In Sunday’s sermon, we heard Peter tell us that we need to sober up (1 Peter 1:13). In my view, he’s speaking about the temptation to get spiritually drunk on the things of this world, and also the temptation to get literally drunk on alcohol and other substances. I got a few questions about how Christians should approach alcohol, so this week we’ll explore biblical texts that will help us avoid the unbiblical extremes many people take on this issue, usually in response to their past experiences.

The Effects of the Past

Some people grew up in homes where alcohol abuse was just a normal part of everyday life. They came home and didn’t know whether dad would just be drunk, or angry drunk. Or they themselves were the substance abusers, putting themselves and their families through years of pain. Now that they have been freed by Christ from the effects of alcohol abuse, they fully abstain from drinking and expect all other true Christians to do the same.

Others grew up in homes where they never saw alcohol once. It was a tool of the devil, like cigarettes and school dances and Disney movies. They were led to feel shame just for passing by the alcohol aisle at the supermarket. Now that they have been freed by Christ from legalism, they love to flaunt their new-found liberty, mentioning in casual conversation as often as possible how much they love a good Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale or a Black & Tan with Newcastle.

I was blessed to grow up in a home where alcohol wasn’t a big issue one way or another. My parents never drank, but they also never vilified those who did. This grace-centered upbringing made it possible for me to get all the way through high school without drinking a single sip of alcohol. Then I made it through college with only two sips of beer under my belt. I never drank an entire beer until I was a few years into youth ministry. There’s nothing that’ll drive you to the bottle like fifty teenagers! But still to this day, I’ve never been intoxicated.

A Gift from God

I base my moderate use of alcohol on the consistent biblical view of alcohol as a gift from God. Psalm 104 says that God gives “plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart of man.” Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into “the best wine” (John 2:10), and seeing that the banquet-master in Cana assumed the guests would be drunk by the end of the feast, it does not make sense that wine in biblical times was watered down to the consistency of grape juice, as some claim.

When Moses was giving the Israelites the last commands of God before they entered the promised land, one commandment was to take a tenth of their grain to Jerusalem once a year to offer it to God. But if they lived too far from Jerusalem, then God wanted them to sell their grain for money, and do this:

“Spend the money for whatever you desire–oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.” (Deut. 14:26-27)

In other words, “Take your offering money, and instead of putting it in the offering box, take your family out to Morton’s Steakhouse, and order up as an explicit act of worship. Make sure you order a few bottles of the best wine on the menu. Oh, and if there’s a Levite priest around, take him along too. Because he can’t afford Morton’s, and we all know about priests and their wine, right?”

The Danger of Pride

There are some Christians who have very good reasons for abstaining from alcohol (as we’ll explore in later posts). But for many, it is simply an issue of pride. They feel holy and righteous because they are able to deny themselves the pleasures that so many other people seem so powerless to avoid.

Paul wrote to the Colossians about this issue:

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23)

We might seem holy and wise if we deprive ourselves of every single pleasure on earth, but Paul says that by depriving yourself of things that aren’t necessarily bad, you’re just stoking the flame of your pride. Anytime you set up an extrabiblical system of rules and regulations to try to follow, you’re going to end up in one of two places… either with pride because you follow these rules and other people don’t, or with false humility because you can’t do it.

Everyone has their own list of rules that define what it means to follow God. For some people, it may mean keeping yourself pure by avoiding alcohol. For others, it may mean living simply by never buying a new car. For other people, it might mean never watching an R-rated movie.

The irony Paul highlights in this passage is that when you try to starve your fleshly nature, you’re actually feeding your fleshly nature. It’s like drinking salt-water. The more you drink, the thirstier you get!

Wine is a gift of God that is given for our enjoyment. But as with all gifts of God, it’s possible for us to turn it into an idol that leads us away from God. More on that in the next post.

Every day, I pray that my kids will see their sin and their need for a savior. This free kids’ CD from The Village Church will help that happen:

“Jesus Came to Save Sinners” contains five original songs that teach children about the character and nature of God and His plan to save sinners through Jesus Christ. These songs correspond with the five foundational truths – Jesus Came to Save Sinners, God is Good, God is in Charge of Everything, God Wants to Talk with Us, God Made Everything – taught each weekend in our preschool ministry, The Little Village. The mission and vision of The Little Village is “to partner with parents to build a firm spiritual foundation for their children.” Our hope is that these songs will be an effective tool in engaging your children with the truth of who God is as you endeavor to obey the biblical call to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

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The school year is pau for most college students, but you can be thinking about establishing a more proactive ministry to your campus next year. Matt Jensen offers seven suggestions here.

I think the last is one of the best:

7. Practice radical hospitality

College students aren’t known for being the most financially well-off or generous people around. Buying a classmate coffee or lunch is a small sacrifice that can speak volumes and make a huge statement in demonstrating grace. This could also mean driving the drunks home from a party and sharing the gospel with them the next day as you take them to get their car.

At Harbor, we are committed to being a church-planting church. We want to partner with God in multiplying healthy churches, so this week I’m working with others from EFCA Hawaii to assess four potential church-planters.

Some people wonder if we really need to be planting churches. They have a few common objections:

• “Don’t we already have plenty of churches? Seems like there’s one on every other corner.”
• “A new church will only take people from other churches.”
• “We need better churches, not more churches. Instead of pouring all this energy into a new church, we should be helping a struggling church.”

To answer those objections, it helps to have a little historical perspective. First, we don’t have nearly as many churches as we once did. This is from The Churching of America by Roger Finke:

In 1820, there was one Christian church for every 875 U.S. residents. Due to aggressive church planting over the next century, by the start of WWI there was 1 church for every 430 persons. In 1906 over a third of all the congregations in the country were less than 25 years old. In 1776, 17% of the U.S. population was ‘religious adherents’, but that rose to 53% by 1916. Both have declined steadily, along with the rate of church planting, since WWI. (p.16)

So 100 years ago, there was a church for every 430 people in America. J.D. Payne, director of the Church Planting Center at Southern Seminary, released a report (PDF) a few months ago arguing that we need a church for every 500 people in rural areas, and a church for every 1,000 people in urban areas.

According to this report, there is currently only one church for every 3,383 people in the City & County of Honolulu. Clearly, we have some work to do.

Second, new churches have consistently proven to reach unchurched people more effectively than older churches. This is from Church Growth by Donald McGavran:

The average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10- 15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations. (p. 100)

Hawaii is currently the only state in America where church attendance is growing faster than the population. The Spirit is already stirring. Let’s join him by multiplying healthy churches!

Many Christians live by the St. Francis creed: “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” Unfortunately, that creed often leads us to a lazy lifestyle marked by half-hearted attempts just to be nice. Opening the door for the people at school, bringing Starbucks to the people at work, helping the people next door with their rubbish cans. Hoping that eventually they’ll figure out we’re Christians, and that will make them want to become Christians too.

The gospel cannot be preached without words! Nobody can learn about sin, judgment, mercy, grace, and redemption just from our actions, no matter how loving they might be. So when is the right time to use words? John Piper answers that question in this video (transcript here):

Tim Chester writes this:

A ‘missional’ small group is not necessarily one which is doing some kind of specific ‘evangelism’ programme (though that is to be recommended). Rather:

1.      If its members love and talk positively about the city and neighbourhood.

2.      If they speak in language that is not filled with pious tribal or technical terms and phrases, nor disdainful and embattled language.

3.      If in their Bible study they apply the gospel to the core concerns and stories of the people of the culture.

4.      If they are obviously interested in and engaged with the literature and art and thought of the surrounding culture and can discuss it both appreciatively and yet critically.

5.      If they exhibit deep concern for the poor and generosity with their money and purity and respect with regard to opposite sex, and show humility toward people of other races and cultures.

6.      If they do not bash other Christians and churches.

Then seekers and non-believing people from the city (a) will be invited and (b) will come and will stay as they explore spiritual issues. If these marks are not there it will only be able to include believers or traditional, ‘Christianized’ people.

The Puritan John Owen said, “Our enemy is not only upon us, as it was with Samson, but it is also in us.” Our greatest enemy is our own flesh. That’s why it’s such a great encouragement to know that God is Yahweh Nissi, our Banner of Victory, and he’ll give us the power to win the battle we fight against ourselves.

But there’s a problem. A lot of Christians already know that. And so they’ve started to kick back and just wait for God to give them the victory. Wait for God to make them holy.

Some Christians say to themselves, “I guess I’ll always be this way unless God does something radical in my life.”  …  ”Until God intervenes, I’ll always have this short temper, and get annoyed at people for little things.”   …  ”I’ll always be jealous and bitter about what other people have and I don’t.”  …  ”I’ll always worry about the future.”

You’ve accepted God’s sovereignty, but now you’re using it as an excuse to get out of some hard work that you yourself need to do.

When the Israelites defeated the battle-hardened Amalekites, they did it only through the power of God symbolized by the staff Moses raised in his hands on the hill above the battlefield. When they looked to the staff, they were winning. When they couldn’t see it, they were losing.

But even though the secret to the Israelites’ victory was the power of God, that doesn’t mean they ever stopped fighting! They probably fought even harder when they saw the staff.

It’s true that it’s only God’s power that will give you victory over your sin. But his power will accomplish that through your efforts. There are plenty of passages that talk about the work you yourself need to do:

• “Strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14)
• “Everyone who hopes in Christ purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:3)
• “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (2 Cor 7:1)
• “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7)

Gaining the victory over the enemy within will require effort and discipline. But God will supply the desire and energy to see it through:

• “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)

Most of us have no idea how utterly sinful we really are. We continually overinflate our perception of our own holiness. That’s why we need stark reminders like the one Jesus gave to spiritually lazy people like us:

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20).

But some of us go the other extreme, and continually abuse ourselves over our sin. We refuse to accept the grace of God, refuse to believe he could bless and use depraved people like us, and we end up paralyzed. That’s why we need stories like Abraham, Moses, and David to remind us how many utterly sinful people he’s called, empowered, and sent.

That’s what Don Carson observes:

The Bible itself includes genres and passages that foster absolutist thinking and others that warn us to recognize how flawed and inconsistent are even those we recognize as the fathers of the faithful. Certainly we need both species of biblical literature, and most Christians see a sign of God’s kindness in the Bible that provides us with both.

The narratives without the absolutes might seem to sanction moral indifference: “If even a man after God’s own heart like David can fall so disastrously, it cannot be too surprising if we lesser mortals tumble from time to time.” The absolutes without the narratives might either generate despair (“Who can live up to the impossibly high standards of Ps 1?”) or produce self-righteous fools (“It’s a good thing the Bible has standards, and I have to say I thank God I am not as other people are.”).

We need the unflinching standards of the absolute polarities to keep us from moral flabbiness, and in this broken world, we need the candid realism of the narratives to keep us from both arrogance and despair.

Are you paralyzed by your sin and failure? You need to read some more stories.

In James 1, we saw the first step in gaining God’s guidance:

1.Ask for it!

God promises to give you his wisdom when you ask for it. But there’s a condition:

Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:6)

He’s talking about someone who asks for God’s wisdom, but then doesn’t follow it once they get it! So the next step in gaining God’s guidance is:

2. Commit to follow God’s wisdom when you get it.

If you ask for God’s wisdom, then ignore it and do you own thing when he answers, James says you’re like a wave tossed in the ocean. On the backside of the Mokulua Islands off Kailua, there’s a little cove with steep cliffs on all sides and a steep protrusion of rock in the middle. There are waves coming in from all directions, and waves bouncing off the walls in every direction.

It’s fun to jump off the cliff into that cove, but when you land in the water it’s extremely difficult to swim out. You may start going in one direction, but then five seconds later you’re going in the opposite direction. There are sharp rocks all around you, and sometimes there are sharks hanging out at the bottom, getting high off all the oxygen churned into the water.

It’s a dangerous place to be! And James says if you’re going back and forth like that, asking for God’s help then rejecting it when he gives it to you… you’d be better off just not asking! So follow his guidance when he gives it in the little decisions you make every day.

James has some advice for the big decisions too. He gives an example of businessmen planning a trip. This was just as common in his day as it is in ours. Through James, we’re listening in on their conversation:

You who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. (James 4:13-14)

Is James condemning their plans? No, not exactly. Is he saying it’s useless to prepare for the future? No, not really.

He’s not criticizing the act of making plans, he’s telling us to make our plans with humility. That’s the next principle of receiving God’s guidance:

3. Make plans with humility

We’re free to set 5-year plans or 30-year plans, as long as we’re following James’ first bit of advice, and truly relying on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as we do so.

James isn’t rebuking these businessmen for their actions as much as their attitudes. He’s condemning their arrogance and their self-confident planning that doesn’t recognize God or his sovereignty. “What is your life?” James says, “You are a mist!”

When I first bought a house, we started getting all kinds of phone calls from loan companies and insurance salesmen. One guy was trying as hard as he could to sell me life-insurance.

He had all the right things to say: “Do you really want your wife to be paying a huge mortgage all by herself, Mr. Dirks? How will she survive?” I told him I would talk to my wife and if we were interested, I would call him back the next day.

“That’s fine, Mr. Dirks,” he said, “You go ahead and call me back tomorrow. …  If you wake up.” … Click.

I don’t think the guy had ever read James 4, but he was absolutely right. We can make all the plans we want, but we need to make them with a big “IF.”

That’s exactly what James says in the next verse:

Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:15).

Is James establishing some kind of ritual incantation that’s to be recited before every statement we ever make? That’s what my dear grandmother thought. “If it’s the Lord’s will, I’ll make it to Bob’s Big Boy for lunch.” … “If it’s the Lord’s will, I’ll watch Lawrence Welk before I go to bed.”

It’s not the words so much as the principle behind the words! That is… as we’re making your plans with humility, you need to:

4. Live your life with dependence

We all make choices in life. What career to pursue, who to marry, where to live, how many kids to have, where to send them to school. James says, “God has given you wisdom, so go ahead and make those plans.

Just recognize that God’s sovereign will is the final authority, and that any human plan works only “if the Lord wills.”

I can hear the question in your head: “So what if our godly plans, made with humble dependence on God, fail?” What if you spend four or five years and tens of thousands of dollars pursuing a college degree that you’re never able to use? What if you decide to invest your retirement savings in Palm, and it all vanishes? What if you decide to marry a wonderful Christian woman or man, but the marriage soon falls apart? Does that mean you weren’t following the will of God?

James answers these questions as he concludes his letter:

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James 5:7-11)

Here he returns to the issue of suffering, and how it relates to the will of God. When you’ve relied on God’s wisdom, but your plans seem to be failing, then God doesn’t always call you to give up on our plans. He calls us to be like the prophets and…

5. Endure trying times with patience

We might not what God’s ultimate plan might be, but we can know his guidance day by day. And, just like Job, that guidance might lead us straight into suffering. Butwhen it does, we know we’re in good company because Jesus is the best example of suffering for God’s greater purpose.

Following God’s guidance doesn’t mean life will be easier. It almost always means life will get harder. But the promise of Christ is that he will guide us, empower us, and even carry us through those times: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

In the Old Testament, God revealed his will mostly through designated representatives who were filled by the Holy Spirit for a specific time and specific purpose. Moses, Samuel, and Jeremiah are a few.

In the New Covenant, God promises his Holy Spirit to guide, encourage, comfort, and discipline every believer from the moment they put their trust in Jesus Christ until the moment they’re with God for eternity.

We just can’t overemphasize the importance of having the Holy Spirit – our Counselor – offering us God’s guidance every moment of every day. We don’t need to try to find some mystical plan that God has hidden from us when we have access to his wisdom at all times.

That’s the advice James gives to us in his letter of practical guidance. He’s addressed his letter to Jewish Christians all over the Roman Empire. These are people who have experienced persecution from their families, from their neighbors and employers, even from the authorities.

They’re not sure how God wants them to respond. And so James gives them this encouragement:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. (James 1:2-5)

The first step in seeking God’s guidance is simply to:

1. Ask for it!

In the words he uses, it’s clear that James isn’t talking about some wispy, theoretical wisdom. He’s talking about the kind of wisdom that guides you in your everyday life. The kind of wisdom that dictates how you’ll reflect Christ in the hectic stress of the office, or in the chaotic mess of a house with young kids. It determines how you respond to your precious child after he throws his bottle on the floor for the 10th time. It controls what you’ll do when you’re flipping through TV channels, and the show is on that catches your eye, but you know is destructive to your soul.

James is more interested in this everyday wisdom because he realizes that the big decisions we make in life are crucially affected by the little choices we make every day.

When I started out in ministry, I worked for a very well known as a pastor, author, radio speaker. One day during a staff meeting, he told us a story about being at the bank that week. He was in a hurry, late for an appointment, so he rushed up to the teller, and asked to withdraw $80.

He signed the withdrawal slip, took the money, and hurried out. As he was walking, he counted his money, and noticed the teller had given him five 20’s instead of four. He paused for a second as thoughts flooded his mind: “I’m late. I don’t have time to go back. They won’t miss it. This happens all the time. What should I do?”

Immediately, he sensed the Holy Spirit nudging him to go back. Grumbling, he made his way back through the maze of the queue, and finally got back to the teller. “You gave me $100, not $80” he growled.

“I know,” she said, “I know you’re the pastor of that church up the street, and I wanted to see what you would do. I was ready to have the guard stop you if you went out that door.”

After he told us about his experience, I never went to a bank teller again! Strictly ATM’s.

His story reminded me that the easy way out is to keep walking, and that’s true in so many areas of our lives. The easy way out is to keep walking and ignore the sin. Ignore the injustice. Ignore the pain.

But that’s not God’s way out, and he promises to tell you what his way is.

Still, there’s a condition on that promise. We’ll discover it tomorrow.

God is in control of all things, and he has a plan for the universe and for your life. But there are a few misconceptions people have when it comes to discerning that plan:

1. Since God has a plan, he always intends us to know it

We assume that if God has a plan, he must want to share it with us. And many times, God is gracious in giving us a glimpse of His will as he did through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But not always.

In fact, that’s the basic message of the book of Job – God may be up to things that we never know about. God may allow terrible things to happen to us, without ever explaining why.

One of my favorite movies of all time was the Mel Gibson flick Signs. On the surface, it’s a movie about crop circles and aliens. But at its core, it asks a theological question – does God have a purpose for everything that happens in life?

The movie concludes that he does, but unfortunately also concludes that if we’re looking hard enough, we can always see that purpose. It also stumbles into the second common misconception:

2. We can know God’s plan through inward feelings or outward signs

Many Christians would say, “No way – I’m much too mature to be relying on some mystical feeling or some smoke signal in the sky.”

But how many of us have used the Random-Bible-Page-Flip method to find God’s advice for dealing with a tough time? How many of us have tried to empty our minds so that we can follow the first thing that pops into our heads after we pray about a life decision?

How many young Christian guys worked out a system of divining God’s will for finding a prom date or even a wife? “If she answers, then she’s the one. If the line is busy, then I’ll call back later. If I get the answering machine, then it’s not God’s will.”

There’s no doubt that God could use any way He wants to convey his will to us. But even the most serious and somber Christians have a tendency to get a little wacky when they’re trying to discern God’s guidance.

I like how J.I. Packer says it in Knowing God, “The idea of a life in which the inward voice of the Spirit decides and directs everything sounds most attractive, for it seems to exalt the Spirit’s ministry and to promise the closest intimacy with God, but in reality this quest for supersprituality leads only to frantic bewilderment.”

Closely related to the idea that we should focus on inward feelings or look for outward signs is this misconception:

3. If we follow God’s plan, life will be easier

Many Christians like to use the example of Jonah. When he disobeyed God’s will, and refused to go to Ninevah, he was afflicted with all sorts of troubles – being swallowed by a whale was just one of them.

For sure, when life gets hard for us, it’s a good time to reflect on how we might have fallen into sin. How God might be disciplining us. But that’s not the only possibility.

While we look at the example of Jonah, it’s also helpful to look at the example of Jeremiah. Here was a prophet who faithfully obeyed the Lord. He courageously brought God’s message to a people who wanted to kill him. And what was his reward for following the Lord’s leading? Life only got worse for him, to the point that he cursed the day he was born.

When we follow God’s guidance, when we’re in the center of God’s will, it most often means life will be harder, not easier.

We can’t look for God’s leading in inward feelings or outward signs – we can’t depend on the easiness of our life as assurance that we’re doing God’s will. But there is a way to get back on track – there is a biblical model to determine how God is guiding us. We’ll explore that later this week.

As an adoptive father, this story filled my eyes with water and my heart with anger:

The boy was only 7, but he walked off the plane that arrived in Moscow from Washington all alone, carrying a knapsack with magic markers and candy, along with a single typewritten note. It was from a woman in Tennessee who had adopted him in Russia last year, but was overwhelmed by what she described as his emotional problems and wanted nothing more to do with him. Take him back, the note said.

“After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child,” she wrote.

I know how this woman felt. Every parent, by adoption or birth, has wondered at times if their kids came with a return policy. What a contrast this is to the Father who has adopted difficult, rebellious, unsafe kids like us… for good:

“All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:14-15)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

“They shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:38-40)

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:27-29)

“I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)