No. 82 - FATIGUE MAKES COWARDS OF US ALL By: John J. Blanchard Saturday, March 18, 2006 Good morning, brethren. The famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, had said to his team one time and probably many times subsequently, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” That is the title of today’s sermon. His point, of course, talking to rough and tough football players was that you have to maintain good physical condition and mental toughness in order to win football games. That is true in most struggles in life. You have to maintain a certain amount of physical fitness, but more importantly than that is mental toughness. You have to have the thought in your mind that we can endure this. We can make it if we hang in there. Spiritual warfare is very similar but, of course, we need mental toughness combined with spiritual toughness. We need the ability to endure, which means we have to be mentally and spiritually conditioned. It is essential. We, like football players, can get too tired and so tired that we give up. We can lose out if we give up. We must not get exhausted in our struggles. That is the key. Paul understood this. If you would turn to I Corinthians chapter 9, he compares the spiritual race with a physical race. Paul knew that we need to be spiritually in condition to endure the things we must endure, but he compares it to a physical race. Read I Corinthians 9:24-27. He is talking about his personal life saying I am a teacher of God’s way of life, and I do not want to be disqualified because I did not condition myself. He compares it to a physical race and beating the air, which means to practice. You can watch the Olympics or other sporting events, and if they catch the athletes before their event, you can see them often moving their bodies as they will do in whatever event it is. If it is skating or skiing, you can watch them with their eyes closed and acting as if they are going through the motions of their event. This is like beating the air. You can see a boxer training himself on a punching bag, getting in physical condition to endure the event that he will be competing in. We are in a different type of a fight. Of course, it helps to have good physical health in anything we do, so we can have energy just to do the daily chores that we must do. But spiritual strength does not require great physical health. As a matter of fact, some of the most enduring personalities in the Bible did not have good health. By the end of John’s life when he was probably the most ready to face death (and the same with Paul), he had endured so much in his life that I am sure his health was nearly broken. Apparently they used to carry John in on a stretcher to give his sermons in his final days. He had no energy left, but spiritually he was in great shape! He had used his entire life to condition himself to fight the spiritual battle. I want to continue in I Corinthians chapter 10 and read a little bit more. Paul was saying we would have to endure and how we would have to grow and condition ourselves. Read I Corinthians 10:1-6. Then Paul names a few examples. Verse 7: “And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’” We have a broad understanding of idolatry. Anything we put in our lives that comes before God or hinders our relationship with God can be an idol. Anything! TEMPTING THE BODY OF CHRIST Continue reading in I Corinthians 10:8-13. What was he talking about here? Are we going to be tempted, but we are not going to be tempted beyond what we can bear, and that we should not tempt Christ? How could we possibly tempt Christ? In our relationships with one another, we can tempt one another to do wrong things. You can expand that in your mind to many different places. But we can actually be a stumbling block of temptation to one another right within the body of Christ, thereby tempting the body of Christ. That is not a good position to be in. But God does tell any of us who are tempted in any manner, way, shape or form in life that the temptation will not be too great for us to bear. God will not allow it. Jesus Christ will be there to help us fend it off and will give us a way out every time. That is where spiritual conditioning teaches us how to take that way out. When we are faced with temptation and we give in, it is because we did not avail ourselves of the tools that conditioning would give us. It gives us the automatic response to turn away whether it is watching violent television, lusting after money or lusting after other people. Whatever the situation is that we are faced with, there is a way out. But when we fail to take that way out, it is usually because of a lack of conditioning. You have heard the old Spanish proverb that habits are at first cobwebs, then they are cables. That is true whether it is a good habit or a bad habit. We will use smoking as an example of a bad habit. At first when a person starts to smoke, that first cigarette is a cobweb. The person can quit smoking easily after that first cigarette. But after a person has smoked a hundred packs of cigarettes, it is a little harder to quit. After a person smokes for five or ten years, it is very hard to quit. We have seen that the cobweb has grown from a cobweb to a string to a rope to a cable. But there are also good habits. That could be quitting smoking. That could be eating in moderation. That could be controlling our temper. Whatever it is, if we develop a good habit and we keep doing it, we make a good habit a cable to hold us straight and erect. We can call it growth in righteous character because we can fight off that temptation. God makes a way out, and every time we take that way out, we are turning a good cobweb into a cable to help us. When we stop taking that way out, we can reverse the process and weaken ourselves. Therefore, we need to condition ourselves to do the right thing under every and all circumstances. Let us continue in I Corinthians chapter 10:14 and read to verse 17. This is a reference to Passover, which is why I am doing this sermon today. Passover is less than a month off. In about three weeks from now, we are going to be partaking of the Passover for this year. We need to be getting ready for that Passover and avail ourselves with the time we have left between now and Passover to condition ourselves. We need to prepare ourselves to take that Passover and then go into the Days of Unleavened Bread so we can resist sin and grow in holy righteous character. That is our job at this time of the year. But you know as well as I do that it has been a long hard year. We are all somewhat fatigued. Let’s sympathize with one another and commiserate with each other for just a little bit. I only want to do it for a little while because if we focus on the hard times we have come through in the last year, we can discourage ourselves. But we have to face reality. It has not been a piece of cake. The last year has been rough. We are going to look at a brief list at some of the things that were not so pleasant in the past year. We lost some dear brethren. Some of our brethren that we have known and who were very close to us have died. They are no longer with us. We know that in some of the fellowships that we are closely associated with they have had people die tragically. They were friends of ours. They died, in some cases, a very cruel death. We feel bad about that. It was about a year ago that somebody’s tragedy seemed to be striking one right after the other. Some of us in the last twelve months have lost very close family and friends that we really prayed diligently for, and they died anyway. Some of us have had our own health problems. Some of us have had financial problems. Some of us have had family difficulties and struggles. Some of us have suffered persecution. Some of us have endured offenses. Probably all of us have endured offenses. Probably all of us have offended others in the past twelve months. We know when we have been offended or we have caused an offense, both parties feel bad. It is just a given. They both feel bad. DON’T BE DEPRESSED BY THE PAST Today we have a choice. There is a choice laid before us. Choice number one is allowing ourselves to be depressed by the things that happened in the past year and to be anxious and worried about it. We can contemplate the negative aspects of the things that happened to us or the things that we did wrong. We have an opportunity to be angry, bitter and carry grudges. If we do these things, we are allowing the negative events of the past year to beat us up. In fact, we can use them to beat ourselves up, making the power of those negative events even worse in our lives. If we actually decide to beat ourselves up consciously or unconsciously, we may tell ourselves woe is me. I am not good. The little voice in our head may tell us I am a failure. I am worthless. I deserve all of the stuff that happened to me. That little voice in our head can do that to us. Then we feel even worse about what happened in the past year. With Passover coming up, we know who wants us to feel that way. DECIDE TO OVERCOME Choice number two: we can decide to overcome. I emphasize that “overcome”. Overcome these difficulties, these trials and the circumstances that have made our life somewhat miserable and maybe very miserable in the last year. When I say overcome, that can make us even more tired and more fatigued. Because if it was tough last year, it is just as tough this year. To say to overcome those things is a tiresome thought just to think about it. There are two parts to choice number two. The second part is we overcome by the blood of the Lamb. We put our burdens on to Jesus Christ and accept His sacrifice. Turn, if you would, to Revelation chapter 12, because this speaks of God’s saints and how they fight and how they overcome. Read Revelation 12:7-11. That is speaking of the saints. Today it is speaking to God’s Church. We are to overcome by the blood of the Lamb. That should make us feel a lot less tired. We are not overcoming all of these obstacles by ourselves. Of course, we have work to do in our lives, but Jesus Christ and His shed blood are there to help us feel worthwhile and to help us feel like we can do this. Because Christ says I will wipe away your sins. I will wipe away your tears. I am here to help you. What more help can we ask for than that of God and God’s son, Jesus Christ? We should feel very encouraged by this. You notice it goes hand in hand with “…and they did not love their lives to the death.” We need to hear what the spirit is telling us there. Do not love your life. Love Christ’s life. Love Christ’s sacrifice, and love what He is able to do with us in our life. When I love my life, that is when I am tempted to say woe is me. Things are not going well for me. I have problems. Woe is me. Because I am looking at myself too much. I am loving myself too much. I have to consciously think that my life is not what I need to love here. I have given my life to Jesus Christ. I have a covenant with Him, and I am going to renew it at Passover just a few weeks from now. Therefore, I have to prepare my mind and the spirit that God has given me that is within me, and make them work together to help me overcome and not be fatigued. I need to take the focus off myself. I need to realize that the life that I gave Christ I have to do with it what He did. That means to live for other people. We need to pay attention to how Christ overcame and what His example was for us. Turn, if you would, to John chapter 15:9. Christ is talking to His disciples and He says: “‘As the father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.’” Ours is supposed to be a life of joy. Continuing in verse 12 of John 15. “‘This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.’” Christ said love each other the way I have loved you and the way the Father loves Me. And prove it by keeping the commandments. Turn, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 2:1. “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins…” So we were given life even though we were full of sin. When Christ loved us and laid down His life for us, we were full of sin. Continuing in verse 2: “…in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience…” He said you used to walk in the ways of the world. You were full of sin when I decided (like we read earlier in John 15) to choose you, work with you and to love you. Ephesians 2, verse 3: “…among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…” It is that free gift of grace which He gave to us even when we were in sin if we were willing to obey. If we were willing to turn our lives over to Him and get covered by Christ’s blood, we can now go forward because of His great love as we are told in verse 4. He loved us greatly! Imagine the person who has loved you the most in your life. Perhaps it is your mother, your spouse or your children. It cannot compare to the great love with which Jesus Christ loves His brethren. We must love one another we are told. If you turn to I John, John understood this. I John 4, verse 7: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” That should read “is begotten of God”. The seed of God dwells there. Verse 8: “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” That is what we do in the body of Christ. We love one another if we are doing it properly. We are not offending, not tempting and not harming each other but loving one another. This takes effort. We are also told we are to love our neighbor, which means everyone else out there on the earth, too. John 3:16 which you need not turn to says, “‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…’” There is simply a difference between the firstfruits and the innumerable multitude, but God loves all of mankind. He wants them all to have a chance to know Him, to have the blood of Christ applied to them, and to be able to overcome Satan and the ways of the world. Turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 5. We are told directly by Jesus Christ that we must love our neighbors. Read Matthew 5:43-48. So what makes our Father in heaven perfect? He loves everyone even when they sin. And He provides His only begotten Son to take care of those sins. That is how much the Father loves us and how much Jesus Christ loves us. He was proving it by laying down His life for us and for those who would follow. We are told we must love our neighbors, even when they are not doing right by us. When they curse us, cheat us, steal from us, lie about us, slander us and persecute us, we are to love them because that is what Jesus Christ did when He died on the cross. He died on the cross for persecutors, slanderers, liars and unfaithful people. He did not say My blood will cover you when you reach this state of perfection. We are told here the Father is perfect because He loves mankind in spite of their sins. He wants to help mankind out of their sins. That is a lot of love, brethren, and that is the example we are told to follow. Matthew chapter 22 goes on to say the same thing. Read Matthew 22:34-40. We are to love God and love our fellow man. This is what the entire Word of God is about. The law and the prophets hang on those two thoughts, and they basically come down to love. When you love your neighbor and your brethren, you end up loving yourself. That is the wonderful thing about following God’s law. He said love your neighbor as yourself. You will end up loving yourself, and I will end up loving myself if I end up loving other people. When we just love ourselves, we are slowly decaying spiritually, mentally and emotionally. We are slowly being destroyed, for a total love of self is total selfishness. In order to grow in love of our self properly, we must love other people, emulating Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was very happy to lay down His life for His friends. He loved them with a great love. Did He show it by trying to preserve His own life? No! He showed them by laying down His life for them. If we want to have that kind of satisfaction in our lives, we overcome by loving even our enemies. We start with the household of faith, loving our brethren. This is a great principle here, because if we want to be happy in life (and stop feeling woe is me), realize the sacrifices we make in life and overcome the offenses. The difficulty is laying down our lives for our fellow man and for our brethren. Christ demonstrated His love by going all the way and giving His life up physically. That assured Him of having conquered Satan. That is how we can be assured of conquering and overcoming Satan as well. But we have an advantage that Christ did not have. We have His blood. When we slip up (and He knew we would), we can repent and ask for that blood to take away our sins. His sacrifice provided the way to overcome. That is why Revelation 12 says by the blood of the Lamb they overcame. It also says they did not love their lives unto the death. His blood will cleanse us, therefore, if in our lives we forgive others, if we sacrifice ourselves for others, and if we bear with each other’s weaknesses (faults and offenses). There are many scriptural proofs for this. We will just read a few. MEASURING OUR FORGIVENESS In Matthew chapter 6 it is speaking of the model prayer. Jesus Christ tells His disciples and us here what elements should be in our prayers. Read Matthew 6:9-12. That is forgive us our sins as we forgive others. Continue reading verses 13-15. This is a very important principle for us to emblazon on our minds. How we dispense forgiveness is the measure by which Jesus Christ and the Father will also dispense forgiveness towards us. This is after our baptism. At baptism all the sins in our lives are forgiven. After baptism we have to do some work. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb, but we must not love our lives even to the death. If you were to turn to Luke chapter 6, the principle of measuring is spoken of here. Read Luke 6:37-38. Here is a very clear indication, brethren, that how we forgive and how much we forgive is the exact measurement that Jesus Christ and the Father will use when They are determining how much of our sin to let go. This has a lot of consequences. But in order to learn these things, we have to bear with each others’ burdens, faults, weaknesses and sins. I Corinthians 13, commonly called the Love Chapter, tells us just that. Read I Corinthians 13:1-8. Brethren, we have to condition ourselves to love and bear with one another’s weaknesses and faults. We cannot act rudely toward one another, nor do we tempt one another nor hold anything against one another. This will insure us a very light judgment from the Father and Jesus Christ. We will have practiced forgiving in great measure. We will have practiced conditioning ourselves to fight off the temptations that would cause us to harm other people. BECOMING INDEFATIGABLE Yielding to Christ in this way makes us indefatigable, which means untiring. We will not be fatigued. We will not want to give up. Forgiveness and mercy are what give us strength. Forgiveness and mercy reduce our own burdens. They let things go and do not carry grudges. Forgiveness and mercy reduce, therefore, other people’s burdens. They do not feel like we will not let something go. They do not feel like we do not forgive them and that we carry something around. When a person is not forgiven and they know they have caused an offense (or think they have caused an offense), they carry around a burden in life that makes them (or wants to make them) feel worthless. It makes them feel stupid and foolish. When we forgive them, we can relieve them of those burdens. So not only does forgiveness make things light for us, it makes things lighter for other people, which is why I think the scriptures are telling us to bear one another’s burdens. That is the way to pick up someone else’s burden and take it off them. This is done by forgiving them. If we do not forgive, we are increasing the load on them! We are not letting it go. We are making their life more miserable. Forgiveness and mercy also take our mind off ourselves. We might point at someone else and say you did this to me. You are no good. But we do not realize three fingers are pointing back at ourselves. We do not feel good doing that to people. Instead it is wonderful when we tell somebody (like we are told in the model prayer), I forgive your debts. Forgive my debts as I forgive others. Isn’t it wonderful when someone owes you a debt (even if it is just money and not forgiveness) and it is great to be able to say forget it. You don’t owe me a dime. Keep it! You know the relief pours off the person. We have all been in a situation where we have lent somebody some money. May be it is a considerable sum. The person said I will pay you back in six months, we will say. A year or two later you have not been paid back. You are walking by them on the street, and they avoid you. In the store they do not want to catch your eye, because they feel I still owe that guy money. I just cannot pay it. It is a burden! They feel bad. And if we walk up to them all of the time and say, you know, you owe me that money and you are not paying me. Then that hurts them. It is wonderful when we can say (if we are in a position to) forget it. And if we are not in a position to (if it really is hurting our own family and we expected that money back), to be merciful we can say I lent this thinking you were going to pay me. I would not bother you, except I need it. But do what you can. I trust you to do what you can. Then they do not feel so bad. They feel like, okay, I can work with this person. We are not increasing their burden. We are making their burdens light. When it comes to offenses and sins, it works the same way. Sometimes we have to go to a brother and say this offense that we have between each other is hurting my family. I do not want to bring this up to you. I realize I may have offended you, too, so I checked my eye. I tried to take the beam out of my own eye, but in order to make things heal between us, I need to bring this up to you. We bring it to their attention gently. We do not wag our fist in their face and say you have done this! I cannot forgive you until you change this behavior or whatever. We have to be light on each other, because when we are easy and light on each other, God will be light on us. We do not have to turn to Matthew 18 because we have all studied Matthew 18. We are shown in Matthew 18 it is not that we can never show someone their faults. It is how we do it, and what is our motive. Is it to help them? This is love. Or is it to make their burden harder and get back at them? If it is to love them, we can say one of the reasons I am telling you this is you are offending a whole bunch of people, and I do not want them to think this way of you. I want you to understand how you have hurt people and change it, so that they will think better of you and think better of the body of Christ. That is love. That is good helpful correction. So many of us cannot do that. We want to pound on each other. We want to take that pound of flesh and make that person feel as bad as we can. Then we want to take the Passover. It does not work well. Christ said the measure you use, I have to do that back to you! I have to use the same measure. He says I do not want to be hard on you, but you have effectively tied My hands. Overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and not loving our lives unto the death has great big connotations within the body of Christ. It has a lot to do with how we live day in and day out. When we practice this merciful compassion (this power of forgiveness), we get strength. We are not so tempted to think woe is me in our minds all of the time and make our personal sufferings big in our eyes. Paul said the sufferings I have gone through (which are a lot more than any of us in this room have gone through) are nothing compared to his reward. That man said that after being beaten, whipped, stoned, nearly drowned in the sea and persecuted! None of us have gone through that. He said I count all that as nothing. I let it all go! Because what God has in store for me is so wonderful that all of that was nothing. To pay that price was nothing. Eventually he did give his physical life. He did not love his life unto the death. He was physically martyred. That is an example to us of how we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and yet not love our lives unto the death. EXAMINE OUR WORK We need to examine ourselves at this time of the year. Examine our spiritual work and see how it is standing up. Turn to Galatians chapter 6:1. “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.” That is just what we were talking about. If there is an offense and it needs to be dealt with, we do it gently in the spirit of gentleness. Continue reading Galatians 6:2. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” This is how we fulfill the law of Christ. We help each other bear one another’s burdens. Verse 3: “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.” This is not talking about the loads of offenses. These are the sins that we have and that we are carrying. We have to carry and work on our own problems. It does not help me to work on your problems. It does help both of us if I help you bear your burdens. But I cannot make any of you repent, just like you cannot make me repent. That is my job. That is my work. Here he is telling us examine your work. See how it is doing. See how you are growing. Every time Passover comes we traditionally read I Corinthians chapter 11. So let’s go to I Corinthian chapter 11 where it tells us the same thing and compares it to some blessings we can have even in this life. I Corinthians 11, verse 23: “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread…” That was at His Passover. DISCERNING THE BODY Continue reading I Corinthians 11:24-31. Judge ourselves and look at ourselves to see where we are not measuring up. If we are being hard on others in the body of Christ, we are not properly discerning the body. In other words, when I look at you, I see each of you individually as the people I know, love and care about here. But I must also think of you as part of the body of Christ. As part of the body of Christ, it is very important for me to look at you and see that you are part of something bigger and spiritual. You are part of the people God is working through. You are part of a body that is very, very wonderful. It is the body that He is continuing to work through. This is what I must discern when I look at you. This is what you must discern when you look at me. Therefore, we will go easy on each other and not be hard on the body. Instead we judge ourselves to see where we can change. When we have something we have to bring to one another, do it in a spirit of gentleness and not harshness. It is very important to learn how to do that well. It is very important. Some day we are going to judge angels! In order to do that, we have to learn discernment. We have to learn how to do things well between one another now. GO TO YOUR BROTHER We have time between now and Passover to examine ourselves, to practice forgiveness and to let a lot of debts go. Then when Passover arrives, our debts will be let go. That is what we want. We want a nice clean slate when Passover arrives. Turn to Matthew chapter 5. After discussing The Beatitudes, Christ explains this principle of indebtedness a little bit. Matthew 5, verse 21: “‘You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.” But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, “Raca!”…’” (which means something like you fool) “‘…shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, “You fool!” shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.’” I want to talk about this for just a moment. When we go to Passover, we are going before the altar. We are going before God’s throne, and we are going to ask for forgiveness. If someone has a legitimate gripe against us, Christ says do not do this. Do not come to Me first. Go to them first, because then you are going to free Me up to measure liberally to you. If you come before that altar and insist on taking the Passover while holding a grudge against someone else, He says you are tying My hands. I cannot help you the way I would like to, and I love you. I sacrificed My life for you. I gave My blood on the cross for you. So do not tie My hands. Do not limit what I can do for forgiveness. Then He goes on to talk about this debt between us and our brother. He says go and agree with your brother. That means get it over with quickly while you are on the way. Let’s think of ourselves as on the way to Passover right now. It is three weeks away. We are on the way to Passover, and we realize there is something someone is holding against us with a legitimate reason. Go to them and quickly get it over with, because what are we told here? Otherwise, we are turned over to the officer and thrown into prison. “‘Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.’” Most of us stop and say, oh, this must be debtor’s prison. We owe a debt to a credit card company, and we get thrown in jail if we do not pay it. No, that is the small understanding. That is not very deep understanding. We are talking about forgiveness here, brethren. We are talking about something far beyond a physical debt. That is just a type of what He is talking about. Remember when Peter and Jesus were walking along the road and Satan tempted Christ. He said you don’t have to die. And Christ said, get behind Me Satan. He went on to say Satan has asked to thrash you like wheat, and I am praying for you that you survive. That is the officer. That is the debtor’s prison. That is why the model prayer says forgive my debts as I forgive others. Because when we will not forgive, we get turned over to the thrasher for a while. We are not going to get out of there until we have paid every last cent! Satan takes his pound of flesh and then some. He wants to destroy us. We could go on and examine this subject in depth. It is something we have over one another, because if we relieve each other’s debts and burdens, we are helping strengthen the entire body of Christ. We have three weeks to do this now before Passover. We strengthen the entire body. Let’s help all of us to examine ourselves, and have a very successful Passover, a very profound and meaningful Days of Unleavened Bread, and a chance to grow in strength and energy. Then we won’t be tired. We won’t get fatigued individually or as a body (as a congregation) and give up. We want everybody to have the energy to go the full race and obtain the crown and reward that God has for us and would like to give us. Passover and Unleavened Bread are on the horizon, brethren. This is no time to let fatigue overwhelm us. We have the tools to fight and to win. We have the blood of Christ. Now we have to stop loving our lives unto the death. Be willing to lay down our lives for each other. Let’s let the condition of our minds and hearts be ready to use these tools. Forgive one another and grow in holy righteous character, so we will be indefatigable in this coming year just ahead.