Description
STILL COUNTING
Subtraction
Ed Young
November 2, 2003
Subtraction—there’s a negative aspect to it, wouldn’t you say? Subtracting time from the family, involvement with children and savings from the bank is not good. That is a bad side of subtraction. On the other hand, there’s a positive side to subtraction: subtracting carbs from your diet, strokes from your golf game and hours spent in traffic. That’s a good side, a positive aspect of subtraction.
We’re in a series called STILL COUNTING. Last weekend, I talked about addition. This weekend, we’re talking about subtraction. We discovered that math matters to us, but also, we discovered that math matters to God. And he wants to use us as a major factor in his equation. And the cool thing is God’s math always works. Sometimes we don’t always understand it, sometimes we can’t really delve into it like we want to, but he always has an amazing answer.
Well, last time I alluded to a guy named Gideon. I talked about Gideon in addition. Really though, Gideon’s life is all about some supernatural subtraction. Let me ask you a question. What do you need to subtract from your life? What do you need to subtract from your relationships? What do you need to subtract from your career? What do you need to subtract, to take away, to remove, that’s keeping you from becoming the best that God has to offer? We’re going to discover some great stuff about subtraction through the life of Gideon.
And here’s the context of this whole situation. The Midianites were at odds with the Israelites. Don’t you love those names? The Midianites were some tough people. They were desert people. They were people the Israelites should have wiped out a long time ago, but they didn’t. Now they were dominating the Israelites. They had the Israelites so scared, the Israelites were living in caves and holes and dens. They wouldn’t even come out to play because the Midianites would take them out.
Enter our boy, Gideon. Gideon was down in a wine press threshing wheat.
You may be asking, “Ed, what’s threshing wheat? Threshing wheat?”
Threshing wheat was a process that one would do to separate the chaff, the light stuff, from the heavy stuff, the grain. And normally this was done outside on a hillside, so the wind could blow the chaff away. Gideon, though, was so scared, so wigged, that he was in a wine press threshing wheat. I’m sure it was all messy and stuff with all the particles in the air. I’m sure his allergies were horrible. All of a sudden, an angelic being appeared to him. Many people think this was a preincarnate visitation of Jesus. Check out what this angelic being said to Gideon.
VISION
He gave him vision. Last week we talked about vision. We talked about the addition of vision. Also, vision is huge in subtraction. Let’s see what happened. Judges 6:12 says, “The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘Mighty soldier, the Lord is with you!’”
Now, let me stop right there. That’s some biblical humor. Mighty soldier? Gideon was the scaredy cat. He was cowering. He was not being courageous. Mighty soldier?! He was in a wine press hiding, threshing wheat. He should have been up there, you know, wanting to duke it out with the Midianites, but he was scared. That’s the great thing about God. God sees the potential in your life and mine. When we are in our wine press threshing wheat, when we’re just, you know, doing whatever, God looks at us and goes, “Mighty soldier, mighty soldier, mighty soldier!” He sees what we can become. He doesn’t see what we aren’t. He sees what we can become, and it’s all about vision.
Well, when God told Gideon, “Gideon, you’re a mighty soldier. I’ve got some great stuff for you,” what was Gideon’s response? Was his reaction, “Yeah, God, I’m ready to carry out your vision?” No, don’t hold your breath. You know what Gideon did? He began to whine.
He said, “God, where have you been? For like 250 years, you’ve not shown up, no miracles. I mean, my ancestors told me about the parting of the Red Sea. They told me about this, that, the manna and all that other stuff, but God, where have you been?”
God had not given up on them. The people had given up on God. Well, this plot clots. It continues in Judges 6:14. Here’s the vision part: “Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘I will make you strong.’” Basically God said, “I know you feel weak. I know you feel unprepared and ill equipped. Gideon, I know you’ve got chaff and stuff all over you, but I will make you strong.” [The Biblical text continues] “…Go and save Israel from the Midianites! I am sending you!” That’s the vision.
Gideon didn’t realize it, but God is going to work some supernatural subtraction in his life. He is going to use Gideon to really do some crazy subtraction. Our vision not only tells us who we will reach and what we’re going to do, it also tells us what we will not do and who we will not reach.
Last time, I talked about Fellowship Church’s vision. Our church has a very simple vision. We exist to reach up—that’s worship, to reach out— that’s evangelism, and to reach in—that’s discipleship. And it’s based on two commands: the Great Commandment, Matthew 22:37-39; and the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20. That is what Fellowship Church does. Fellowship Church has added a lot of stuff over the years. Also, we’ve done some serious subtraction. So, don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’re not doing.
And speaking of that, a couple of days ago I ran across some old photographs of the early days of Fellowship Church. [A picture is brought up on the side screens of Ed speaking at Fellowship’s first service.] That’s the first service I ever presided over at Fellowship Church in a little rented facilities in a little office complex. Think about the stuff we subtracted. See those throne chairs? We subtracted those. I said to myself, “What are we, like royalty with these throne chairs?” So now, they’re gone.
See the traditional choir? We subtracted the traditional choir. Now, I like choirs. Choirs are fine and dandy, and we have a choir maybe once every two months. But we don’t have traditional choir.
If you hear U2 you say, “Man, I’m going to buy that CD.” If you hear Faith Hill you say, “Man, I’m going to buy that CD.” You don’t run to a music store and ask, “Hey, do you have that U2 CD in a choral rendition? I don’t want to hear Bono. I want to hear a choir do that. Yeah, Faith Hill. Faith’s okay, but I want to hear a choir do that.”
No, you don’t do that. You say, “I want to hear Faith Hill. I want to hear Bono.”
I don’t know about you, but I would rather hear Rob and Vanessa, and Yancy and Eric and Anna Alecia as opposed to forty or fifty tone deaf people with an organ behind them. [Ed is referring to the praise team singers that lead the worship songs] And I’m not saying I don’t like a choir. Choirs are great in certain circumstances and situations. But we subtracted the traditional choir and we added greatness.
We also subtracted suits. Oh, boy! I also subtracted a lot of hair, but that’s another story. [Another picture is placed on the side screens of the first Sunday night service] That was taken on the first Sunday night service we ever conducted at Fellowship Church when I was pastoring. Man, what was I thinking wearing suits? Is that crazy or what? Suits? To church? I just always did it. Everybody wears a suit.
I started talking to people and people were saying, “Ed, I dress
up everyday at work. I don’t want to dress up again on Sunday.”
I said, “Yeah.”
Then I thought to myself, you know, I don’t want Fellowship Church to become like this country club church where you’ve got to wear this certain suit or a certain dress to show up. No, I want Fellowship Church to be a church that’s casual. You can come as you are. We welcome you. And we just ditched the suits, just subtracted them. And we added casual clothes. I love it, don’t you? Isn’t it great to be casual? I like that.
We subtracted Sunday night service. We use to have Sunday night church—an entire other service on Sunday night. We began to talk to people and said, “You know, Ed, after about three or four o’clock, after watching the Cowboys or whatever, we’re getting geared up for the work week. We’re not thinking about going back to church.” So, we subtracted that.
Then we added Saturday night church. We used to do Wednesday night church every Wednesday night. We had a huge crowd, about 120 people showing up. We subtracted that and added First Wednesday.
We said, “You know what? Let’s put a lot of time, a lot of energy and just blow it out once a month.”
So, when we subtract, we add. We’ve also subtracted traditional Sunday school. Sunday school was great. Think about that. We have sometimes 15,000 to 19,000 people showing up here every weekend. Can you imagine having to build enough Sunday school space for that? Work that math out. That would be millions of dollars that we don’t have.
So we thought, “What can we do? Oh, let’s read the Bible.” The Book of Acts says that in the early church, they met in large facilities but then, during the week, they met from house to house. Pretty good example, the Bible. Let’s move Sunday school to our homes and let’s call them Small Groups… HomeTeams, even better. We’ll save money, and we all have square footage whether we live in apartments, homes, or whatever. So we subtracted traditional Sunday school and added HomeTeams. On top of that, if you have traditional Sunday school, you have people taking up one parking space for two hours. You reach less people, and the last time I checked, the whole purpose is reaching as many people as possible.
Subtraction. We’ve grown as much through subtraction as we
have through addition. Don’t tell me what you’re doing. Don’t tell me what you’re adding. Tell me what you’re not doing. Tell me what you’re subtracting. It starts with vision.
LEADERSHIP
Here’s the second factor of subtraction—leadership. Gideon was a reluctant leader. Leadership can easily turn into “leaderslip” if we don’t subtract. In other words, we can slide down the slippery slope of superfluous stuff and miss the majesty and the ultimate level that God wants us to live on if we’re so messed up and mired in the mundane.
Great leaders should have an attraction to subtraction. And I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of leaders in my day, to talk to some political leaders, to talk to some religious leaders, to talk to educational leaders and all that. And the biggest mistake that leaders make is the inability to eliminate stuff, the inability to subtract, the inability to take away. We’re all great at adding. I’m good at that. We think, “I’ll add this. I’ll add that.” But subtraction? Whoa, that’s another thing.
Sometimes we have meetings at Fellowship Church with our leadership team and all we do is subtract stuff. We’ll draw a big minus sign on our dry erase board and ask, “Okay, what can we subtract?” And we’re not just subtracting bad things. We’re subtracting the good things that keep us from doing great things.
Well, let’s pick up Gideon’s conversation in Judges 6:15, “But Gideon replied, ‘Sir, how can I save Israel? My family is the poorest in the whole tribe of Manasseh.”
He was saying, “The way I grew up, I need therapy and counseling. God, I can’t step out, lead and do your vision.”
Now, I’m all for counseling, but so often we “go Gideon” and throw up all these excuses and reasons to God why we can’t do the stuff God wants us to. But God says, “I want to use you now.”
So often, we spend so much time making excuses that we miss taking God’s vision and his leadership right in the circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, Ed, I’m in college right now,” or “I’m in school right now,” or “I’m doing this right now. Later on, I can do whatever.”
No, it starts where you are. It starts where I am.
Gideon’s excuse was, “My family is the poorest in the whole tribe.”
Check this next excuse. Then Gideon told God, “And I’m the least thought of in the entire family!”
People often ask me, “Ed, how do you feel before you speak? I know you speak five times a weekend. How do you really feel? What’s going through your mind?”
Here’s what’s going through my mind. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I feel ill equipped and unprepared every time I walk out. I spent thirty hours a week studying for this one message. I still feel like I need to do more, think through it more, and pray about it more. I feel that way. I can identify with Gideon. I’m ill-equipped and unprepared. But a long time ago, I learned that God is not concerned about my ability. He’s concerned about my availability. If I’m available, if I am open, God can use me. The same is true in your life as well. Ill-equipped, unprepared.
Think about Preston Mitchell [Executive pastor of Fellowship]. Preston was in the utilities business—ill-equipped and unprepared. Look what he is doing now. Doris Scoggins [Baptism and ministries staff member] was in the wallpaper business—ill-equipped and unprepared. Look what she is doing now. Owen Goff [Pastoral care pastor of Fellowship] was in the insurance business. He didn’t plan on leading at Fellowship Church. Rob Johnson [Worship pastor of Fellowship], what was he doing? He was a tennis pro, batting around tennis balls with thirty-something and forty-something soccer moms eight hours a day. That’s what Rob was doing. Look at him now. How about Vanessa and Yancy [Creative arts director and assistant]? They were former beauty queens. Vanessa was a car model. Look at her now. I don’t know what Eric Orson [Assistant worship leader] use to do, but look at him now.
Do you know what I’m saying? We can all identify with being ill-equipped and unprepared. And the moment I ever feel like yes, I’ve got it down, I’m in the zone, I’m dialed in, or I’m in control, that’s the moment that I am going to worry that I am going to mess up. But God has the ability to hit straight licks with crooked sticks. And we’re all crooked sticks. So, I don’t care where you are. I don’t care how many excuses that you can give to God. I don’t care if you feel ill-equipped or unprepared. If you are in that realm, then you are right where God wants to use you in a mighty way. You’re right where God wants to use you in his math, in his equation. He wants you to be a major factor in his redemptive math.
I’ll even personalize it more. Because of God’s blessing on Fellowship Church, I get a lot of invitations to speak around the country. I could literally speak every week of the year somewhere. I could fly out during the week, speak, make a lot of money, fly back and speak at Fellowship Church during the weekend. I could do both. But I don’t. I say no to 95% of the invitations that come across my desk. I say, “No, sorry. That’s great, good conference, good opportunity. But no, I can’t do it.”
I say no to the good. I subtract the good, because of God’s vision and God’s ability for me and my availability to carry that out in my family, in my marriage and in this church. I say no to good things because of a greater yes—because of my marriage to Lisa, because of time involvement I need with my kids, and also, because of my leadership development and speaking here at Fellowship. That’s just me. I say no 95% of the time. Boom! Subtraction.
So, what are you subtracting? What are you not doing? Because if you’re adding all the time, you’re going to be in trouble. You’ll move from a leadership position to a “leaderslip” position. Leadership, leadership, leadership.
COMMITMENT
Commitment is another factor in God’s subtraction. Whenever God does subtraction, it’s a test of a person’s commitment level. And let me move the story on. Let’s spur the horse to the barn, so to speak.
The Midianites had amassed this huge army and they were going to take on the Israelites. So Gideon amassed a big army, 32,000 people. Gideon thought, “Maybe we can take them. Maybe we can do it. God’s given me the vision. I’m the leader.”
Well, God does some weird subtraction. He says, “Gideon, I want you to subtract 22,000 guys from the army, guys who are fearful, guys who are scared.” So, they were gone. Gideon is now left with 10,000 to fight these crazy, mean-spirited Midianites. He only had 10,000.
God said, “Gideon, I’m not through with my math. We’re still working the problem, brother. I want you to take the 10,000 down to the river and watch them drink water, and put them into two separate groups. Put the dog lappers in one group—those soldiers who cup the water in their hand, and lap it like a dog and look around at the horizon line. You put them in group one. And group two; you put the soldiers who kind of just stick their head in the water. They don’t look up. They just drink. Put them in group two. Group one is the dog lappers. Group two is those who just dive in.”
Only three hundred men were dog lappers. Gideon was probably thinking, “Oh, I see where God is going with equation. He’s going to send these three hundred packing.”
Ninety-seven hundred put their head down in the water and drank. God said, “Gideon, I’ve got some new math for you. Send the 9700 home, back to the caves, back to the wine presses. Send them home.”
Gideon’s probably going, “God, I’ve got a question. I don’t understand this math. I need some help, God. I need a tutor, God.”
God said, “Stay with me now.”
So 9700 went home and Gideon had the three hundred dog lappers. Why did he choose the dog lappers? I thought about that for a long long time. I’m a Bible student, I went to Seminary and I’ve talked to some teachers and scholars and here’s why I believe that God chose the dog lappers. It’s just my opinion. The dog lappers were looking at the horizon line. They were visionaries. They were leaders. They were watching each other’s back. They were checking out the enemy. They were wondering, “Where are the Midianites?” The other men, the ones who just dove in head first to the water, they were just thinking about themselves.
They thought, “I’m thirsty,” and they just dove in.
We began Fellowship with a great core of dog lappers—people who were committed, people who were looking at the horizon line, people who were visionaries, people who were stepping out in leadership positions—dog lappers. As I told you last time, after Fellowship Church had been going for eighteen months, 90% of the people were subtracted from our church. Thankfully, they were added to other churches. But the dog lappers hung in here and they watched God replace those who were subtracted 10 to 1, 100 to 1 and in many circumstances, 1000 to 1.
God so often pairs us down, he cuts us down to where we know it’s a God thing. And that’s this next verse. Read with me Judges 7:2, “The Lord said to Gideon, ‘There are too many of you! I can’t let all of you fight the Midianites, for then the people of Israel will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength!’”
That’s how God has worked at Fellowship Church. None of us can say, “Oh, it’s my deal. It’s because of me or our staff.”
No, it’s a God thing. It’s a complete and total God thing. That’s the way God works. He’s put us in position after position after position, where only he can take us through, only he can take us to the next level. That is the way God works. Subtraction tests your commitment quotient, dog lappers.
Our financial office told me that 20% of the people give 80% of the money. Those are the dog lappers. What’s sad is that 80% of you are balking at God’s math. The Bible says, I didn’t say this, that God wants us to subtract 10% of everything we make from ourselves, and he wants us to add it to the local church. Most of us say, “Oh, I don’t understand that math.” The math is very simple, 10%. Am I going too fast? Ten percent. It got kind of quiet in here. Let me move on because whenever I talk about money, people freak out, “Oh….”
Let me tell you a great God story. You might have heard it; you might not have heard it. When our church was several years old, we thought we needed to find some land because we were in rented facilities. We would set up church, tear it down; set it up, tear it down; set it up, tear it down, every single weekend. It wore us out. Talk about dog lappers? Dog lappers were moving chairs, dog lappers were teaching classes, dog lappers were going here, there and yonder. [Ed barks like a dog] We had a bunch of dogs, man. I mean we had some serious dog lapping people. We still do right here at Fellowship Church. Don’t think we don’t.
So, we found this tract of land. Actually we stumbled on it. It was 160 acres in Grapevine. What? 160 acres?! What are we doing, building a golf course? We didn’t have the money for it. It was 2.5 million dollars. That’s a lot of money. So, we went back and we scraped up enough money to tie the land up, but we owed 1.875 million on the property. The problem is we didn’t have the money to build anything and we owed 1.875 million.
All of a sudden, the big gorillas started showing up. Grapevine Mills says, “We’re coming across the street.” Outdoor World says, “We’re coming too.” Then Opryland, “We’re coming too.” The value of our land shot up. And without a sign on the property, God subtracted 22 acres from it. A company bought 22 acres of our original 160 and they paid 1.875 million for the land. So, boom! All of a sudden, we own this tract of land free and clear. Now, it’s estimated to be worth 18 or 20 million dollars. It was a pretty good real estate deal. You know, God’s in the real estate business! Promised Land, Fellowship Church. That might be a shocker to you. But I wish I could tell you that we thought it up, but we didn’t know. It is a complete God thing, a complete God thing. Commitment.
CREATIVITY
Let me do another one, another factor—creativity. Talking about creativity, think about Gideon’s story. God said, “Uh, Gideon, we’re going to do some more subtraction. These 300 people, we’re not going to use swords. No, subtract those. We’re not going to use shields. Shields? You don’t need shields to fight. Bows and arrows? Forget that. Just find some trumpets. [Ed makes the trumpet sounds] And also some torches. That’s right, 300 torches and 300 trumpets. Subtract the real weapons. Torches and trumpets will do it for you.”
Don’t you know Gideon was thinking, “What? This math, God, I don’t understand it, God. I mean, that’s weird!”
Many times God works in weird and mysterious ways. Gideon was frightened, but God allowed him, I love this, to sneak into the Midian camp. All those Midianites were talking. And Gideon and his servant, Purah, began to listen to their conversations. And they heard this guy come out of his tent and say, “Man, I had this horrible dream! I dreamed that a loaf of barley rolled down the mountain and just tore us up!”
And his friend said this in Judges 7:14, “Your dream can mean only one thing! Gideon, the son of Joash, the Israeli, is going to come and massacre all of the allied forces of Midian!”
Gideon heard that, and if you read your Bible you’ll see that it says Gideon began to worship and it began to give him confidence. Let me tell you about this biblical principle. While God is doing subtraction; while God is doing vision casting, and leadership development; while God is looking at your commitment quotient and mine; when we get tyrannized and paralyzed by fear, if we listen to our enemies, even they will help us, even they will bless us, even they will tip us off on where God wants to take us. Is that cool? Man, that’s what happened.
Gideon took the trumpets and the torches, divided the 300 people up into these groups at night. They began to light the torch and [Ed makes the trumpet sound] of course, they won the battle and the Midianites freaked out.
We’ve got to subtract stuff and then we get to real creativity. And whenever you see God subtracting stuff, you see him using innovation. Whenever you see God subtracting stuff, the superfluous stuff, you see great creativity.
It would be easy for me to talk on Gideon for an hour and a half. I could diesel on and on and on. It would be easy for Rob and Vanessa and Eric to sing for four hours. But we respect your time too much. After about 55 minutes, like right about now, we begin to say, “Okay, is it about over?” We start to count lights and ceiling tiles, you know. Also, by what we don’t do, we do do a lot of stuff hopefully to communicate in great ways. And when that happens, then we see how God adds by subtraction.
A couple of weeks ago, Vanessa sang this great song and we had this great drama. But after the 5:00 service, we subtracted it. We had a meeting between services and we said, “You know, although it’s good, that doesn’t really support where we’re going.” So we subtracted it.
That’s when you get real creativity and real innovation. Don’t tell me what you’re saying; tell me what you’re not saying. Don’t tell me what you’re singing; tell me what you’re not singing. Don’t tell me what you have on the video; tell me what you didn’t show that ended up in the trash can, that you edited out. That’s greatness—subtraction.
YOU
You—that’s the fifth factor. God needs you and he needs me. He wants you and he wants me because he loves us. He’s crazy about us. I know we’re ill-equipped and unprepared. That’s the way it is. We’re humans. We’re sinners. But God wants us.
So, I’ve got to ask you, what do you need to subtract from your life? Maybe you’ve never tithed before. Maybe you need to subtract a relationship that’s messing you up. I think Satan puts about five or six people in everybody’s life to subtract all the energy from us so that we walk around like we are in a coma because we are just totally drained dry. Who do you need to subtract from your life? I don’t know. God does.
Let me take it deeper. Have you ever prayed the sin subtraction prayer before? Did you hear me? A sin subtraction prayer. That’s the Gospel. The Gospel is all about subtraction. The Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, co-existent, co-eternal. God subtracted his Son from the glories of heaven. Jesus lived a perfect life, right? He died a sacrificial death, he did the work on the cross, and he subtracted sin. He solved the problem. The math works. And Jesus offers us eternal life. At this point, we either bow the knee and say, “That math works. I receive it.” Or, we don’t. It’s your decision, your personal decision. I can’t make it for you. I can’t force you to do it. I cannot manipulate you. It’s between you and God. I can tell you how to do it, but I can’t make you do it. It’s the same way with you concerning me. It’s my choice, my decision, my call.
Many people, instead of coming to Christ, do the compare and contrast thing. They say, “You know, I’m a lot better than her. She’s a spectacular sinner compared to me. I mean, I’m a lot better than her. I really am.”
Or they say, “Oh, I’m better than him. This guy? Come one, man, I’m better than him.”
I said it a couple of weeks ago. That’s why we love those tabloid television shows. They show the dark side of the movie stars that we envy and it makes us feel better about ourselves.
We think, “Oh, I’m a lot better than Jennifer Aniston. I would never do that. Adam Sandler? I’m better. I’m better. I really am.”
Then we justify it by saying, “And God, you know, grades on this cosmic curve. I’ll graduate in the top third in my moral class, and at the end of my life when I die, he will say, ‘Hey, you were good, you were a nice guy. Come on into heaven.’”
Well, see, that math doesn’t work. It might work for you, but that’s not God’s math. I hate to rain on your mathematical parade, but you’re going to hell if you believe that.
Others say, “Well, I’ll just reinvent God. My God would not hurl anybody to hell, Ed. Not my God.”
Well, God does not hurl anybody to hell. We make that choice. It does not say that God hurls people to hell in the Bible.
You may be shocked and think, “Man, I didn’t know that.”
See, that’s your math. Sometimes we just reinvent God.
We say, “You know, I’ll just pick a God that supports my lifestyle. I know I’m living in rebellion before God and I’m doing this and doing that, so I’ll just pick a God that supports what I’m doing. My God wouldn’t do that.”
Well, that’s fine. That’s your math. But see, the ultimate math is God’s math. You can believe it or not. It’s your choice to either accept it or not, but God’s math works and God is crazy about you. He sent Christ to do the sin subtraction thing and he says, “I want you to be a part of my equation.”
Think about this. Think about the crucifixion of Jesus. He was dying on the cross. He was crucified between two common criminals, right?
One criminal said, “Hey, Jesus, you know, I want to follow you, etc. etc.”
And Christ said, “From this day forward, you will spend eternity with me in paradise. I will add you to the kingdom right now. You’re in. You’re there. Bam!”
What did the other one do? The other one said, “No,” cursing at Christ, blah, blah, blah. This other guy was only a few feet away from salvation, a few feet away from knowing the Ultimate, yet he balked at it.
You know, it would be so tragic for someone to come to Fellowship Church, to sit in one of these beautiful theatre seats, to engage in a service like we’ve had today, and end up in hell. Wouldn’t that be horrible? It would be terrible. You sat and heard the Bible. You sat and heard the Gospel. Yet, you just said, “No, sorry.”
I want to challenge you to pray a sin subtraction prayer. I want to challenge you to pray, “Jesus Christ, I believe you died on the cross for my sins. I believe you did the work that I can’t do, that I couldn’t do. And I turn from my sins and I receive you.”
He wants to meet you right where you are. Come as you are. Come as you are because God wants to unfold his vision, his leadership, his commitment and his creativity in every life here. So don’t tell me what you’re adding. Tell me what you’re subtracting. Because the last time I checked, God is still counting and he wants to count you in. Let’s pray together.