From Milk to Meat

All right, now my favorite portion of our service where we get to welcome the men and women from our correctional facility behind bars. Calvary Church, like you never have, can we welcome the men and women watching in a correctional facility today? Part of our world changers given goes to you guys. We love you guys. You're not a project to us, you are family. All right, if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and open up to Hebrews chapter five. We're in the book of Hebrews this summer and we're studying this text as we walk chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the book of Hebrews. Hey, I came across this story by leadership expert, John Maxwell. He called the life explained. Here's a story, here's what he said. On the first day, God created the dog and he said, sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anybody who walks by. For this, I'm going to give you a lifespan of 20 years. The dog replied, 20 years is a long time to be barking at people. How about 10 years and I'll give you back the other 10? God agreed. So on the second day, God created the monkey and said, entertain people, do monkey tricks and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a lifespan of 20 years.

The monkey replied and said, 20 years is a long time to do monkey tricks. How about I do what the dog did? I'll keep 10 years and I'll give you back the other 10. And so God agreed. Then on the third day, God created the cow and said, you're going to spend your days working in the field. You're going to be there in the hot sun. You're going to be having calves and giving milk and helping support the farmer's family. For this, I'll give you a lifespan of 60 years. The cow said, that's a tough life to live for 60 years. How about I keep 20 years and I give you back the other 40? God agreed. Finally, on the fourth day, God created a man and said, eat, sleep, play. You just enjoy yourself, have a great life. For this, I'm going to give you 20 years. The man said, only 20 years? How about you give me my 20 years plus the 40 that the cow gave back plus the 10 that the monkey gave back plus the 10 that the dog gave back. Let's make it 80 years for my life. And God agreed. So that's why for the first 20 years of our life, we eat, we sleep, we enjoy, and we play. For the next 40 years of our life, we work hard to provide for our families.

Then for the next 10 years of our life, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandkids. And finally, for the last 10 years of our lives, we sit on the front porch and we bark at everybody who walks by. There you go. That is the life explains. Now, obviously, that's just a joke, but it does point us to something that I think is true for all of us, that we naturally think of life in stages, that we measure our life and our years by the age that we grow up. And we assume that as time passes, maturity will just come as well. But here's the problem. In our spiritual walk, growth is not automatic. Oh, physical growth may happen. Your age continues to get older day after day and year after year, but spiritual growth happens with intentionality. I say it this way. You can make excuses or you can have progress, but you cannot have both. And I would suggest to you that the goal of our heavenly father is not only to save us and thank God for salvation. Come on, is anyone thankful that you're saved today? We are saved by grace through faith, but God's goal is not just to save us.

His goal is also to make you a more like Jesus. And that wasn't happening in the life of the church in Hebrews. And so what the writer does is actually gives us five warnings or five marks of spiritual immaturity. And honestly, this might be one of the most challenging passages of scripture in the entire book of Hebrews, because it forces every single one of us to answer this question. Am I growing spiritually right now? Not am I growing spiritually a year ago, not am I growing spiritually a couple months ago. Am I growing spiritually right now? Let me give you five marks of spiritual immaturity. And today I'm just gonna preach what the Bible has to say. Okay, so don't shoot the messenger. I'm just giving you what the Bible has to say. Do we all love the Bible this morning? Do we all wanna do is what the Bible says? I know you do. Five marks of spiritual immaturity. If you're taking notes, and I sure hope you are. Number one is this, laziness and learning spiritual truth. Laziness and learning spiritual truth. Here's what the writer says, Hebrews 5 verse 11. We have much to say about this, but it's hard to explain because you are so slow to learn. In other words, the writer is saying, there's much to say about this topic.

What's the much? We have to go back to verse 10 to understand what the much is all about. He says, Jesus was designated by God to be the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. In other words, the author wants to explain what that means, but he stops himself because the audience isn't even ready to understand what he's talking about. He's basically saying, hey, I'd love to teach you some. deeper truths about Jesus, but you've actually stopped growing. And he talks about the high priest Melchizedek, and we'll save that for chapter 7, that's not the point now. The point that I'm trying to make is, they were not mature enough to receive the deeper teaching. They were not mature enough to receive the teaching of the vastness of our God and the greatness of our God and learn the complexity and the nature of our God. And the writer says, I can't even get there, I can't even explain it to you because you've stopped growing. Man, that's convicting for me, I hope that's convicting for you today. See, I think a lot of us, if we are not so careful, is that we can fall into this trap, well, I don't want to learn about that process of sanctification. I don't want to learn about Melchizedek. Who is Melchizedek? I don't want to learn about this topic or that topic or that deep theological term because it's just so complicated to understand. Can I suggest that that's exactly backwards of our culture today? That in our culture, if we can learn to recite phrases of our coffee order, like a venti toasted marshmallow brown sugar cookie cold foam latte at Starbucks, then we can learn the difficult and complex theological terms that come from God's Word.

Someone say amen right there. If it's important enough that you can break down and memorize your coffee order, how many of you know it's important enough to memorize and learn scripture and learn what the Bible has to say? Where the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God stands forever. He goes on in Hebrews 6, 1 through 3, he says, let's stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let's become more mature. Everyone say the word mature. And then he lists a whole bunch of topics of things that he had to teach them over and over and over again. Topics like repentance and faith and baptism and resurrection and judgment. And he's saying those things are Christianity 101. They're foundational. They're essential. But how many know God never intended us to stay where we are? And I'm saying that today to every person that's here, maybe you're here today and you are new to the faith. Maybe you've given your life to Jesus just this year or maybe even just this last year. I'm saying that to you to say, listen, if you are here and you do not know much about God and you do not know much about the ways of God, you are in the right place here at Calvary Church. We're here to help you grow. We want to disciple you. We want you to grow. And I would encourage you, if you've never taken a step to head to next steps, if you don't know how to read the Bible and how to pray and what it means to follow Jesus, we've got a devotional for you, a 30 day devotional that will help you as you're new in your journey. If you've never, I encourage every single person, if you're new to the faith, or even if you're not new to the faith, but don't know the basics of a faith, we have a small

group called Foundations. And that would be awesome as it starts back up in September, we'll have multiple foundation small groups this next semester, encourage you to learn the foundations of the faith. But it doesn't just stop there at foundations. God has more for you. God wants to take you on higher heights. God wants to take you to deeper faith. God has greater maturity for you. Someone say amen right there. Go back to Hebrews 5 verse 11. He says, it's hard to explain because you're spiritually dull. That word dull in the Greek, it means lazy. He's not talking about lazy intellectually. He's not talking about lazy in our tiredness or the way that we carry ourselves or our posture. He's talking about spiritual laziness. In other words, I know what I should do. I know what I ought to do, but I'm not willing to put into the effort to do as James says, to not only be hearers of the word, but to actually be doers of the word. What does spiritual laziness look like? I thought of a couple things. Maybe just maybe, you might be spiritually lazy. I know I'm stepping on some toes this morning. You might be spiritually lazy if you don't spend time in prayer with God regularly. You might be spiritually lazy if you're not opening up the word of God on a regular basis to spend time with God. You might be spiritually lazy if you say, you know what, I really don't wanna be a part of a small group. I don't wanna commit to a place where I can build relationships, where I can be held accountable, where I can pray together.

You know what? You might be spiritually lazy, maybe just maybe, if the only time you come to church on Sundays is when it's convenient for you and your schedule, where you haven't pre-decided, no, no, I'm gonna honor the Sabbath, I'm gonna keep it holy. I'm gonna come to church whether I feel like it or not. I'm not just coming to church because everything lines up in my calendar and it's convenient to get here. I heard it said this way, I think it's such a good statement, that coming to church on Sunday is always a Saturday night decision. It's a priority, it's a decision. We're gonna be there no matter what. The first mark of spiritual immaturity, according to the writer, is laziness in learning spiritual truth. The second mark is an inability to teach or disciple others. The second mark is an inability to teach or disciple others. This is Hebrews 5, verse 12, here's what he says. He says, you've been believers so long now that you ought to actually be teaching others. That one of the things a Christian does, is a Christian understands Jesus's words where he says, truly we receive. Steve, now we freely give. That once I've learned something, that I should share it with someone else. Like I'm actually listening to the sermon today, and I'm not just listening, I'm actually taking notes. And I'm actually going to share it with someone this week. Do you know your chances of actually retaining everything that you hear from a sermon on Sunday morning exponentially increase when you do two things. Take notes on it, and talk about it during the week with someone. But I think for many of us, we just forget. We just forget. We just forget.

We just forget. We're not sharers of the word, but we're not being doers of the word. We're not being doers of the word. And I'm telling you, God wants us to be people that not just take, take, take, take, take. And not just receive, receive, receive. And not just about what we can get here, but also about who can I pour into? Who can I share this word with? Who can I disciple? Who can I grab someone and say, you know what, I know you're new to the faith, or you're a friend of mine. Why don't we read through the book of John together for the next month? Wouldn't that be awesome? If you found one person that you know is maybe not where you're at in your journey, say, let's read through a book of the Bible together. And I know you might not understand everything, but let's get together once a week, or let's have a call a couple times a week, and let's share what are we learning? What are we applying? That's teaching. That's discipling someone else. The second mark is an inability to teach or disciple others. Number three, the third mark of spiritual immaturity. You might be spiritually immature if you're going backwards instead of going forwards. You're going backwards instead of going forwards. There's spiritual regression instead of spiritual growth. Spiritually you're regressing instead of spiritually growing. Watch this. I see this illustrated in Hebrews five, verse 12. He said, instead, you need someone to teach you again, the basic things about God's word. He says, you're like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. But see what happens is when you're spiritually mature, what happens is you not only get that

information fed to you, but you start using that information, not only in your life, but to make a difference in the life of someone else's. I said it before at the beginning of the message. I'll say it again. You can make excuses or you can make progress, but you cannot have both. And a lot of us, we have a growth plan for our business. A lot of us, we have a growth plan for our health, our gym. We have a growth plan for our diet, for our exercise. Do you have a spiritual growth plan for your life for 2026? You're either more spiritual today than you were yesterday, or you're less spiritual than you are today, but nobody stays the same. And the text says this, it says, you need the basics all over again, over and over and over again. Now, as we continue in the text, Hebrews chapter five, what he's going to talk about is he talks about spiritual infants that need milk. And again, hear me today. Hear my heart today. If you are a new Christian here at Calvary Church, if you've just given your life to Jesus over the last year or last two years, we are so glad that you're here. We've always designed our church. We've always designed our services in a way where people could hear the word of God and take it and apply it to the life. Every service you see it, every single Sunday, we always give an opportunity, regardless of what the message on, for lost people to be saved, because that was the primary mission in which Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. We are so glad that you're here. If you've just given your life to Jesus over this last year, but you can't just stay there. You got to get into foundations. You got to learn the basics of the faith, and then you got to start growing beyond that. And nobody's looking down on you today.

If you're a new believer, if you're getting the basics, what I would call spiritual milk, spiritual milk is not a bad thing. I mean, we understand this for every parent in the room today. When you have a child, that baby needs milk. When that baby is born, I mean, it is the right thing to give that child. And we delight in giving that baby milk, that that baby is nourished. My son is one year old. He just turned one a couple weeks ago, June 26th. And I never looked at my son over the last year that he was born and said, hey son, you're not that smart. Why aren't you eating steak already? Why? Because he's a baby. What he should be eating as he is a baby is milk. Come on, someone writes. But in Hebrews chapter five, he's talking to an audience that has been in the faith for a while. Five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 plus years, and they still need spiritual milk. I mean, here at Calvary Church, we don't mind giving a new Christian spiritual milk. That's what they need. What gets a little old is when there's some whiskers stuck when you're putting the bottle in. You know what I'm saying? It's a little weird. Back to the Bible. Here we go. Hebrews chapter five, verse 12. You're like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant. Here's the problem.

Here's what he's saying. He's saying babies don't need to contribute to anything else. Babies are helpless. Babies aren't thinking about how they can help others. They're only thinking about how they can take care of themselves. They're not capable of even helping others. They're only nursing for themselves. And listen, if you're not growing in the Lord and there isn't this progression as imperfectly executed as it will be, but this progression of wanting to look like Jesus and live like Jesus and do as his word says, he's saying, watch out, you might still be in a state of infancy. Again, I didn't write it. I'm just explaining it. Don't shoot the messenger today, all right? But there's some of you that are here today. You're saying, Pastor Dan, you're lucky you got me here at this Sunday service today, okay? You're lucky if you get me here one time a month, two times a month. You're asking me to join a small group. I ain't joining a small group. You're asking me to read the Bible. I am not gonna read the Bible. You're asking me to pray. You're asking me to be at week of prayer and fasting in September, September 14th to 20th.

I'm not gonna do those things. I'm not gonna go to foundations. I'm not gonna go to freedom. I'm not gonna do those things. You're lucky you get me here one Sunday a month. And if that is the life that you wanna live, I would say that is fine. Here you go, dinner is served. That is your dinner. That's what you're gonna be eating over and over and over. Enjoy it. Here's the problem with milk. The problem with milk is it's always the same. It always tastes the same. It always looks the same. And as you grow and get older, it won't really satisfy and nourish you in the way that your body should receive. Yet there's some of you that today, you say, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how it's gonna be. I'm gonna be strong in the Lord. This is gonna be a year, Pastor Dan, I'm not looking back. I'm going all in. I'm gonna start reading the Bible daily. I'm gonna start praying and spending time with God daily. Week of prayer and fasting, I'll be there. As for me and my house, we're gonna be in church every single Sunday.

I'm gonna serve on the dream team. I'm gonna commit to a small group. I'm gonna commit to community. Challenge accepted, Pastor Dan. And I would say to that, dinner is served. Come on, who wants that for dinner? Does that not look good right there? Come on, that steak, I can smell that steak through the screen. It just, 22 ounce porterhouse, mocha rub. That just looks amazing, doesn't it, right? I love a good steak. Who loves a good steak? Come on, how many know steak is gonna build you? It's got protein in it. It's gonna make you feel like a million bucks after you eat that thing. Here at Calvary Church, we're not just gonna serve you milk. Come on, someone, we're gonna serve you steak dinner here at Calvary Church. We want you to grow in faith. We want you to be strong in the Lord. We want you to be faithful in the Lord. We want you to stand in the Lord. We don't want you shaken by every wind and everything that's going on in culture because we're not gonna be milk Christians. Come on, someone, we're gonna be meat Christians here at Calvary Church.

We love the word. We love pursuing God. We love seeking Him with all of our heart. And it's really those two illustrations. That's what the writer is saying. He's saying, are you a milk Christian or are you a meat Christian? Are you a baby Christian or are you a strong Christian? Jesus said these words in scripture. He said, I have come that you may have life and you have life to the fullest. How about life to the fullest? How about you? That comes from eating meats rather than just drinking milk. Number four, another mark of spiritual immaturity is you don't know how to use the word of God. You don't know how to use the word of God. I see this illustrated in Hebrews 5, verse 13 in the NLT. It says, for someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know what to do that is right. See, if you're just hanging out in just the basics, if you're not really reading the word of God and applying the word of God and memorizing the word of God, you'll never have the word of God build your life and shape your life and bless your life and the life of others. For example, I'll show you some passages of scripture and show you the power of the word of God.

This is Psalm 119, 105. Here's what it says. Your word is a lamp onto my feet and a light onto my path. Is anyone thankful that you read the Bible and God's word reads you and it will show you where to go and it will direct you? It will guide your life. How about this one? Psalm 119, verse nine. How can a young man keep himself pure but by living according to the word? You want to walk in purity? Live according to his word. How about this one? Psalm 119, 11. Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. When you know the word and you memorize the word and you start living the word, how many know righteousness comes upon you and suddenly it will keep you from sin. How about this one? Ephesians six, verse 17. We take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. That when you know how to use the word of God, it's the sword of the spirit. It's how you fight the power of darkness. It's your only offensive weapon. It's how Jesus fought the enemy.

Every time Satan came to tempt Jesus, he always used the word. He always says, it is written. It is written. And the word of God is your offensive weapon against the enemy. And that's why you got to not only read your Bible, but you got to memorize scripture. And that's my responsibility as your pastor to lead you and to feed you in some way. But it's also your responsibility, as a follower of Jesus, as an individual, to wake up in the morning and not just read the Bible as something to check off a to-do list, but to actually find you some swords, to find you some verses of Scripture that you can memorize. You gotta have a verse for every season and every circumstance in your life. You need to have a verse that when situations arise, you know what to say. You've got battles going on in my life? No, no, no, no. Romans 8, 37 says this, I am more than a conqueror through Christ. You got money issues going on? My Bible says, Philippians 4, 19, that my God shall supply all of my needs according to his riches and glory. Are you gripped by fear today? Psalm 27 says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Of whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid? Come on. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. Are you sick in your body today? There's a verse for that. Bless the Lord, O my soul, who forgives me of all of my sin, and he heals all of my diseases.

I'm thankful for one of the names of our God. It's Jehovah Rapha, and that means he's the God who heals you. That by his stripes, we are healed. Remember when I was growing up, I was a part of a ministry in our church called Royal Rangers, and that was like the Boy Scouts, but the Christian version in church, okay? And part of the badges that we had to learn, I was a buckaroo. There were straight arrows, and then there was buckaroo, and then there was pioneers, and then there was trailblazers. Those were the four levels of Royal Rangers. And I was a buckaroo, and I was trying to earn my badges to advance up to the next level. And one of the verses that I had to memorize was Hebrews 12, verses 14 and 15. And I could not memorize that verse for the life of me. And so I started writing it over and over and over and over for the weeks to come, until finally I stood before my commander, and he said, Danny, what does Hebrews 12, 14 through 15 say to get the badge? And I said, for the word of God is living and active. It's sharper than a two-edged sword. It penetrates the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart. You've got to have a word for every season of your life. You go to the dentist, there's a verse for that. It says in Scripture to crown him with many crowns. Come on, someone. I'm just kidding. Psalm 81 does say, open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it. So there's your dentist verse. But it's the word of God that brings life change. Not my words. You've got to hide his word in your heart. Someone say amen right there.

Fourth mark of spiritual immaturity. You don't know how to use the word of God. Number five, number five. Fifth mark of spiritual immaturity. Last is this. You cannot discern good from evil. You cannot discern good from evil. Oh, if there's one that's plaguing our culture today, it's this one. You cannot discern good from evil because we live in a society today where more people are discipled based upon what they see on an app in TikTok or Instagram than what the actual word of God says. And you got somebody that's got a little bit of a following or a little bit of influence who's posted some funny videos, and then he starts quoting some things about the Bible and you're like, I don't know. Does the Bible really say that? Does the Bible really say that? Look at what Hebrews 5, verse 14 says, solid food is for those who are mature. Say the word mature. Solid food is for those who are mature. A steak is for the mature person. How'd they get mature? Who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. The difference between what the word of God actually says and what some person just wants to make up on social media. You see what I'm saying, right? Who through training, that word in the Greek is gymnazo. It's where the root word is gymnasia, which sounds like our word gymnasium. So solid food is for those who are mature, who through spending time, not at gold's gym, nothing wrong with going to the gym, nothing wrong with getting a workout at Edge or LA Fitness or Lifetime, but not spending time at gold's gym primarily, but spending time

in God's gym. Because as you spend time in God's gym, you're going to be stretched in your faith. You're going to exercise those muscles. You're going to grow. And you'll be sensitive to the things of God, to the voice of God, and the perspectives of God. So that when decisions come in your life, you'll know how to discern what is good and what is right, and then what is evil and what is wrong. Paul talks about it this way in training. He says this in 1 Corinthians 9, 24 through 26. Don't you realize that in a race, everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize. In other words, there's a prize in eternity for what you do on earth. So what are we to do, Calvary Church? We're to run to win. All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. Paul says, I'm running with purpose in every single step. I'm not just shadowboxing. I'm not just standing there and hitting air. He says, I'm disciplining my body, training it to do as it should. Back to verse 14 of the text, chapter five, last verse and we'll close. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training, they've disciplined themselves. They're hearers of the word, they're doers of the word, they're people of prayer, they're people of community, they're committed to the house of the Lord. They have the skill then to recognize what is right and wrong. You see, when you're in God's gym,

what happens is you're not just filling your mind with more knowledge, you're conditioning your hearts to sense the presence of God and discern his perfect will. Here's what the writer is saying, he's saying, when you're spiritually mature, Calvary Church, your spiritual senses become trained. You can recognize what is from God and what isn't from God. Just like an athlete trains their body, a mature believer trains their spirit. Even think about your senses right now, your eyes. What is it that you're looking at? What is it that you're looking at? What are you looking at late at night as you scroll on your phone? How can you not think that that's not gonna affect your spirit and your heart? Your ears, what are you listening to? What music is on your playlist? I'm not saying that every single song that you listen to needs to be a Christian worship song, but you're foolish to think if you're listening to music that is swearing and is cussing and talking about this person cheating on their wife to find their true love and alcohol and drugs and what they're, you're foolish to think that that's not gonna affect your spirits. What are you filling your mind with? Is every thought being filtered through what the word of God says? What is lovely?

What is pure? What is admirable? What is acceptable? Your heart, what are you allowing to stay in your heart, Calvary Church? Is there bitterness? Is there unforgiveness? Is there jealousy? Is there pride? An immature believer justifies those things and says, no, no, no, Pastor Dan, you don't know what happened to me. What they did to me was so wrong when they took advantage of me years and years and years ago and I have a right to hold onto that offense. That's an immature believer stance. A mature believer says, no, no, no, we say God continually searched my hearts and God, if it's not from you, take it out cause I wanna be pure. Here's the good news. Here's the good news today. The good news is this, nobody has to stay where there are spiritually. Nobody is stuck. You get to decide and I get to decide. Will you stay living on milk or will you grow into solid food? Will you stay spiritually lazy or will you pursue maturity? You can make excuses or you can make progress,

but you cannot have both. Each one of us in our hearts individually, not for anyone else, each of us has to decide for ourselves. Today, God, I wanna know you more. I wanna walk closer to you than ever before. Oh, and I tell you when you do that, Calvary Church, you'll discover that joy comes when you walk closely with Jesus. I know it's a hard word today. I know it's a challenging word. Do you receive it? Amen, amen. Father God, I thank you for this time today to just be here. We honor you. We bless you. God, thank you for your word, which never returns void. Thank you for speaking to us, guiding us, directing us. God, I thank you today that this is a church that doesn't wanna just be milk Christians. We wanna be meat Christians. God, I thank you for speaking to us. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray, amen. Just in this moment, every head's bowed, every eye is closed. We're gonna receive communion in just a moment. But before we do that, I promised you that we'd do it because we do it in every service at the end of the message. Maybe you're here today and you're talking

about milk Christian versus meat Christian. Pastor Dan, I don't even know the Lord or I'm not even walking with him. I'm not even consistent in faith. I'm not even walking with Jesus. So this is the first time that I'm hearing the gospel that God the Father sent his one and only son, that if I've even sinned one time, all of us have done that and all of us have missed the mark, but he offers us in Jesus life and purpose and wholeness. He offers us what the Bible calls a salvation, the greatest gift of all. Romans declares these words. If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You can start that journey today of following Jesus. Every head bowed, every eye closed. I wanna just give you one invitation today to follow Jesus. If that's you today and you need to make Jesus the Lord of your life, you realize today you haven't been walking with him. You don't know him. You're not living for him. It's not relationship. And today is the day you wanna start that journey or recommit back to him and ask you to lift your hands when he counts to three, one, two, three. Come on, is that you today? You just need to lift those hands.

Fantastic. I love that the Lord's just drawing and leading. He's not mad at you today. It's his kindness that leads us to repentance. It's his mercy that's available for us today. Hey, let's all pray together. There were hands that were lifted. And so let's all pray together so that no one prays alone. Say, Jesus, say, I come to you today just as I am. Say, God, I know that I've sinned. I've missed the mark. Say, but I believe you died for my sin. You rose from the grave. Say, God, I pray that you'd forgive me. That you'd change me, that you'd be the Lord of my life, and that I would mature and grow in you. From this day forward, I want to follow you. And just say these words, just by faith, say, my life is not my own, but I exist for you. In Jesus' name we pray.