Speaker 1: Hello, and thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's
Speaker 1: Daily Hope. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren,
Speaker 1: and today we are continuing in a series called the
Speaker 1: Miracle of Mercy. Rick will show us how God's mercy
Speaker 1: can lift your guilt, heal your wounds, and transform the
Speaker 1: way you live. And now the final part of a
Speaker 1: message called God can use anybody.
Speaker 2: You know here at Saddleback Church. The letters in our
Speaker 2: name S A, D, D, L, E, B, A C K.
Speaker 2: Every letter represents a value. We've taught on this many
Speaker 2: times and many of you remember that the S stands
Speaker 2: for second chance, Place of Grace. This is a place
Speaker 2: where we give people a second chance. This is a
Speaker 2: place for people who want to start over. This is
Speaker 2: people a place for people who want a fresh start.
Speaker 2: That's the miracle of mercy. That's the grace place. And
Speaker 2: I want you to hear an example of madic example
Speaker 2: of starting over a place of grace. Danny Dushane is
Speaker 2: going to come out in just a minute and share
Speaker 2: his dramatic story. He was a double lifer in prison
Speaker 2: for thirty two years. He is going to lead our
Speaker 2: Mercy ministry to prisons, to prisons, and you know two
Speaker 2: and a half million people Americans are incarcerated in a prison.
Speaker 2: We want to start a Saddleback Church in every prison.
Speaker 2: And I thought, who could better know how to do
Speaker 2: this than a guy who spent thirty two years in prison.
Speaker 2: And so I want you. Thirteen years ago Danny actually
Speaker 2: gave his testimony here at Saddleback. He was in prison
Speaker 2: at the time. We couldn't videotape him. We couldn't even
Speaker 2: take a picture of him at the time, but they
Speaker 2: allowed us to call on the phone and I played
Speaker 2: that phone call to hear and so he's back to
Speaker 2: give his testimony a second time. I want you to
Speaker 2: give a new, warm welcome to our newest pastor at Saddleback,
Speaker 2: Danny Dushane. Give him a warm welcome.
Speaker 3: God bless you. Hello, Saddleback family.
Speaker 4: My name is Danny Dushane, and I would like to
Speaker 4: share with you how God.
Speaker 3: Has shown me great mercy and how.
Speaker 4: God, because he is merciful, is able to use anyone,
Speaker 4: even in the most unlikely places. I would also like
Speaker 4: to share how being part of a small group is
Speaker 4: a powerful way to experience God's mercy and to show
Speaker 4: his mercy to others you know, as Pastor Rick just said,
Speaker 4: I've been part of the Saddleback family since two thousand
Speaker 4: and three and.
Speaker 3: Thirteen years ago.
Speaker 4: I shared part of my story with you through a
Speaker 4: taped phone call from the prison that I was in.
Speaker 4: But that's getting a little ahead of my story. I
Speaker 4: grew up in Reading, California with my mom and stepdad
Speaker 4: and five brothers. One thing I remember about my childhood
Speaker 4: is that I had a lot of freedom to do
Speaker 4: whatever I wanted to do. I was a latch key kid,
Speaker 4: and by the fourth grade I was spending entire summers
Speaker 4: by myself.
Speaker 3: My parents had nice homes and cars.
Speaker 4: And I grew up thinking that the goal of life
Speaker 4: was just having nice things. Possessions became a substitute for
Speaker 4: loving relationships. This way of thinking led to insecurities and
Speaker 4: difficulties in standing against high school pressures. I started partying
Speaker 4: on the weekends and discovered how easy it was to
Speaker 4: make friends because I was the one who had the
Speaker 4: car and had the freedom to throw a party while
Speaker 4: my parents were out.
Speaker 3: Shortly after I turned.
Speaker 4: Sixteen, I came home from school one day and my
Speaker 4: parents were sitting with a friend with thousands of in
Speaker 4: cash spread out on the kitchen table. I was told
Speaker 4: that they were going on a business trip to Peru
Speaker 4: and that I would see them at Christmas. So I
Speaker 4: was left to take care of my eighteen month old
Speaker 4: little brother, who with the help of some family friends,
Speaker 4: but my parents did not return from that trip. Instead,
Speaker 4: on Christmas Eve nineteen seventy nine, I learned that my
Speaker 4: parents had been arrested in Mexico for smuggling cocaine. This
Speaker 4: was a total shock, since my parents were neither drug
Speaker 4: users nor drinkers. The news that my parents were in
Speaker 4: jail in another country filled me with fear, but soon
Speaker 4: my fear turned to anger to cope with all the
Speaker 4: painful emotions I felt. On that Christmas Day, I drove
Speaker 4: to a parking lot and got high in my car.
Speaker 4: Getting high gave me temporary relief, and I remember committing
Speaker 4: myself to a life of getting high every day. Little
Speaker 4: did I realize that the decision to start my fear
Speaker 4: and anger and soothed myself with drugs would become an
Speaker 4: addiction that would imprison me. Long before I went to
Speaker 4: prison at sixteen years old, I didn't know if I
Speaker 4: would ever see my parents again, and feeling abandoned as
Speaker 4: a teenager, I stuffed all my pain using drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 4: I became more and more impulsive and began a downward
Speaker 4: spiral of one bad decision after another. I started committing
Speaker 4: crimes to support my drug habits. I was expelled from
Speaker 4: school and then lost my new home as well. I
Speaker 4: take full responsibility for my self destructive decisions. There were
Speaker 4: people around me who loved me and tried to help,
Speaker 4: but I quickly became addicted to my way of dealing
Speaker 4: with all my loneliness and pain. I was already in
Speaker 4: prison to my way of life. Two years later, my
Speaker 4: mother was released from prison and tried to reunite our family,
Speaker 4: But at eighteen, I was already a dual addict alcohol
Speaker 4: in marijuana. I began to dread going to sleep at
Speaker 4: night if I didn't have something to drink and smoke
Speaker 4: in the morning.
Speaker 3: My life was out of control.
Speaker 4: I robbed and stole and hurt others because I chose
Speaker 4: to please myself. As my debts piled up, I struggled
Speaker 4: to keep myself supplied with an increasing need for alcohol
Speaker 4: and drugs. I was reckless and never worried about getting
Speaker 4: caught for my crimes, and I certainly didn't consider the
Speaker 4: consequences to others.
Speaker 3: I was only thinking of myself.
Speaker 4: All this came to a crisis when I was part
Speaker 4: of a crime in which two men were killed. Thankfully,
Speaker 4: I was quickly arrested in September of nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 4: which I also call being rescued. Sitting in a county
Speaker 4: jail before my trial. It took about three weeks to
Speaker 4: withdraw from the drugs and alcohol, but once I became sober,
Speaker 4: the full weight of my crimes came crashing down on
Speaker 4: my conscious I was overwhelmed with depression and remorse. As
Speaker 4: I realized how many people I had heard. I believed
Speaker 4: I was lost and going to Hell. I was truly,
Speaker 4: truly afraid. It was at my lowest point that God's
Speaker 4: mercy showed up in my life. God began bringing a
Speaker 4: lot of Christians to see me, who shared the love
Speaker 4: and mercy of God with me. At first, this good
Speaker 4: news seemed over my head. It seemed unbelievable and too
Speaker 4: good to be true that God loved me and wanted
Speaker 4: to show me mercy after all I had done to
Speaker 4: hurt others from growing up, I honestly did not know.
Speaker 3: How to trust.
Speaker 4: I had lived too long pretending to be something on
Speaker 4: the outside while being someone else on the inside. But
Speaker 4: the message of God's mercy eventually got through to me.
Speaker 4: I learned that Jesus could give me a fresh start,
Speaker 4: changing me from the inside out, not from the external.
Speaker 4: I learned that God was concerned about me personally, even
Speaker 4: after making such a wreck of my life. I decided
Speaker 4: to open up my life to Jesus and begin to
Speaker 4: serve him with whatever kind of life I had left. And,
Speaker 4: knowing my crimes, I didn't expect the rest of my
Speaker 4: life to be very long. On November seventh, nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 4: in a county jail, waiting my trial, I asked Jesus
Speaker 4: to forgive all my sins come inside, and to take
Speaker 4: charge as the lord of my life. At this point,
Speaker 4: I'd like to say again thank you to Mandy, to Aubrey,
Speaker 4: and to Carol, who shared God's message of mercy and
Speaker 4: grace with me. The Bible says in Romans four twenty
Speaker 4: that where sin increase, grace increased all the more.
Speaker 3: And I rapidly grew spiritually.
Speaker 4: While in the county jail, I was hungry to know
Speaker 4: more about this God who had shown me love and mercy,
Speaker 4: and I wanted him to use me in prison.
Speaker 3: Graciously, God blessed me with mentors.
Speaker 4: Spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers who took the time and
Speaker 4: raised me in the Lord. At my trial, I was
Speaker 4: convicted and given a double life sentence for two deaths,
Speaker 4: and as a nineteen year old, I was sent to
Speaker 4: prison for life in August nineteen eighty three, never expecting
Speaker 4: to see the outside world again, but I was thankful
Speaker 4: to be in Christ and inside I had been liberated.
Speaker 3: Let me make this clear.
Speaker 4: I never expected that I would ever be paroled, but
Speaker 4: I was free.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I could describe many examples of ministry and hardships from
Speaker 4: life inside. But let me just say I'm Danny Dushane
Speaker 4: and not Andy Dufrey from the Shawshank Redemption movie. And
Speaker 4: I have to say that movie. It's really just a movie.
Speaker 4: But I do want to tell you how so I
Speaker 4: became part of this saddleback church while in prison, and
Speaker 4: how God used purpose driven small groups to transform the
Speaker 4: lives of many inmates and brought a spiritual revival in
Speaker 4: our prison that resulted in the birth of a new church.
Speaker 4: God wants to use you by his mercy, and he
Speaker 4: will do amazing things with your life, regardless of your
Speaker 4: past mistakes, if you totally surrender your life to His love.
Speaker 4: In prison, I read The Purpose Driven Life by Pastor Rick,
Speaker 4: and in two thousand and three I contacted Pastor Rick
Speaker 4: and told him that a small group of about twenty
Speaker 4: of us inmates wanted to participate in the national forty
Speaker 4: Days of Purpose campaign that churches on the outside were doing.
Speaker 4: We thought perhaps fifty men would participate in the small groups,
Speaker 4: but as we went door to door asking if men
Speaker 4: in the prison were interested, more than two hundred guys
Speaker 4: signed up. Within a few weeks, our prison was buzzing
Speaker 4: with cell groups, which had a double meaning in our context.
Speaker 4: Through the power of these purpose driven small groups studying
Speaker 4: God's work together, we began to see radical transformation in
Speaker 4: the lives of guys we never imagined would respond to
Speaker 4: the gospel. God's mercy was at work and we had
Speaker 4: a new ministry. Then, on August thirty first, two thousand
Speaker 4: and three, Pastor Rick brought a team of pastors from
Speaker 4: zaddleback to encourage us and lead a service on the yard.
Speaker 4: It was amazing for one day, the prison yard of
Speaker 4: this higher security prison became a saddleback campus. Rick was
Speaker 4: given a microphone and he preached to the entire prison
Speaker 4: on the yard. Now, for those of you who might
Speaker 4: worry about your pastor's safety, rest assured that Rick was
Speaker 4: protected by a single line of yellow caution tape.
Speaker 3: But I should add.
Speaker 4: We also had over one hundred men whose lives had
Speaker 4: been changed through the purpose driven life sitting right in
Speaker 4: front of him, and there was no way they'd let
Speaker 4: anybody hurt Rick.
Speaker 3: Pastor.
Speaker 4: Rick spoke on the road to recovery, then gave a
Speaker 4: public invitation, inviting men from all across the yard to
Speaker 4: come and kneel with him in the dirt and pray
Speaker 4: as salvation prayer aloud in front of the entire prison population.
Speaker 3: It was a moment of amazing grace. Then Rick said, we're.
Speaker 4: Going to baptize now in front of the entire prison population.
Speaker 4: So we rolled out a large laundry band filled with
Speaker 4: water under the guard tower. That night, more than one
Speaker 4: hundred men gathered on the prison yard to claim the
Speaker 4: Sierra Prison as God's holy ground.
Speaker 3: As an act of humble reverence.
Speaker 4: This group of men stood in his circle in the
Speaker 4: prison yard, and we all removed our shoes as we
Speaker 4: began to pray for the men in each of the
Speaker 4: cell blocked buildings. Together, we officially established a purpose driven
Speaker 4: church with a mission and ministry to impact the entire
Speaker 4: population in faith. We believed that God, in his mercy
Speaker 4: was going to use us all for his glory. A
Speaker 4: few months later, Pastor John Baker returned to the prison
Speaker 4: and trained our church leaders to be celebrate recovery small
Speaker 4: group leaders in the prison. We were able to use
Speaker 4: the prison visiting room and also another building, which gave
Speaker 4: us the capacity of running sixty small groups a week.
Speaker 4: I cannot overstate the power of godly small groups in
Speaker 4: changing people's lives and that they had never received. For
Speaker 4: many guys, being part of a small group was the
Speaker 4: first time in their lives that they had ever received
Speaker 4: support to do the right thing. I will say this
Speaker 4: to every man, regardless of whether you are behind bars
Speaker 4: or outside, you cannot be all God wants you to
Speaker 4: be on your own. You need support, You need a
Speaker 4: small group. And I'm sure my life would have been
Speaker 4: very different if I'd had the support of a small group.
Speaker 3: When I was a teenager.
Speaker 4: We followed up the forty Days of Purpose campaign with
Speaker 4: another saddleback small group study on the Book of James.
Speaker 4: Then we studied the Purpose Driven Church together and many
Speaker 4: other small group discipleship studies, and of course, we kept
Speaker 4: repeating the Celebrate Recovery step studies and even offered the
Speaker 4: purpose driven Life again and again to new groups of guys.
Speaker 4: In our purpose driven Church, we appointed directors for each
Speaker 4: of the purposes and basis of membership, maturity, ministry, and mission.
Speaker 3: As our church continued to.
Speaker 4: Grow, the climate and atmosphere of the prison changed so
Speaker 4: much that it began to attract the attention of the media.
Speaker 4: Not only was our church growing, but we were having
Speaker 4: such a positive influence on the prison that local news stations,
Speaker 4: then the k Love radio station, and eventually the New
Speaker 4: York Times reported on the impact of the ministry of
Speaker 4: a group of guys inmates who had formed a purpose
Speaker 4: driven church in a prison. One of the big changes
Speaker 4: was a reduction in violence in the prison. Prior to
Speaker 4: doing the forty Days of Purpose campaign, racial and gang
Speaker 4: violence often controlled the prison. But during our forty Days
Speaker 4: of Purpose, when we launched all those small groups, not
Speaker 4: a single fight or riot interrupted Pastor Rick told me.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: Pastor Rick told me that the warden called him and said,
Speaker 4: what have you done to my prison?
Speaker 3: He said, everyone is peaceful.
Speaker 4: As a result of what was happening in our prison,
Speaker 4: many other prisons began using the forty Days of Purpose
Speaker 4: and Celebrate Recovery programs. They are now both used nationwide.
Speaker 4: You may not know that each year Saddleback honors churches
Speaker 4: around the world that are building on God's five purposes
Speaker 4: by giving those churches the Healthy Church Award. It was
Speaker 4: so encouraging to arm men when in two thousand and
Speaker 4: four Saddleback Church awarded the church we had started in
Speaker 4: prison with one of the three Healthy Church Awards for
Speaker 4: that year.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that's me. Here's the pastor in prison.
Speaker 4: With a black eye. All I can say is that
Speaker 4: you cannot expect to have a spiritual revival in a
Speaker 4: prison without at least some opposition. The media attention given
Speaker 4: to our church and questions about me and other Christians
Speaker 4: crossing racial boundaries were causes of several assaults on.
Speaker 3: Me and our other church leaders.
Speaker 4: At one point, the prison captain considered moving me from
Speaker 4: the prison for safety, but God brought us through that
Speaker 4: time of opposition, and in less than a year of growth,
Speaker 4: we were granted in an entire two hundred men building
Speaker 4: cell block to be used by those participating in Celebrate Recovery.
Speaker 4: To this day, Celebrate Recovery small groups continued to be
Speaker 4: the core curriculum for those in recovery, and in order
Speaker 4: to live in that cell block, you must commit to
Speaker 4: be part of Celebrate Recovery, commit to be in a
Speaker 4: small group, commit to having an accountability partner or a sponsor,
Speaker 4: and to complete Pastor Rick's video series on how to
Speaker 4: live in fellowship and community with one another. Again, God
Speaker 4: is used ordinary people in unlikely places because of his mercy.
Speaker 4: Now I want to personally express my gratitude to Pastor
Speaker 4: Rick for this letter, his support in the Saddle Backed Church,
Speaker 4: and the pastors of Saddleback for their support over all
Speaker 4: the years, and appreciate them because on Christmas Eve, December
Speaker 4: twenty fourteen, I was released after thirty two years in prison.
Speaker 3: God's mercy.
Speaker 4: Since my release, I've been writing waves of God's mercy
Speaker 4: and grace. First of all, God gave me the gift
Speaker 4: of a wonderful wife, Susan.
Speaker 3: We were married a year after my release. You can
Speaker 3: claps now.
Speaker 4: Susan and I will be leading a mercy campaign small
Speaker 4: group in our house that we are calling Welcome Home.
Speaker 4: After working for a year as a drug and alcohol
Speaker 4: counselor at a San Francisco methadone clinic, I've been released
Speaker 4: to finally join.
Speaker 3: The Saddleback staff.
Speaker 4: I've been asked to serve as Saddleback's pastor of prison
Speaker 4: ministries through Celebrate Recovery. As I stand here today, I
Speaker 4: am aware that I'm only here by God's mercy. I
Speaker 4: am very grateful for the pastors, the friends, and family
Speaker 4: that God has shown his mercy through. You know, the
Speaker 4: Bible says in James two thirteen that mercy triumphs over judgment,
Speaker 4: and my life is an example of that truth. I
Speaker 4: know now that God has brought me from the inside
Speaker 4: out to proclaim that God's mercy is the key to
Speaker 4: inner freedom. Whether your prison is physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational.
Speaker 4: By God's mercy and grace, I will serve you for
Speaker 4: jesus sake as best that I am able. This is
Speaker 4: the most amazing church, and thank you for welcoming me home.
Speaker 3: Saddleback.
Speaker 4: God bless you. Thank you for your mercy. Thank God
Speaker 4: for his mercy.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, God bless you. Bring on you.
Speaker 2: You're a new pastor.
Speaker 3: God bless you. This is Susan Love you guys, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Now. Do you believe me when I say God can
Speaker 2: use anybody?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Do you believe that the mercy of God will change everything?
Speaker 2: And it really doesn't matter where you've been. What matters
Speaker 2: the direction of your feet right now, I don't care
Speaker 2: how how much you've messed up. You're welcome and wanted
Speaker 2: at Saddleback Church. And this is a place, the s
Speaker 2: second chance, place of grace. And it's all about being
Speaker 2: used by God. Now, what kept Danny going for thirty
Speaker 2: two years in a prison? Can you imagine being in
Speaker 2: a prison for thirty two years? What kept him going?
Speaker 2: He followed the fifth and final secret of being used
Speaker 2: by God? And it is this Paul's last secret. Stay
Speaker 2: focused on eternity. Stay focused on eternity. You've got to
Speaker 2: maintain an eternal perspective. That way you don't get overwhelmed
Speaker 2: by your current problems. The bigger your picture of God,
Speaker 2: the smaller your problems are. The more you understand what's
Speaker 2: going to happen in eternity. The less you're bothered by
Speaker 2: the bad things that happen here on earth. If you
Speaker 2: have a big picture of God, you have a small
Speaker 2: picture of your problems. And if you lose your eternal perspective,
Speaker 2: you forget that it's not about now, it's not only
Speaker 2: not about you, it's not about now. That then your
Speaker 2: problems are going to overwhelm you. In Tewod Corinthians, verse
Speaker 2: chapter four, verse seventeen, these little troubles, Paul says, are
Speaker 2: getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make
Speaker 2: all of our troubles seem like nothing. These little troubles,
Speaker 2: what shipwreck, prison, sentences, beat five times and all those things,
Speaker 2: He says, these small problems. That's eternal perspective. When you
Speaker 2: understand how short life is, it's not even one hundred years,
Speaker 2: and how long eternity is. This is small potatoes. And
Speaker 2: you can put up with all kinds of stuff on
Speaker 2: this planet if you know what's going to happen in eternity,
Speaker 2: and you know the rewards and the blessing and the
Speaker 2: joy of being used by God. These little troubles are
Speaker 2: getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make
Speaker 2: all of our troubles seem like nothing. And then in
Speaker 2: verse eighteen, he says, so we don't look at the
Speaker 2: troubles we can see right now. We're going to stay
Speaker 2: focused on eternity. We don't look at the troubles we
Speaker 2: can see right now. That's a choice. Rather, we look
Speaker 2: forward to what we have not yet seen. For the
Speaker 2: troubles that we see right now in your life, they'll
Speaker 2: soon be over, but the joys to come in eternity
Speaker 2: will last forever. Now, friends, there are only three motivations
Speaker 2: in life. You're going to live your life on one
Speaker 2: of these three motivations. The first kind of motivation is
Speaker 2: internal motivation, and many people live their lives based on
Speaker 2: eternal motivation. I want to be happy, I want to
Speaker 2: be popular, I want to be rich, I want to
Speaker 2: be loved, I want to be famous. Whatever you got
Speaker 2: your internal motivation that motivates you through life. Or you
Speaker 2: can be motivated not by internal motivation but external motivation,
Speaker 2: and you're afraid of being fired, or you want to
Speaker 2: get the promotion, and it's external care and stick, and
Speaker 2: it's the reward or the penalty of other people around you.
Speaker 2: And you're motivated by what other people think, and that's external.
Speaker 2: But the highest motivation in life is not internal motivation.
Speaker 2: It's not external motivation, it's eternal motivation. It's being motivated
Speaker 2: by the fact that this life is a test and
Speaker 2: it's the get ready stage for the real show, which
Speaker 2: is going to go on trillions and trillions and trillions
Speaker 2: of years in heaven. Now, what is the key to
Speaker 2: staying focused now in spite of your problems, Because when
Speaker 2: you get tired, you lose your focus. When you get tired,
Speaker 2: you forget about eternity. When you get tired, all you
Speaker 2: can see is all the problems you got right now
Speaker 2: and the bills you have to pay. The key to
Speaker 2: staying focused write this down. Danny DeShane mentioned it four
Speaker 2: or five times in his testimony. Small groups. Small groups
Speaker 2: are the key to staying focused. You need perspective from
Speaker 2: the support of other people. You need a support system
Speaker 2: in your life. Paul never went anywhere without a small group.
Speaker 2: Paul never did anything in his life by himself. Everything
Speaker 2: Paul did the most used by God person in history,
Speaker 2: he did with a small group. He took a small
Speaker 2: group with him everywhere he went. I've often told you
Speaker 2: over and over how for thirty five years I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be the pastor of the church if it weren't for
Speaker 2: my small group. There were times in my life where
Speaker 2: there were difficulties that my small group showered me with prayer,
Speaker 2: showered me with mercy, showered me with love, showered me
Speaker 2: with wise counseul. The Bible says this, for Ecclesiastes four
Speaker 2: to twelve. A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated.
Speaker 2: But two can stand back to back. That's support and
Speaker 2: can conquer. And three that's three people. That's a small
Speaker 2: group right there. Three people are even better. For a
Speaker 2: triple braided chord is not easily broken. You get four people,
Speaker 2: get five people. You got a support system in your life.
Speaker 2: Jesus said it as clear as I can possibly say
Speaker 2: it Matthew eighteen twenty. For wherever two or three come together,
Speaker 2: that's called a small group. Wherever two or three come
Speaker 2: together in my name, I will be there with them.
Speaker 2: You want Jesus with you, get in a small group
Speaker 2: where two or three are gathered, come together in my name,
Speaker 2: I will be with them. Now let me close with
Speaker 2: just two questions.
Speaker 3: Two questions.
Speaker 2: Number one, what's the prison that's been holding you back?
Speaker 2: What prison. Have you been locked up in what in
Speaker 2: your past has prevented you from being used by God
Speaker 2: in the present? And you're locked up by fear, or
Speaker 2: you're locked up by anger, or you're imprisoned by regret
Speaker 2: or you're imprisoned by resentment. Are you been heard in
Speaker 2: the past, or you've had a major failure or you've
Speaker 2: had a shame or you've had excuse?
Speaker 3: What is keeping you?
Speaker 2: What's holding you back from going God? I'm all in.
Speaker 2: I've only been partial in, but I'm going to be
Speaker 2: all in now for you. Second question, do you really
Speaker 2: want to live the rest of your life just for yourself?
Speaker 2: You're not a big enough reason to live. That's not
Speaker 2: a big enough reason to get out of bed in
Speaker 2: the morning. Do you want to live the rest of
Speaker 2: your life just for yourself? Or do you want to
Speaker 2: live your life to be used by God for the
Speaker 2: purpose that you were created to live for. You don't
Speaker 2: want to miss your purpose in life? And as I
Speaker 2: close with prayer, are you going to be all in?
Speaker 2: If so, just tell God God I'm all in. I'm
Speaker 2: all in. I'm not going to be a casual Christian anymore.
Speaker 2: Say Dear God, I thank you for your mercy, and
Speaker 2: I want to fully understand it. I want to stop
Speaker 2: living for myself and I'm going to start being used
Speaker 2: by you for the purpose that you created me for.
Speaker 2: I admit I've been afraid to go all in with
Speaker 2: you in the past, but I'm not going to listen
Speaker 2: to my fears anymore. I'm not going to let the
Speaker 2: past hold me back. I'm all in in Jesus's name.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Speaker 1: Hey, did you know that the number one attribute of
Speaker 1: God in scripture is his mercy? It is and he
Speaker 1: wants to be merciful too. Jesus said, blessed are the merciful,
Speaker 1: for they will be shown mercy at you. Five seven.
Speaker 1: Now you can dive deeper into our current study with
Speaker 1: Pastor Rick's Miracle of Mercy study kit. Through his six
Speaker 1: session video and workbook study, he'll show you the five
Speaker 1: marks of mercy. You'll discover how mercy forgives the fallen,
Speaker 1: helps the hurting, is patient with difficult people, is kind
Speaker 1: to its enemies, and cares for the loss. And as
Speaker 1: you grow in mercy, you'll experience the blessing God promises
Speaker 1: to the merciful. The Miracle of Mercy sixth session video
Speaker 1: study kit is perfect for both personal and small group
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