Tag Archives: help

Is It Well?

It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “It Is Well” by Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

I was 23 when my mom passed away from cancer. I remember praying every day for her. There were no social media sites around to get tons of people to pray, but there were email lists. I sent emails to everyone on my list asking them to pray for her. I had faith that God would heal her. As I was going about my business at work one day, I answered the phone. My brother told me to get home as quickly as possible. In a panic I began trying to hurry things along. I then realized I hadn’t hung up. I held the phone to my ear to see if he was still on the line. I heard my dad say, “Don’t kill yourself getting here, son. She’s already gone.”

A day or so later, I sat down to write an email to all those who were praying. As I wondered what to write, the words of an old hymn came to my mind. “When peace like a river attendeth my way. When sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well.'” I began to write to the people who had prayed so diligently to thank them for their prayers. I let them know that she had passed, but also that it was well with my soul. As much as I wanted her to be healed, I understood that God’s reasons were better than my own.

We each have a choice when something we really, desperately want to happen doesn’t. We can choose to be bitter at God over it or we can choose to say, “It is well.” It doesn’t mean that I agree with the decision that God made. It simply says, “I trust you, God even when I don’t agree.” We somehow think that our selfish desires are more important than His holy plan for the world. We argue, scream and fight with Him when things don’t go our way. We sometimes see it as Him attacking us or mocking us, but it’s the farthest thing from it. He sees the whole picture from eternity’s perspective. I see a pixel of it from a moment’s perspective.

I don’t know why God does what He does. I don’t know why things happen that hurt us. I simply know that nothing happens in my life without Him knowing about it. He knows what I need to go through today to prepare me to be the person He needs me to be tomorrow. He knows what I need to go through now so I can help someone in the future. I can get through my grief. I can rise from the ashes of a life that has been burned to the ground. I can rebuild what has been torn down. With that in mind, I can find the courage to say, “It is well.”

If you would like to win “It Is Well” by Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence, go to the Devotions By Chris Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (July 26, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already “liked” my page, you are already entered for this drawing. I would appreciate it if you would invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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Beautifully Broken

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Have you ever been in a church with stained glass windows on a sunny day? They are so beautiful. I love seeing them in churches especially when the glass tells a story. They will often have pictures of the disciples or the heroes of the faith in their time of need. When the light shines through, the room lights up with all the beautiful colors and you see the detail in the art. It’s amazing. I’ve had the privilege of seeing some of the most beautiful stained glass windows in Europe including Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey.

I’ve never made a stained glass window, but I’ve looked up the process. It takes a lot of time and preparation. Once you have the design of whys you want your art to look like, you then have to determine what colors and shapes it will take to make it the most beautiful. That’s when the process really begins. You then take glass, score it and break each piece. Until it is broken, it cannot become as beautiful as it can be. It’s in the brokenness that it can be put together with the other pieces to create the masterpiece that is planned.

Once the broken pieces broken, it’s then arranged on a marble slab. The pieces are then soldered together with foil. The soldering process is time consuming. It requires that the pieces of glass undergo intense heat and pressure. It may also require more breaking so that the pieces fit together better. It can be a while before you really start to see the progress of what’s happening and it’s not until it is held up and the light shines through it that it’s beauty is revealed.

Our lives are a lot like stained glass windows. God has a beautiful design and plan for each one of us. He sees all the individual pieces that make up our lives, and He knows that it’s not until we are broken in the right places that He can make something beautiful of our lives. We look at the broken pieces and see a mess. We feel the pains of being broken. He looks at them and sees His art. He sees how each broken piece of our life will fit together to create the story of our life.

It takes time, pressure and intense heat to put all of our broken pieces together. We try to crawl off the slab because the process is more than we can bear at times, but if we trust Him, He will be faithful to complete the good work He began in us. Once the process is complete, it’s not until we let His light shine through us that our true beauty is shown. It’s when we let others see the story of how God took a broken life and made something beautiful of it that other begin to appreciate what He’s doing in their life. God takes our brokenness and creates masterpieces. What story does your life tell?

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Restoring Your Connection

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A lot of the work I do for my employer is away from the office. In order to be able to connect to our intranet, I use a virtual private network (VPN). I have to plug in a special code along with my log in codes after I connect to the internet. Once that happens the VPN goes to work and I get a message that says, “Connection has been restored.” At that moment, my emails begin to download and I can access all the information on our severs that I need. I can start working again

Peter described us as aliens or sojourners here on this earth. Our real home is in Heaven. We are away from where we belong, yet we still have to connect with God. He tells us that we are to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against our souls. We must stay connected with God while we are here on earth so that we can receive His messages to us. We must stay in constant communication with Him so that we have everything we need in order to fulfill what He has called us to do.

So many Christians live their lives without being truly connected to God. They don’t read their Bible, they don’t pray or seek His face. It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s that everything else in their life seems to eat up all of their time. I know what that’s like because I’ve lived a lot of my Christian life like that. When times got tough, I wasn’t connected and I was overcome by my situation. It wasn’t until that point that I truly cried out to God for help. I had no way out. I was desperate. I asked for forgiveness and my connection with Him was restored.

From that time on, I have had to fight with my schedule to make sure I stay connected. I have to carve out time that won’t be interrupted. If we don’t make God a priority in our lives, we will lose that all important connection with Him. We will wander through this life without direction or purpose. We will be busy all the time yet have nothing to show for our busyness. It’s in stating connected to God that we find our purpose. It’s in that quality time that we spend in His Word that we receive His messages to us. It’s in prayer that we cast our cares on Him and take on His burden.

We are all sojourners. We are travelers through this world. It’s the responsibility of each one of us to find ways to connect with God while we are here. Don’t get so caught up in living on the road that you fail to pray and get into His Word. The things of this world are temporary. If we aren’t connecting with our Heavenly Father, we get deceived into thinking they are the things that matter for eternity. Ultimately, it’s our relationship with Him that decides our eternity. It should have the highest importance in our lives. If you’ve lost that connection with Him, there’s no time like the present to get on your knees and restore it. The power is in your hands.

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Changing Your Roots

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One of the sayings I have when talking to people is, “Look past the fruit. Look for the root.” What I mean by that is that when we see a behavior in someone else or hear an excuse as to why they can’t do something, that’s not what’s really going on. That is a fruit that is being fed from a root somewhere else. I tell them to dig deeper beyond what lies on the surface if they really want to help them. What I mostly see is people dealing with fruit and they wonder why things keep happening over and over and they’re helpless to stop it.

When we only deal with the fruit, the behavior we see, we can affect change. We have to find the source of that behavior and deal with that if we really want to create change. When I think of sin in my life or in the life of others, it’s usually something we can see. We tell ourselves, “Don’t do that!” It’s a temporary fix, because eventually we go back to it. We took away the fruit, but we never did anything with the root. It just takes a little time and it grows right back. Ask yourself, “Why am I doing this? Where is this coming from?” Follow the trail to the root.

Hebrews 12:15 says, “Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” The Message puts it this way, “A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time.” If we don’t deal with the roots of our sins, we will continue to struggle with them and possible corrupt others. If you’ve ever dug in your yard and came across a root, you know this is no easy task. You have to pull on that root. Follow where it goes and chop it off at the source. You have to get the whole thing out.

If we want to change the fruit in our lives, we have to change the roots. In Romans 8, Paul tells us that we have no obligation to do what the flesh wants to do. In verse 5 he tells us not to be dominated by our sinful nature, but to let the Holy Spirit control our thinking. When we’ve pulled up the roots of our sinful nature and let the Holy Spirit take roots in our lives, Galatians 5:22 says the Holy Spirit will produce this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. That is the fruit that we should be producing as Christians.

If you’re looking at the fruit of your life and want to change it, don’t keep dealing with the fruit. Look for the root and deal with that. Romans 8 has a lot of good stuff to say about the struggle we all face in wanting to do good, but having trouble with it. Take time to read that chapter today. See of you can relate to Paul’s struggle. I know I do. The way he tells us to change the fruit in our lives is to uproot the sinful nature that controls our mind and then to submit our minds to the Holy Spirit. Once we learn to do that, we can produce the fruit God wants us to show in our lives.

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The Gift Of Help

One of my first jobs was being a sacker at a grocery store. Back then, the sacker didn’t just put your groceries in bags, they also took your bags to your car and put them in it. Society has gotten away from that in recent years. We have determined we can do it on our own and don’t need the help of someone else. We have self check out lines so we can avoid being helped by the checker and sacker. We do it all ourselves. We take the groceries to the car, load them up, take them home and then try to carry them all in the house in one trip. We load as much as we can on our arms. When so done offers help, we say, “No thanks. I got it.”

Have you ever done that? I think most of us have. Why do we refuse help when we need it? Why do we continually try to do things on our own? We need help from others. In fact, not long after God made Adam, He looked at him and said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper.” God recognized right after He made Adam that we need help. He knew it wasn’t good for us to do things alone. So He created Eve. He gave us the gift of a helper.

I’m the type of person who loves to offer help, but has a hard time accepting it from others. I’m also the guy who uses the self checkout lane and tries to carry every bag in one trip. What I find is that doing things on your own wears you out. It’s tiring. That’s because it goes against the way God made us. He intended for us to have others help us. He intended for us to have others be strong when we are weak. But if we don’t let others know we are struggling while trying to carry all the bags on our arms, how can they know to help?

The bags most of us carry are invisible. We struggle to carry them trying not to let one break. It takes up so much of our energy. It’s ok to get help. It’s ok to see someone struggling and to offer help. In fact, Galatians 6:2 tells us, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” That’s pretty powerful. Carrying someone else’s burden is how we fulfill God’s laws. Eve was made to carry Adam’s burdens. You were made to carry someone else’s. If you were made to carry someone else’s, then you were also made to let someone carry yours. You just have to let go and accept their help.

What all are you holding onto today? What burdens are you carrying that are wearing you out? You weren’t meant to carry them alone, so stop trying. Find someone you can trust and ask them to help you. Ask them to pray with you and for you. Share your burdens. When you do, your load will be lightened and your strength will return. Trust God’s plan that you need help. Don’t be too prideful in thinking you can do it on your own, God has someone waiting to help you carry the load. You just need to accept it and do your part in fulfilling the law of Christ.

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Lesson Learned

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It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “AHA: Awakening.Honesty.Action.” by Kyle Idleman. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

Have you ever been stuck on a problem or in a situation and didn’t know the answer of what to do? Have you spent days and nights racking your brain trying to figure out the solution? It’s stressful. You’re in a no win situation with no doors or windows opening telling you, “Thos is the way out!” It’s complicated too. If you do this, then that will happen. If you do that, then this will happen. Then, when you least expect it, you see the answer. It was there the whole time, but your vision was cloudy.

That’s how the prodigal son was. He had taken his inheritance early (mistake). He had moved away from his family so he could be himself (mistake). He wasted all the money from his inheritance on partying (mistake). He didn’t take time to build real relationships with others. All the friendships he had made were superficial and shallow because they were built on his ability to pay for drinks (mistake). When a famine came, all those superficial friends wouldn’t lend him a hand. They only looked out for themselves. Every mistake he had made was staring him in the face. His hunger was a constant reminder that he had messed up.

Here he was trapped in a foreign land. He had no friends, no shelter, no food, no money and no way back. He had to be honest with himself. He had no way out of the situation. He thought for days on how to get some money back. He found a job slopping pigs. He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the food in the slop. I’m sure he got angry at himself as he watched the pigs have enough food to eat. He probably tried to think of ways get some of the food out of the trough with no one looking. He was desperate. Hope was running out when he had a moment of clarity. He could go home to his father and feed his pigs. At least his father fed his servants unlike his current employer.

That moment of clarity led to action. He got up immediately once he saw the answer to his problem. He rehearsed his speech the whole way. “Dad, I’ve messed up. I don’t deserve to be called your son. Will you hire me? I’m starving and am willing to work hard.” While he was going through the words as he walked, his father saw him and ran to him. His father embraced him and kissed him. The son pushed the father back and started to say his speech, but the father wasn’t listening. He saw the hunger and desperation in his son. He had his servants prepare a feast for his son. The son never had to worry about food or shelter again.

He learned some valuable lessons in the ordeal. He learned that real relationships aren’t made by paying for everything. He learned that you should always prepare for the worst outcome and have enough to survive it. He learned that family loves you no matter what. He learned that pride will keep you from having real relationships. He learned that being honest with yourself and God pushes you to action. Most of all, he learned that no matter what he has done, the Father will always accept him back if he’s willing to return. The past is pushed aside and arms are wide open to the child who returns.

If you would like to win “AHA” by Kyle Idleman, go to the Devotions By Chris Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (June 28, 2014) who has done liked my page. If enjoy reading these daily devotionals, please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too. You can also follow me on Twitter here.

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My Mentor Job

A friend of mine at “A Mike For Christ” recently asked a question that took me a while to answer. He asked, “Who in the Scriptures besides Jesus teaches you much, whether about God, spirituality, or your own humanity?” I’m not a person who like it when people give me the easy answer, so I don’t like to give the easy answer. A lot of names came to mind when I read the question, but I asked myself, “Which person in the Bible teaches me about all three?” I wondered if there was someone who gave me insight into God, what it means to be spiritual and taught me about my own humanity.

I came up with Job. You may say, “That’s an easy answer. Why didn’t you say Mephibosheth or someone like that?” Job I believe met all three criteria in my own personal life. He taught me a lot about who God is. One of the first things I learned about God is that He doesn’t cause the bad times in my life, but He allows them so that He can prove my faithfulness to Him. Satan went to God and pointed to Job’s righteousness. Satan told God that he only lived that way because of all the blessings. God responded in Job 1:12, “All right, you may test him,” the LORD said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the LORD’s presence (NLT).

Job also taught me about spiritual things. He proved that you could maintain your integrity in the most difficult of circumstances. Having lost his kids, his possessions, his money and everything precious to him, He fell to his knees and found cause to worship God. When his friends accused him of wrong doing, he did not flinch. When his wife told him to curse God and die, he responded with wisdom, “Shall we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” When he had no reason to hope, to trust or the worship, he did all three because of his foundation found in his relationship with God.

He reminds me of my humanity later on in the book. God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind and asked him some tough questions like, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Do you know where the gates of death are? Can you direct the constellations through the seasons?” I’m reminded that God is in control and my feeble attempts to control my life are pointless. The things that happen can be a consequence of my behavior or they can be from God to prepare me for things that are coming. Either way, God has set them into motion and they are far too great for me to understand even if He answered my question of “Why”.

Job is the oldest book in the Bible and yet it still speaks to me. Every time I read it, I gain insight into who God is and how He sees me. I get challenged to live a life of worship. When hard times hit unexpectedly, they reveal what’s really on the inside. For job, that was worship and integrity. When life’s storms hit my shore, I look to Job for advice and proof that I can survive anything. He was human and he endured Satan’s worst attacks on his life. His humanity was exposed in the storm, but so was his foundation. I want to be that kind of follower of Christ. I want to have that sure of a foundation. I want God to be able to point at me and say, “Have you considered my servant Chris? He is blameless – a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” If Job did it, so can I.

Which person in Scripture does this for you?

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Times Of Rain

Rain is something we need, but don’t really want. We associate it with bad. It started when we were children singing the song, “Rain, Rain, go away. Come again another day.” Rain disrupts the times of sunshine and happiness. When it’s rainy outside, we say it’s gloomy. We think of the gray clouds and we think of depression. It changes our path, our timing and our plans. It messes things up for us so we resist it. We forget that rain is a necessary part of life. We forget the good that it does.

I’ve got several friends right now who are experiencing rain in their lives. Several friends have had loved ones pass away unexpectedly. I’ve got a couple of friends who can’t seem to find a job. I’ve got a few friends whose lives have been turned upside down because of choices their spouse made. For them, it seems like the rain just keeps coming. It feels like their lives are being flooded with negative things. Matthew 5:45 came to mind. It says, “It rains on the just and the unjust.”

I’ve read or heard that scripture my whole life. I was always under the impression that it just meant that bad things happen to Christians and non Christians alike because I associated rain with bad times. When I read it in context and then in several versions and interpretations of the original Greek, the Message Bible stood out. It said, “This is what God does. He gives His best – the sun to warm and the rain to nourish – to everyone regardless.” The times of rain in our lives are meant to nourish us. Just like our yards, lakes and crops need rain for nourishment, so do our lives.

When bad things happen, it usually pushes us closer go God. We spend more time in prayer. We take the time to talk to God and to read His Word to try to find answers. Days of sunshine rarely push us to spend time with God. When we go so long without rain or without spending time with a God, we enter a desert. God knows that we need rain. Of course, with lots of rain, it starts to flood. Jesus told a parable about that. He said the wise man built his house upon the rock so that when the rains came down and the floods went up, his house would stand firm.

What’s your house built on? The one way to test it is with lots of rain. If your faith erodes when the floods come, you’ve built your house on sand. The good news is that of that’s the case, God is there to help you rebuild your life after laying a firm foundation. If the floods came and have damaged your house, but your foundation is firm, God will be there when the rain leaves to help you make repairs. Either way, the rain should drive you closer to God and nourish your spirit. Times of rain are painful, but needed. Don’t run from them.

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Free To Endure

It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “God Is In The Small Stuff For Changing Times” by Bruce & Stan. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

One of the first things that I tell new employees at the company I work for is, “If you don’t like change, you’re in the wrong company.” Let’s be honest, not many of us like change. We don’t embrace it, we fight it. We don’t welcome it, we begrudgingly accept it. We don’t like things to be different, we like them the way they were. In this world we live in, things don’t have a beginning, middle and end like they used to. It seems like it’s one crisis after another. It’s one painful moment after another. But change brings about better things.

It reminds me of when my wife was in the hospital giving birth to our son. To induce labor, they gave her medicine to force contractions. They kept increasing the dosage until she was in a constant state of contractions. She never fully came out of one before the next one started. She struggled to catch her breath before the intense pain returned. That’s where our world is these days. That’s where our lives are. We face struggle after struggle. Heartache after heartache. Trial after trial and we get very little reprieve.

When we are in a constant state of struggle, we tend to turn our focus and energy away from God and onto surviving the circumstances. Instead of digging deeper in the Bible, we dig our feet deeper into the trenches to hold our ground. Instead of praying to God, we complain to anyone that will listen. It’s just who we are and how we are built. As Christians, we are called to go against that human nature. We are called to crucify daily the flesh that wants to do opposite of what God would have us do. The question is, “How do we do that?”

I believe the answer is to look ahead, beyond the trials. Look to what God wants to produce in you through the changing times. If you can find meaning in the trial, you can find joy in it. James 1:2 says, “When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” The struggles that my wife had in pregnancy and in labor produced a child that we love very much and has brought joy to our home. Your struggles will also produce something in your life that will bring great joy. You just have to think about the end result of your current struggle. You have to remained focused on what God is producing in you in order to survive. Hope is a powerful thing. It can get you through the darkest night.

Verse 3 of the same chapter in James says, “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow.” The choice is yours. Do you back out of the trial because it’s too hard? To you throw in the white flag because you’ve had enough? Do you tap out because it’s too painful? No! God is developing endurance in you. Let it grow! Max Lucado once wrote, “God may send you through a storm at 30 so you can endure a hurricane at 60.” God knows what your future holds and these changing times are producing in you what you need in order to endure. Embrace the change and get free of the things that keep your endurance from growing.

If you would like to win “God Is In The Small Stuff For Changing Times” by Bruce & Stan, all you have to do is go to my Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (April 26, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already liked my page and enjoy reading these daily devotionals, you are already entered. Please invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.

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Nothing Is Too Hard For God

A friend of mine asked me to pray for his brother who was sick and being taken to the hospital. When he told me the diagnosis, I replied, “That’s not too hard for God.” The truth is that there is nothing too hard for Him. When we hear a diagnosis, run out of money, get our hearts broken, lose our job or anything else that affects the way we live, we tend to look at it with our human eyes. We see the impossibility of recovery instead of the God who makes all things possible. We see the negative instead of the positive.

We get so used to walking by sight that we box God in. We tell Him what He can do and can’t do. We limit His ability to make a way where there seems to be no way. We look at the situation we are trapped in and desperately try to find a way out, but all we see are blocked paths. Sometimes that’s the way it is. There’s no way out. “When God closes a door, look for a window” is not in the Bible. God allows us to be in those moments where there’s no way out so that He can show us that He’s still in charge. He wants to remind us that He is able. He wants to grow our faith.

Nothing drives us to our knees faster than being in a no way out situation. Nothing makes us depend on God more than to have no power over a situation. The Israelites were up against the Red Sea when they were leaving captivity in Egypt. Pharaoh and his army were closing in fast. There was no where to turn, no weapons to fight with and panic was setting in. They were exactly where God led them, yet they were cornered into a desperate situation. Instead of crying out to God, they complained and said they would have rather died as slaves than to be killed in the wilderness. They would have rather gone back to a life of sight than a life of faith.

In Exodus 14:13-14, Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent (ESV).” Think about that in the situation you are in today. Don’t fear. Don’t panic. Stay calm and trust God. He will work for you today. Then it says that The Lord will fight for you. He will fight your battle so you don’t have to. You only have to be silent. Just stand back and watch God work.

He sees your situation. In fact, it’s part of His plan for your life. He’s growing you through the tough times. When your back is against the wall and there’s no way out, that’s when God does the most amazing things. It takes us not acting in fear in those times to see the victory. It takes us holding on to God’s Word to get us through. The outcome may not be the way we thought it should have happened, but it will happen the way God intended it to. No one in Israel thought The Lord would part the Red Sea. His answer may not come in the way you think it will, but it will come right on time. Remember, there is nothing too hard for God.

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27 ESV)

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