Levi Lusko - Act Like A Wolf
I Declare War Series
1. Think Like A Wolf
2. Speak Like A Wolf
3. Act Like A Wolf
4. Fight Like A Wolf
Well, welcome to I Declare War, Part Three. We're glad you're here. Fresh Life Church, every single church joining in with us, church online, podcast audience, thanks so much. What we're going to do today is we're going to talk about how to act like a wolf. In the first installment, we spoke about thinking and the way our thoughts work and the way our thoughts influence what comes of our lives. And then in the second installment, we talked about speaking. We talked about how weighty our words are. But this naturally now progresses where we need to think about our actions. Because if all our love for God amounts to is thoughts and words, then it's literally just good intentions.
And when it doesn't lead to a changed life, when it doesn't lead to new actions and a whole new way of living, then unfortunately, we end up with the predicament where people around us would object to our intention to tell them about Jesus because of all the hypocrites that they know. Who their love for God is all just thoughts and all just words because the book of James puts it well when it says that if you have all kinds of faith, how good is that? Not very good because faith, finish it if you know it, without works is dead. And we don't want a dead faith. We want a living, vibrant faith. Anybody with me? So how do we get there? Well, it's got lead into our actions. We've got to act like a wolf. And if you have a copy of the Scriptures, 1 Thessalonians 5 is where we're going to be. And if you didn't bring a Bible with you, we're going to put the Scriptures up on the screen.
Here's what Paul says. This is so helpful. He was speaking, of course, to a specific local church that existed at a certain point in history. And they're all dead. They're not here anymore. But what Paul didn't know, that God knew, was that he was going to use these words that were encouraging them to encourage us as well. And Paul's probably stoked that he didn't know because that would have put a lot of pressure on him. Like, I'm writing the Bible, ah! He would've totally been overwhelmed by that, but the Holy Spirit used his words to speak to us. And God had a bigger plan even than what was happening there in that moment. And so we get to be blessed by what he told them. Notice how he speaks about identity. He says in verse five, "you're sons of light, daughters of day".
You can just stop right there and just take a big breath in because that's rad. You are sons of light. If you're a Jesus follower, what does God think about you? He thinks that you're a son of light and you're a daughter of the day. That is to say that you are not your pain, you are not your past, you are not your guilt, you are not your shame, you are not your family of origin, you are not your dysfunction, you are not your overeating tendencies, you're not your obsessive compulsive nature that drives people away from you, you are... who are you? A son of the light and a daughter of the day. And when the enemy can get us to identify ourselves as our mistakes, he can keep us crippled in a loop and a downward spiral of disorder. But when we hold on, stop for a second, say, I am who God says I am. It flips the script and changes the game. We're just five, six, seven words in. "We live under wide open skies and know where we stand".
So let's not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let's keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night but not us. Since we're creatures of day, let's act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation. "God didn't set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we're awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we're alive with Him". And one more time, verse eight, the emphasis "since we're creatures of the day, let's act like it". My whole sermon in just one sentence is this: your daily activity should come from your new identity. What you choose to do tomorrow, what you choose to do with the precious minutes and the hours that you get living this life of faith, living this new life, it should come from, your day-to-day activity, should come from your brand new identity. Or I've said, we should live acting like a wolf. If we're going to do that though, we can't do it alone. Why? Because every wolf has a pack.
Every wolf has a pack. Wolves are social creatures. It's one of the fascinating things about them. There are a lot of fascinating things about wolves. Did you know they can smell 100 times better than people? That's actually a superpower I wouldn't want. Ah. Ah. All the time. Like, enough. Lasagna, lasagna, it's two doors down. Ah. But what is incredible about wolves is their familial devotion, right? And that's what the law of the jungle says about them, right? The strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf. That's Rudyard Kipling in The Jungle Book. This idea that wolves, they stick together. Wolves they fight for each other. And it's true, and it's safe, and it's powerful. Why? Because listen to me, a lone wolf has no protection. A lone wolf has no protection. A wolf that's off by itself could easily be taken out by a rival wolf pack, but a wolf that has a family, it has someone to fight beside. It has someone to protect him when he's weak. A wolf cub that has a pack, that has a mom, knows even when the hunting party is out that someone stays back to take care of him, to take care of her.
And it's amazing as you look into the way wolves organize themselves, it's a bit like an army. Of course, we all know that wolf packs have leadership. You can't get a lot of people together without them agreeing on a pecking order, without them agreeing on the harmony that's going to come, just like an army would have generals and captains and all the rest. So the wolf pack has notoriously that alpha, we would say male, but did you know that wolf every wolf pack has an alpha male and an alpha female? And there's leadership that God intended for both of them, both sexes, and there's power in both sexes tapping into what God has on their life. You ladies, come on. God wants you to see yourself as strong, to see yourself as brave, to see yourself as capable in his hand, as daughters of the King, as daughters of the day. So let's act like it. And of course, it doesn't stop there because we know that there are beta wolves too.
I didn't know this. I was looking it up because I was just interested in this and found out there's beta wolves. And beta wolves function like the lieutenants. There can be a whole bunch of beta wolves too, who kind of keep the peace and keep everybody else in the pack, in line doing what comes from the directive of the alpha. And to think about that, as it continues on, there's more positions. And there's always, regardless of how big it is, at the other end of the spectrum, there's the omega wolf. Isn't that interesting? And the omega wolf would be the one who gets to eat last, right? Everyone, they'll push the omega wolf away a little bit, and he'll get the end. And the omega wolf just feels maybe could feel lower than, could feel less than, but I was reading that there's an important function that the omega wolf provides for the pack because he basically kind of keeps morale up. He's kind of like, ah, a little bit like, hey, always cracking jokes a little bit. It's like, oh, Bob. Oh, Bob, the omega wolf.
And basically, the omega wolf sort of functions like a court jester and just keeps things going and keeps things going. And I love that because much like in the body of Christ, God gives some this gift, God gives some that gift, but there's a place in the pack for everybody. Whether God's calling you his lieutenant or omega or alpha or something in between, there's a place for you. And life is better together. And life is better when you have a wolf pack. And we have to really ask ourselves, who are the people in the pack that I'm rolling with? Who am I doing life with? I would encourage you at every church to make that something you would give serious thought to this week because it's been well told, you've probably heard it before, but you are the average of the five people that you are closest to. That's been said. And it's been well-studied, and this works its way out financially. You figure out financially where you are.
If you take the five people you're closest to and average out the income, that's probably pretty close to what you make. You take the spiritual zeal, I would say, of the five people you are closest to, and you're probably going to be somewhere in the average. That tells you real quickly you can get richer if you get richer friends. You can be on fire with God if you get friends who are more on fire with God. It makes sense if you're going to do life with people, you're going to end up where they're going. My friend Pastor Craig Rochelle likes to say show me your friends, I will show you your future. If you want to get fascinated with something, hang out with people who are interested in that thing. And if we want to be fighting like wolves to live as creatures of the day, we have to be doing life in cooperation with other people who are going to push us on in our love for Jesus, in integrity. Because what happens, you get habituated to an environment and eventually, water seeks its own level. And whoever you're hanging out with, you're going to start to either rise in your love of God or dwindle in your love of God because you'll be normalized by the people that you're hanging out with. You'll start laughing at the same things they laugh with.
They even can do studies. If they hook you up to brain scans, they see literally your brainwaves get in sync with the people that you're hanging out with most often. And so we have to be careful. We want to be positioned to reach all manner of people in the world, but the people that were closest to, the wolf pack that were rolling with, you're going to end up where the people you roll with are going. So it's so important to take thought and take care to who's in your wolf pack. And that's why church strategies that employ small group ministries are so effective. And at your church it may be called a community group. Here, at Fresh Life, we call them Fresh Life groups, but they're just people who say, hey, we want to get together once a week or once a month, whatever life allows, and pray together and encourage each other. And in between, be texting each other and be in a Facebook group together and be sharing verses that are helping us out and offering to babysit each other's kids and having each other's back at school. And it's hard to feel like you're the only Christian sometimes in a classroom, to have that, the power of people, I'm telling you it's powerful.
My wife Jennie and I both, we were impacted and influenced. And we would look back at our spiritual journey and say we are who we are because of the small groups through high school, the small groups that we were in through life and to this present day, the people in our lives. And we so badly want that for each of you. There is a second thing and it's this: you need to take thought to your posture, your posture. What do I mean by posture? I mean, literally like your mom was always harping on you about, stand up straight. Stand up straight. Stand up straight. It's important to think about your posture, but within this also, think about facial expressions. What's your resting face? My wife always comes and pushes her finger between my eyes and tries to smooth out the frown that comes when I'm reading emails that are discouraging me, right, or anything that's stressing me. I have this callus on this finger right here, and it's because anytime I'm really bugged, I always bite this. And it's gotten better. It goes away, but it comes back. Like, guitar players have calluses here. No, I have a callus right here. You can tell how bad or how good life's going right here. But my son is just a little guy, but we he's already a nail biter. You can tell when he's stressed or worried. He kind of bites his nails.
And I just wonder about your tics. I wonder about what your posture says about you? Because when you look at a wolf, they say they can tell how successful a wolf will be in life by the way he carries himself. Isn't that crazy? By the way she carries herself. You can look through a scope and see in a pack, who's going to be being able to get into that right pack or form this right pack or get that animal. They say there's, to the alphas, there's almost like a nobility to their bearing and to the way they carry themselves. And their tail, little things like, I mean these people who spend their lives on it, they're reading into it a little bit maybe. But like oh, no. His tail's down. He's having a bad morning. It's like he ate bunny instead of elk. It's like, OK. All right. But to think about the ears being down, the ears being up, the bristled fur, the non-bristled fur, whether the animal shows its underside as a sign of submission and ends that little sparring match, jostling for power. They say even from when they're cubs, they can kind of see how a wolf's life is going to go from its posture, from its bearing, from the way he or she carries himself.
And I just wonder if you understand how important that stuff is. They say even on your stress in your body, Google it this week, how many doctors' visits in America are caused by stress? How many sicknesses have stress as, let me tell you, it's not good, right? You're talking about stress as a carcinogen. We're talking about stress moving you towards heart disease. We're talking about stress causing a whole raft of medical issues. And to think about the fact that when you carry yourself in a nervous way, like this, when you're kind of like, what you're doing is you're hiding your sensitive underbelly. You're, don't gut me. Don't you dare slit my throat. That's what that essentially does. And they say if you do a saliva test after holding yourself like this for 15 minutes, they will see your cortisol rates through the roof. What does that say? It's causing you to feel stressed because you're standing stressed. And I used to preach stress so much. And that's because I was, I don't know if you like to get up on stages in front of people like this. It's terrible.
And the way all week long it moves towards, it used to just wipe me out. I used to dry heave every time I preached. I couldn't have any food in my valley for six or eight hours. And every time, I'd end up dry heaving like M&M in the bathroom before the rap battle, unless you're at a church where you'd be judged for watching a movie like 8 Mile. And so in that case, I would say a really stressful Disney movie. And you think about, at least my knees have lotion on them. So you think about the way that I was beforehand torturing myself, and I would just be so nervous. And I was doing the exact opposite of what I needed to do. And I talk in the book about how I've found freedom through learning the power of the way I carry myself. Especially when the less I feel like freedom and worship because I'm so nervous, the more important it is for me to do so. Because look at the book of Psalms. It never says, stand with your hands in your pockets, looking at the ground while you sing to God. It's always hold your head up. God's a lifter of your head. And God wants you to raise up your hands to Him, you people. Shout unto God with a shout of triumph. Clap your hands.
I'm telling you, there's something that's freeing about a body language of power, even when you don't feel like it, especially when you don't feel like it. You've got to walk like a wolf. You've got to worship like a wolf. You've got to throw your head back and howl. I'm telling you, that they say if they do the same saliva tests after 15 minutes like this or like this, like an Olympic champion who just won, they say your testosterone rates in your blood soar, which, of course, causes one to feel strong. And so it's so important that we give thought to our posture. Plus, you know, most Americans live in a perpetual state of shallow breathing. You're probably breathing shallow right now, most of you. Because unless you're breathing deep enough to bulge out your stomach, which causes diaphragmatic breathing, then you're not getting the proper amount of oxygen. And so a lot of us live in this continual state of dehydration and our blood starving for more oxygen.
So what does your heart do? Well, it has to pump faster. And what does that cause your mind to do? It causes your mind to get more fuzzy. At 120 beats per minute, your mind loses sharpness. At 150, your mind basically shuts down. Which is why when you're in an altercation and you're fighting with someone, you will often think of the perfect comeback you should have said after the fight's over. Jerk store. Costanza reference for the win. So why does that happen? Because when you're blood's pumping in the fight, you can't think clearly. This is why you make such bad decisions. Then you walk away. And you calm down a little bit, and you think of all the things you shouldn't have done or should have said or shouldn't have said or shouldn't have thrown or shouldn't have hit or shouldn't have punched or shouldn't have kicked or shouldn't have screamed or you shouldn't have threatened to do, right? And then you're, why did I do that? Because you let yourself get out of control. And so posture and breathing, these are things that God wants us to do.
Now, notice, none of these things come from the Holy Ghost of heaven. None of these things come from demons being bound up in bushes that were threatening to attack you, right? I think, sometimes we pray for things that God's, like, that's on you, actually, right? God doesn't even show up till things are impossible, I heard someone say once. And so when we're like, no, I need to have a demon taken out of me. God's like, you actually just need to quit drinking so much soda. Like, say like, there are simple things you could do that would explain why you're so unpleasant to be around, pal. And so your posture, I know this is like, whoa, this is so novel. We came to hear this? Yeah, but here's the deal, knowing what to do has never been the problem really, has it? There's a whole world of difference between knowing what to do and doing what you know. And so I'm here to remind you to do what you already know is going to lead to the life that you want and that Jesus died for you to have.
So mind your pack and mind your posture, and while you're at it, give some thought to your pre-game. Pre-game? Yeah, I'm talking about not what happens on the court when the clock's ticking down. I'm talking about what happens in the game before the game. Wolves give thought to it. I was reading in a book called American Wolf. It was all about, a whole book all about the relocation of wolves from Canada down to Yellowstone National Park, where the wolves were driven out, but they found that that caused the elk populations to skyrocket, which was devastating the countryside. And I know there's a lot of different thoughts back and forth on the issue. And I'm not trying to raise a fight between ranchers and wolf huggers. And I would really love for us all just to get along for a second. But here's what was said about wolves getting ready to hunt in the book. The author said, "they often gather to howl before setting off for a nightly hunt. Apparently it's a kind of morale-boosting exercise. This type of howl follows, often, a rally, which is an exuberant display of affection in which wolves leap on one another, forming a furry pile of tail-wagging bodies". I love what I get to do.
All right. So I just wonder if wolves have the common sense to do something that would fire them up before the game, why do you walk into work without even giving some thought to what's going on inside your soul? Why would you go into a tense meeting: you brush your hair, you brush your teeth, I hope, why would you not think about what's going on inside your heart? Why would you not want to take some time to ground yourself with a Scripture verse? Why would you not want to take some time to listen to a worship song and get something positive going on inside of you? Why would you not want to speak some truth over you, to speak some truth over your family, to speak some faith over your day? Why would you not give some time to your pre-game when all you're doing is worrying about the actual game? It's so important that you give some thought to what you do before that stress-filled conference starts, or that crazy carpool wild melee begins and whatever else that life could throw at you that you've taken some time to get ready before things even get going. You're pre-game, it matters.
And then, I think we should also, if we're going to act like creatures of the day, we should not be afraid to utilize props, to utilize props. We've talked about the second part, act like a wolf. Now, let's talk about the first part, acting. I don't know if you know this, actors use props. Everything that's on a movie set or a Broadway show has been carefully curated and has been placed there by a prop master. Now, I don't now if you noticed this, but this is actually in the text. There's even wardrobe. What does it say in verse eight? We're to go about acting as creatures of the day "dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation". What does that mean? Those things aren't going to be natively there. You've got to keep putting them there, you've got keep putting them there. They're going to fall off. You've got to put them there. You slip back into rage. Oh, no. What I wearing?
This is totally inappropriate for the scene that I'm in. I'm a creature of the day. I'm a daughter of the day. I'm a son of the light. I need some hope on. I need some faith on. I need some love on. Come on. I need my props. We need to act as creatures of the day. Actors use props. What's the definition of prop? There's two that I found, not including the one that spins around on an airplane. Here's what I found in the dictionary. "Something used in creating or enhancing a desired effect". see also the goal of the Christian life, pleasing God. That's the effect we want. That's the life that we want. That's what He bought for us on the cross. Or the second definition is "something that props or sustains". I think the two are actually one. I think when you're giving thought to your props, you'll find something propping you up. I think you'll find something that helps you sustain. I brought a couple of my props from my life.
There's some that are in the book that I didn't bring, that you'll read more about as you read it. But one that was so helpful to me in even finishing this book were these glasses. There's a lot of things that go on in your head when you try and sit down and write and the fear of writer's block and the worry about the meeting that's going to happen later in the day. And who am I to even write this? I'm such a mess. Why do people even want to listen to a book from me? And all those thoughts that kick in. And so what I would do is a ritual. Every single writing session, I began by putting these on. And once I did, I agreed with myself that when I was wearing these, I was an author, who felt no fear, who's going to trust God to give a message that was going to help people that would be needed when it got out. And every time, once I put these on, I was only allowed to speak about the project. I wasn't allowed to get up for potty breaks. I wasn't allowed to go look at Twitter. When I was wearing these, I was, look it, tricks sell. I was an author. And as I wrote the entire book, I were author's glasses. They were a prop I needed to get me to the finish line and to overcome the paralysis by analysis that kicks in when you overthink stuff that you need to just be plowing through.
And so I know you're like, that's so sweet for you, poor innocent deluded child. I'm not saying you need to live your life with my non-prescription Warby Parker frames. What I am saying is that you need to figure out what it takes for you to suit up so you can be your best when you show up, whatever that looks like for you. Take some time to figure out your props. It might be as simple as a pair of noise-canceling headphones that cancel out the noise. But you don't even put any music on. They're not to put something in, they're to keep something out. It might be that because why? Because life's distracting. I was reading this study this week about how if a school is located under the flight path of an airport, the students do worse on tests as an average than if the school was moved. Take the same student out of that school, he'll do better when airplanes aren't going over the head. Makes sense actually. Distraction, squirrel, right?
And so if you easily succumb to the distractions of your environment, maybe some noise-canceling headphones might be a part of the props that you carry for the life that you want to live. Or perhaps it would be as simple as buying a journal. You don't need to use my journal. You figure out your journal. You don't have to use my stickers. Don't judge my journal. I have a bunny rabbit with a skull. If you have a journal, they say, and write down five things you're thankful for one time a week, your happiness will boost by as much as 25%. That's been verified. Just a simple thing of writing down stuff you're thankful for instead of stuff that you're just worrying about. Because here's the thing about fear, it's faith in the enemy.
And so what we need to do is flip it and put our faith in God and choose to focus on what we're thankful for instead of the stuff that we didn't get invited to, which is where we so often live on these social media lives, where we stare at the lives other people are living that we would be so much happier if we were invited to. And so instead, it could be that you use the prop of a journal. And I know all this, the prop, the headphones, you're, like, a wardrobe, what are you even talking about? This is so fake. If I did that, my life's going to be just fake, and I don't want that because I want authenticity. I've gotta be me. I've got to live my truth. I've got to be on my own journey. And I get that. I get that. I feel you, and there are some good things from that. But at the end of the day, I'm not calling you to try and pretend you're something you're not. I'm calling you to live like something God says you are.
And there's nothing that's phony about that because here's what you've got to let sink in deep, the desires you feel pulling you in the wrong direction are not who you are anymore. That's who you used to be. But like Paul said in Galatians 2:20 you can say this about yourself that you feel like being. I was crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live, I live in flesh by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Come on. Paul was saying, the old Taylor Swift can't come to the phone right now because she's dead. I now live a life by faith. So I'm not going to do what I feel. I'm going to do what's right. That's the power that God wants to give you. When you don't do what you feel but you instead do what's right.
You see, the inability to overcome strong desires pulling you in the wrong direction and to be willing to stay there because that's authentic ignores the fact that a brand new Resurrection life was sprouted inside of you the day you gave your life to Jesus. And now, you are not what you feel, you are what God says about you and that's a daughter of the day. It's a son of the light. So let's act like that. In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis unpacked that very well as he puts everything very well because he's C.S. Lewis: "very often, the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already". And when you remember we're not actually acting. We do have those things because we do have the spirit of God. And we are not sons of the night and sons of the day. We are not daughters of the night. We are daughters of the day. We have a new nature. We have a new story. We have a new future. It was bought for us when Jesus died for us on the cross.
Now, one last wolf thing and then we're done. Is that OK? The posture thing, I was reading in one book, it was a book called The Wisdom of Wolves and it was by the Dutchers. And they were talking about how when wolves enter a den, they slide in on their bellies into their den. And they said no matter which wolf they are, if they're alpha or they're omega, or sorry, no matter which wolf they are, if they're beta all the way to omega, when they enter the wolf den, they always do a small bow before the alphas. Just a small bow, it's this posture thing. It's this deference thing. It's this honor thing. If it was our military, it would be the equivalent of a salute and this mentality of respect. And I loved it so much when I read about it because it was just this idea that every wolf bows before the alpha. But they said this: they said but no one bows lower than the omega. They said the omega wolf bows lowest of all.
And when I heard that, the alpha, the omega, and bowing, I couldn't help but thinking about Jesus, who said, I am the alpha and the omega. I'm the first and the last. I'm one who was and is. I am the Lord almighty. And I got to thinking about how in our text, what we began with, in verse 10, we're told that His death triggered life. And though He was Lord of all, alpha of all, He gave that away and lowered Himself to become a man, not just any man, the lowest. And as a servant, He died even the death of the cross, and it's that death that triggered life for us. And so my encouragement to you is live a life bowing low before Jesus, the alpha and the omega. Because you can't rise up if you don't bow low. And there comes such a power in your life through living a life of worship and surrender.
And Father, I pray that you would give us the strength to live in that brand new way. Thank you for each one this week and what we're warring through, what we're fighting through, and the ways that our flesh pulls us in the wrong direction. And the way that in the midst of those things, You're calling us to take a brand new direction. To not walk by sight but to walk by faith. I pray You'd help us to do so.
And while we're praying with heads bowed and eyes closed, if some part of this message stuck out to you and you would say, I want to take action this week, maybe it's as simple as starting the journal or as perhaps schedule-altering as joining a small group, if you would say there's something in this message I want to act on this week, could I ask that in the presence of God, you would raise your hand, of every church, every one of us on church online, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Help us to remember we are creatures of the day. So let's act like it. You can put your hands down. And I want to give another invitation now. This invitation goes out to anybody with us who's never given your heart to Jesus. Or maybe you've been to church a little or a lot. Maybe you've done some religious things. But have you ever opened the door of your heart to Jesus?
There's a Scripture where he says, I stand at the door of your heart, and I knock. If anyone opens the door, I will come and live with him, and he with me. If you're here and you are not living in a personal, dynamic relationship with Jesus, this is your time. I'm going to pray a prayer in a moment, just a simple prayer, like a wedding vow that gets repeated 1,000 times a day around the world. But when a couple stands before the altar and says those words, they become their words, their vows to each other. This prayer has been prayed for thousands of years by people clutching onto Bibles in hospital rooms, by people standing in trenches in war, by people at bedsides on their knees, and people in churches around the world. But today, if you speak these words to God, they'll be your words that pass through your mouth, giving evidence of a heart of faith.
And the Bible says that if there's faith in your heart and a confession from your lips, God will save you. He'll make you new. He'll give you the power to live with hope and a power to die without fear. And that can happen but not if you put it off to tomorrow or to next week or to next year or to when you're older because Scripture says today is the day of salvation and now is the acceptable time. What if this was your last opportunity to get right with God? What if this was your last day on Earth? Someone's name will be printed in obituaries tomorrow. Someone's remains will be lowered in caskets in the graveyards around the world tomorrow. What if this was your last chance to get ready to meet your maker? That can happen for you. I want you to pray this prayer with me. Mean it in your heart. Say it to God. The church family's going to say it with us to show that we're with you in this decision. We embrace you into the pack. Say this:
Dear God, I know I'm a sinner. I can't fix myself, but I believe You can because Jesus loves me. He died for me. He rose from the dead. I give you my heart in Jesus' name.