Adrian Rogers - Family Faith
Now take God's Word and find Hebrews chapter 11 and in a moment we're going to begin reading in verse 23. We're talking about faith for the family. Hebrews chapter 11 verses 23 to 27, "By faith, Moses, when he was born was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible".
Now folks, listen to your pastor today. God wants the home to be the primary classroom to raise boys and girls and it must be done, it must be done by faith. The Bible says in Matthew 9:29, "According to your faith, be it unto you". Today we're going to look a little bit into the lives of two forgotten heroes in the Bible. Many of you have probably never even heard their names. One is Amram and the other is Jochebed. These are not really familiar names but they were powerful people because they were the mother and father of Moses. They were just powerless slaves, so to speak. They were under the tormenting chains of Egyptian bondage. There seemed to be very little they could do and yet they did the thing that every mother, father ought to do; they raised a child by faith.
Parents, listen to me today. The most powerful and influential people on the Earth are mothers and fathers of faith. And we're talking today about the family faith. Faith for the family. Now, from the passage of Scripture that we have before us today, I want to write four things upon your heart about raising children by faith. And I pray God that not only will they be written upon the tablets of your heart, they will also be riveted into your mind. And here's the first thought I want to give you; faith sees every child as special, faith sees every child as special. Look in Hebrews 11 verse 23, "By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents," now watch this, "because they saw that he was a proper child".
Now different translations give that different ways. Taylor's translation is that they saw that God had given them, "An unusual child". Some translations give it that he was, "A beautiful baby". Well, all of this just simply says that God had a plan for Moses. Moses was special. But now listen, every baby on Earth is special. Now don't miss this. Every baby on Earth is special. God has a plan for every child that is born on planet Earth. And what you need to do is what, do what Amram and Jochebed did, wait before God until God gives you a dream, a vision for your child, wait before God until you can see that your child is a special child.
I remember when my first born came into this world. Joyce and I had a little boy. We named him Steve, Steven, which means "Crowned one". He was named after the first Christian martyr and I'll never forget that ordeal as Joyce told me in the middle of the night; I don't know why these guys are always born in the middle of the night, but she gave me that elbow and she said, "Adrian, something's happening. I believe that it's time". Well, as a youngster in college, and we were in college, and I remember we were living in a little house trailer. And I remember getting up out of that little house trailer and we had no telephone in the house trailer. And going out into the darkness and trying to get into the little community there where there was a phone and it was all locked up so tight. My heart was about to jump out of my throat and I was petrified.
You know, fathers ought never have to go through all of this. But, I couldn't get in to call the doctor and tell him that we were coming. And so I had to go and jimmy a window and get a window open so I could dive in and I barked my shins going over the windowsill going in there, then when I got in there I found out it was a pay phone and I had to go back out and into the house trailer to get a dime to make that phone call to call the doctor at the Fish Memorial Hospital there in Deland, Florida. Finally, Steven was born and the doctor let me see him, that little boy, and I remember that little fleck of blood right there on his cheek and his head was, his little old hair was dark and kind of all over his head and I looked at him and I thought, "Boy, he's ugly. I thought I would have a better looking son than that". I mean he improved, but I'm telling you folks, but I was so happy, I was so thrilled.
I remember kissing Joyce and praising her, going home and getting on my knees and I prayed one of the most sincere prayers I've ever prayed. I said, "Oh, God, if I never do anything good, if I never succeed in anything else, dear God, I want to be a good daddy". I meant that with all of my heart and other than my love for the Lord Jesus Christ and my love for my wife, is this priority in my life; to see my children, our children as special. They are a gift from God, and it is our joy to take these children and to raise them by faith and to nurture them up according to the vision that God gives us for our children.
One of my life's verses, would you jot it down in your margin, is this, Psalm 112 verses 1 and 2, "Praise ye the Lord, blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in His commandments. His seed," now that simply means his children, "shall be mighty upon Earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed". I want to raise up mighty children. Now, Amram and Jochebed raised mighty children. I want my children to be mighty children. This is not merely a promise to some, it's a promise to all who fear the Lord in this world. Now, you see, God gives us these little children to mold and to make. A man came into a village one time, he'd never been there, and he said to somebody living in that village, "Any great men born here"? And the old man said, "No, just babies".
Great men are not born, great men are made, they are nurtured. Moses was just a little baby, but you see, the Bible says it was by faith that they even saw that he was a special child. Did you know that not only can we believe God for our children, we must believe God for our children? There was a man who had a boy who was demon possessed and tormented, you can read about it in Mark chapter 9 verses 14 through 29, and he came to Jesus and he said to Jesus, "Lord, if You can do something for my child, do it". And the Lord Jesus said, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes". That is, God did not put the burden upon the child to believe, God put the burden upon the parent to believe. We can believe for our children. That boy was not in a position to believe at that particular time. He needed somebody to have faith for him.
I have decided to have faith for my children. My children are special. Your children are special. Faith sees every child as special. You remember that classic verse in Proverbs 22 verse 6, "Train up a child in the way that he should go and he will not depart from it". Now, every child is different. The word way in that passage of Scripture is the idea of a bend in a bow. That is, every child has his or her special bent. Sometimes I thought some of mine were not only bent but warped, but they all have a special bent, they have a special way. Joyce and I have four children on Earth. We have a little boy in Heaven, but sometimes when I look at the idiosyncrasies and the different talents, desires, and proclivities in our children, I wonder if we are the parents of all four of them. I mean, they are so different and yet they are so much the same.
I've watched the proclivities. From his earliest years, our eldest son Steven has been interested in music. I sat down and taught him a little finger melody when he was just, I think, four years old, on the piano and from that time on he could not get himself away from the piano, just playing the piano, listening, writing music. And we have little songs that he wrote even before he started going to school because music was just simply something that was in the heart of that child. Now I didn't try to say, "Now son, forget the music, I want you to be an engineer or whatever". No, because that's not his bent. And then along came little David, our missionary son. Our son Steven is an ordained minister of music, but we have another son, David, and I noticed that David had a certain proclivity, he had a certain bent.
David would look at maps and study maps, David would memorize ZIP codes. Why would a boy memorize ZIP codes of different places? One day before we were going to take a trip from one side of this nation to another and David was just a child, maybe in the second grade, I can't remember what age, but we were trying to figure out what route we would take. And David said, "Well I would go through Florida and then Alabama and then I would go through Mississippi", and he had a route all the way picked out and he had everything in sequence, exactly right. And I thought, "How does he know that"? He had memorized, he knew all the states, he knew all the directions, he knows the maps of the world and now he's a world traveler.
God's called him to be a missionary. That's just simply his bent. I noticed our daughter Gayle, she's a fierce competitor, fierce competitor. Unless you're excellent, don't ever play her in table tennis. She makes a table tennis ball look like an aspirin when it comes over there and if one of them hits you it'll leave a hole in your chest and she's just a fierce competitor. She's got an organizational mind and she has an entrepreneurial spirit about her and Gayle has an insight into people's problems. She's a wonderful counselor and that's what she's doing now, she's helping other people in businesses and so forth as she works along with Mike in their home business and that's just her bent. She's so unlike Steve and she's so unlike David and they're unlike Gayle. And then along comes Janice. Janice, the girl who is the romanticist. She loves songs, she loves music, she loves Scripture memorization. She has such a nurturing spirit, such a kindness, such a gentleness, such a tender heart.
Now, in some ways Gayle and Janice are so different. Gayle the aggressor, Janice the nurturer. But you know one thing about them? They all love Jesus and they all love mom and dad. That's wonderful, that's wonderful. You see, they're so different, but they are so much the same because they love the Lord Jesus Christ. Your child has a bent, your child has a proclivity. Friend, I want to tell you, they don't come in standard packages and you'd better read the label. You'd better read the label and find out how God made those particular children. Faith sees every child as special. Faith sees every child as special. You look at your little child and you say, "This child is a special child". You see that by faith. The Bible says, "By faith they saw that he was a proper child".
Now do you have that? All right, now let's move on to the next point. Not only does faith see every child as special, faith sees every conflict as spiritual, faith sees every conflict as spiritual. Now notice, look in Hebrews 11 verse 23, "By faith, Moses, when he was born was hid three months of his parents because they saw that he was a proper child and was not afraid of the king's commandment". Well what was the king's commandment? Put down there Exodus 1 verse 22, "And Pharaoh charged all his people saying, 'Every son that is born, ye shall cast into the river and every daughter ye shall save alive.'" The king's commandment was, "Kill all the little boy babies". This was a conflict, but you see, Amram and Jochebed saw that this conflict was a spiritual conflict. It was not a conflict between Jews and Egyptians. It was not a conflict between parents and a potentate. It was a conflict between light and dark, between the spirit of God and the spirit of wickedness.
Now parents you need to understand this. Write down Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood," now old Pharaoh was flesh and blood, "but we wrestle not against flesh but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness". Against spiritual wickedness. Faith sees every conflict as spiritual. Now Amram and Jochebed, living back there as slaves in Egypt, were helpless, they were disenfranchised, they had no rights. What despair they must have had, and could have had, apart from the courage that faith gave them. When they realized that this was really a spiritual conflict, they took courage and they were not afraid of the king's command.
Now let's see how we can apply that today. They were living in dangerous days but they saw that the conflict was spiritual. We are living in dangerous days and we must see today, that the conflict is spiritual. Second Timothy 3 verse 1 says, "This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come". They're here and I'm telling you, if you're a parent, you're walking through a mine field and you're not going to get through unless you use faith to understand that you are in a spiritual battle. Your wit and wisdom, your money and your good looks are not going to get you through.
Let me tell you what we know what Moses faced, let me tell you what you're facing. Number one, you're facing liberalism in religion. Liberalism in religion. I'm telling you, it is a tragedy when children are raised in churches that do not accept the authority of the Word of God and where the life of the Lord Jesus Christ is not made manifest. It would be better for them not to attend church than to attend a Bible doubting, empty, futile, and liberal church. I believe that with all of my heart. And I'm amazed the kind of churches that some people will put their children in. And you know why they do it? Well, it's the neighborhood church. Now, they will drive across the nation to find a good college for higher education and won't drive across town to get their children in a good church.
Now I'm not saying that Bellevue is the only church, God knows that there're many wonderful churches. And I'm not saying that Bellevue's a perfect church; God knows that we have faults and flaws. But I am telling you this; that I would not allow my child to be raised in a Bible doubting church. It is disastrous, disastrous. But, they're dangerous days. And not only do we have liberalism in religion, we have humanism in education. Now I thank God for good, godly school teachers in public education and we have many wonderful administrators, godly administrators in public education as well as in private schools. I also recognize that the private schools are not perfect. They have their faults. But humanism is so pervasive, it has camouflaged itself.
Really humanism is camouflaged atheism. Humanism sounds so good because it sounds so much like humanitarianism, but there's a difference between humanitarianism and humanism. Humanism, when you let all the air out of it, does not believe in a personal God. Man is the sum and the substance, the center and the circumference of his existence, and that's why they call it humanism. And the chief building block of humanistic education is evolution. You say, "Adrian, aren't you an educated man"? Yes, I've had some education. Well, then, don't you believe in evolution? Indeed I don't. I reject that monkey mythology with every ounce in my heart. It's foolish. They call scientific creationism, they call that religion, but I want to tell you evolution is religion in reverse; it is an attempt to explain everything apart from God.
Now, all of this has been capped off; I'm telling you we're talking now about education, humanism in education. The prime building block is evolution but it is capped off by sex education in the schools. Now what's wrong with sex education in the schools? Everything, if it is not built on a fixed standard of right and wrong. Everything if it's not fixed; sex education will never work for good, it will always work for harm unless it is accompanied by genuine moral values. Do you know what most sex education is today? It is training and teaching boys and girls how to have sexual intercourse without caching a disease or without having a baby. Bottom line, that's what it is. How to have sexual intercourse without catching a diseases or having a baby.
Now, friend, when you take sex education and divorce it from moral principles, then it is totally bankrupt and it is implicit approval for immorality. But not only are they facing that, they're facing hedonism in society. We have a society where, I'm just talking about the dangers in today's society. We have a society today that has been soaked, for example, in beverage alcohol. And the alcohol industry, the beer barons, who sponsor now the college games, the Olympics, the Super Bowl and everything else, are coming after your children. They want to seduce your children and they are doing a good job. 95% of college students drink beer; 95%!
Well you say, "What's wrong with that"? I'll tell you what's wrong with that. Out of every fifteen people who begin to drink, one or maybe two, but let's just say one, will become an alcoholic. The other fourteen will become problem drinkers. That includes your kids. Would you keep a dog in your house that would bite one out of every three visitors? Think about it! And you say, "Well, we need to teach our children to drink responsibly". Everybody believes he's going to drink responsibly when he begins. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise".
What should you do as parents? Number one, absolutely no beverage alcohol in your home. None, none! Number two, when they go out, you be up when they get home. It's better to lose your sleep than to lose your children and when that boy comes in you get up close and give him a big hug and smell what's on his breath. Number three, take that child sometime to the emergency room on Friday night, on Saturday night, let him see those people come in sliced and diced after they've gone through a windshield. Let him understand what is happening. Take them down to the places, the slums and sometimes places where the up and out gather as well and let them see the old drunk in the gutter covered with flies and vomit. Let them see something besides the glitter of these advertisements.
You know the Bible says in Proverbs 21 verse 11, "When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise". The word simple means naive. They don't understand all they see is what is coming on television. Did you know that alcohol is served ten to one above any other thing that is served as a beverage on television? Not lemonade, not milk, not water, ten to one it is alcohol. We're talking about hedonism in society. What about the entertainment that our kids are watching? Satan is so clever. You know the situational comedy, we call it the sitcom. When children are taught to laugh at sin, which is the basic theme of all sitcoms, not all of them, but most of them, when they're taught to laugh at sin, they can't take it seriously again.
That's the reason the Bible says in Proverbs 14:9, "Fools make a mock of sin". 88% of sexual contact that is shown on television, I said 88%, is immoral, illicit sex and the television become the baby sitter. Suppose, next door to you there was a man and a woman, not married, living, practicing immorality and illicit sex. Would you say to your little child, "Mommy is going off today, here's your entertainment, child, here's a soap box. You get up there on the window and look in the window and watch all of that. That'll be your entertainment". The only difference is, you just brought it on into the living room, you don't need a soap box, you don't need to open the window. This is what you're letting those children watch and some of you parents ought to be ashamed of what you watch in front of the children.
I'm telling you, these kids are up against it today. They're watching MTV. That's just pornography set to music. Now, in spite of all of this, they had victory because they saw the conflict, listen to me. The conflict is spiritual. You need to understand, behind the alcohol industry, behind the entertainment industry, behind the educational system and behind all of these other things, there is a mastermind. They saw the conflict as spiritual and the only answer to a spiritual conflict is faith. So the Bible says, "They were not afraid of the king's commandment". Why? By faith they saw beyond the king to the king of kings. Here's the third thing I want to lay on your heart: faith sees every challenge as solvable, faith sees every challenge as solvable.
Look again in Hebrews 11 verses 23 and 24, "By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith, Moses, when he was come to fear, years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter". They had a problem and they solved that problem. They were not intimidated by the king of Egypt. Nor were they intimidated by the sinister minister of fear who is Satan himself. And the Bible says they were not afraid. They did something. They refused to give in to the spirit of fear; as Satan wants to seduce and destroy your children. They refused to be lazy, they refused to be passive, they refused to be intimidated, they refused to be selfish, they refused to be cowardly. The apostle Paul said in the New Testament in Philippians 4 verse 13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me".
Now folks, parents, you're up against it, but you listen to me. Every one of these problems that I mentioned is not a problem that cannot be overcome by faith. Faith sees every conflict, every challenge as solvable. Now I want you to notice what they did. They took the little baby and put him in a little boat, a little ark made of bulrushes and daubed with slime on the outside and the inside to keep the water out. You know the story, how they took him and put him down there in the river Nile by the bulrushes. Now I want you to notice what this was. This was not fatalism. They didn't just say, "Oh, well, nothing we can do. What will be will be"!
Friend, no, if you fail to do something, if you have a garden, soon it will become a garden of weeds. It was not fatalism. I'll tell you what else it wasn't. It wasn't fanaticism. They didn't take little Moses and just throw him in the river without building a little boat for him and say, "We'll just trust God to deliver him". It wasn't fatalism, it wasn't fanaticism, it was faith. And how do I know it was faith? Because they did something. Now listen to me. The Bible says in James chapter 2 verses 17 and 18 that, "Faith without works is dead". They saw every problem, every concern, every challenge as solvable. Now, again, go back to that passage of Scripture in Proverbs 22 verse 6 where it says, "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he's old he'll not depart from it".
Now look at the word train this time, not the word way but the word train. What does the word train mean? Well look it up in the dictionary. It doesn't mean to teach, it means to prepare for a contest, to instruct by exercise, to drill, to form to a proper shape, to discipline for use. You've got to do something with these boys and girls. Are you praying, are you training, are you teaching, are you pleading, are you acting, are you instructing these children? Well let me ask you a very practical question. Do you have them in a Bible believing church? Those of you who are listening by television, do you have them in a Bible believing church? Do you have them in a Sunday school class? Do you know who their friends are, do you know where they're going? Are you living in front of them by precept and example?
You see, training is more than teaching. Have you ever watched a man train a bird dog? We spend more time, some men, training their dogs than they do their children and then they tie the dogs up at night and let the kids run wild. Doesn't make sense to me. Real faith is belief with legs on it. You say, "Well Pastor, I send them to school". Teddy Roosevelt said, "When you educate a man in mind and not in morals you are creating a menace to society". There are a lot of parents in this congregation who are, just knocking yourselves out, wearing yourself out, Scout troops, umpiring Little League games, family counselors, community recreational programs, but that is not family training. There's nobody can do that but you.
There's a difference between training and teaching. You may teach one thing, you may give him something to read. Somebody else will teach him something else and he may decide to believe that other teaching. When you train children, you put something in them that no matter how rebellious they may want to be, there's something in them that restrains them. A little boy said he was going to run away from home, he got angry at his Mama, so he got on his tricycle to run away from home. And a man saw him and said, "What are you doing"? He said, "I'm running away from home". He said, "Well why are you just going around and around the block"? He said, "Mama won't let me cross the street". See, that's training, that is training.
There is something in a child's heart that is coming; you see, Jochebed got this child and she trained this child. Now how did she get her child back? Well you know the story. There's little Moses hidden in the bulrushes. Pharaoh's daughter comes down there. Now, I want to ask you a question. What was Pharaoh's daughter doing going down and bathing in the Nile? Why would she do that? That's ridiculous! I mean, she's got marble tubs, lavish baths, this is the richest nation on Earth and there's the old dirty Nile. Have you seen the Nile? I've seen the Nile, it's dirty. Why would she be down there in the bulrushes? I don't know, except the providence of God. Maybe she remembered the old swimming hole when she was a little girl. I don't know, but she's down there and while she's down there, the baby cries.
Do you think it was a diaper pin? Nope, an angel went down there and went and pinched that baby and the baby cries and her mother's heart or her feminine heart is moved by the cry of that little baby. And Pharaoh's daughter picks up little baby Moses and her heart goes out and Miriam stands over there, she'd been standing over there watching the whole thing, says, "Miss, pardon me, but if you like, I know somebody who'd be glad to nurse that baby for you". Of course it was Moses' mother. Listen, when you read this you can't help but see the providence of God. And so, Jochebed has the privilege of nursing and teaching and training her child and when he gets up for a college education, old Pharaoh has to pay the tuition. Jochebed is paid for taking care of what she would give her life for and she nurses this child and raises this child and teaches this child and trains this child. It's a wonderful story.
Now here's the thing, listen to me; by faith they built this little boat, they did what they could do, but that was all they could do. When you do what you can do, do all you can do, God'll do the rest. Here is the providence of God. I know you're up against it. I know there're situations you can't control, but when you act by faith, when you do what you can do, then you turn these little guys and gals over to God and God will move Heaven and Earth for your child when you believe God. It wasn't by chance but by the providence of God. Faith sees every challenge as solvable. Don't you let the devil make you negative or pessimistic concerning your child. You listen to me, there is a way for your children. Faith sees every, every challenge as solvable.
Now here's the fourth and final thing: faith sees every choice as significant, faith sees every choice as significant. Look in Hebrews 11 verses 24 to 27 now, "By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," that is, Pharaoh's grandson, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible".
Now, Moses had tremendous temptations. He had before him all of the pleasures and treasures of Egypt. Worldly position, worldly pleasure, worldly possessions. It was all at his fingertips, but Moses had a value system. Now look, faith sees every choice as significant. I want you to see how it worked. First of all, there was value established. Notice if you will why he turned from Egypt. Hebrews 11 verse 26, "He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt". Just write down value established, value established. He saw the reproaches of Christ, he saw the treasures of Egypt.
Now who would have ever had thought that the reproaches of Christ would be of greater value to Moses than the treasures of Egypt. Well, the word esteemed simply means he accounted, he's been doing some figuring and he saw that the glories of the future outweighed the pleasures of the present. And he saw that to be a child of God was greater riches than to be a grandson of Pharaoh and he saw that it was better to be right with the king of kings than with the king of Egypt, so he made a choice. Parents, listen to me. It is foolish to expect your children to make right choices until they see proper values. Somehow he had learned of the reproaches of Christ. Who put that in his heart? Do you think Pharaoh put it there? Who put it there? Jochebed, Amram put it there!
Now, when value was established, then virtue was chosen. Notice what it says here, "He chose," in verse 25, "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season". Faith sees every choice as significant. You see, what is my job? It is to teach my children to choose. You see, we must choose, everyone must choose. All must choose. We can't escape choices. Even if we choose not to choose, that's a choice. Had Moses said, "I'll not make a choice," he would've stayed right where he was; so he choose. And faith says that every choice is significant. We can choose, but we cannot choose the consequences of our choice. When your child makes a choice, then the choice chooses for your child.
So, there was value established, a virtue that was chosen, and then there was a vice that was rejected, just like that. Here's Moses. Moses says, "Well, let me see, I'm here at a choice, I'm at a cross roads. If I go that way, maybe I'll sit on the throne of Egypt, I'll have pleasure, I'll have possessions, I'll have popularity and power. Let's see where that will end. Now, if I go this way, what will I have? Reproach, suffering with the people of God. Let's see where that will end. I'm going that way, I'm going that way".
Friend, everything in this world is generated to make your kids go that way. Don't you want your children to make the right choices? Now don't miss it, folks, don't miss it, don't miss it. All of this is by faith, that's why it's put there, by faith, by faith. What we're going to be doing is teaching you more and more how to believe God for your children and not just for your children but for every area of life.
Bow your heads in prayer. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Would you pray, would you pray that God would increase your faith? Now as parents, more than anything else, you need faith. You need faith; without faith it's impossible to please God and I would say without faith you'll be a failure as a parent. I don't know any other way to say it. Without faith you'll be a failure as a parent and as a grandparent. Would you say:
Lord, increase my faith, teach me to trust You. Father God, we pray that many today will be opening themselves up to faith for their families. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Now, while heads are bowed and eyes are closed. If you're not certain that you're saved, would you like to be saved, would you? Would you like to know that you really do have life? Jesus said, "I've come that you might have life". Could I lead you in a prayer? We'll call this prayer the sinner's prayer. And you can pray and accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. You can do it right now. Would you pray this prayer?
Dear God, I know that You love me. Thank You for loving me. And I know that You want to save me. Jesus, You died to save me and You promised to save me if I would trust You. Jesus, I do trust You. I believe You're the Son of God. I believe you paid for my sin with Your blood on the cross. I believe that God raised You from the dead. And now I receive You as my Lord and Savior. Forgive my sin. Cleanse me. Come into my life. Take control of my life and begin today to make me the person You want me to be. And Jesus, give me the courage to make it public. Help me never to be ashamed of You. In Your name I pray, Amen.