Well, I want to welcome you who are worshiping with us on our campuses, I want to welcome
you who are listening or watching online, television, and here in this worship service.
Well, today I want to talk to you about casting.
Now, I don't know if you're much of a fisherman or not, but I remember growing up as a young
kid learning how to fish.
That was something that our family did.
I remember going to the coast fishing on the beach, but my first fishing experience happened
to be with a cane pole, you know, just an old cane pole, and those were easy to cast.
You just take the line and you just kind of toss it out there and wait for that cork to
go down and you catch fish.
And then I graduated to a regular bait cast reel, and that was kind of a difficult thing
because that was before the days of push button reels.
And I had so many birds' nests in that bait casting reel, I have ruined hundreds if not
thousands of yards of line, especially learning how to cast, trying to keep the line from
backing up.
And then the spin cast came about where you open up the bail and you hold onto the line
with your finger and you cast.
Fishing has always been part of my experience.
If I can't hunt, I want to fish for sure.
I have had more hours fishing without catching, but part of the enjoyment happens to be just
simply casting your lure, taking your line, and throwing it in the specific place where
you want it to go.
And that's exactly what I want to talk to you about today.
I want you to focus in on the perfect cast.
And you're going to understand here in a moment, but you've got to go with me here for a moment.
About 20 years ago, when I went to Colorado to plant a church, and subsequently we planted
several churches, I decided that one thing for sure was that our family was not going
to starve.
I could at least fish.
And one of the exciting things about it was there was a lot of water, a lot of cold water,
which meant a lot of trout.
I don't know if you saw the movie, A River Runs Through It, but boy, that grabbed hold
of my heart and my wife's heart.
And we thought, man, maybe that's where God wants us up in the mountains to plant a church.
And that's exactly what happened.
But I had never fly fished in my life.
And I'll never forget the first time I got a hold of a fly rod, I just couldn't get the
line to go very far.
I mean, it just kind of went out there, and more I took out of it, I mean, it just wouldn't
go anywhere.
And I decided that one thing was for sure.
If I couldn't fish like a fly fisherman, I was going to at least look like one.
And so I bought all the gear, the krill, which is the bag to hold the fish in.
And I bought a bunch of flies and made sure I had a fly rod that I felt like was significantly
good for me.
And my friend and I began to fish a great deal.
But man, we just couldn't get that line to go out there.
We couldn't get it out far as you are out in the auditorium.
I mean, it was really frustrating.
But we'd catch some fish, and it was okay for a while.
However, one thing was for sure, God wasn't going to allow me to stay in that posture
of incompetence very long.
There was a guy that came to our office, his name was Tom, and he looked at me, and Charlie
Jones, who was our associate pastor there, and he said, I understand you guys really
want to fish.
And he said, you talk about fishing, you've used that as an illustration, and how's your
casting going?
I said, oh, man, it's going bad.
Man, it's really bad.
I'm having trouble.
He said, I happen to be a fly fishing guide.
He said, I grew up in Montana, and I have guided all over Montana and Wyoming and northern
Colorado.
And if you guys want to learn how to cast, I'll teach you.
In fact, I'll teach you how to tie some flies, and man, we were going, God sent you here.
And so we were excited because he began to teach us some things that I had never learned
about fly fishing.
Though I had read some stuff and watched some stuff, I just couldn't get the technique
down.
But then all of a sudden, I realized it wasn't that hard.
And there was kind of a mystique going during that time.
Fly fishing was just starting to really become something that was popular.
And so what he did, he took us down to the Arkansas River outside the Royal Gorge, and
we began to practice.
And when he showed us how he could cast, I was amazed.
He was casting all the way across the river.
I mean, from one bank to the other bank, he was casting.
In fact, he was casting all the way, way past from the platform all the way to the back
of the auditorium with just a line.
Casting but a fly on the line.
That was it.
A little bitty fly, not a lie fly, but an artificial fly that he tied on the line.
Now I don't have a fly on here because I didn't want to hook any of you, even though some
of you probably need to be hooked.
But I wanted to kind of show you a couple of things that I learned so that you can learn
how to make the perfect cast.
In fact, it's something that doesn't come naturally, by the way.
And so I just wanted to talk to you about that this morning and kind of give you a glimpse.
You know, when you first learn to cast, there's a couple of things you need to focus in on.
Number one, your arm position.
First of all, you want to keep your wrist firm.
You don't want to go back and down because what will happen is you'll just go like that
and you'll end up popping the line just like you heard it pop just right then.
And that doesn't do too much.
You're supposed to keep it tight.
But also, if you think about the circulation of your arm, you want to think about two numbers,
ten and two.
You don't want to go past ten and you don't want to go past two.
So right here is at the top.
And so taking the line back and forward is very important.
And it's the top of the line or rather the top of the rod that throws the line.
Now what I'm doing right now is shadow casting.
He's going up and back.
In fact, it was a lot of fun when we first started doing this.
I met a doctor.
In fact, we had a bunch of physicians in our church in Pueblo.
And one of them, I'm not going to tell you his name, I don't want to embarrass him, but
he loved to fly fish.
And when he was first starting, he would practice shadow casting and he would keep his head
up and watch the line go backwards and forwards and he was focusing on doing that.
I mean, he had the perfect technique, but the problem was the more he kept looking,
the dizzier he got.
And he literally made himself sick.
And well, he needed a doctor based up on what happened there.
But he loved to fish.
And that's a problem is that many of us, we think it's all about the cast, but it's
not because what you want to do is to be able to put that line in a very specific spot
a very specific spot, because casting is not about shadow casting about taking it going
back and forth back and forth and just going, oh man, I look good, you know, I can make
it happen.
But what happens is you don't catch any fish, you don't catch any fish unless you put the
fly in the water.
And it's really easy to forget your technique every once in a while.
Because when you forget that technique and you begin to get sloppy with where your hand
happens to be or your arm, you can't cast the line as far as you would like to cast it.
Now, some of you are going, man, you may hit me, no, I'm not, I would like to, but maybe
I won't, because it's a very specific thing about what's going to happen, because you
want to know exactly where that line will lie.
Now, I'm not here to talk to you about double hauling and other stuff about fly fishing
or doing a rollover cast.
That's not where I want to take you today.
But what I do want you to understand is that God wants you to make the perfect cast in
your life.
And it's not going to come easy.
It's going to come with a specific focus in your life.
Why don't you take your Bibles, if you will, and turn to 1st Peter chapter five, 1st Peter
chapter five.
You're going to understand why I have entitled this message today, the perfect cast.
Here's what it says, 1st Peter chapter five, verse seven, cast all your anxiety on him
because he cares for you.
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Today, you know where I'm going.
I want to talk to you about anxiety.
During this time of year, people get more anxious than any other times.
You know, often it's after, right after the turn of the year, that people have a tendency
to get hopeless and helpless and feel like there's no end in sight.
That's when hospitals often deal with a lot of individuals who may overdose or try to
end their life because they feel like everything is hopeless.
And the depression and the anxiety that's surrounding this season of the year as a new
year begins often overpowers people.
It's a time when bills come due and a new year, sometimes with a lot of hope or sometimes
with not much hope, people have a tendency to face.
And sometimes great hope overpowers people and no hope overpowers people.
As a believer in Jesus Christ, your following Jesus as his disciple should make a difference
in your life.
Can you agree that this means yes, this means I'm not really sure.
You know, a lot of us, we don't think like that.
We think, well, Jesus, well, we're just following him.
But the bottom line is, if you're truly following Christ, what is coming out of your life should
be different and how you handle things ought to be different from those who do not follow
Christ.
And one of the key areas in our lives that creates all kinds of problems happens to be
the issue of anxiety.
We get overpowered with things.
And quite honestly, quite frankly, just because you follow Christ doesn't mean that you're
not going to deal with some stuff in your life.
Doesn't mean that you're not going to have financial problems or chemical problems or
relationship problems, which often leads to chemical problems.
It doesn't mean that just because you follow Jesus that you will not have to deal with
some stress in your life.
But how you deal with the stress in your life ought to be biblically focused and driven
and Christ centered.
Today, I just really want to teach you how to make the perfect cast and get you to be
able to put that line of your life in the perfect place and that is on Christ, on Him.
That is the perfect cast.
When you're able, somehow or another, to take your life and to take all of your cares and
all of the burdens in your heart and in your life and lay them on Christ to the place that
you do not take them back again.
A lot of us say, well, I gave that to the Lord and then I gave it to Him again and I gave
it to Him again and I gave it to Him again and I've been praying about it over and over
and over again.
The problem is, many of us, we lay it on Jesus and we take it back from Him because we're
afraid He's not doing anything about it.
I'm here today to tell you that God has a plan for you.
I want to read to you two different passages of Scripture.
The very first one happens to be the classic passage that is mentioned in Matthew chapter
six, Matthew chapter six, and why don't you go there in your Bibles?
Matthew six, Jesus begins to speak and this is, by the way, in the middle of the Sermon
on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew five, six, and seven and at the end of chapter six,
starting with verse 25, we read these words from Jesus, therefore I tell you, do not worry
about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more important than food or the body more important than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air.
They do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not much more valuable than they?
Can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life or why do you worry about
clothes?
Do you see how the flowers of the field grow?
They do not labor or spin yet I tell you that not even Solomon and all of his splendor was
dressed like one of these.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is
thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?
So do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear
for the pagans run after all these things and your Heavenly Father knows that you need
them but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you
as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
What a great passage and then Paul would not leave that alone as well.
And there in Philippians chapter 4 he writes these wonderful words that I want to share
with you this morning.
There in chapter 4 verse 4 and following he writes, Rejoice to the Lord always.
I will say it again, rejoice.
Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving
present your request to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Many brothers and sisters whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever
is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think
about such things.
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me put it into practice
and the God of peace will be with you.
Wow.
These three passages that I have read to you today out of 1 Peter, out of Matthew chapter
6 and now in Philippians chapter 4 come together for us to help us make the perfect cast.
And I want to give you a couple of principles that are very, very important and at the very
end I want to give you some practical things that you can do to make sure that you make
the perfect cast.
First thing I want to share with you is that you personally decide if you will fish or
just shadow cast.
You personally decide whether you will fish or just shadow cast.
Some of you are going, man that doesn't sound like a biblical point, oh yes it is.
Let me tell you something, I really believe that if Jesus were walking in our culture
today and the kinds of men that he would choose to invite to follow him would be probably
fly fisherman, honestly.
He knew how to relate to people and he uses illustrations in Scripture that were connected
to nature and for you and for me when it comes to anxiety and worry we decide whether we
will fish or just shadow cast.
You remember what I told you shadow casting was?
Shadow casting is when you take the line and you just kind of go back and forth, man it
may look good and you may be able to get that line way out there but it goes nowhere and
this is exactly what worrying is all about.
You just kind of go back and forth, I don't care, I don't know what I'm going to do about
those bills and I don't know if she loves me or he hates me, I don't know what I'm going
to do about this or that, my job, oh man I don't know what's going to happen and my health,
oh man I've got pain in my back, I've got pain in my stomach, I've got pain in my feet,
oh there's a pain in my head and many of us that's all we do, we just kind of go back
and forth and man it just seems to be the thing to do and we look good at doing it because
everybody else is doing it but you don't, you're going to starve if you're a fisherman
and this is all you do, you may look like you can fish but you'll never catch any fish
because there's no fish up here, it's just shadow casting but what God wants you to
do is to be able to put the line in the right spot to have the perfect cast in your life
and you can shadow cast or you can place your life in the hands of God, you can trust Jesus
with your life or you can just keep spinning, you and I personally decide what we will do,
there's some people that if they're not worrying, they're worrying about worrying honestly and
even believers and sadly that's what the world does and as a child of God listening to these
verses that speak to us over and over again, we need to realize that what we do with our
thought life is very, very important, I love Proverbs 15, 15 that says this, all the days
of the oppressed are wretched but the cheerful heart has a continual feast, your heart how
you think what you do with your thoughts will make the difference immeasurably in the quality
of your life and nothing will rob the quality of your life than choosing to worry and you
and I, we make that choice every day and Jesus is saying to us, don't do that, don't do that,
the apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit is saying be anxious about a couple of things,
it's okay for you to worry about this, no he said be anxious about what, nothing, now
let me ask you a question, are you a shadow caster just kind of focusing on things and
worrying about this, worrying about the political landscape, worrying about the future, worrying
about the stocks, worrying about this or that, when people think about you, do they think
about someone who is balanced and at peace or when they think about you, are you so
angst and wound up, now quite frankly there are some people who are wound up on the inside
tighter than a drum and they don't act like it, but their thought life is constantly intention
and that will not produce the kind of character and lifestyle that God wants, do not explain
that away as that's just the way you are or that's just how you've always been, the scripture
tells us that you and I choose how we will be, so therefore you need to understand this
weight is on you about what you do with you and your thought life and you either decide
to be a shadow caster constantly worrying or you put your life in the hands of God,
the second thing I want you to understand is that there is always someone your actions
will influence, you may want to put a slash and words too, there is always someone that
your actions and your words will influence, Jesus compared people who worried with the
pagans, Paul says let your generous be evident to all, how you handle your anxiety influences
people, and let me tell you something, the reason why I know a lot about anxiety is because
I was raised in a home where anxiety was the order of the day, I love my mom but she had
the gift, now let's put it the curse of anxious thoughts, I'm telling you she was the biggest
warrior always, always, I mean she would worry honestly if she didn't have something to worry
about, I'll never forget when my first born son Jonathan was about five years old we let
him spend the weekend with his grandmother and he came back home anxious, in fact his
one thing was that he wanted to watch the weather channel, remember we lived on the
Gulf Coast and he was worried about tornadoes, hurricanes would be our lot, tornadoes not
so much but when he came home from spending time with my mom he was anxious about the
weather at five years old, let me tell you something, your life and how you express yourself
about everything has an influence especially on your kids, let's face it, I'm not here
to put any pressure on you or to give you any guilt but let's be really honest our kids
are born in this world without any problems, they're okay, we're the ones that jack them
up, honestly they pick up our stuff most of the time, now I understand yeah there's some
chemical things that occur and there's some genetic precursors that make some people more
prone to this or that but by and large when it comes to behavior our kids emulate us and
especially in this area and honestly I had to deal with this, I constantly have to deal
with this area of anxious thoughts, Jesus spoke to people who were following him and
he dealt with this, you know why?
Because just because you're a believer doesn't mean that you're not going to have some anxious
thoughts, if I were to take a survey today many of you would say yeah I'm really concerned
about this, this and this, now there's some things you ought to be concerned about but
concerned enough to do something, if you can do something about something do it, just focusing
on it and running that scenario over and over and over and over in your mind literally is
going to rob you of some good night's sleep and it's going to rob you of your health and
it's going to spiral you down to the place that you can affect your own chemistry because
of how you get yourself thinking so therefore you decide personally whether you're going
to be a shadow caster, being a worrier or you're going to fish and you need to realize
that your behavior, your actions, your words always influence someone and third I'm going
to tell you you need to trust the Lord's guiding hand, you just need to come to the
place to where you're actually putting faith in God's love for you, His hand upon you,
you need to trust His guiding hand upon your life, your life and the direction of your
life God knows and regardless of what you've done that you may have thought has messed
your life up I need to tell you that you can never get so far away from God even with your
bad choices that He doesn't care for you, He cares for you and He can take you wherever
you are to get you to where you need to be and you need to trust His guiding hand upon
your life and the Scripture tells us from the words of Jesus in Matthew 6 basically
He's saying don't you know that the Lord cares for you?
If He would clothe the birds of the air and take care of the lilies of the field, don't
you think He cares about you?
You're worth more than they are Jesus is saying.
You and I sometimes don't believe that but the truth is we are more important to Him
than grass, more important to Him than birds and many of us just don't believe that we
are either worthy of that love and attention or many of us believe maybe we are but somehow
another He has forgotten us and that's not the truth.
That's faulty thinking, stinking thinking like that will create more problems in your
life than you can ever imagine.
Jesus says simply He knows you need these things in your life, what to wear, how to
survive financially, what food you're going to eat.
He knows what you need and you need to trust Him to meet those needs in your life and you
choose whether you'll trust Him or not.
You choose whether you're going to be anxious or you're going to place your life right smack
dab into the palm of His hand.
Say Paul was saying there in Philippians 4-5, for the Lord is near, for the Lord is near.
I love Romans 8.
Romans 8 is a great passage and there are some wonderful passages that you can focus
upon.
One of the things Paul said in Romans 8, he said, for I am convinced that neither death
nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers,
neither height nor death, nor anything else and all creation will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate you from God but you're worrying being a shadow caster will make you
think that you are separate from the love of God and it will cause you to think that
God doesn't care about you and make you think that it's all about you rather than all about
Him.
You need to trust God's hand upon your life.
We used to sing a little song Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so little
ones to Him belong they are weak but He is strong yes Jesus loves me.
Sometimes as you get older you don't think He does.
I want you to say out loud right now regardless of what campus you are on or if you're at
home or here in this auditorium would you say out loud right now with me Jesus loves
me with the emphasis on me say it out loud Jesus loves me.
How about adding this phrase Jesus cares about me why don't you say that Jesus cares about
me He actually does and I pray that you're verbalizing that will help you understand
God wants you to move in that direction.
You need to trust God's hand upon your life regardless of where you are regardless of
what you're going through regardless if you've made some bad decisions in your life sometimes
we worry about decisions that we have made and then we feel like we don't have a right
to trust God to get us out we got ourselves in we got to get ourselves out no that's not
how it works He cares about you He cares about you and even the bad decisions possibly that
you have made.
So let me go to the very last thing and that is you need to practice correct technique
as I told you had Tom not come into my office that day and invited me to learn how to fish
and to get some some pointers from him I probably would have never been able to fly fish I
fish with some people who fly fish but who have terrible technique and they just can't
get that line out there and you've got to do some some correct things how you hold the
rod how far you take it back waiting on the rod to load up at the top to where it throws
the line I don't know if you know this but at the very top I don't know if you can see
this but this top of this line this rod rather this line is wiggling because the rod is very
very flexible and that's what throws the line I don't throw the line the top of the rod
throws the line and I just get to do the right things to make sure the top of that rod throws
the line and I just keep pulling rod the line out and as long as you don't step on it like
I just did you can cast a far distance I got to the place to where I could cast all the
way to the backing of the line through the line and wave much further you just had to
wait a little bit longer and keep things in line you just need to have proper technique
and so therefore I want to tell you there are several things that would be considered
proper technique in this aspect of conquering anxiety in your life I want to give them to
you there's about four things number one resist emotional panic resist emotional panic all
of these passages that I've read emphasize that Jesus is saying don't worry Pa was saying
don't be anxious when you have those moments that your thoughts overwhelm you you need to
take control of that overwhelming feeling at that point and resist your thoughts from
overpowering you and when you find yourself moving to the place that you're just churning
you need to stop and take charge don't allow your thoughts to control you you control your
thoughts resist the emotional panic don't allow yourself to go there number two respond
first in prayer respond first in prayer Paul says in Philippians 4 6 but in everything
submit your request to God your request submit him to him and then instead of going oh what
am I going to do about this what am I going to do about this say oh God what are you going
to do about this you hear me prayer should be as natural as believing instead of you
carrying the weight of it ask God what he's going to do about it and what he wants you
to do about it Dr. Alex Carell once said by the way he was a Nobel Prize winner he said
prayer is the most powerful form of energy that one can generate the influence of prayer
on the human mind and body is demonstrable as that of secreting glands its results can
be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy greater intellectual vigor moral
stamina and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationships as
a physician I have seen men after all other therapy had failed lifted out of disease and
melancholy by the severe effort of prayer it is the only power in the world that seems
to overcome the so-called laws of nature that's why the scripture tells us and everything
submit your request to God so react in prayer turn away and resist the thoughts that would
churn and instead turn them into prayer and where you actually leave it at the throne
and you back away many of us have heard people go man I gave it to God but then I had to
give it to him again and again and again somehow or another we just need to learn how to emotionally
spiritually lay that request at the throne and back away Jesus knows we have that issue
but when you layer a request at God I want you to know the moment you let go of it he
hears you the first time you don't have to shout you don't have to go over and over
and over again but you need to say Lord I thank you that you're in charge of this Lord
I thank you that you're going to take care of this and you're going to show me and give
me direction of how to handle this instead of going God I want you to handle it I want
you to handle it I want you to handle it I want you to handle it after you ask him to
take it begin to thank him that he's got it and that is very very important in the aspect
of prayer number three recite positive thoughts recite positive thoughts that's what Paul
says quite frankly in Philippians 4 8 he said finally brothers whatever is true whatever
is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely lovely admirable if anything
is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things in other words focus on the positive
you go how do you focus on positive when you don't have any money to pay the bills well
thank the Lord you're not going to have to pay as much in tax turn it around quite frankly
you go I don't have enough to eat well thank the Lord you're going to get a chance to be
on a diet there is a way to spend anything you know I'm miserable at my job thank the
Lord that he's trying to teach you something and maybe by that he's trying to help you
be open for the next step in your life in other words take charge and focus in on the
positive in your life this is not positive thinking trying to work up and many people
think that's what faith is that's just thinking real positive things no it is taking charge
of your mind and choosing to see the best in the midst of it all regardless you know
you look at Jesus and his entire ministry was he anxious no there's not one moment in
time you find him wringing his hands going I don't know what I'm going to do Lord what's
going to happen here he was in perfect peace he moved from peace to peace and he knew he
only had three and a half years of public ministry ahead of him but he made time to
refresh his body and refresh his soul and spend time with his disciples a lot of times
you find him just saying let's get away and get some rest and his focus was always taking
the spin and making sure it was positive and you and I we can choose how we will think
and Jesus is giving us some good glimpse a good glimpse here and Matthew and Paul in
Philippians about choosing to think about the positive things focus don't dwell on the
negative you go I don't I don't have a girlfriend thank the Lord you're not having to spending
money on dates think about how much money you're saving there you know there you can
always take the spin and move it to the positive and you go I've never done that well practice
doing that so important last of all I want to share with you rehearse good examples
maybe you didn't have a great example growing up maybe like me you had a parent that was
a very anxious person they did the best they could my mom went through a whole lot in her
entire life and she did the best she could let me tell you something if you don't have
a great example find some good examples find some people of peace find some people who
are gentle and who seem to be even in their life emulate them emulate them Paul said this
whatever you've seen of me or are heard in me or are watch me emulate those things copy
those things now not all of us can say that in this area of anxiety but you need to find
somebody that can help you I probably would have never fully learned to fly fish had not
time come into the office that day man and I tell you what I enjoy this this kind of
stuff because after hunting season it's fishing season and for us well we have to drive a
whole lot further to fish than when I used to live in Colorado but the purpose of casting
is to catch something it is isn't it you're to catch something now what are you as a believer
to try to catch I tell you what God wants you to catch peace his peace in fact the scripture
tells us very clearly here Matthew 6 and the God of peace will be with you seek you first
his kingdom his rule and he will give you peace in fact that's what Paul says to and
the God of peace will be with you that's what you're trying to catch when you are trying
to make the perfect cast to stop worrying you're trying to catch God's peace and hook
up with that let me ask you a question do you have God's peace right now as a believer
I know many of you you're going through life right now and some of you you love Jesus with
all your heart but you're anxious with all your mind right now the pressures of your
job what some of your family members are going through what some of you are going through
just robs you of the peace of God and your longing for peace it happens when you make
the perfect cast and you choose to literally shift everything everything that would burden
you right now and place it on him because he does care for you why don't you bow your
heads would you do this what's the one thing that's really got your mind stirred up is
it a family member is it a business situation is it your health is it money a relationship
you got it why don't you just breathe this prayer oh God I don't want to worry about
feeling the blank and right now I give the situation to you and I am stepping back from
the altar and when I mention it to you again Lord I'm going to thank you that you're in
charge help me oh God not lay to lay my hands on it again I want your peace and your confidence
to overtake me from this point on in Jesus name maybe you're not a believer then you
don't know the peace of God that passes all understanding you'll never be able to find
peace until you give your life to Christ he's the one that can make peace between you and
God and if that's your desire to give your life to Christ make this your prayer dear
heavenly Father I am tired of wrestling with my life I'm tired of caring my sin I want
to thank you Jesus for dying on the cross and coming alive again thank you for shedding
your blood to forgive me and cleanse me and make me yours I receive you your forgiveness
right now would you take residence in my life right now I want you to consume my thoughts
my life my focus I want to be totally committed to you from here on out thank you for saving
me help me live like I am in Jesus name I pray amen thank you for joining us online you
can now join us for worship at one of several Westside locations Westside now has a campus
on West Dodge Road in Fremont and in Elkhorn you could also join us for worship on Sundays
live online at WChurch.tv more information about the new Westside locations and the ministries
of Westside Church can be found at WChurch.tv
