Psalm 37, Proverbs 3 - He will act

Psalm 37

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.

Proverbs 3

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

Scripture verses - trust when afraid

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah

--Psalm 62:8

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
--1 Peter 5:6,7





The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

--Philippians 4:6,7

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

--Luke 12:32

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

--Matthew 6

fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
--Isaiah 41:10

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!"

I thought about titling this: Why Calvinists evangelize?

Psalm 33:4-9
4 For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
he puts the deeps in storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

2 Peter 3:5
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,

Hebrews 11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Here is what is significant. God the heavens and earth with His spoken word. God did this for a reason. The artist, the God who could have created the universe by any means, chose purposely and deliberately to use the spoken word. And even though the world sees this as foolish, by faith we know this to be true, because the word of the Lord is upright. God made this choice to create the worlds by His word, because He was going to use the same means to create something more significant and more difficult with the spoken word – new life. It is the foolishness of the preaching of the word that God uses to bring a dead man’s soul to life. And this word, this gospel, has power. This is why we preach the Gospel. Because the word of the Lord has power and will not return to Him void. When God says, “Let there be light”. There is light.

There is another significance to this. Christ is the Word. And just as all created things were made through him and are sustained by Him. So it is the same with this new life.

Romans 10:14-17
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:21
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

My week . . . or so

This week has been hard. I feel like a dork. My emotions have been so disheveled and confusing. And my response to it has a desperation. I am feeling stuff and having fears that I know are wrong. I am ok and I know I am ok, because I have already given the situation to the Lord and determined to walk in integrity. And I will do my best to be bold and step up, however the situation turns out. But my emotions are a mess. A lot of fear and anxiety and foolishness that I know is foolishness, but my emotions aren't cooperating. And I am not impressed with my response. In fact I am frustrated by how I am responding. I hate it. I am mad at myself. I feel like a failure because I am not stronger. I feel like I am messing everything up because I am not stronger.

Why am I saying this. Well, read the Psalms. Our hope cannot be in ourselves. I have to hope in God. I wish I could walk this Christian walk as a strong man. But I am not. It is only by His grace. I have no good thing apart from Him. I don't trust myself, but I do trust Him. His work of redemption works here and now in my real life, in my real messed upness. And some how out of all this mess and the wreck that I am, He is my refuge and He will vindicate me and make me trustworthy. Not for my glory, but for His.

Your are my strong tower - Kutless

Clouds and trembling

Sometimes our paths are cloudy and we cant see what is ahead of us. And sometimes the ground trembles. It is in these times that the words of the scripture are so sweet. "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path." "You enlarge my steps under me, And my feet have not slipped." We are not shaken or surrounded by clouds without purpose. We are shaken so that only Christ may remain. And there are clouds so that we don't lean on our own understanding. I must understand that I do not uphold my self. Christ upholds me. And so as the storms come, we know that He is Lord.

Does God have a great purpose for your life? pt 2

"In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame;"

I wrote in the last post, that sometimes what God has for us is not what the world would call great. What God may have for us may even be mundane. This does not mean that God is mundane in the way He treats us or loves us or uses us. It just means that instead of striving to be great, we commit our lives to His faithfulness, trusting that He will bring about His purposes whether in the mundane or not so mundane. One of the things great about God is that He is always great, even in the things this world may call not so great. His wisdom is not the wisdom of the world. So press into Christ with all you might, knowing that He is faithful, and He is great, and His purposes for your life are our in His faithful hands.

Psalm 37:3,4 "Commit your way to the LORD, trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday."

1 Corinthians 12:12

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Halloween and Harry Potter, and the like

O you who love the LORD, hate evil! – Psalm 97:10


My heart breaks when I see Christians excited about Halloween or when I see a child carrying a Harry Potter book with them in a church. Many Christians feel comfortable with things like Halloween or Harry Potter and the like. I know this is often ignorance. When I see these things, I want to call on God like Elijah did for his servant, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” But we don’t have to have our eyes opened in that way to see the destruction that these things cause. When we look at these things through the lens of the scripture, the evil of these things are evident. Witchcraft, sorcery, familiar spirits are not a mild harmless thing. They are an abomination. God shared his heart with his people, “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord . And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). God calls these things an abomination. I think we must understand that when we participate in these things we are participating in the very things Hell was made for. "Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien, and do not fear Me," says the Lord of Hosts.” (Malachi 3:5) "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death" (Revelation 22:8). God’s heart is broken over the destruction of witchcraft and sorcery; He hates it. And when we participate in these things we are participating in the very things God hates.


Some would say that I am binding men’s consciences. No, we are bondservants of Christ and our consciences are bound to love the things He loves and to hate the things He hates. Beloved, Christ has set us free from the evil and sin to which we once gave ourselves as slaves and were in bondage to. We are to no longer be bound by them. Listen to Acts 19:18-20. You can hear bonds crashing to the ground in an uproar of joy, “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” Christ went to the cross to set us free from the bondage of sin. True freedom is coming close enough to Christ to hear His heartbeat, to know the things He loves and the things He hates, and to embrace righteousness. We don’t hate evil because we are legalistic or in bondage, we hate evil because we are in love with Christ and we are enamored by the things he loves. This is freedom. Below are some scriptures that talk about God’s feelings toward witchcraft and sorcery, there are more, but those below should suffice. Read them and get close to the heart of your God.


Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. – Galatians 5:19-21

"Do not practice divination or sorcery.” – Leviticus 19:26

And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. - - Leviticus 20:6

"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." – Revelation 22:8

Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. –Revelation 22:15

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord . And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.” –Deuteronomy 18:9-12

Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. -- Acts 19:18-20

“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I [am] the LORD your God.” - - Leviticus 19:31

"A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them." - - Leviticus 20:27

You shall not allow a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. -- Exodus 22:18,19

Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:31

For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. I Samuel 15:23

And when they say to you, "Consult the mediums and the wizards who whisper and mutter," should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? Isaiah 8:19

"Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien, and do not fear Me," says the Lord of Hosts. Malachi 3:5

This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and delivers them.

--Psalm 34:6,7

Scripture

Joshua 1:8 "Do not let this book of the Law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

Psalm 1:2,3 "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. H is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whos leaf does not wither."

Deuteronomy 8:3 "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

Jeremiah 15:16 "When your words came, I ate them. They were my joy and my heart's delight."

John 17:17 "Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth!"

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

-- Psalm 73:26

Steady in tottering times

At the set time that I appoint
I will judge with equity
When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants,
it is I who keep steady its pillars.

--Psalm 75:2,3

from all my fears

I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

--Psalm 34:4

The LORD will answer

But for you, O LORD, do I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.

--Psalm 38:15

The Gospel is for the believer

I. The Gospel is for the sinner
Day 1
1 John 1:8
"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

I was talking with someone recently. He was telling me of his struggles in feeling that he had to be a “godly Christian” to fit in at the church he was at. He struggled to perform certain set of prescribed things to fit that image or the vision that the church had. He said that the message he had heard from the church was that God has saved you, so you can stop sinning, when in reality the message of the gospel is that Christ has saved us because we sin. He was telling me that he was now learning about the gospel and how it applied to him as a believer. And as he came to understand this, he began to be able to walk in what the Bible says a godly Christian is to be.
When we base our Christian walk on how well we do or what a “godly Christian” is, we become actors trying to fit the image of what this is thought to be. But when we come to God by grace and grace alone, we are free to be real. Because it is not about impressing men or God, for God does not need to be impressed.

My question is: Are you capable of Righteousness?

Are you real with others or do you act like you are Righteous?

Additional readings: Isaiah 6:1-7, Psalm 16:2, Galatians
Video – Forgive me

Nothing to offer

Day 2: the Gospel is for the sinner, pt 2
I say to the LORD, "You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you."

I asked yesterday, “Are you capable of Righteousness? . . . No, a resounding No, I have no good thing apart from God (Psalm 16:2). I bring no more to him, now, than I brought at the beginning of my salvation. . . . This is the freedom of the Gospel, we cannot earn it, we cannot prove anything, we can only trust in the work that Christ has done.

We must come to understand that our greatest righteousness is like filthy rags. We have nothing to offer Him, He has everything to offer us and He alone gets the glory.

I recently visited my 3 year old niece. Her parents don’t back down on teaching her about the Gospel and the scriptures. They know a child can understand the deep things of God. It’s great to be able to talk with a three year old about God! I was talking with her and asked her if she was going to be obedient to her parents. She had this look on her face of knowing that if she said yes that she would be lying. I told her, “You can ask God to help you to obey your parents, you know that, right.” She looked at me (she was so cute!) and said “Yes”. My niece at 3 years old understood her need for the Gospel in order to be able to obey her parents. . . .We need Him too.

How does the fact that we have nothing to offer God, and God has everything to offer us affect your Christian walk?

Additional readings: Galatians, Isaiah 42:8, Isaiah 61:3b, Colossians 1:29
Video – Who am I

Our hope

II. The Cross of Christ must become bigger
Day 3
God calls us to live in righteousness. The scripture clearly says that as a Christian you must pursue righteousness. I am sure we can all think of several scriptures which show this. But now I’m telling you, that you can’t be Righteous. So where is our hope?


-- The Gospel --


In Romans 7, Paul, like my 3 year old niece, knows that if he is honest, he can’t say, “Yes, I will do good”. Paul is very real and candid here. He talks about his struggle with sin and how although he would like to do what is good, he doesn’t. In this desperation he cries out “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” . . . But he is not without hope. . . . His answer is, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Paul said that he was the worst of all sinners. But he understood that grace touched every part of who he was, it had to or he wouldn’t have had hope. He understood that God came to save sinners. The cross had become bigger for him. Paul was honest and real; he had to have Jesus . . . "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. . . . may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Paul wrote in Galatians, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?” The Bible says, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

You see, we cannot look at the work of the Gospel as something just done in our past when we were saved, for we are just as much in need of it, now, as Christians as when we first believed, both to realize our forgiveness in God and to enable us to pursue righteousness. Hear this; we never ever outgrow our need for the Gospel. The Gospel not only obtains our salvation, it also produces our sanctification, and secures our glorification.

And this faith looks to a person - Jesus Christ our Lord, the author and perfecter of our faith. This is the Gospel. Jesus is the Gospel. He alone saves us from sin. He is our only hope. Therefore there is no boasting; only praise, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”


Who do you depend on for righteousness?

Is your walk in sanctification by faith or works?

Additional readings: Psalm 73:26, Philippians 3:9, Romans 8
Video – Mighty is the Power of the Cross

Strong Tower

IV. Its effect on our lives
Day 6
We have seen that Christ saves us and sanctifies us. So how do we respond?. . . By faith.

Psalm 121
"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in."

We do not look to ourselves for anything. We look to God for everything.

Where is your faith?

Who do you depend on to live the Christian walk, to keep your going out and your coming in, to keep your life?

Who do depend on to fight sin, to minister, to fight the fight of the faith?

Do you believe that He is your strong tower?

Additional readings: Psalms (all of them) J, The Psalms are a good place to learn about faith.
Video – You are my strong tower


Matthew 8:23-27
"And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing." And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?""

The Good Fight

Day 9: Its effect on our lives, pt 4
a. And by faith we fight the Good fight of the faith
Psalm 144:1,2
"Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; he is my steadfast love and my fortress my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me."

God has made us partakers in work that He has wrought in our lives. The work that God does by grace brings us in to participate with Him in the work that He is accomplishing. When David went to fight, He did it in God’s power, in God’s way, for God’s glory. That doesn’t mean he didn’t really fight. His fighting was real. Battle is very real, in your face stuff. God has called us to put sin to death and to fight the good fight of the faith. And this is real. The fact that God does it, does not mean that there is not a real struggle or a real fight. The message is not “because it is God, we can sit back.” The message is to fight, to “. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” It is because of Him we fight. And it is because He has accomplished the victory that have the confidence to fight. If we don’t fight we don’t have faith in the work that God has done. Faith without works is dead.

It was because David didn’t have any confidence in himself that he could fight. His confidence was in God alone. The scriptures say that the Spirit of the Lord was on David. That is where His desire and strength came from.

And because of this, David did not boast in himself. . . In Judges 7:2, “The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, 'My own power has delivered me.'’” In this fight, we must not declare, “My own power has delivered me.” You did not overcome, God alone did. Although He allows us to participate in the work that He is doing, God alone sanctifies us.

God will glorify himself. And yet we so often live in a way where we work to try to bring the glory of God about, instead of resting in grace and simply being faithful and obedient to the One who will bring His glory. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
We can rest in this. God has declared us righteous. He has made us kings and priests. But the Christian life is not "now that we are kings and princes, we walk out in our own strength and work to see God's Kingdome come." It is Grace from first to last. We are not kings and priests by our own strength or righteousness and we never will be. We are kings and priests because of His word. And we stand and press into the kingdom not by our works, but by His word that makes it so. And so we continue to press in by grace. But what a grace it is! And how mighty is our God!
And it is because of His word that we can face the gates of Hell and fight without fear.


Jeremiah 9:22-24
"23Thus says the LORD, " Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD."


Do you believe in the work He has wrought in you?

To whom do you give your faith to in the battle?

Do you have faith to go to the battle, are you afraid?

Additional readings: Romans 8; Psalm 73:26; Psalm 20:7; Proverbs 25:14;
Video – My Jesus
Video-Justification in the fight
Video – Unfailing Love

Thunder

I love the sound of thunder. Thunder, especially the really loud, deep, house shaking, heart shaking THUNDER, fills me with so much peace. For me it’s a faint echo of hearing the voice of God. It reminds me of Psalm 18 and God’s protection over me. “I will love You, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; . . . . And I cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And even my cry came before Him, even to His ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundation of the hills also quaked and were shaken, . . . . The LORD thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice, . . . . He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters.” I think C.S. Lewis described this feeling well when he describes Aslan’s roar. It’s a strength that both shakes you and gives you unshakable peace at the very core of who you are. When I hear thunder, I feel like a child being held in the arms of my Father.