James Merritt - Carpe Diem Praying
Not long ago, I came across this statement and it convicted me. You see how you respond to it. You could tell what a person likes by what they do, you could tell what a person thinks by what they say, but you can tell what a person is by how they pray. I believe that's true because you tell me what better measure is there of a person than how they talk to God? And that's why my admiration from this man named Paul goes to a whole new level. If you're joining us today for the first time here, or first time in watching us online, we've been in a series we've been calling prison prayers.
And the apostle Paul wrote some prayers to a Roman, from a Roman prison, wrote them in a letter, didn't know if this would be the last day of his life, he didn't know if these would be the last words he would ever write. And they're personal prayers. And when you read them, I'm telling you, they're some of the greatest prayers in all of the Bible. I mean, to be honest, they're so unlike the prayers that we pray. So the prayer we're going to look at today is in a New Testament book called Colossians. You want a copy or you wanna look on your iPhone or iPad, whatever. Go to the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Colossians chapter one.
Now, this is a very unique prayer for this reason. Every other prayer that Paul wrote and every other prayer that Paul prayed, he sent to a church he had visited or he founded, except this one. He had never been to this church. He had never been to this city. He didn't know one name in the church. He didn't know one need that they had. He didn't know anything they were really going through. And yet unbelievably, he prays a perfect prayer, not just for the church, not just for these people, but for any church and any people.
As a matter of fact, I am so impressed by this prayer. I call it a carpe diem prayer. Now, most of you know what carpe diem means, right? It means seize the day. And this is a prayer that seizes the day because I don't know of any prayer you'll ever find in your life that you and I could pray on a daily basis that will do more for us and through us and with us and in us than this prayer. And this I can guarantee you. I can't guarantee you this for every prayer you pray, but I can guarantee this. You pray this prayer, God will hear it. You pray this prayer, God will love it. You pray this prayer, God will answer it. I was reading the other day, there's a website you can go to, not making this up. The number seven, sevencups.com. Some of you wanna write this down, sevencups.com.
You know what this website does? They have a trained active listener for free. So if you got a husband that doesn't like to listen to you talk, ladies, you go to sevencups.com. There's a free listener there. You can talk as long as you want to. They'll listen to everything you have to say. They'll give full attention to every word and it will never go anywhere else. Well, this prayer fits that bill. When you pray this prayer, you're gonna have God's full attention. He's going to hear everything that you say. Now, let me just go ahead and warn you. There are six things I'm gonna put up on the screen. We're gonna have six points. The good news is they're brief, okay? So six things we ought to pray for every single day and I guarantee you God will hear this prayer.
But now listen to this. This is so wonderful. This is what's so cool about this prayer. If you pray this prayer every day, you will be the answer to your own prayer. All right, six things Paul says to pray for. Number one, pray to be guided by the will of God. Pray to be guided by the will of God. Now, let me just set this up. This prayer is kinda like a domino. You hit the first domino, the second domino falls, the third one, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. It all begins though with the very first domino. This is the linchpin that holds all the rest of this prayer together. So here's what we read. Paul says, for this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will.
Remember this prayer is a sequence. Paul says, "All right, as you begin every day, the very first thing you ought to be asking God is this. Lord, today fill me with the knowledge of your will". Why do you start there? Real simple. If you're living in the will of God, every other part of your life will fall in place. If you're living in the will of God, every other part of your life will fall in place. By the way, to be filled, the word He says, be filled, to fill you. In the New Testament, the word to be filled means to be controlled by.
So for example, if you're filled with alcohol, you'll be controlled by alcohol. If you're filled with hunger, you'll be controlled by your appetite. If you're filled with anger, you'll be controlled by your temper. Paul says, we're to be controlled by the will of God. But we misunderstand what Paul says because when Paul's talking about the will of God, He's not talking about the will of God the way you and I think about the will of God. I have people all the time come to me and say, "Hey, I'm really trying to decide what God wants me to do. Should I take this job or not? Should I go move to this place or not? Should I date this girl or not? Should I marry this person or not"?
And we think about the will of God as something out there in the future. That's not the will of God Paul's talking about. He's not talking about the will of God in the future that we don't know tomorrow. He's talking about the will of God that we do know today. He says, I want you to pray. You'll be filled with the knowledge of His will. We already know what God's will is for us today. You say, "Well, where do you find it"? You find it in God's Word. Now, there's a verse in the book of Psalms I wanna show you. And I read it just the other day and I thought, "I've never seen that before". It's amazing when you read the Bible, you always find things you've never seen.
But in Psalm 143, the psalmist wrote these words. "Teach me to do your will for you're my God. may your good spirit lead me on level ground". That's interesting. What do we normally pray? Lord, help me to find your will. That's not what he said. He said, "Lord, teach me to do your will". How do you do that? God's Spirit speaks His will through His Word. And let me tell you a little secret I found about people, and I'm gonna be honest, this is where most of us are. The biggest problem we have with the will of God is not finding the will of God we don't know. The biggest problem we have with the will of God is doing the will of God that we do know. That's our problem.
I have a lot of people come to me, you know, let me give you an example. I want God to lead me to the girl I ought to marry. Well, dude, you're living with a girl you're not married to right now. So tell me why God would bother showing you your will, His will that you already know. Why would He show you your will, His will you don't know when you're not doing what you should know? Let me put it up on the screen. Why would God reveal to you his will that you don't know if you're not going to obey His will that you do know? Because remember, the purpose of prayer is not to get your will done in heaven. The purpose of prayer is to get His will done on earth. The purpose of prayer is not to go to God and say, "God, this is what I want you to do". The purpose of prayer is to go to God and say, "God, what do you want me to do"?
George Truitt was the great pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Pastor for almost 50 years. He made one of the greatest statements about the will of God I think I've ever heard in my life. He said this. "To find the will of God is life's greatest discovery. To know the will of God is life's greatest knowledge. To do the will of God is life's greatest achievement". See the way to know you're always on the right path, you're always going the right way, is to be guided by the will of God. Step one. Now, watch this. Each one builds on the other. Here's the second thing you pray. Pray to be guarded by the wisdom of God. I wanna be guided by the will of God, but I wanna be guarded by the wisdom of God. So the prayer continues. We continue to ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will.
Now, watch this. Through the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives. Paul says, "Look, I do want you to know God's will, but I don't want you just to be filled with the knowledge of His will". He says, "I want you to be filled with that knowledge that comes through wisdom and spiritual knowledge and understanding". Because knowledge without wisdom is not just deficient, it's dangerous. It's one thing to understand the world around you. That's knowledge. It's another thing to understand the world above you. That's wisdom. And the problem we've got today is this. We're living in a world that is swimming in an ocean of knowledge and dying in a desert of wisdom.
Our problem is not knowledge. Our problem is wisdom. I give you great illustration that's going on right now in Ukraine. We have the knowledge to detonate a nuclear bomb. We better have the wisdom not to do it. There's a big difference between wisdom and knowledge. And remember, all of this is tied into the will of God. And what Paul is saying is this. You know, it's one thing to know the will of God, but it's another thing to have the wisdom to choose to do it. It's one thing to know what to do. Anybody can know what to do, but to know the right time to do it and the right way to do it and the right place to do it, that's wisdom. And Paul says that only comes from the Spirit of God.
See, we can get knowledge from a book, okay? We can get knowledge from a book. But you only get wisdom from that book. Did you hear me? You get knowledge from a book. You only get wisdom through this book. That's why we ought to be more concerned about our SQ than our IQ. IQ is intelligent quotient. SQ is spiritual quotient. Parents, you ought to be more concerned about your kid's SQ than their IQ. Because a spoonful of godly wisdom is worth more than a bucket full of worldly knowledge. That's so good, I'm gonna say it again. A spoonful of godly wisdom is more valuable than a bucket full of worldly knowledge. Let me give you an easy example. We're teaching sex education in the schools today, right? All our schools have sex education.
Now, I'm just being honest. And before I say that, I was Opie in "Mayberry". That's how I grew up, okay? I was naive. There are third grade kids that know more about sex today than I knew when I was in the ninth grade. You say that's a good thing. Is it? Our kids have the knowledge of sex, but they don't have the wisdom on how to use it where to use it, when to use it, with whom to use it at the right time. They don't have it. It's a totally different thing. So let me kinda let you in on a secret. You're out there saying, "You know, pastor, I've got this big decision I'm trying to make and I'm trying to find the will of God".
Let me give you a secret. When you've got the God-given wisdom to always do God's will in every situation, when your heart is right in line with God, you don't have to find the will of God. The will of God will find you. God doesn't play hide and seek. God doesn't play hide and seek. Listen, nothing pleases more, nothing pleases God more than to show you His will for your life. But He is not gonna show you the will you don't know 'til you do the will that you do know.
So Paul says, "Pray to be guided by the will of God, pray to be guarded by the wisdom of God". 'Cause here's what we do with God so often. Lord, I wanna do your will if it's my will. Let's be honest. I wanna do your will if it's my will. We're like a drifter I read about the other day. He's one of these guys that he alone won't settle down. He'd just traveled from place to place, he'd get a job and he'd work long enough just to to save up some money so he could go somewhere else. So this guy hired him and he was working one day and they got talking at lunch and the guy said, "By the way," he said, "where do you travel? Where do you go"? And he said, "I just go where I wanna go". He said, "I love it, it's just a free life. I just go where I wanna go".
So his boss said, "Well, I got a question". So he ask, "Suppose you come to a fork in the road, how do you know whether you wanna go right or you wanna go left"? And the man said, "Oh man, that's easy. It doesn't make any difference". He reached into his bag, he pulled out a stick. He said, "You see this stick"? He said, "Yup". He said, "Whenever I come in the fork in the road, I just throw that stick up in the air". And he says, "Whichever way it lands, that's the way I go". And the guy said, "Really"? He said, "Yeah". He said, "Now to be honest with you, sometimes I gotta throw it up five or six times to make it land the right way, but it always works for me".
And that's the way we treat God's will, right? All right, God, what is your will? Then God tells us, "Okay, is there option B"? No, there's not. You're guided by the will of God. I wanna do your will. You're guarded by the wisdom of God. God, give me the wisdom to do it when I see it and I know it. Step three, pray to be gratifying in our walk with God. Pray to be gratifying in our walk with God. So here's my question. Do you want to be guided by the will of God? You say, "Sure". Do you wanna be guarded by the wisdom of God? You say, "Sure". Why do you want that? Paul tells us why we ought to want it. So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way.
How many of you are parents with children? How many of you are grandparents with grandchildren? Got a question, can you think of anything you ought to pray more for your children than that. Can you think of anything you ought to pray for your grandchildren more than that? Last night, my grandson, Harper, came to me and he just wanted to talk. And we sat down, we talked probably for a half hour. All we wanna talk about was spiritual things. It was me. It was so blessing, such a blessing to listen to this 14-year-old grandson talk to Pop about spiritual things. "Pop, what about this? And Pop, what about that? And Pop, the Bible says this, and Pop, does the Bible teach that"? It was such a tremendous blessing. And I said, "Harper, at the end of the day, buddy, just live a life worthy of the Lord. Please Him in everyway".
By the way, that phrase, to live a life, in one word, in the Greek language, it literally means to walk 'cause the Christian life is described as a walk. The Christian life described as taking next steps. That's all the Christian life is. You're just taking a walk. And by the way, you never stand still in the Christian life. You're either going forward or going backwards. You're either growing or you're shrinking. You never ever stand still. You're always walking. And here's what Paul will say. If you understand that your life is like taking a walk, then you better understand there's only one place you ever ought to put your foot. There's only one step you better ever, ever, ever take. And that's the one that pleases God. That's the one that honors God. That's the one that glorifies God.
I grew up in a little town not far you called Oakwood, Georgia. If you know where Oakwood is, it's right next to Flowery Branch, Georgia. If you don't know where Flowery Branch is, go to Mayberry first street, turn right, all right? That's where I grew up. I grew up next to a cow pasture. We used to play ball in in the yard and sometimes the ball would go into the cow pasture and I had to climb over the fence to the cow pasture and get the ball. I had to learn the hard way, when you walk in a cow pasture, you better watch where you step. Because when you step in the wrong place, first of all, you hear it, and then you see it, and then you smell it, and it's there.
This world is a gigantic cow pasture. You better watch where you step. You better watch where you walk. You better watch where you go. Because every step you take in your life, every place that you go, everything that you watch, everything that you hear, every word that you say, you better make sure this is pleasing to the Lord. That's why every step is doubly important. You know the reason why a lot of pastors have washed out of the ministry, they took one wrong step and it ruined an entire ministry. You better be careful where you walk. And by the way, he says, "Make sure you walk in steps that's pleasing to the Lord".
See, we're not here to please ourselves. So it doesn't matter what we want. We're not here to please the world. It doesn't matter what the world wants. We're here to please God. And all that matters is what He wants. That should be all that matters to us. H.P. Crowell, the founder of Quaker Oats, who became an extremely wealthy man, kept a saying on his desk that said this. "If my life can always be lived so as to please Jesus, I will be supremely happy". We ought to live in such a way that every step we take brings a smile to the face of Jesus. Lord, I pray that I'll be gratifying in my walk. Fourth thing, pray to be growing in our work. Pray to be growing in our work for God.
Remember this, prayer is a process. One request leads to the next. If I know the will of God through the wisdom of God as I walk with God, I'll be growing in my work for God. So here's what he says. Pray that we'll be bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. Now, this is really encouraging. We were put here to bear fruit. Now, here's the good news, you ready? You don't manufacture fruit. It's not up to you to produce the fruit. We bear the fruit. We're not the tree, we're just the branch. Jesus is the tree. He's the root. So He is to bear His fruit. Our job is not to bear fruit for Him. Our job is let Him bear His fruit through us. And Paul says, "Here's how you do that. You grow in the knowledge of God".
Well, what is knowing God and growing in the knowledge of God? What has that got to do with being fruitful? It's real easy. You can't love God 'til you know God. You can't love God more 'til you know God better. The better you know God, the more you love God. The more you love God, the better you serve God. The better you serve God, the more you bear fruit. You say, "Wait a minute. So what is the fruit we're supposed to bear"? That's easy. Make a real easy example, right? This is an easy answer, so answer it out loud. What fruit does an apple tree bear? Apple tree bears apples. Well, if that's true, what fruit should a Jesus tree bear? Jesus. A Jesus tree ought to bear Jesus. So you say, "Well, what kind of fruit does Jesus fruit look like"? Well, there are three types of fruit we'll bear.
Number one, we'll bear Christ-like conduct. If you're bearing fruit, you're gonna be just like Jesus, Christ-like conduct. We'll bear Christ-like character. We'll look like Jesus. We'll bear the fruit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. And we'll bear the fruit of Christ-like converts. That is we will be leading other people to Jesus. And as we do those things, we'll be growing in our work for God. See how this works? The will of God, the wisdom of God, the work of God. Now, watch this. Fifth thing, be grounded. Pray to be grounded in our witness for God.
Now, I want you, this is, stay with me on this part. If you're a believer right now, I thought about this when I worked on this message. Man, I'm working on this message and I'm really getting blessed. But I thought to myself, I put my pen, I said, "Good God, by the time I get here, there's gonna be people out there saying, 'Good grief, pastor, we're not superman. We're not superwomen. All these things you're telling us to pray for, man, I don't have a phone booth with a superman. I cannot do what you're asking me to do.'" You're right, you can't. Own your own by yourself in your own strength. You can't live the Christian life for one second. That's why you gotta keep praying this prayer. Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience. You cannot come within a country mile of living the Christian life in your own strength, in your own power.
Let me tell you something. If God said to me today, "You can continue to preach 'til you die, but you'll preach in your own power," you know what I'd say to God? I quit. No, not doing it 'cause I can't. If I can't preach in your power, I'm not going to preach. Now, the good news is what God enlists us to do, God empowers us to do. God will always give you all the power to do all He wants you to do as long as He wants you to do it. And Paul says, "God's power never gets overloaded". The breakers never shut down. He never runs out of supply. It's inexhaustible. And then he says this. This prayer is so brilliant. He says, "As you pray for power, pray for two things especially".
God, give me the power to endure and give me the power to be patient. Now, I want to tell you how great this prayer is. Why is it that Paul says, "Pray for patience, pray for endurance"? Let me tell you why. If you pray this prayer like I've asked you to pray, if every day you pray, God, I wanna be guided by your will, I wanna be guarded by your wisdom. I wanna be growing in thy will. You pray all those things. When you stand, when you live for God and stand for God in a society and a culture and a world that is increasingly going away from God, you better have endurance and you better have patience. And we need both of those things because at the end of the day, there are only two difficult things that every one of us deal with in life. If you come to me right now, I don't even know what your problem is.
If you come to me, you say, "Pastor, I got a problem," I already know your problem is going to fall into one of two categories. One, we just mentioned. Number one, we face difficult problems, right? We face difficult problems. We need endurance to deal with difficult problems. To endure, the word means to bear up under. It was used in the military to refer to standing your ground in a battle. Well, think about it. We're in a battle today, ladies and gentlemen. We're in a battle for truth. We're in a battle for godliness. We're in a battle for holiness. We're in a battle for morality. We're in a battle for what's right and what's wrong. And the tide is rising. The tide is going against us.
If you haven't heard the news lately, we are no longer a part of the moral majority. We're now part of the moral minority. That's just where we are. And if you're going to truly stand for the Word of God and the God of the Word, you need the power of God to endure. To stay in the battle, to stand your ground, to stay the course, to not compromise and not give up. So Paul says, God, pray for God to give you the power to endure difficult problems. But then we need patience where it needs to have a long fuse. 'Cause there's one other thing we gotta deal with and it's worse than difficult problems. You know what that is, right? Difficult people.
Listen, let me tell you something I've learned as a pastor, learned it early in my life, learned it in my first country church. It's a whole lot easier to solve a difficult problem than to deal with difficult people. I tell young pastors all the time, they get discouraged and then they say, "Man, I just got so many problems in my church". I said, I'll tell them, I said, "Hey, let me tell you something, buddy. Let me kinda help you out here. Any church you're pastor, any church you pastor is gonna have difficult problems. You know why"? He said, "Why"? I said, "'Cause every church has difficult people". I've never pastored a church yet that didn't have difficult people. I told the pastor the other day, "If you ever can pastor a church with no people, you're gonna have a perfect church".
I'm just telling you, what gives you grief in the ministry is not difficult problems, it's difficult people. And you better have the patience because it is easier to solve difficult problems than to deal with difficult people. If you let, if you ever let anybody get the best of you, they will always bring out the worst in you. If you ever let anybody get the best of you, they will always bring out the worst of you. Let me give you a great example, practical example. If you're a parent, you know the term terrible twos, right? You know what a terrible two toddler is? A terrible two is a demonic terror from the pits of Hades. I love kids, but let's just be honest, there's nothing like a terrible two toddler.
And I heard about a man one day that was walking down the street and he was carrying, had his hands carrying his little 2-year-old boy by the hand. And that boy just wasn't having a good day. I mean, it was just not a good day for that little boy. He was throwing a temper tantrum. He was yelling, he was screaming, he was stomping, he was dragging his feet. He's trying to pull away from his daddy. He was crying, he was trying to kick him in the shin. It was just a terrible, terrible, terrible scene. Embarrassing. And this dad was just very calmly saying, "Easy, Albert. Calm down, Albert. It'll be all right, Albert. We'll get through this, Albert".
And there was a lady standing across the street, she was looking at all this. She just couldn't believe it. And she just thought she would be an encouragement. So she walked across the street to this man. She said, "Sir, I just gotta commend you". She said, "I don't think I've ever seen a father more kind and more gentle. It's just great to see how patient you are with a little Albert". He looked at her and he said, "Oh no, that's Sam. I'm Albert". Easy, Albert. Calm down, Albert. We'll get there, Albert. It'll work out, Albert. That's why he's coming to church, far right there. You gotta admit that.
See, sometimes we get this idea. God, I need power for the big things. No, you don't. You need power for the little things. It ain't the big things that'll eat your lunch. It's the little things that'll tear you up. And God says you need endurance for the difficult problems. You need patience for the difficult people. 'Cause let me tell you something. It takes more power not to be discouraged by difficult problems. And it takes more power not to be defeated by difficult people than it does to part a red sea, kill a giant, or walk on water. And what Paul is saying is, our witness for Christ is going to be determined by how we handle the problems and how we handle the people. So God, may I be grounded in my witness for you. Don't ever let me react. Always let me respond with endurance and with patience.
Last thing, we're done. You've listened great. Number six, pray to be grateful in our worship of God. Pray to be grateful in our worship of God. Now, watch how Paul says how we'll close this prayer. He says, "Here's how you close a prayer. In giving joyful thanks to the Father". Paul says, "Don't you ever let difficult problems and don't you ever let difficult people have any effect on two things in your life. Your joy and your gratitude". Don't you ever let anybody reign on your parade. Don't you ever let anything ever cause you to shut down your joyfulness and your gratefulness. You should always be joyful because of who Jesus is in you as you'd always be thankful for what Jesus has done for you.
So whether you're being persecuted for what you believe, insulted for standing up for what you believe, or rejected because of the one you believe in, Paul says, "We should pray we'll never react with bitterness, we'll always respond with joyfulness, we've been counted worthy to suffer for Christ, and we'll respond with thankfulness". God, I thank you that you're standing with me. I thank you that you're standing for me. And I'll tell you why I think Paul prayed this prayer. I think Paul was saying, "Look, I get it. I understand. I know that in spite of all our praying and all our hoping, there's still gonna be times with people, with problems that are difficult". And you're still gonna have to deal with people that are so discouraging. You're gonna find it hard to be joyful. It's gonna be hard to be thankful. You're gonna find it hard even to pray.
So I want you to watch how Paul closes this prayer. He's talking about closing with a bang. Watch how he closes. "Who has qualified you"? Now, watch this. "To share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. He has brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins". So Paul says, "I know life's tough and I get it". I don't care how often you go to church, how much you read your Bible, how much you give to missions, how kind you are to others. You're gonna have difficult problems. And you're gonna have difficult people. I get that. But at the end of the day, you ought to be thankful. You ought to be joyful. And then in that one last, that last closing part, he tells us three reasons why we ought to always be grateful. Watch this, this will be worth coming for.
Number one, we ought to be grateful for what we have. Grateful for what we have. We've been qualified. You know what he said? We've been qualified to share in the inheritance of everything that God has in His kingdom. Listen, you may not have a rich uncle that's going to die, that's gonna leave you a lot of money, but you've got a rich Father who will never die that's gonna give you the entire kingdom. We own, listen, we own those pearly gates. We own those golden streets. We command those angels playing harps. We what we have, look at, we have an inheritance of a glorious Father. Be thankful for what we have.
Number two, be grateful for who we are. We're redeemed. We are a forgiven people. Our record has been white clean. Death has been defeated. Be grateful for who you are. I am a child of God. I am forgiven of all of my sins. There is nothing between me and them. And I know I'm right with God. Be grateful for who we are, be grateful for what we have and be grateful for where we're going. We're headed to a kingdom. Where there's no darkness, only light. No illness, only health. No death, only life. And guess what? You ready for this? We're headed to a place so far better than Disney World. And yes, so much greater than a Georgia Bulldog National Championship. We're headed to a place where everybody lives happily ever after. That's the kind of prayer we ought to pray. That's the kind of God that we pray to. And when you pray this prayer every day and God answers that prayer, every day will be a great God blessed day.
Would you pray with me right now with heads bowed, with eyes closed? You may be watching right now, iPhone, iPad, television, live stream, computer. You can't pray this prayer because you don't even know the God that we're praying to. Because you cannot know this God until you know His Son, Jesus Christ. So I'm just asking, wouldn't you like to live a life guided by the will of God, guarded by the wisdom of God, growing in your walk with God? I mean, wouldn't you like to have all those things? Say, "Yeah, I would". It all starts with Jesus. You know, right now, even sitting in this building or watching me online, did you know you could enter into that life right now on your own? You can walk through that door right now? All you gotta do is just tell the Lord:
Lord, I'm a sinner and I need a savior. I can't save myself. But I believe you died on the cross for my sins. And I believe God raised you from the dead. I believe alive right now. Anyou're d today, I ask you to become my Lord. Today, I ask you to become my Savior. I surrender my life completely to you. And now, for the rest of my life, that's my prayer. This carpe diem prayer, I wanna seize every single day the rest of my life for you and for your glory.