KIDS CAMP - God Says You’re Special! w/Rhonda Stoppe

Kids Camp! It’s the best to watch the Lord work in the hearts of young children while they’re away at camp!

This message from the book of Esther is one of my favorites to teach at children’s camp because God used a kids camp speaker named “Dave” to teach me the story of Esther and it changed the trajectory of my life!

Take some time to LISTEN WITH YOUR KIDS to this episode.  And be ready to have a good discussion with them about what makes them special! Help them realize how God’s plan for their life far exceeds anything this world has to offer! 

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"This podcast is for the purpose of mentoring only and is not a replacement for therapy. We suggest you seek out the help of a trained biblical counselor for help with your specific situation.”

Transcript

Rhonda Stoppe [00:00:00]:

And it's super fun that we get to be with you guys today, because all of you guys live in the Central Valley, right? So we're all neighbors with each other. No? Okay, well, we're glad you're here. Mexico, awesome import. So today I want to talk to you a little bit about so many things. When I was a kid and I went to camp, that's where God really captured my heart. You know why? Because isn't it kind of noisy at home? The TV is on, your brother is talking in your ear. The Internet's going, everybody's on their phone. Does anybody have smartphones? So your life is like this.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:00:50]:

Yeah. But guess what? When you come to camp, God says, Shut up, because I want to talk to you. He says he says, Be still and know that I am God. The Bible says, they that wait on the Lord quietly renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not grow tired. They will walk and not grow tired. They will run and not faint.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:01:19]:

Think about that. It doesn't make sense that being still and quiet would make you strong, right? Yeah. It seems like it has to be like, go, go all the time. But God says, you know what? Hush, honey, hush. I have a plan for your life. Your life, your life with the cute hat turned around. Your life. And if you just be still and let me whisper to your heart, I'm going to show you great and mighty things about myself that you never would have known if you wouldn't have come away with God.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:01:53]:

Do you ever think about that, that you came away with God? This weekend, you went on a retreat to hear from God. You had to be with your friends. Now, when I went to camp, I'm going to ask you guys to stop talking, because I can't talk when people talk. I can't do it. Um, when I went to camp and one year when I was ten years old, so I was going into the fifth grade. How many fifth graders do we have here? All right, I'll be honest. I went to camp to see if there were any cute boys. That was me.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:02:17]:

I'm just telling you. I went to camp because I wanted to play with my friends, and I wanted to do some cool stuff, and we had great food at camp, and it was in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And all I wanted to go to camp for was to have a good time. And the reason that I wanted to find cute boys was because I wanted to find a boy that would like me. You know why? Because I was insecure. I was insecure. Insecure means I didn't feel good about myself. I didn't feel special.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:02:49]:

So I thought if I could get a boy to think I was pretty or a boy to think I was special, that I would be special. Now, how many of you know that's kind of what people think in this world, right? That's kind of what people think. And that's what I went with that mentality. Going to camp that year was thinking, oh, I hope I find a boy that thinks I'm special. So I'll feel special. Some kind of shallow, but let's be honest, right? Let's be honest. You don't have to raise your hand. And when I went to camp, what happened was, at night, around the campfire, every night, this camp counselor, this camp pastor named Dave, told a story from the Bible.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:03:33]:

And every night, as that story unfolded, god began whispering to my heart, you're special to me. You're special because I know your name. Just think about that. Anyone who's been raised in the church let me see your hand has been raised in the church. You've heard it all before. Yeah. All right, get this. It's easy to take for granted that God knows your name, that God has a plan for your life.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:04:02]:

Because we've heard it for so many years. Everybody says, oh, Jesus loves me. This I know before the Bible tells me. So, yeah, whatever. But you tell somebody who's never heard that before, somebody whose parents don't really care about them or they don't really pay attention to them, somebody who struggles with loneliness, you don't have to raise your hand. But the number one epidemic, one of them that we have going on in our nation is loneliness. Loneliness with all of the Internet that we have coming into our house, with all the stuff that we read and all of the, like, instagram, ha ha, lol, the emojis, all that stuff. And yet you're growing up in a generation that feels more alone than any other generation, more lonely.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:04:45]:

And part of that is because when you look at those pictures on the Internet, everybody looks perfect, right? Everybody's perfect life. Everybody's doing great. Everybody's got a good hair day. I don't put a picture of myself on without at least some concealer under my eyes because I look like a big raccoon. I have dark circles under my eyes without a little makeup. So we put our best foot forward, but everybody's looking at a snapshot of people's lives and thinking, oh, their life is so much better than mine. And we feel alone. And the way, really, for a person to not feel alone is to be known.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:05:21]:

Did you know that? To be known from the depths of your heart who you are and be loved anyway, or be loved because of it? So when I went to camp and this camp, pastor Dave started opening the Bible and sharing from a book in the Bible that was named after a girl, I was like, oh, I'm listening. God thinks girls are special because there's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There's all the guys names all over the Bible, but there's girls. Girls. So this morning, we are going to go over that story, and we're going to just do a little bit of it today and maybe a little bit of it tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. I have a grandbaby that's due any minute, and so if the baby comes, I'm going to have to go see the baby. So we'll just pray that we get through camp without that.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:06:10]:

But if I'm not here, that's why it's our 9th grandchild. We'll have ten grandbabies by the end of this year. If it was a race, we are winning. What did you say? Tide, get the kids on the phone. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to open our Bible up to a book that is named after a girl, Esther. Esther. You never heard of it? See, Esther is in the Old Testament, so it's right before Job and Psalms. So if you open your Bible to the middle, which will be about Psalms, and then go back two books, Job and then Esther.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:06:53]:

And here's what you need to know. I can tell you anything that I want to tell you up here, and it can be not true. And you'll believe me if I tell you God said it's true. And do you know that you're raised in a world where people don't know what the Bible says? And so when somebody walks up and says, hey, God says this, they go, oh, God must say that. But if you don't know the Bible, people can tell you anything about God, and it may not be true. So God wants you to hide His Word in your heart so that you won't sin against Him, so that you will know who he is. See, here's the thing. God sends us His Word to give us a glimpse of who he is.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:07:39]:

If God Himself, yahweh, Jehovah, whatever you want to call Him, he has a whole bunch of names that he tells us what they are in the Bible. If God threw you a text message right now and said, hey, Rhonda, I just want to tell you I love you so much and I hope you're having a really good day, would you ignore it? Why is he talking to me right now? I am busy with important things. No, you guys, hang on, people. God's talking to me. I got to read this right? And yet God instant messaged you everything he wanted you to know in the pages of your Bible, and we go, I'm too busy. I'm too busy. I can't read it right now. I have important things to do.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:08:15]:

God, I'll check in with you later. But this is how God instant messaged you. This is how God he left what he wanted you to know about Himself. Remember last night that Steve was talking about that God wants us to love our Lord, our God, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength. How do you fall in love with somebody? How do you fall in love with somebody? I heard that it's always to find someone that loves Jesus and find someone that will treat you good. That's awesome. And just a little note there. The only one that can treat you good is someone who loves Jesus more than they love you.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:09:01]:

I'll give you a little peek into mine and Steve's dating life. He and I broke up one time, and you know what he said to me? I love you, but I love Jesus more. And I was like, Dude. And he walked out the door of my house, and I was offended. I was like and then I went, Wait a minute. That's exactly what I want. Because when you marry someone that loves Jesus more than they love you, then Jesus love spills out of them onto you, and they love you selflessly. They love you the way God loves you, not for what they can get out of you, but for how they can serve you with that love.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:09:36]:

So that's just a commercial. I know you're all not ready to find a spouse yet, but before you know it okay, so we're going to look at the book of Esther, and the way that we fall in love with someone is to know their character. I can look at someone from afar. I can tell you all about Steve stoppe. I can tell you he is a hottie with a body. I can tell you he is the kindest person that I have ever met. I can tell you that he is so super funny that he makes me lol all the time. I can tell you that his grandkids think the world of him and would rather be with him than probably any other adult human on the planet.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:10:11]:

But that's just me telling you about him. You don't know it personally. And so a lot of times when we talk about Jesus, I can tell you he loves you so much. I can tell you that Jesus, the King of Heaven, left his throne to be born through a Virgin Mary and took on the form of a little baby who pooped in its diapers and had to rely on its mother for everything. This is the King of Heaven, people. And he said time out. I got to go rescue mankind, and they're worth it. But I can tell you all about that.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:10:43]:

But until you find the truth of who God is by how He I am you through this book, you only know about Him. You don't know him personally. But the more that you hide His Word in your heart, the more that you look at this Bible and say, god, show me yourself. Show me great and mighty things about you. Open my eyes that I might see wondrous things from your law that's in Psalm 119, the more that you do that God says, if you seek me, if you in the camo hat, if you seek God with all of your heart, he says, I will be found of you. 49 ers guy, declares the Lord. And I get this I will set you free from your captivity. What captivates you? Loneliness.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:11:30]:

Wanting to be liked by a boy. So you feel special. Hoping a girl won't make you feel so ridiculous when you go up and say hi to her. Maybe your friends that don't pick you for the team. Anybody play sports in here? Okay. I was super bad at sports. Like, literally, the baseball came, and I went like this and got hit in the face, and I was like, I quit. But whatever that thing is that you think, oh, I'll just feel so special if I could be the best baseball player, if I could be the best volleyball player, whatever that thing is.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:11:56]:

But God says, I'm going to show you how to feel special because I chose you for myself. Okay? So. Esther. Chapter one. Now, in the days of how do you say that? Hazarias. Let's call him Xerxes. In other translations, his name is Xerxes. And that's the one I always can say better.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:12:19]:

Who reigned tiny Bible, and I can't see from India to Ethiopia, xerxes sat on the royal throne in Sousa, the capital. In the third year of his reign, he gave a feast for all of the officials and servants. The army of Persia and the media and the nobles and the governors of the province were before him. And while he showed his riches of his royal glory and the splendor and the pomp of his greatness, for many days, maybe think he was looking for somebody. To think he was special because of all the stuff he had. Did you get those new shoes so you could wear them to school? So people would be like, oh, man, they bought the expensive kind of shoes. Those aren't the Walmart brand. Somebody really must love them that they bought them those shoes, right? Didn't we do that in our culture? Nothing new under the sun, guys.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:13:08]:

And for 180 days, they had a party. And when these days were completed, the king gave, for all the people present in Sousa, the citadel both great and small, a feast lasting for seven days. Talk about a tailgate party. In the court of the garden of the king's palace, there were white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars and also couches of gold are you getting a picture of this? And silver on a mosaic pavement of what's that word? Porphyry marble, mother of pearl and precious stones. Drinks were served in golden vessels of different kinds, and the royal wine was lavished according to the beauty of the king. And drinking was according to this edict that there was to be no, there was there is no compulsion, for the king had given orders to all of the staff of his palace to do to each as each man desired. And Queen Vashti also gave a feast for the women of the palace that belonged to King Xerxes. So here's the thing.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:14:20]:

Here's the story, and this is a true story, okay? Can you turn around in the front there on the end? Thanks. In that this is a true story. King Xerxes thought he was all that in a bag of chips. And do you know that if you look at him up in history, he was awful. He was a really mean king. Like, murderous, awful, torturing people. He was horrible. But everybody was afraid of him, and he had these great Persian armies, and so he said, I'm having a party, y'all come.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:14:47]:

So all the guys go to his party, but his wife, Bashed, he goes, Well, I want to have a party, too. I'm going to have a party over here. All the girls come to my party. So all the girls go over here and have you ever been we were in Texas for six years, and they have tea parties, and they wear pretty hats, and they get all dressed up for high tee. And just imagine Bashi's party with all the girls. What dress are you going to wear to Queen Vashti's party? Because you're pretty special, because she invited you to her party, and so what are you going to wear? How are you going to do your hair? And then all the girls come together and oh, I like your pearls. Oh, those are so pretty. Oh, my husband bought them for me because I'm so special.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:15:24]:

And Bashed, he had this beautiful party going on. And over here, Xerxes is having a full on party with alcohol, and these guys are drinking, and they get drunk. I don't know about you, but if you've ever been around somebody who's drunk, they're pretty ridiculous, right? You know, the Bible tells us not to be drunk with wine because when we're drunk, we can't even hear God speak to us. People do stupid things when they drink alcohol and they get drunk. Some people get mean. My dad's father was an alcoholic, and he was mean when he would get drunk. And some people just have a good time and party all the time and do whatever they want, and everybody thinks their life is so happy. My mom's parents were both alcoholics.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:16:14]:

And do you know what her life looked like when she was a little girl? Her mom and dad would bring her to the nightclub, and she would sit in one of the booths in the dark to try to do her homework. And then when she got tired, they would pull their car up into the alleyway and have her go sleep in the backseat of the car in Los Angeles, downtown. She was young. She was scared, and they put her in the backseat of the car and lock the doors, and they'd go back in and they'd drink and dance and dance the night away and have so much fun. While my mom was so scared and she was in the back of the car, she said she would put the coats over her head when she was back there because she was afraid someone might see her. See, drinking alcohol makes you stupid. And it may look like it's fun for a season because the Bible says that sin can be fun for a season. But Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy what God wants to do through your life.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:17:12]:

Everyone say that with me. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Let's say it. Satan comes, kill and destroy what God has for my life. And so Satan oftentimes tricks us with what seems fun. It seems fun to drink with my friends or I want to be cool. Everybody else is drinking alcohol, so I want to do it too. And pretty soon, that alcohol that you own owns you, and you can't stop.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:17:39]:

And maybe some of you have family members in your life that can't stop drinking, and you're thinking, well, if you love me, you would stop. But it's gotten a hold of them, and they can't let go of it. So here's the king, who should have been the smartest guy in town, and he's super drunk. They're drinking for seven days, partying, and all the guys are drunk and slobbering all over each other. And then Xerxes decides to show off all he has. And he goes, I'm going to show off what else I have. I'm going to show you my wife. And he says, Go get Vashti and tell her to come here and show I want to show my wife off for all y'all.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:18:10]:

So his servant goes and says, hey, Vashti. And the girls remember, they're all having their high tea. They're not drinking alcohol. They're just being very proper and beautiful. And he goes, hey, do, your husband wants to come show you off to those guys now? Vashti's like, dude, I ain't going. They're drunk. I'm not going. No, tell them no.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:18:24]:

So the guy has to go back to tell the king, and he sneaks in and he's like, you know what? I just got to tell you something. Your wife said no. All the men heard, and they're like, dude, you can't let your wife say no to you, because if your wife says no to you, our wives will say no to us. So you got to make an example out of bashdi drunk. King gets angry because you're right. So he doesn't kill her, which he had been known to kill other wives before when they didn't measure up to his expectations. But he sends her out of the palace, and she's no longer the queen. Now, historians say it's likely that she might have been pregnant with his son ARDIC Xerxes, who one day becomes the king after him.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:19:02]:

And that's why Xerxes didn't put her to death. Whatever the reason, she got to live. But she was no longer queen. So then he sobers up. And how many of you know if you're around people that are drunk after they're not drunk anymore, they're like, I'm so sorry. I'm so embarrassed. Please forgive me. Well, he had sealed with his royal ring and edict that fired the queen, and that cannot be changed, no matter what.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:19:27]:

So when he woke up from his drunken stupor, he realized he messed up because he loved Bashdi and he couldn't get her back. So his wise guys, the guys that he took counsel from, said, it's okay, there's other fish in the sea. Let's have a party. Let's have a beauty contest, and let's find you another wife. And that's where we pick up with Esther. So as I'm at camp and I'm hearing this story, all of a sudden I'm hearing camp Pastor Dave talk about people in the Bible that are just that people. They're real people in their generation. And now you're in your generation and you're a real person.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:20:08]:

And, you know, there's a verse in Psalms that says, we live our lives as a tale that's been told. You're writing your story. You ever think about that? What's going to be said about you when you're not here anymore? What do you want to be said about you? That you were kind? That you told people that Jesus loved them, that you had a lot of stuff, that you were mean, you beat up the kids that wouldn't do what you told them to do. What do you want your story to be? See, God has a story for you, and you can't even dream it. God says that he wants to do exceedingly abundantly. Above all, you could ask or even think to ask him to do through your life. That means you can't even imagine what he wants to do through you. Just stop and think about that.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:20:56]:

God has a plan for you. God has a plan for you. So here's Esther and she's on the streets. We're in chapter two after these things, when the anger of the king and he woke up. I'm going to come skip down. Sorry. Now, verse five. Now, there was a Jew in Susa that they called his name Mordecai.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:21:22]:

We're going to call him Morty, the son of I brought way too small of a Bible, jair, son of Shamil, and a Kish and a Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among captives. That was carried away by how do you say that? Thank you so much, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, had carried away. So basically what they're saying is this the Jewish people had been taken captive. Remember, the Jewish people are God's special people. They're God's chosen people. And Israel is still the apple of God's eye. And in that day, they got taken captive because they weren't obeying God. So he's like, okay, I'm going to let you suffer the consequences for your bad choices.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:22:06]:

And they went into captivity. And when they were in captivity, people died. And then the people that took them got in a fight with these people who took them from them, and a bunch of other Jewish people died. And in that mix was Esther. Esther's mom and dad were both killed sometime in that. And Esther's cousin, Morty Mordecai, took her to be he adopted her to be his daughter. And that's where we find Esther in the middle of this beauty contest, where Xerxes has sent out all of his royal servants to find the beauty contestants. And one day, walking down the street is drop dead gorgeous Esther.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:22:51]:

And the guys go, you come with me. Come with me. And Esther's like, do I have to? Yeah, no choice in that. Come with me. You get to be in the beauty contest. But here's what you don't know about that story. Whether he chose her to be queen or not, from that time on, Esther became the property of the king. She loved Morty.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:23:14]:

She loved her life with Morty up to this point, her life had kind of not she hadn't had any control. And some of you guys might be there, or you just don't have any control over your life. Your mom and dad got a divorce. That stinks. I know. I've been there. It's hard. Or your parents have made some bad decisions, and you're not being raised by your parents.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:23:29]:

Maybe you're being raised by your grandparents or a family member. Maybe you have a Morty in your life, and there's just things that are out of your control, and you're just like, man, I just want to control my life, and I can't. And Esther finds herself in that situation. Her parents died. You know, she was living in a country where they were prejudiced against her. In fact, when they do take her for this beauty contest, morty says, don't tell them you're a Jew. Don't tell them because there's a prejudice against the Jews. Maybe you live in a country where you feel there's prejudice against you because of your nationality or maybe because you have a birth defect that people don't seem to want to be your friend because of the way that you look or the way you act.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:24:09]:

But as a Jew, she had to keep that a secret. So Morty sees his girl go away, and he has no control. And here's Esther, and she kids herself in the palace with all of these other women. Now, if you've ever been in some sort of a beauty contest, my daughter was what was Kayla Miscongeniality in the Miss Patterson Pageant? And there's a lot of girls that are all going for Miss Patterson. And sometimes in those beauty pageants, all those girls are so worried about how pretty they are and that they want to win, that they're not very kind to each other. I can't imagine what it was like, because they had a year to prepare, to have one night with the King and hope that they would choose them. So this is where we find Esther's life, and we're going to stop in the story now about that, and I'm going to tell you a couple of things that I learned about Esther when I was a kid. First of all, God chooses ordinary people.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:25:04]:

And when I learned about ordinary Esther that God chose for a plan that he had for her life, I remember thinking, could God possibly have a plan for my life? I'm pretty ordinary. Anybody feel pretty ordinary? I'm pretty ordinary. Don't we want to talk about who we know that's important, so people will think we're important? Somebody retweeted my Tweet, and it was I don't know. I can't think of anybody famous right now, but somebody really important liked my my picture. Somebody's following me on Instagram, and it makes us feel valued. I don't know. But we'll have a lesson later. God uses ordinary people.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:25:48]:

God wants to use you. And when God whispered that to my heart, I remembered feeling hope. Feeling hope that my words didn't have to come in a boy showing me attention. But maybe my worth was in God having a plan for my life and wanting to use my life for things that I can't even imagine. There's a verse that says, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can conceive what God has in store for those who love Him. Back to what Steve talked about last night. God doesn't say, Figure out what you can do for me. He says, Fall in love with me, and I'm going to blow you away because I put you on planet Earth for what I wanted to do through you before you were even born.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:26:36]:

God knew your name. He knows the day that you'll be born, he knows the day that you will die, and he knows the cool stuff he wants to do through your life. And when you hope and dream to do something amazing, want to be a great wife and mom or a husband or whatever that thing is, god says, you can't even imagine if you just let me have you, I will do through you more than you could imagine. And I found hope in that, and I hope that you do, too, because God uses ordinary people out of an ordinary day. God chose Esther to do through her what he had planned before she was even born. As a young girl, when I learned this fact, I remember thinking, if God has a plan to use an ordinary girl like Esther, maybe he has a plan for my life, too. Ephesians two, eight and nine says, for by grace you have been saved. You may know that.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:27:28]:

Stay with me. For by grace you have been saved through faith that no. 1 May boast. Isn't that cool? He says, I'm going to pull you out of this life, and it's not by anything you've done. You just surrender to me. And I'm going to do through you more than you could even imagine. And we're going to talk tomorrow about some of the ways that God woke me up and used me in my life. I wanted to serve Him with my whole life, and I didn't know what that was going to look like.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:28:06]:

But God did. And God doesn't make you do something you don't want to do. The Bible says it's God who works in you to will and to do his good pleasure. He gives you the want to. He gives you the unction and your gunshot. He says, I am going to make it so irresistible. You can't say no to me if you let me have you. But if you're stupid and you drink alcohol if you're stupid and I can remember, let me tell you something.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:28:29]:

I remember when I was going in 7th grade, I was at a friend's house and her big brother, who was pretty cool, I thought, and his big friends, high school friends, were there. And you know what they pulled out when we were sitting around the house and their mom and dad weren't home. You shouldn't be at anybody's house if their mom and dad aren't home. They pulled out going, Right, marijuana. And they lit it up and they started passing it around the circle. And I remember my heart just beating because I wanted to be cool. These are teenage high school boys and they wanted to hang out with us junior high girls. And you know that still, small voice of God, if you give him your heart, he says, that's not who you are.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:29:07]:

That's not what I have for you. Because remember, Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy the plan that God has for your life. And in that moment, as I was weighing out what I wanted for that moment or what God had for my life, I had a decision to make. And all of you are going to have those moments. And when they come, know this satan wants to rip you off. He wants to steal from you the plans that God has for you. God wants to let you shine so you can rescue people from their sin and tell them Jesus loves you. Guys, I know who I would be without God.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:29:50]:

I know the wife and the mom. I would have been without the Lord. I don't deserve to have a husband that loves me like he loves me. I don't deserve what God has given me. And if I had made my own choices, I certainly would have made a mess in my life. You're at a place in your life where God's going, I have a plan for you. And I'm going to use you to rescue a lost world. And you may think you're ordinary, but you're special.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:30:15]:

Because the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the God, the Maker of heaven and earth knows your name. He has a plan for you. You can't even imagine how amazing it will be if you submit to that plan and let him do through you more than you ever imagined. Let's pray. Father, I know that this is just touching on sharing evangelism and sharing the gospel, but I know that it starts by you capturing our hearts and revealing to us how special we are, because your Son left Heaven to purchase us for himself as his greatest treasure. Father, break into the hearts of these kids. I don't know where they're coming from, but you do. And you ordained that they would be here this week to hear from you.

Rhonda Stoppe [00:31:03]:

Let that not wash over them in in apathy. Let them be in awe that that God is speaking to their hearts even now, whispering to their hearts. I want to do through you what you can't imagine, but you have to give me all of you. You have to turn from your sin and you have to follow Jesus. I pray, Father, that you would raise up in this room mighty warriors for God, that you would raise up in this room mighty men and women that would live for you and tell the world that Jesus loves them. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.