Denial and Self-Deception Part 2

In this episode, “Denial and Self-Deception,” I take a deeper look at the life of Saul and how denial and self-deception slowly hardened his heart before God. Saul started off humble, small in his own eyes, and chosen by God for leadership. But somewhere along the way, he lost sight of who he was and the responsibility that came with the position God entrusted to him.

Instead of fully obeying God, Saul began compromising. He justified his actions, shifted blame, and refused to take ownership for what he allowed the people under his leadership to do. Even when confronted, Saul minimized his disobedience and became more concerned with appearances than true repentance. His denial blinded him to the condition of his heart and ultimately affected his relationship with God.

In this episode, I specifically speak to leaders, pastors, preachers, ministers, and those entrusted with the care of others. What happens when we turn a blind eye to sin, compromise, and behaviors that go against God? What happens when we allow people under our leadership to continue in destructive patterns instead of lovingly leading them toward truth and repentance?

Sometimes self-deception does not look like open rebellion—it looks like excuses, justification, partial obedience, people-pleasing, or protecting our image while ignoring what God is trying to confront in us. We can become so comfortable with compromise that we normalize what God has called us to address.

God does not call leaders to simply maintain crowds; He calls us to shepherd hearts with truth, love, accountability, and integrity. Grace was never meant to make us comfortable in sin. Grace was meant to transform us, convict us, and draw us deeper into intimacy and obedience to God.

Jesus died for sin, and when we excuse, ignore, or normalize what separates us from God, we have to honestly ask ourselves: What are we saying to Him through our disobedience? What are we modeling for the people entrusted to our care?

This episode is a call to self-examination, humility, repentance, and awakening. My prayer is that it challenges every listener—especially those in leadership—to confront areas of denial, take responsibility before God, and return to a posture of wholehearted obedience and intimacy with Him. 💛

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Abundantly Love Podcast with your host Gwendolyn Malika Noah. Hey y'all, and thank you so much for joining me on Abundantly Love Podcast. And I thank you so much for following, for subscribing to my podcast. And also, you guys, thank you for subscribing to my YouTube page under Love Abundantly Ministry and my Love Abundantly Counseling YouTube page. And when you're there, check out Malika Miller YouTube page. That's where my music is, y'all. So check that out too. But yeah, listen to the last podcast. I hope you guys have listened to the last podcast on deception and denial. Because the spirit wanted me to talk a lot about how we can be allow sin to deceive us, that we're a certain way, but really we're not. We're okay, but we're not really okay that we in denial and think that we're okay. And it was a lot that the spirit wanted me to say. So please go back and listen to that before you even come to this one and listen to this one because this is the part two of the first one. And in this podcast, in this episode, we're continuing on with denial and sub decision, but I want to look at someone um who embodies that and he's somebody that I love to look at when I'm looking at someone who is prideful and trying to study our pride and how God sees it, and how God sees us when we're not being obedient to him. So I want you guys to really follow along with me, with me on this, and I'm gonna plug this real quick, y'all. If you have not seen The House of David on Wonder, and I'm not getting paid to share this with y'all, but I want to say this to y'all. Go and check it out. It is so good. I've watched both seasons, it is so good, even though they deter a little bit from the Bible, but you can still get the overarching theme of it when you have read the scriptures and stuff and you know the history of Saul or Samuel and David when you look at the Bible and 1 Samuel. It's basically following 1 Samuel, y'all. So go back and look at 1 Samuel, even before you even watch the House of David, so you can get the historical perspective of it from the biblical perspective of it, right? But it's so good. But I want to talk about Saul a little bit and connect him to this idea of denial and self-deception. I know all of us in our lives we have experienced denial and self-deceiving, you know, and it takes someone from the outside to come in and say, hello, wake up. Wake up. Don't you see what you're doing in your life right now? Can you not see the harm that you are experiencing right now because of your denial of where you are? I think that's what this podcast is about. It's me coming from the outside and you listening to it. Hopefully, God would give you up and say, Oh look. Don't you see how living your life the way you are right now is hurting you and blocking you from growing closer to me? Can you not see that? Wake up. Open your eyes, wipe off the little goof that's around your eyes so you can really truly see where you are before me. But we're gonna talk about Saul. Saul is someone who didn't wake up, who had the closeness with God, that the intimacy with God in the beginning, but did some things to break that closeness that he had with God. And Samuel came to warn him as a prophet. Samuel came to warn him, hey, this is not good what you're doing. Wake up. And in today's time, God has called me to be a prophetess of now, of today, to tell you guys, wake up, hold up, what you're doing right now is not right. And you're hurting because of how you're living your life, you gotta repent so that you can draw closer to God. Don't just think that you're close to God because of your traditions that you grew up in, but truly be close to Him by repenting and changing your mind, changing your heart and changing your actions. Some people get the chance to do that because they humble themselves before God and choose to want to be close to God by repenting. But then some people don't do it because of the pride that's in their hearts and thinking that they're okay. And also considered to be like a uh, it's like this pride that we have, a religious pride that we can have that stops us from really seeing when we are. Let me tell you more about religious pride, right? Let's talk about that. Religious pride is right. Oh, don't you know who my pastor is? I go to so-and-so church over here, and I get taught this every Sunday, and and I grew up going to church. My mama is a minister, or I grew up listening to my family. I come from a family of pastors and ministers, and this is in my blood, and da-da-da-da. Who are you to tell me who I am? And da-da-da. But you're still smoking cigarettes, which is idolatry, or you still are having sex outside of marriage, which is sexuality, or you're sleeping around with multiple partners, or you even is it or you even um living a homosexual lifestyle. Notice that's a homosexual lifestyle, not same-sex attraction, because there's a difference. But living a homosexual lifestyle and sin, but same sex, you can be attracted to someone, but not live that lifestyle and fall into that temptation. But we can also fall into morality, immorality by imagining all those things, too, which is also sin, too. We can gossip, we can be greedy, we get all this stuff. Go to Galatians 9, like I like I shared before, Galatians, no, not nine, y'all. Galatians 5, verse 19, and read that for yourself, y'all. Because only only six chapters in Galatians. Sorry. Go to Galatians 5 and verse 19 and read it for yourself, okay? But it's like that's how it can be. We can be in that denial or self-deception because of religious pride, right? Saul falls into that category, sort of, but it was more of pride and self, but he didn't start off like that though. So I want to give you some scriptures to go back and look at, right? We're gonna read first Samuel anoints him in chapter 9. Go back to 1 Samuel chapter 9, and he says, when he when Samuel sees him and anoints him, he says he's from the smallest tribe in Israel, right? And being from the smallest trial in Israel, and he says in verse 21, Saul answered, let me go back in verse 19. It says, I am the seer, Samuel replied, Go up ahead of me to the high place, for today you are to eat with me, and in the morning I will let you go and will tell you all that is in your heart. As for the donkeys, you lost three days ago, do not worry about them, they have been found, and to whom is all the desire of Israel turned, if not to you and your your father's family. Saul answered, But am I not a Benjamite from the smallest tribe of Israel? Is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me? Catch how humble he was, right? And then Samuel brought Saul to his servant into the hall and seated him at the head of those who were invited, about 30 in the number. So God chose Samuel out of all the tribes. And then before let me go to verse chapter 10 and verse 1, it says, Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him, saying, Has not the Lord anointed you leader over his inheritance? When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel's tomb. And he tells them what's going to happen to establish or to staple, basically, a confirm that he has been anointed by God to be the first king of Israel. But notice in his response earlier was just so humble. Like, who am I to for you to choose? When I'm from the smallest tribe in Israel, why? All these people, you know. So Saul is now made king. And it says in chapter 10 and verse 9, as Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul's heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day. So God changed his heart to want to be with him, to want to follow him, to want to be obedient to his word, to just want to be this king that he has anointed him to become. Right? And I'm adding that too because God will change our hearts to want to be with him, to want to be in love with him, to want to do what's right before his eyes when we repent, when he sees a repentance in our hearts, when he sees that we want to be with him and want to please him. He was humble. We have to be humble, we have to be humble, and God will change our hearts. Now let me pause. Go back to Exodus real quick, and I'm not gonna go there, but I want you to go back and read about Pharaoh. Pharaoh's heart was already stubborn. God, it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And I always have this question in my heart in my mind: why did God harden his heart and not soften his heart? And what the spirit has told me basically because Pharaoh's heart was hard, he wasn't gonna change. He was hard. He just took his heart and hardened even more because, and at the same time, God wanted to show his miracles too, to prove to Egypt that he was God, and also prove to his people that he was God. So God hardened his heart, but here God changed Samuel's heart, Saul's heart rather, to follow him. Right? So hold on to that in your mind. Now, Saul goes off, does all these wars and everything, fights for God. Saul is confirmed as a king, and then fast forward. I'm going fast, you can go back and read the whole story. In verse in chapter 13, it says how Samuel rebukes Saul. Rebuke. Samuel rebuked Saul, and it says Saul was 30 years old when he became king and he reigned over Israel 42 years, right? And it says Saul chose 3,000 men from Israel. 2,000 were with him at Mikmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah. And Benjamin, the rest of the men he sent back to their home. So Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Giba. And I maybe pronounced this wrong, so forgive me. And the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, Let the Hebrews hear. So all Israel heard the news. Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become a stench to the Philistines. And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal. Now I'm gonna skip down. It says in verse 5, the Philistines assembled. Well, that's right after verse 4. But anyway, the Philistines assembled to fight Israel with 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up to camp at Mi'mash, east of Beth Aven. When the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard-pressed, they hid in caves and thickets among the rocks and pits and in cinsterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead, Gilad. I don't know, I maybe that's wrong too. But Cash says they were scared. They were afraid about what was happening, what was happening, right? And so Saul remained in Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. So notice everybody's fear. So Saul is standing back looking at all his men, become afraid, right? Now they had already experienced wars and they had won these battles and stuff against the Philistines, but now at this base and in this place, they're all becoming afraid about the mass amount of soldiers coming against them, right? He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter. So Saul got impatient. So he waited for seven days, waiting for Samuel to come. He got impatient, and he got afraid too about what these men are gonna do to him, right? So he said, Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offering. So now he's telling them bringing the burnt offering, something that who was supposed to do? Samuel. Right? Cassius. And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished, just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived. Now, now here comes Samuel. After Saul has just finished making a burnt offering. So catch his y'all. He wasn't supposed to do the burnt offering. Who was supposed to do them again? Samuel. Why? Because Samuel was a priest, he was also a prophet, and that's who God has chosen to do these offerings. Saul wasn't chosen to do these offerings. So at this point, he was being disobedient to God. He was allowing his fear to cloud his judgment. Saul replied, When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, Nois is giving blame now, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mi'kmash. I thought, now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord's favor. So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering. Now, notice how he's trying to justify his behavior. Now he's having some self-deception happening right now. He wanted to, he's ignoring the fact that he allowed fear to lead him in disobedience towards God. And also he forgot and just dismissed the command that he wasn't supposed to do anyway. How many of you guys can relate to that? How many can relate to allowing fear or what other people are gonna do to you or thoughts about what other people may do to you to dismiss what God is commanding you to do? Then he says in verse 13, here's what Samuel said you acted foolishly, you have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. If you, and here's the the consequence of it. If you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord had sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command. Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah and Benjamin, and Saul counted the men who were with him. They numbered about 600. Because of Saul's disobedience, because of his self-deception, basically in that moment, deceiving himself to think that it's okay for me to do it because all these other people are coming against me. So let me go ahead and do it. And then he wanted to give an excuse of it, excusing his behavior, which means he's in denial about what he had already done. He lost the kingdom. He lost the kingdom. Now, fast forward, he's in denial that David was chosen to take his place. So he goes to first chapter 15. I'm skipping over a lot. Lord rejects Saul as king. So now he's at this place of being rejected by God because now his pride is taken over. He goes into Amalekites. I'm gonna give you an overview of it because it's gonna, it's a long chapter. In chapter 15, he goes into the Amalekites. God has told him in verse 2, it says, This is what the Lord Almighty says, I will punish the Amalekites for what they did into Israel when they wayland them as they came up from Egypt. Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women and children and infants, cattle and sheep and camels and donkeys. God is calling them to annihilation. Right? So Saul summoned the men and mustered them up. He got all the men together, and then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way to Halah. So he attacked them all. He took Agag, king of Amalekites, alive and all his people he totally destroyed with sword. But notice that, but Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep, cattle, the fats, calves, and lambs, everything that was good. These they were unwilling to do. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed. Now catch that. Did God tell them to do that though? God told them to destroy every single thing. But what led him to think that he knew more than God? Pride. That's what pride does. Pride leads you to think that you know more than God Almighty. Then denial comes in because denial is not really seeing that you're being prideful, it's not really seeing that you're being disobedient to God's word. Self-deception is not really seeing the pride that's in your heart, not really seeing that you're not being obedient to the commands of God. All of that. And then the word of the Lord came to Samuel. I am grieved that I have made Saul king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. God says he is grieved. So God feels deeply when we do things against his command. God feels emotions the same way because we're created in God's image. God feels emotions. The way that we feel emotions when someone does something against us. So what makes you think? Oh, what makes us think that it's okay for us to live in sin and do things that's against God and he not be hurt by it? No, God is grieved when we do things against him. So I am grieved that I have made Saul the king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. Samuel was troubled and cried out to the Lord all that night. So Saul had Samuel crying out to the Lord on his behalf. Samuel cried out to God. Samuel was the one who anointed Saul because of God. Asking him to do so. God chose him. Samuel was crying out to God. And I could imagine Samuel remembering who Saul was, the humility that Saul had in the beginning, how he hid when he was anointed king. He went and hide, went to went and hidden something when they were trying to anoint him to be king. Go back and look at that story. How he said that I'm from the smallest tribe in Israel. How humble. But now it says in verse 13. Well, let me go back. Verse 12, it says, Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul. But he was told Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor. And has turned and gone down on down to Gilgal. Pride. Set up a monument in his own honor. Look at that pride. Look at the denial of who he is. That self-deception that's happening in his heart. Not seeing himself.

unknown 22:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Wow. Not seeing God either. When Samuel reached him, Saul said, The Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord's instructions. Listen to that denial right there. The Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord's instructions. Self-deception. I've done everything the Lord has told me to do. I've killed all the things the Lord told me to do. I killed all the sheep, knowing that he didn't. I've carried out all the things the Lord has told me to do. But Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of sheep in my ear? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? Saul answered, trying to justify himself. The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites. They spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest. Now notice the leader. Saul, the leader who God told to destroy all these things, the leader now is trying to say those who are working for him on his behalf went and did it on their own. Denial and self-deception. Trying to justify himself, right? Catch what Samuel says. Tell me. Saul replied. Samuel said, Although you were small at humility, you were small in your own eyes. Did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel, and he sent you on a mission saying, Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites, make war on them until you have wiped them out. Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord? But I did obey the Lord, Saul said. Denial, self-deception. I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed their Malachites and brought back Agatha their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God, Agiga. The soldiers did it. I didn't do it. Try to give over blame. But as a leader, as the one that's in that leading this people, you are responsible for being obedient to the word of God. You are responsible for being obedient and holding your leader, low holding those who are following you accountable to the word of God, guiding them on being obedient to the word of God. I'm talking to some of y'all who maybe pastors or ministry leaders out there. We cannot be deceived. We cannot be in denial and say they did that. That's how they want to live. But if God is giving you what He's called you to do and commanding you to be obedient to His word, then it's your responsibility to lead them on how they should live for God. Speaking of word, man. Because you're going to be held accountable. The people will be too. But you, because God told you what He wanted you to do. Right? And look at this. God is telling Saul, told Saul what He wanted to do, but Saul is trying to give up blame to other people. But Samuel's like, no, no. Face the facts. This is who you are. This is what you've done. We need people in our lives to call us back to God, to give us to call us out on what we've done against God, to hold us accountable. How many of you have people in your life that's gonna hold you accountable to the word of God? To call out what they're seeing in your life, no, to be your prophet, saying to you, no, that's not right what you did. No, that's not. You're not being obedient to the word of God. No, we need people in our lives that's gonna do that for us. And if you listen to this podcast, welcome to my world. I am the one that's in your life right now, calling you to account, calling you to be obedient to God. And if you join me abundantly love circle, there'll be more of us holding each other accountable, right? Verse 22. But Samuel replied, Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Oh, let me say that again in verse 23. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance, arrogance, pride, like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king. I gotta say this, y'all, because I know I need to say this. We have glorified arrogance and pride. We have glorified it in our country, we have glorified it in the church worldwide. It's been glorified, and anybody walking in pride and walking in arrogance, you they put it on a pedestal, but in God's eyes, arrogance is like the evil of idolatry. Proverbs talk about how God hates pride. But why, as his people, do we put them up on a pedestal? Put pastors, put ministers, put leaders up on a pedestal who are prideful and arrogant when that is against God. This is where Saul is. Prideful and arrogance is against God, but we can live in denial and self-deception and think, no, that's what leaders are supposed to look like. But does that look like Jesus? No, Jesus could have been the most prideful person walking on the face of the earth because he was the son of God. He could have said, Don't y'all know who I am? You better recognize me. I am the son of God. Didn't you just see me heal that lame person over there? Didn't you just see me feed the 5,000, the 4,000? Don't you why are you questioning who I am? He didn't go around boasting about who he was. He walked in who he was, he was confident in who he was as being a son of God. That's that belief, but it wasn't prideful and arrogance, it was confidence of knowing that he had been chosen by God, but humility and knowing that he was not God, but he was God's son. And every time he was spoken, the father sent me to the father sent me. The father, everything I'm speaking is from the father. The father told me to do this. He didn't say he was doing it on his own behalf, he was doing it because of the father. I'm calling you guys to humble yourselves. Ministers, pastors, anyone. If you are leading a church or leading people and seeing that you're leading them towards God, and you're walking in pride and you're walking in arrogance, that's not like Jesus. So who are you leading them towards? If you're not calling people to account, calling sin thin in your ministries, calling people back to the Bible or what it means to be true disciples of Jesus, and not saying it's okay for you to live the lifestyle that you're living and just pray God is gonna forgive you. God has grace, He's gonna forgive you. That's lukewarm and that's watering down the standard of the word of God. That is not even biblical. Like I said earlier in the other podcast, if Jesus died for a sin, what makes us think that it's okay for us to continue to live in it? And then say that we're his disciples. It's not okay. How would you feel if you told somebody, and I know I've shared this analogy before, but I'm gonna say it again. If you told somebody that this hurts me, how you treated me, if you slap me in my face, that hurts. If you beat me, that hurts. I'm not gonna like why and many people who are in abusive relationships. I'm sorry if you're in an abused relationship or in an abusive relationship right now, please get help if you are. Because that is not love. And if you're remaining in a relationship, that is not love. The same way as with Jesus. If we're sinning against him, that's us beating him, that's us slapping him, that's us spinning his face, that's abuse to him, then that is not love. So what makes you think that he's gonna remain in that relationship with you if you continue to do the same things to him? No, he's gonna walk away from you, and you're gonna have to repent in order for you to get closer to him. You have to change your mind, change your heart, change your actions. And ministers and pastors out there, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm calling you to please repent where you are. Check yourself too. Check to see if you are walking in denial or self-deception and not recognizing who you are before God, recognizing your pride. Ask someone in your life if you're arrogant or if you're prideful, ask them, be humble to ask that question. And whoever you ask, don't let them be yes people. No, ask someone who will hold you accountable to changing. We all need to be held accountable. We're calling ourselves disciples of Jesus, and yes, this is the discipleship movement, y'all. If you're calling yourself a disciple of Jesus, he's calling us to obey his word. He's calling us to remain in him as he remains in us, but in order for him to remain in us, we have to walk in obedience. Notice what happened to Saul. God did not remain with him, God cut him off from him because of his disobedience, and he took away the kingdom from him. His kingdom would have been the lineage that Israel would have been from, but he gave it to David. And when you look at David, David was totally opposite of Samuel. I mean of Saul rather. But anyway, you guys, I pray that this is home for you, for you to really see, to examine, look at Saul's life, to see the humility and to see the shift of what denial and self-deception can do, and how pride can be a part of that self-deception, and arrogance is a part of that self-deception, how that blinds us and at least us from really seeing who we are, and then give shifting blame to other people. And we can also shift blame to God and blaming God for where our lives are because we don't want to take ownership of where we are. We want to walk in that willful denial and not recognize where we are before God. I pray for your eyes to be open for you to really see where you are. So before you move on with your day, I want to invite you to pause. Ask yourself, is there anything I've been avoiding? Is there any pride in my heart? Is there anything I've been minimizing? Is there anything I've been deflecting off and not taking ownership in my life or trying to justify? Is there a truth God may be inviting me to face in love right now? Am I being prideful? Have I normalized pride in my life? Denial isn't about being bad, y'all. Again, it's often about a protection over yourself, not being willing to see the ugliness that's inside of you. But again, with awareness is being able to see it. And acceptance is loving yourself without the judgment, loving yourself to want to change and seeing that you've already been first, God loves you, and repenting because God loves you, drawing closer to that love. That's where true healing comes from. Being honest with yourself or where you are, so that you can be wrapped in the intimacy with God that He wants to lavish on you. I encourage you to take one small step this week, whether that's prayer, journaling, having a hard conversation, or simply acknowledging what you've been avoiding, acknowledging where you are right now. And if this episode stared something deep or uncomfortable in you, please know. You don't have to walk through it alone, but you can join us at Abundantly Love Circle on Thursday at 7 o'clock central. And if you're interested in joining us, email me at loveabundantly ministry at gmail.com and the support is going to be available to you there. The support will help you as you walk along on your journey, on this self-awareness journey towards deeper intimacy with God. Healing is possible, transformation is possible. Growing deeper in love with God is possible, and accepting the love that God is for you is possible. Truth leads to freedom, y'all. And love, God's love transforms every single thing. Y'all, let's pray. Remember before we pray, reach out to me if this is hit home to you. Subscribe, follow, like, share. Please share it with many with your friends so they can hear this. And hopefully we can have a global revolution, a global revival, shifting the world back to loving God, but being obedient to his word and being true disciples because we're loving God in that way. All right, let's pray, Father. God, thank you for how intensely you love us. Thank you for sending your son for to be an example for us, my Lord. Thank you for allowing us to have examples in your word, my Lord, of what it looks like to first walk in obedience and also to God, what pride looks like and how you feel about it, my Lord. I pray for us not to grieve your Holy Spirit. I pray for us not to grieve you, Father God, by continuing living the lives that we live in, God, thinking it and justifying ourselves, God, what we are. Lord, please forgive us and help us, God, to recognize what we are, Father God, and guide us in loving you by repenting, by changing. God, we need your help to change. We need your help. We need your help in all of these things, Lord. I pray for you, Holy Spirit, to guide the hearts, wherever the hearts may be in this world, Father God, guide them to choose you above choosing themselves, to truly want to change so that they can be right before you, so they can grow deeper intimacy with you, Lord, to grow in love with you the way you called us to grow in love with you, because you loved us first, Father. God, I love you. I thank you for this ministry. I thank you for blessing it and guiding it to reach millions worldwide, Father God, helping many souls to be transformed to be more like your son. Only through you can it be done. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Enjoy your day. Yay!