best we can tell, it was God’s plan for Jesus to simply be an Israelite and identify with their life before He took up the mantle of the Messiah.  Luke tells us that when Jesus started ministering he was “about thirty.”  If you take time to think about this, you will find that it is easy to be so ambitious that you jump ahead of God and try to accomplish things in your own power and strength.   I think this is what Moses encountered when he struck the Egyptian.  His heart was ready to deliver Israel, but God was not ready for Moses to deliver them yet. 

Throughout His ministry we see Jesus emphasizing that He was following the timing and direction of the Father.  He who had the most critical work for God the Father ever, had to wait for the timing of the Father.  We need to be led by the Holy Spirit and according to God’s timing, not ours.  This may call for time where we faithfully do those things that are “less” than the big desire that is in our heart.  Learn to trust God.  Yes, He works to put things in our heart, but we must still wait for His timing.  Waiting on the Lord can be our most difficult test.

When Jesus does come forward, He does so with a public act of being baptized in water by John.  Remember that John is telling people to repent and prepare their hearts for the Messiah.  He had them come to be baptized in the Jordan as a sign of the cleansing that was going on in their hearts.  So why would Jesus need to be baptized?  Mark sort of skips over this point.  However, we know from other Gospels that Jesus explained it this way.  He was to be baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness.  For Jesus this act was an important picture.  He personally had no sin from which to be cleansed, but He is not just saving us by waving a wand over our sin.  Just as Moses personally led the people from Egypt to the Promised Land, so Jesus is personally leading us in the way we must go.  He is baptized to set the example for us of what we need to do, and I am not talking about getting soaked.  As the “Captain of our Salvation” (Hebrews 2:10), Jesus comes to the Father in humility and presents Himself in a way that will make clear that He is the One for whom Israel had been waiting.

When Jesus comes up out of the water there is a witness given from the Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven.  Now having at least two witnesses is very important for Israel because The Law stipulated that all legal things must be established by at least two witnesses.  Again, Mark does little explaining, but in this event the ministry of Jesus will start with a witness from earth, John the Baptist, and a witness from heaven, God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  In fact, in the other Gospels John explains that the whole reason he was baptizing people was because of a prophecy that God had given him.  He had been told that He would see the Holy Spirit come upon the person who was the Messiah.  John gave testimony to the fact that he saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove.

Now the heavenly witness has two components.  First, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descends upon Jesus.  Second, a voice from heaven states, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  Both of these are important.  The first establishes that the Spirit of God is upon the man Jesus, which he will go on to demonstrate.  The second is that God the Father is pleased with whom He is and what He is doing.  This will be in contrast to the lack of approval from the Pharisees.  It is interesting that the words of the Father are directed to Jesus personally.  Later during the transfiguration (Mark 9:7) the Father says something similar, but it is directed to the disciples.  “This is my Beloved Son.  Listen to Him!”  I don’t think the first time is directed to Jesus because He needed assurance.  I think it was to publically show an intimate moment between Father and Son.  Both are for the sake of the people and have the effect of encouraging them to listen to Jesus.

Water baptism would become the initial act of obedience that all who believed upon Jesus would be told to do.  It still retains its imagery of repentance, but it also included an element of putting your faith in Jesus.  Thus water baptism speaks of dying with Jesus to the lusts and desires of our flesh and this world, and coming alive to the Spirit of God in order to live a new life.  It is important not to skip over this too quickly.  At its heart, salvation is about repenting of living life selfishly, in order to gratify our flesh, and then putting one’s faith in Jesus.  Thus repentance must be a dying to self.  In fact we cannot allow repentance to be just a thing of the past, but rather it must be a daily thing.  To such a person the Spirit of God will take up residence in their life, lead them, and guide them in the way of the Lord.

Jesus goes into the wilderness

Once Jesus comes up out of the water, you would think that Jesus would begin teaching and healing people.  However, instead of doing those things, the Spirit of the Lord does an odd thing.  It drives Jesus away from the crowds and people and into the wilderness.

Two things need to be pointed out here.  First, the word used is “driven.”  It is the same powerful word that is used of Jesus driving demons out of people.  It is an authoritative directive, which seems strange in relation to Jesus.  However, it emphasizes how important this is to the Father, being that the Spirit does nothing of itself, but only what the Father and the Son send it to do.

Second, Jesus goes into the wilderness.  It is as if He is reenacting the life of Israel.  When Israel had reached maturity as a nation, God then called her out of Egypt into the wilderness.  There He made a covenant with them and prepared them for what was ahead.  The wilderness is a barren place and it is an isolated place.  Before we can minister for God, we need to get to a place that is isolated from the world and receive from the Lord what we need from Him.

While Jesus is in the wilderness, He will be tested in body and in spirit.  We should beware trying to make the wilderness an ideal place of being close to God.  Both the wilderness time and the time later among the multitudes were equally part of God’s will.  Now, Jesus was tested physically because He was fasting over the course of 40 days.  Of course on the spiritual front, the devil comes and tries to tempt Him away from His purpose.  Now there are several words that Mark uses in a row that are important Old Testament concepts: Wilderness, 40 days, Satan, Wild Beasts, and Angels.  As I said earlier the wilderness is a place of physical and spiritual testing (these are integrally linked) that prepares us for what is ahead.  We often feel alone and like God isn’t keeping up His end of the bargain, especially when we are attacked by the devil.  However, God is faithfully preparing us.  Isn’t this whole life a wilderness that God uses to prepare us for His Eternal Kingdom?  I think so.  Thus there are many layers to this.

Forty days is also an important concept.  The rains of the Flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights.  Moses went up on the mountain to receive the law and stayed there for 40 days.  The spies of Israel were in the land 40 days before they returned to give their report.  Also, Goliath taunted Israel for 40 days before David came forth.  In all of these times, God was getting ready to do something new, and so God was doing with Jesus.

Satan of course comes to tempt Jesus.  However, the next phrase “wild beasts” is not a coincidence.  Yes, Jesus may have had to face a wolf or lion, but I think the proximity to Satan is intended to remind us of the biblical metaphor in the Old Testament.  Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 used wild beast imagery to represent the beastly empires that Satan would raise up in order to try and dominate God’s people.  They are a picture of the savagery of Satan and His angels.

However, God was faithful to send His angels to minister to Christ so that He would not physically perish under His heavy testing.  God is always watching over us in order to give us the ministry that we need, whether from heavenly messengers or earthly ones.  Ultimately we must recognize that none of us minister without the need to be ministered to ourselves.  No work for God is so great that He expects you to burn yourself out and your family.  God pulls us out of the fray from time to time and ministers to us in ways that we could never receive if we are still out there on the front lines of ministry.  Learn to listen to the Spirit and let your ministry be driven by Him, rather than your best intentions for God.

Jesus Prepares audio

Song Service Sun AM 190210

Here is the song service for this morning.

Worship in Song

A Person Prepared for Jesus

Mark 1:1-8.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 03, 2019.

Today we are going to begin the Gospel of Mark.  The Gospels are more properly named “The Gospel according (insert Gospel writer here).”  It truly is the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is written by individual disciples of Jesus.  Comparatively, Mark’s Gospel is much smaller than the others.  It is just over half the size of the Gospel according to Luke.

As we walk through the Gospel according to Mark, let us keep in mind the reality that the Anointed Savior sent from Heaven has come in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel.

Hearts need to be prepared for Jesus.

Mark starts off with the reality that it had been revealed through the prophet Isaiah that there would be a forerunner of Christ, the Messiah.  In a way, that would make Isaiah the forerunner of the forerunner of Christ.  In fact, there are innumerable people who stand in a long line of those who God has used to prepare mankind for His Anointed Savior.  We could focus only on those like Isaiah who impacted large numbers of people, but on a smaller level there are those like parents, grandparents, co-workers, friends, or even chance encounters, who were used by God to prepare our hearts to receive Jesus.

This is the work that God has been doing from time immemorial.  He moves upon the hearts of those who are open to Him and sends them to speak to others.  Mark recognized that the entrance of Jesus into the world was taking this work to a more powerful level because He was about to physically step onto the scene.  John the Baptist was important because the person and work of Jesus was too critical for all of Israel to miss it.  He had come to prepare the hearts of Israel for their Messiah.

Thus we need to understand this important thing about God.  He has always been faithful to send messengers to humanity.  He is not content for people to be ignorant of His purposes and plans.  In fact Amos 3:7 states, “For the LORD God does nothing without revealing his secret to His servants the prophets.”  God does not set us up for a secret take down.  He has very openly promised us that He would send a savior and warned us of the judgment to come.  He is still sending messengers today.  His words to His disciples, before He ascended into heaven, was all about them preparing to tell the whole world about Him.  We are a part of a long line of those who have received these promises and warnings, but we are also a part of the long line of those who are sent with the message of Christ.  May God help us continue to be faithful messengers.

By the way, the Hebrew word that is translated “angel” in many Bibles basically means “messenger.”  It can be used for a human messenger or a heavenly messenger, and requires context to understand which is intended.  This too underlines God’s desire to get His message across to humanity.

Mark’s quote in verses 2-3 comes from Isaiah 40:3.  He could have continued quoting verses 4 and 5 because they continue the thought.  They say, “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth…”  This is road building terminology that challenges people to get the road, path, or way of the Lord ready for His coming.  Now Jesus didn’t need them to build a road so that He could get into Jerusalem, though He would definitely go there.  Rather, He wants to come to their hearts and gain entrance there.  Our lives can get so full of sin and hurts that the path to our heart becomes full of obstacles.  If Jesus is to come into our hearts then there are high and mighty things in our life that need to be cast down, and there are lowly, broken, and abandoned places that need to be built up.  This gives us a picture or analogy of what true repentance looks like.  Verse 4 of Mark 1 says that John preached repentance for the remission of sins.  What things have become huge in my life and they are keeping me from receiving Jesus?  What things have I neglected, to which I give no thought, but I need to build them up?  We need to recognize our sins and reject them while recognizing that we have neglected a relationship with God and turn towards Him.  Just because a person once repented and Jesus came into their life, it does not mean that we no longer need to prepare our hearts for Him.  Like the Lord did in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, so He wants to do in our hearts every day.  We must prepare ourselves daily, keeping the path to our heart clear of debris for the Lord.

In verse 5 we are told that they were confessing their sins as they were baptized in the Jordan River.  The word literally is “to confess out,” and it involves a public expression of my sin.  We can confess many things, but here they confess those things that were blocking God in their life.  Repentance is an inner work that must make its way to the surface of our life, if it is to complete its work.  Part of this work is an outward confession of our rejection of sin and embrace of the Lord.  James 5:16 tells us to “Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”  When we try to hide behind a mask of perfection, we do ourselves and others a disservice.  The point is not to tell everybody you meet every sin that you ever committed.  The point is the work of recognizing and removing those barriers to the Lord in our life.   Sin loves to keep hidden and tells us that it will behave as long as we don’t confess it outwardly.  Beware of those sins that convince you to keep them hidden and yet leave you in a cycle of falling and getting up over and over again.  You need a spiritually mature person in your life to whom you can confess your sins.  They can pray with you and encourage you as the Lord gives you victory over that sin in your life.

Another thing that is good to see here is that Jesus is faithful to come.  Though it had been promised for millennia that the Messiah would come, this was the day that He was really coming.  We are always mystified by the timing of people coming to the Lord.  Some are saved as a little child, others somewhere in the middle of their lives, and some even on their death bed.  Just as the Lord is faithful to send us messengers in our lives, so He is faithful to come.  In fact each time a person tells us of the Gospel, it is Jesus standing at the door of our heart knocking to come in.  Though we may reject Him throughout our life, He just keeps knocking.  This is the grace and love of our Lord.

Now, we have been speaking of Christ coming spiritually to our hearts.  However, we would be remiss if we didn’t recognize that we are also warned that Jesus will physically return on the clouds of the sky in order to judge the nations and take up His earthly rule.  Just as He physically came in Mark’s day, so He will be faithful to come physically at the end of this age.  Are you ready for that day?  If you are preparing yourself daily for fellowship with God through repentance and confession then you will be ready for that day when He splits the sky.

We are tempted to look for someone other than Jesus.

From time to time God sends exceptionally gifted and anointed people to get our attention on a larger scale.  Due to weariness in waiting for the Messiah, it is the nature of people to grasp at anyone who comes along and shows greatness.  John recognized this and warned the people that he was not pointing them to himself, but to the Messiah who would come after him.

John uses two words of Christ that we should always remember.  First, Christ is mightier than any who serve him, no matter how great they may appear to us.  Whether Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Elijah, or John the Baptist, none of these are mightier than Jesus.  Even today we see strong believers accomplishing great things for Christ throughout the world.  However, we must never confuse these messengers and servants of Christ with Him.  Too many churches and ministries that have seen great success and increase of numbers of people and amounts of money have fallen into the trap of idolizing a leader.  We must not try to tear down leaders, but neither should we put them on a pedestal that endangers them and us.  Without the Spirit of God, none of us has any power to produce any amount of salvation, healing, and deliverance.  We must never lose sight of this.

Second, John makes a statement of the worthiness of Christ.  He recognizes that he wasn’t worthy even to loosen the strap of Christ’s sandals.  This of course would have been understood as a very low duty.  The irony is that John is performing a very high service for Christ as His forerunner.  Thus John was extremely aware of his unworthiness to do anything for Christ.  Yet, Christ loves us nonetheless and calls us to work with Him nonetheless.  It is not that humans don’t have any worth, but when our worth is placed next to Christ, we quickly recognize that we aren’t even in the same ballpark.  His worth is magnitudes beyond our own.  This leads to the next point.

God uses many people to minister to us in His name throughout our life.  John would be the one who would baptize them in water as a sign of repentance.  Later the disciples would baptize people as a sign of repentance and faith in Jesus as God’s savior for them.  John points out that people can baptize another in water, but they can’t baptize them in the Holy Spirit.  This is the work that only Jesus can do.

Perhaps you have people in your life that led you to Christ, another who baptized you, maybe married you to your spouse, and the list can go on.  All of these are wonderful and those people are special.  Yet, they cannot do for you what only Christ can do.  We need more than outward things.  We need the Holy Spirit on the inside transforming our life.  Using water baptism as an analogy, John recognizes that Jesus can immerse you in the Spirit of God.  At salvation the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our life and makes us spiritually alive.  We are now connected to the vine, connected to Christ through the Spirit.  Yet, we must pray daily for Christ to immerse us in His Holy Spirit that we can be empowered to do the work that He has for us to do.  It is the work of God’s Spirit at salvation and everyday afterwards that makes us worthy to be called the Children of God!

Prepared for Jesus audio