Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Bob
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000461A
|
00:01 Something that you can count on
00:02 is that if you confess your sins, 00:05 God is faithful to forgive your sins 00:07 but more than that, 00:09 He is faithful to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. 00:13 Please join us today on Issues and Answers, 00:16 as we continue in the 12 step program 00:20 of Alcoholics Anonymous. 00:54 Hello, I am Shelley Quinn, 00:56 and once again we welcome you to Issues and Answers. 00:59 We have been doing something a little unordinary, 01:04 I guess you could say. 01:05 We have been talking about the program, 01:08 the 12 step recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous. 01:12 And our special guest, 01:13 this is why it's unordinary has been in the shadow 01:16 to basically to preserve his anonymity 01:22 which is the tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous. 01:25 So what we talked about so far is the first four steps 01:31 which are to admit you are powerless over alcohol, 01:35 that your lives had become unmanageable, 01:39 to come to believe that there is a power 01:42 greater than yourself that can restore sanity 01:47 and that make a decision to turn over the will 01:50 and the lives to the care of God. 01:54 And then to make a searching and fearless moral inventory. 02:00 Those are the first four steps. 02:02 Let me introduce you once again 02:04 in a kind of a quasi fashion to our special guest. 02:09 Bob, thank you so much for coming here, 02:12 for sharing your testimony, 02:14 and for sharing the power of these 12 steps. 02:18 I am happy to be here. Thanks, Shelley. 02:21 Without further ado, let me just sum it up by saying this, 02:24 for those who may have missed the first few programs. 02:27 You were in the throes of alcoholism for 11 years. 02:33 You hit bottom, your bottom 02:36 when you shoveled yourself down into a hole 02:39 and the day you laid down your shovel, 02:42 or lay that down is the day that God can reach out to you. 02:45 You finally were out of denial, 02:47 you confessed that ''Yes, I am an alcoholic,'' 02:51 and then you had an encounter with God. 02:54 Now let's see, 02:56 you have been sober for 29 years. 02:59 26 years. 03:00 26 years, I should know that by now. 03:02 So let's continue on 03:04 once you got into that point of making 03:07 this moral inventory. 03:09 What's the next step? 03:10 The next step, the concept is confession, 03:13 and the way Alcoholics Anonymous works it is, 03:17 we admitted to God to ourselves and to another human being, 03:22 the exact nature of our wrongs. 03:24 Now, after writing this long list of resentments, 03:28 looking at each resentment carefully, 03:30 finding out how it affected me. 03:33 What my part in it was. 03:36 Also a list of fears, 03:38 and why I have those fears and the sex inventory, 03:42 and how my selfish behavior had harmed other people, 03:47 and what I should have done instead. 03:50 This prepares me to let go of all of that, 03:54 to let go of the past by confessing my faults 03:57 to another human being, confessing my sins to God. 04:00 AA has no trouble with language that's used in Christianity. 04:04 In fact we call them defects of character, 04:07 we call them sins, 04:08 we call then an index of maladjustments 04:12 is in the other word that some people want to use. 04:15 It's interesting that it doesn't really matter 04:17 what it is, basically it's a list of things 04:19 that are wrong with us. 04:21 How we have harmed other people and in turn harmed ourselves, 04:25 and we need to lay down this burden of guilt somewhere. 04:29 And AA says it's important to deal with another person 04:33 because another person can ask questions, 04:36 another person can draw our attention 04:39 to the details of maybe we miss about ourselves, 04:42 and that we need to discuss this with another human being. 04:45 Now obviously needs to be somebody we trust. 04:47 And in my case, I have done several of this 04:51 and I have always chosen my AA sponsor who is a mentor, 04:55 who is my best friend in AA. 04:57 Who does not tell me what to do, 05:00 but walks this journey on a parallel path with me 05:04 and shares the journey with me, shares his experiences, 05:07 his strength, and his hope with me. 05:09 Logically for me, it was the person 05:11 that I chose to be my confidant, 05:14 to hear the worst things about my life, 05:18 and it took a leap of faith and a lot of trust. 05:21 Now, trust isn't something we give each other in AA. 05:24 Trust is something we earn from each other. 05:27 And this man had earned my trust, 05:30 and it's important that I trust him, 05:31 because I'm gonna have to tell him some things 05:33 that I don't want anybody else in the world to know. 05:36 And in this case what we did was we had afternoon off. 05:40 He had an afternoon off, 05:42 he invited me over to his house, 05:43 it was summertime, we sat in his backyard 05:46 and he put out three lawn chairs. 05:48 While two of them were across from me so, 05:51 automatically as we got comfortable, 05:53 I put my feet up on the third chair. 05:54 And he says, ''I wouldn't do that if I were you.' 05:56 ' I said, ''Oh, I am sorry. 05:58 I don't meant to mess up your chair.' 05:59 ' He goes, ''No, it's a lawn chair, 06:01 I don't care about that.' 06:02 ' And I looked to him kind of puzzle, then he says, 06:05 ''That chair is for God.' 06:07 ' And I thought, ''Oh, brother really this is kind of lame.' 06:11 ' But what happened, Shelley, 06:12 is as I went through the more difficult things, 06:16 there was always that temptation 06:18 to not quite tell all the truth. 06:21 To gloss over a few things, to leave a few things out 06:24 and I'm telling you every time 06:26 I caught myself being tempted to do just that, 06:29 I was staring at that chair. 06:31 And I knew I could not lie to this man 06:34 in the presence of God. 06:35 So, he was using the chair as a visual aid 06:38 just to remind you of the presence of God. 06:40 And, it worked, absolutely. 06:42 In fact I do that with all of my sponsees today, 06:45 and they all have the same story. 06:46 It's amazing how well that tool works to remind us, 06:50 that we aren't just telling another human being, 06:52 we're really speaking in the presence of God. 06:55 And it's pretty hard to lie or omit things 06:58 when you are committed to doing that, 07:00 and you know that God is present. 07:02 Amen. 07:03 So, it got down to a few things 07:07 I just struggled and I could hardly bring myself 07:10 to tell my sponsor about a couple of things 07:14 in my life that I was just mortified. 07:17 And he waded me out for quite a while, 07:21 and then all of a sudden he began to speak 07:23 and he says, ''You know, 07:25 the hardest stuff for me to tell my sponsor, 07:27 when I did my fifth step was," 07:29 and then he launched into the worst things on his list. 07:34 And my mouth hung open because here is a man, 07:38 freely admitting to me things 07:40 that nobody would tell anybody else. 07:43 And because of his courage, 07:45 suddenly I had courage to tell him. 07:47 Yes. 07:48 And what I didn't know then, but I definitely know now 07:51 is that once those secrets are out, 07:54 once those horrible things come to see the light of day, 07:58 they don't own me anymore. 08:01 I realize this is who I was, 08:03 this is what happened in my life, 08:05 this is not who I am today. 08:06 See, I believe with all of my heart, 08:09 it is cathartic, but here is why, once it's out, 08:13 Satan's lost his power over you 08:15 because he is trying to rob you of your identity 08:18 of who you are, 08:19 or who you can be in Christ Jesus. 08:21 And as long as you keep those secrets in there, he... 08:25 You know, there is that voice that's constantly coming up 08:28 and telling you about them 08:29 but once they are out, healing begins. 08:32 Those things were things 08:33 that if I ever even remotely thought of them, 08:36 I would be driven to drink. 08:38 Today, what I've seen and experienced 08:41 and what I've used exactly like he did. 08:45 As those are tools to reach people 08:47 sometimes in those secret places that they... 08:50 that you just can't get through. 08:53 I couldn't get through on my own. 08:55 I am all too willing 08:56 to bring those out of their hiding places, 08:58 anytime I realize 09:01 that they can be useful to help that person. 09:03 You are using them as a tool for ministry. 09:04 Exactly, exactly. 09:05 And I don't freely share them, 09:08 in meetings I certainly don't share them. 09:10 I don't even share them with groups of people. 09:13 But one-on-one, 09:14 when I feel the impression from the Holy Spirit 09:17 to bring up one of those things. 09:18 Sometimes I'm not even sure why, 09:21 but I can tell you from experience 09:22 that every time I felt impressed 09:25 to share something from that special box 09:30 of where I used to be, from the shame, and the guilt, 09:33 and the remorse and all those things. 09:35 When I pull one of those out and share them with somebody, 09:39 invariably it has been somebody that needed to hear that, 09:43 that opens up a whole new level of honesty 09:46 for that person to be able to share 09:49 many times the exact same thing in their life. 09:53 So step five is, 09:55 you have a wound that's festered 09:57 maybe for years, it scabbed over. 10:00 And essentially what this is, 10:01 is you are scraping off that scab, 10:03 so that you can let all of the... 10:07 We'll say debris, all of the infection out. 10:11 Now, once you have confessed 10:15 this to someone else and to God. 10:18 What's happening next? 10:20 Well, the first thing I felt was a tremendous relief. 10:23 I can honestly say 10:24 I have never felt so much relief in my life. 10:27 I was nervous though and on the way home, 10:31 you know the instruction are to go home 10:32 and spend the quiet hour 10:34 looking over the first five steps, 10:36 making sure that every stone was in place, 10:39 that there was enough cement 10:40 to make a solid foundation out of this 10:43 because this is what we're building on, 10:45 building a new life. 10:46 And if there was something that I remembered 10:49 that I needed to tell my sponsor, 10:51 he made himself available. 10:53 Call me or we'll get back together tomorrow, 10:56 whatever you need to do if you remember another thing. 10:59 Sometimes that happens 11:00 where something truly escapes us, 11:03 but most of the time we've done a good job, 11:06 we are ready to move on. 11:08 The next day though I have to say, I was nervous. 11:11 I met him at a meeting 11:13 and I deliberately went and sat down 11:15 next to him and looked him in the eye, 11:17 and he turned around, and the smile on his face, 11:20 and the joy in his eyes to see me, 11:23 reassured me that what he had said the day before he met. 11:27 The day before when I was done, he hugged me and he says, 11:31 ''I am so proud of you.' 11:33 ' I could hear it in his voice and the next day, 11:36 I could see it in his eyes. 11:37 I had to look that man in the eye to make sure 11:40 that what he had told me was true, 11:42 that it did not make any difference to him, 11:44 what I had done, what I had been through, 11:47 that he loved me and he cared for me, 11:49 and he respected me, and was proud of me. 11:51 So he was reflecting God's, 11:53 a God we love, his unconditional love. 11:57 Sometimes people confess their sins 11:59 and as the scripture says in 1 John 1:9, 12:01 ''If we confess ours sins, 12:02 he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 12:04 and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.' 12:07 ' Sometimes people confess, 12:09 but they don't experience healing, 12:14 maybe they fall back into that sin too quickly, 12:16 so what's the next step in AA after this fifth step? 12:21 The sixth step is we're entirely ready 12:24 to have God remove all these defects of character. 12:27 Okay. 12:28 It's a preparation step, 12:30 the seventh step is we humbly ask him 12:32 to remove our shortcomings. 12:34 But building up to that seventh step, 12:37 we need to become willing to have those removed. 12:40 Now my sponsor held me back on step six, 12:43 because I was in a hurry. 12:45 The book Alcoholics Anonymous 12:47 has very little to say about step six. 12:49 In fact in subsequent books, Bill, 12:51 who wrote this book 12:53 spent a lot of time talking about step six. 12:56 And for me it was a case of having to understand 12:59 how deep those character defects go. 13:02 You know, I like to think of it as like pulling weeds. 13:06 Some weeds have roots 13:08 that intertwine with other weeds 13:11 and they are very hard to pull out, 13:13 but the whole concept of step six is that, 13:16 I am not in charge of pulling the weeds in my life. 13:19 And naturally that's the human tendency. 13:23 I have to say that after that experiences in step five, 13:26 I thought I was free of those character defects. 13:29 But I had indeed only confessed them, 13:31 I had, nothing had changed, and I had to realize 13:35 that if nothing changes, nothing changes. 13:37 I can talk about it all I want. 13:39 But now it's time for action 13:41 and I did not understand step six, 13:43 in fact I couldn't understand 13:46 why my sponsor would not let me move on 13:48 to the seventh step. 13:49 He says, you don't understand this step enough. 13:52 Well, I'll give you an example. 13:53 Every time we met, he asked me if I had read, 13:57 reread what the book Alcoholics Anonymous had said 14:00 and what our book 12 steps 14:02 and 12 traditions had said about step six. 14:05 And I did it for probably two or three weeks, 14:07 I would read the whole chapter 14:09 and read whatever is in this book. 14:11 By the fourth or fifth week, 14:14 I was totally baffled as to 14:16 why he wouldn't let me move on. 14:18 And, he would ask me every week, 14:20 have you reread this, and I started saying yes, 14:23 and suddenly I realized you are lying to him 14:27 and it dawned on me that the very character 14:29 defect of dishonesty was still there, 14:32 and now I was blatantly lying to my sponsor 14:34 because I didn't want have to read it one more time. 14:37 So the character defect was there. 14:39 Well, believe me, 14:40 all the character defects were there. 14:43 Step four and five had made me aware of them. 14:46 I had felt the relief of letting them go verbally 14:49 to somebody and by the way in my fifth step, 14:52 I also received that forgiveness 14:54 and I felt that forgiveness from God. 14:56 And I am grateful that my sponsor loves God 14:59 and was more than able to help me see that. 15:03 But I had no idea 15:05 I was still hanging on the things, 15:07 and it got worse and worse. 15:09 I tried controlling my character defects. 15:11 You know, in the carnival 15:13 sometimes we'll have this crazy game called whack 'em all 15:16 where the moles keep popping up and you have a hammer, 15:18 and you keep hitting them down and the more you hit them down, 15:21 the faster they come and pretty soon 15:23 they're totally out of control, 15:24 that's the perfect example of what happened to me. 15:27 It wasn't just dishonesty, 15:29 I was hurting people's feelings, 15:31 I was doing all these things but now I am aware of them, 15:34 so I am recognizing that everything 15:37 is getting more out of control. 15:38 So what did I do? I tried to control them more. 15:41 And what happened? 15:43 Well, you know, as my sponsor said, 15:45 ''How did that work out for you.' 15:47 ' Not at all, I was totally powerless. 15:50 Now, not just over my alcoholism, 15:53 now I am powerless over dishonesty, 15:55 I am powerless over fear, 15:57 I am powerless over how I treat people, 15:59 my temper, my self-righteous, anger, 16:02 all these things were just coming out left and right, 16:05 and my frustration level was rising. 16:08 It got so bad with some of this character defects 16:11 that I felt like even though 16:13 I had told him everything in my fifth step, 16:16 they were now new things that I was embarrassed 16:19 that I didn't wanted to tell him. 16:21 And I started keeping those secrets to myself. 16:23 I was praying and praying and praying 16:25 and nothing was happening, 16:27 and I was so frustrated and angry 16:29 that one day I pulled him out of a meeting, 16:31 pulled him out of a meeting which never happened. 16:34 And we sat in his truck, 16:36 and I struggled to tell him what was wrong. 16:39 And I told him some things, 16:40 but there were other things I didn't wanted to talk about. 16:43 And finally, 16:45 finally I told him everything 16:48 that was going on in my life and you know, 16:50 there was nothing new to be honest, 16:53 but it was at a deeper level and I was so embarrassed 16:56 because I thought I was past all that. 16:59 I thought I wasn't going to keep falling 17:01 into those same things again and again. 17:03 And I was so embarrassed about feeling like such a failure 17:07 that I couldn't even look that man in the eye. 17:10 And I sat in his truck and I remember it was snowing, 17:13 and I was just watching the snow 17:15 out of the passenger side of the window. 17:18 And when I finally finish 17:20 telling all of those things to him, 17:22 I had tears running down my cheeks. 17:24 They weren't tears of self pity. 17:25 They were tears of frustration and anger, anger at myself, 17:30 and finally I said, ''I don't know what's wrong, 17:34 I don't know what's wrong, I am worst than I ever was.' 17:37 ' And he says, ''Bob, look at me.' 17:40 ' And I didn't want to look at him 17:42 with tears running down my face, 17:43 but I finally did, and you know 17:45 that man had tears running down his cheeks. 17:48 He says, ''Please listen to me. 17:51 ' He says, ''I want you to take the day off tomorrow, 17:54 and I want you to stay home, 17:55 and I want you to read that chapter one more time, 17:58 and then I want you to ask God 18:01 to remove your character defects 18:02 because if you don't, you are going to drink, 18:06 because if you don't, 18:07 your misery will increase to the point 18:09 where you're gonna seek relief out of a bottle again.' 18:12 ' And I took his advice and I stayed home. 18:16 And I read that chapter first thing in the morning 18:18 and then you know what I did, 18:20 I didn't pray, I didn't ask God, 18:22 there is a prayer in the book 18:24 where we ask Him to remove our character defects, 18:27 and I didn't do it. 18:29 Instead, I started doing housework, 18:32 I scrubbed the floors, I scrubbed the kitchen, 18:36 I vacuumed everything. 18:38 I tore the house apart. There you can control. 18:41 Exactly, and I realize that now 18:43 I was trying to clean myself up. 18:46 And it wasn't working like it never works. 18:50 I couldn't clean the insides of the cup of myself. 18:55 But I resisted, everything in me 18:58 was resisting asking God to do this, 19:00 because I didn't feel worthy. 19:02 I didn't want to let go off things 19:04 and that's what AA says 19:05 we find out very quickly that there are some things 19:08 that we enjoy. 19:09 I enjoy self-righteous, anger, 19:12 feeling superior to other people, 19:13 because I am right and I know I am right. 19:16 I enjoy sarcastic remarks, because it makes them feel bad, 19:21 and it makes me feel good for an instant 19:23 and then it makes me feel worse. 19:24 On and on it went. 19:26 I have to tell you there was a cat in my house, 19:29 I had this cat before I ever got sober, 19:32 and the cat was terrified of me 19:35 because of the way I'm sure 19:36 I treated her when I was drunk, 19:38 I don't know that I ever hurt her physically 19:41 but she was scared of me. 19:42 She lived under beds, 19:43 under the crouch in a corner away from me, 19:46 I knew she lived with me 19:48 because I changed her litter box 19:49 and I gave her food and water, 19:51 but she wanted nothing to do with, 19:52 she was very, very skittish. 19:54 And finally at the end of the day, 19:57 I exhausted myself and I lay on the couch 20:01 and I watched my aquarium 20:03 and I thought, I have got to do this, 20:06 I have got to do this, something has to change. 20:09 And I got on my knees in front of my coffee table 20:13 and I put my book out in front of me 20:15 and I turned to the page 20:17 that has the seventh step prayer in it, 20:20 and I'll read to you quickly, 20:23 Shelley, if you don't mind. 20:25 It says... 20:29 ''When ready, we say something like this: 20:31 "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, 20:35 good and bad. 20:37 I pray that you now remove from me 20:39 every single defect of character 20:42 which stands in the way of my usefulness 20:44 to you and my fellows. 20:46 Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. 20:50 Amen." 20:51 I said this prayer, I added my own words to it, 20:55 and I had my head in my hands 20:59 as I was leaning over the coffee table. 21:02 And I stopped at the end of my prayer 21:03 with my eyes close and I said, 21:06 ''God, I don't feel anything. 21:09 Oh, God please help me believe 21:11 that I have done the right thing 21:12 even though I don't feel any warm fuzzies.' 21:15 ' Those were my words, I said them out loud, 21:18 and at that very moment, 21:20 my cat jumped up on the coffee table 21:25 and she was purring, 21:26 and I was aware that she was there, 21:28 it didn't strike me anything strange, 21:30 but when I said those words, 21:32 ''Please help me believe 21:35 that I have done this right 21:36 even though I don't feel any warm fuzzies.' 21:39 ' That cat reached out 21:43 and put her paw on my cheek. 21:47 I have a hard time telling that story about praying. 21:49 Oh, I know that is precious. 21:51 The only creature in that house 21:53 that could have assured me of God's love for me, 21:56 and that he heard my prayer, 21:58 and that he had forgiven me and he would complete 22:01 what he had promised reached down and touched me. 22:04 And I got my warm fuzzies that day. 22:07 And I will tell you, I said, how does it happen, 22:11 how does it happen? Yeah, that's the Lord. 22:14 You know, Bobby, it occurs to me, 22:17 I teach on the steps to repentance. 22:21 You know, there is the God... 22:23 First you have to recognize your sin 22:24 and there is the Godly sorrow for your sin, 22:27 and then you have to confess your sin 22:29 and receive God's forgiveness, 22:31 but what steps six and seven 22:35 are is the true asking God. 22:39 You know, you can confess your sins 22:41 and if you're not asking for that gift of repentance, 22:45 if you're not willing to be turned around 22:49 to forsake those things, then it's just, you know, 22:52 you're back and forth, back and forth, confessing, 22:55 and then doing it again, confessing, and doing it again. 22:58 And it strikes me everything you're saying, 23:01 I mean everything you're saying is exactly in this teaching 23:06 that God gave me on this 23:07 as He was teaching me the steps to repentance. 23:10 What I love about this is it, it's so intentional. 23:15 Your sponsor held you back until he knew you were ready 23:19 because we can, it's kind of like, oh, okay, 23:22 I've got this far, what's next? 23:25 And, you know, we just, we just go and we do. 23:28 But he held you back until he was certain 23:32 that you were really experiencing the pain 23:37 if you will or the true... 23:41 you were sorrow of this, 23:43 and you were really ready to come to the Lord, 23:46 you've confessed it. 23:47 But now you were ready to say Lord, 23:49 change me as Acts 5:31 says that, 23:51 ''He grants us repentance.' 23:54 ' You're ready to say, ''Lord, grant me repentance. 23:56 I don't want to be like this anymore.' 23:59 ' So it's so intentional and it's all very biblical. 24:05 There is... 24:07 There was that moment when I realize 24:09 that my whole life was changing right then. 24:12 There was a different kind of peace 24:15 that fell over me that day. 24:17 Amen. 24:18 It wasn't that I understood all the mechanics of, you know, 24:21 I speak to you know looking back on 26 years of experience 24:25 with these steps, and by the way these steps 24:28 are part of my daily life. 24:30 When I get caught up in some mistake during the day, 24:34 I intentionally go back to six and seven. 24:37 I ask God to make me willing if I'm not, and if I am, 24:40 please don't leave me in this condition. 24:43 Please Lord, forgive me and change me. 24:47 There are no... 24:48 I mean even though there were major changes 24:50 leading up to step six and seven. 24:52 The major changes come 24:54 when we are finally willing to let go. 24:56 You know, I had a good friend that told me one time, 25:01 if I ask God to remove my defects of character 25:04 and they don't go away, 25:05 there is either something wrong with my prayer 25:08 or more likely something wrong with my willingness to let go. 25:12 Its all about humility, is it? 25:13 It absolutely is about humility. 25:15 In fact the step says humbly ask God to remove 25:19 these defects of character, the shortcomings, 25:22 so obviously these steps have everything to do with humility, 25:26 and humility is not just groveling. 25:30 Humility and humiliation are two very different words. 25:33 To be humbled by circumstance 25:37 or by the result of our own pride for example 25:43 feels very different than asking for humility 25:46 and then humbly walking with God 25:48 and offering myself to him. 25:50 I gave myself to him that day 25:52 to do whatever he wanted with me. 25:53 I had no idea where that would go. 25:56 But it didn't matter 25:57 because whatever it was would be relieve 25:59 from where I was. 26:01 Amen. Amen. 26:02 So... 26:03 Bob, it has just been such a blessing, 26:07 just to sit here and listen to you 26:09 and 26 years of experience with these steps, 26:12 knowing what God has done, just want to thank you... 26:14 You're welcome. 26:16 For being here, and we want you to come back 26:17 'cause you still got more to share. 26:20 For those of you at home, 26:21 we want you to know that you know, 26:25 what strikes me is the humility of our Lord 26:31 and Savior Jesus Christ. 26:32 Well, of the Trinity, 26:35 when you think about the humility of the Trinity, 26:39 the Holy Spirit does everything to bring glory to Jesus Christ. 26:45 Christ did everything to bring glory to the father 26:49 and then in turn the Father gives all glory to the son, 26:54 so it is so amazing. 26:57 My husband taught me something many years ago, 27:00 when we first got married. 27:01 And that is, you know, we pray Lord, 27:04 increase your faith, increase our faith, 27:07 increase this, increase that. 27:09 He daily prays, Lord, increase my humility. 27:15 When we do come humbly before the Lord, 27:18 confessing our sins, 27:21 we can count on Him to forgive us of our sins. 27:24 But step six and seven are to get to that point 27:29 where you're really ready saying God, 27:31 I detest this in me. 27:34 It's like you're developing his heart, 27:36 you see sin as He sees sin, 27:39 and you say I don't want to be like this anymore. 27:42 Lord, grant me repentance, 27:44 I am humbling myself before You. 27:47 I am yielding control. 27:49 I am asking you humbly, 27:51 please remove these shortcomings. 27:55 And you know what? 27:56 That's the part where it says that God is ready willing 28:01 and able to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. 28:06 That's the beauty, He doesn't just forgive us, 28:09 He cleanses us of all unrighteousness. 28:11 Well, I hope you're enjoying these talks with Bob 28:14 as much as I am, 28:15 and we're going to have him come back, 28:17 because there is some still some more steps 28:19 that we need to go through. 28:20 Thanks for joining us. |
Revised 2016-10-10