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  FINISHING WELL IN THE CHRISTIAN RACE
  by Randy Krahn
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of staying faithful to
God, avoiding hypocrisy, and seeking genuine transformation through
surrender and obedience. It highlights the need to prioritize love,
discipline, and humility in our walk with Christ, focusing on the
significance of yielding to God's authority and allowing Him to work in
our lives for His glory.

Topics: "Faithfulness to God", "Genuine Transformation"
Scripture References: Isaiah 55:1, Proverbs 23:23, 1 John 4:7, Hebrews 12:6, Romans 12:1, James 4:7, Romans 13:11, Psalm 40:3, 1 John 2:4

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of staying faithful to God,
avoiding hypocrisy, and seeking genuine transformation through surrender
and obedience. It highlights the need to prioritize love, discipline,
and humility in our walk with Christ, focusing on the significance of
yielding to God's authority and allowing Him to work in our lives for
His glory.

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CONTENT
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Father, thank you for today. This is the day that you made. We rejoice
and we're glad in it.

Let's pray for the Holy Spirit to speak, to continue to speak to our
hearts, Lord, that we would not leave the same, that we would move
forward in the faith in Jesus. There's a time when me and a good
brother, I'll call him Brother James, we were young in the Lord, had a
lot of zeal. We would stand for hours in the presence of God, the Holy
Spirit would come and it was like, my Uncle John, he's a pastor in Burns
Lake.

He came to worship with us and we were there and he's a Mennonite guy
too, but we kind of sensed that he was quenching the Holy Spirit because
maybe he saw in our zeal, maybe he was able to discern some other things
in us that we were like, go, you know? Some good ingredients there, but
not gone through the oven of his dealings to become bread. And we
discerned that he was lukewarm maybe, or not on fire for the Lord, or
kind of religious or whatever. So we just told him how we experienced
him.

You know, that's what young people usually do. They kind of just tell
people how they experience one another. We can do a lot of damage doing
that.

But in our zeal, we say what comes into our head and we think, you know,
we just want to be obedient to that, or maybe we don't even realize it.
And when he took us, we walked him to the door. He said a few things to
me and to my friend, James.

He said, you know what? I'm really happy you're zealous in. You know,
you changed from your old life. These are great things.

But he said, you know, it's not how you start. It's how you finish, you
know? And the journey is long and the way is difficult. And so we need
the Lord, not just to deliver us from all those sins of the flesh that
are initially keeping us in captivity, but to overcome things like
bitterness and resentment and being offended.

You know what happened about the Pharisees? The biggest thing was when
Jesus would speak the word, they were offended. You know, people would
come and say, Jesus, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when
you spoke to them? And he said, just leave them alone. Every plant that
my heavenly father's not planted will be pulled up.

They were very zealous for scriptures. And as far as holiness goes,
outwardly, nobody could discern that they were hypocrites. Only Jesus
could, because he could see the heart.

He could see that there was greed there. There was a desire for honor
there. You know, there's something, when I go to the creek, I talked to
one brother about this yesterday.

I says, you know how I know that my message was a convicting message
from the Holy Spirit? I says, there's one way. And I says, and I like to
gauge that by the response I get. When I'm preaching the word of God, if
people get up and walk out, if people are convicted and offended by the
scriptures, reading of scriptures, then I know that the Holy Spirit,
they're hearing it and it's hurting them.

And they're confronted with a decision. I'm not offended when they walk
out. I'm grieved when they clap for me, because I missed the mark.

It's not about preaching a good message. You know what it is? I can
throw a handful of feathers 100 miles an hour and hit you in the face
with them. And men will clap and say, that's a wonderful performance.

But if I take a hard ball and I hit you right in the face with it, it
hurts hard. There's no clapping. And we want the word of God to impact
us to the point where men cry out and say, what shall we do? In our
younger years, we could preach up a storm and people would clap.

People were impressed with the amount of scriptures we knew and how we
could sling the word of God. But no one repented of their wickedness. No
one changed.

And we began to do some self-examination. We began to see that there was
no weight behind the words. It was God's word.

It was good word. Just like the Pharisees would speak God's word. They
were good words.

They were speaking from the old covenant, the Torah. There's no
authority there. But when Jesus spoke, they went to centurions.

They went to go arrest him. And they come back and they say, well, where
is the guy? Wow, no one ever spoke like this man. This man speaks like
one who has authority.

Make it your aim in life, in your zeal and in your passion for Jesus to
become one who has authority from God. Otherwise, all the preaching will
be throwing feathers at the wind, won't accomplish anything. It's not by
might nor by power, it's by his spirit.

And the word of God can break a bone, even if it's gentle. A gentle word
can break a bone. If there's a weight behind it.

Since that time, we went through many things. Me and James, we were
brothers. He was my young mentor in the Lord.

I followed him. He was a year ahead of me. In the process of time in our
seeking for Jesus and seeing a lot of things and praying for a lot of
people, seeing the power of God and the miracles of God.

Pride came into our hearts, but we didn't see it. There was this one
time we would record our prophecies because there were many in those
days. We put the tape recorder on, and this one time the Holy Spirit
rebuked us thoroughly.

But we just laughed. We thought it was great, it was exciting. We didn't
understand the visitation of God and what God was trying to say to us.

And I'll reiterate it to you, how it came. And all of a sudden there was
a vision of a hand. And I heard my brother say, I see a hand, I see a
hand.

Then he screeched, ah, it's the hand of the Lord. It's on my face. And I
saw a vision of a hand on his face, squishing his face.

And then he began to prophesy. He said, it's not your hand that does
these things, it's my hand. You must not receive the glory.

I will not share my glory with flesh. And it went on from there. And
afterwards, we were just like amazed that the power of God was there and
the glory of God.

We laughed and we thought this was excellent. We didn't understand what
was going on. It was a short time after that, that pride came and a fall
came.

And with the fall came destruction, a church split came. And through
that church split came divorce, came a separation, a scattering of a lot
of sincere brothers because there was a visitation from the Lord and we
didn't understand the day of our visitation. The Lord was warning us to
repent.

In those days, we would cast out demons and we would preach with this
brother James. He gave me a $600 pair of cowboy boots, snakeskin. I
really felt I had authority when I wore those boots.

Boy, I would preach like nothing else. And one day I was in prayer and I
said, Lord, is there anything, like anything, if you want me to do
anything, Lord, I'll do it for you. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do
it for you.

And I heard like he was speaking audibly. I heard it, burn those boots
now. And I began to tremble in fear like I was gonna get a severe
discipline if I didn't obey immediately.

I was in my hot tub at that time having a prayer. I come flying out of
that hot tub. I went flying down my steps.

I grabbed those boots. I took them to my yard. I poured gas on them.

I lit them on fire. That's the fear of the Lord. When God speaks, you
need to respond.

We have, the word we see in part, my friends, but we have blind spots.
Even today when we're driving down the road, that's why they make you
shoulder check how many times because there can be a blind spot. And if
you're careless and you can't, and you miss that, I've even seen it.

I've had a blind spot. I check and I double check. And I started to turn
and I looked one second time, it was in my blind spot.

I would have derailed the family, maybe killed them all. This is what
can happen because we see in part and we preach in part, but the Holy
Spirit sees perfectly. And we haven't attained to that measure and
stature of Christ that we need to yet.

And so we can get derailed. We can suffer shipwreck if we don't take
heed to the things that we've heard. If we just take them lightly and we
don't examine them and test whether we're in the faith, it says in 2
Corinthians 13, to those people who had the gifts of the Holy Spirit and
they were prophesying and all these things, another man came who was
bringing another gospel in a different Jesus.

And Paul says to them, you need to test and to see whether you're
actually in the faith. And he said, I have hope of better things in this
for you. And he would always exhort the people.

In fact, when the Holy Spirit spoke to the seven churches in Revelation,
he always exhorted the churches. Why would you exhort the church? See to
it that you're not deceived. Why would he tell the brothers not to be
deceived? Because we can get off course.

We can take a wrong turn. We can find ourselves out of the way.
Sometimes by ignorance and sometimes because of discouragement comes or
whatever, and we get another easier way worked out and we take a wider
path.

And that path will lead to destruction. But the gate is small and the
way is narrow that leads to life. And there's few who find it.

Jesus told the disciples many times, O ye of little faith and see to it
that you're not deceived. Men will come in my name. Men will come in my
name.

I'm telling you, there's many people preaching Jesus will come in his
name, in Jesus name. And they'll bring another gospel in a different
Jesus. When the teaching changes, the gospel changes.

When the gospel changes, the spirit changes. And then you get a
different way worked out. You gotta be careful and take heed to the
things that we've heard lest we drift away.

The fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom. If you lose the fear of
the Lord, you're in danger of hell fire. Because the fear of the Lord is
what keeps us from looking back.

When discouragement comes, you look back. We go back, that's the way of
the flesh. Brother came to me yesterday and was confessing some things.

And I said to him, I said, well, you know what's happened? What's
happened? I says, the tail started growing back. We dealt with the
flesh. We reckon ourselves dead to sin.

We've cut off the flesh. We've made no provision for it. And the Lord is
leading us in the way.

But when discouragement comes, something comes in the path. And all of a
sudden we sit on the side of the road like blind Bartimaeus, stuff
starts coming back into our life. That tail starts growing again.

So what do I need to do? I said, don't cut it. Don't cut it in five
chunks and suffer so much pain. I said, just hack it right off of the
rump.

Just deal with the flesh. Reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God.
Well, I don't deserve.

None of us deserve. But for the grace of God. You know, there was a man
by the name of Saul of Tarsus who was converted gloriously and became
brother Paul.

And then he got into something of an envy, of a jealousy, of a
covetousness. And he said he was alive once apart from the law, but then
sin revived and I died. It's a place in Romans seven, a place where the
man was born again and he went back into his old sins and he got caught
up in covetousness.

It's not a pack of smokes you can throw away. Covetousness is something
in the heart. God has to manifest it and he uses the law to manifest our
situation in our state so that we can get light on ourselves, so we can
see that death is working in us, so we can get our eyes off of whatever
it is that we're looking at and get our eyes back on Jesus.

Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph through Christ Jesus and
through us diffuses the fragrance of Christ in every place. And
sometimes it's a fragrance of life to life and sometimes it's a
fragrance of death to death. And may the Lord give you understanding in
what I'm preaching.

There's a dying that is a very much a part of our life in Christ. Jesus,
when he was in the days of his flesh, he cried out to his father with
loud cries and tears to him who could save him from death. Do you think
Jesus, he was filled with the Holy Spirit? Yes or no? What kind of
death? The cross? Was Jesus crying because he wanted to be saved from
the cross through his lifetime? He was tempted in all points as you and
I are yet without sin.

He cried out to his father, God, you gotta save me from covetousness.
You gotta save me. They wanna make me king.

You gotta save me from letting them come and put me on a pedestal.
Jesus, Father, you gotta save me from this hour. I don't wanna go
through with giving my life up as a ransom for many.

But nevertheless, not my will, thine be done. And it says he was heard.
Why was he heard? Because he had godly fear.

And that godly fear produced in him a weeping and a crying and a
travail. Do you think that you're gonna inherit the kingdom of God
without weeping and crying and travail? Are you better than Jesus? Are
you stronger than him who is full of the Holy Spirit and no one ever
spoke like that man? Or are you gonna do it another way? Don't be
deceived. We can be deceived.

Jesus, through the days of his life and the days of his flesh, cried out
to his father with loud cries, vehement cries and tears to him who could
save him from death. And he was heard. If you come to him, you will be
heard.

When we were singing that song, I sing a simple song of love to my
savior, to my Jesus. I know exactly where I was. I know exactly what I
was going through.

I know the baby that died in the mother's womb and was miscarried. And I
went and I worshiped the Lord. And I put that song on and I put my hands
up to the Lord.

I said, I sing a simple song of love. Even though you slay me, yet will
I trust you. I'm still going through with God.

He's not only my friends, the God of the mountain, he's the God of the
valley. We don't only serve him in the good times, we serve him in the
hard times. When it's impossible with man, go through with God because
he's there.

The blessing is in the valley. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of
his might. We don't have any might, my friends.

We have zeal, but we don't have might. That might comes from God. Put on
the whole armor of God.

Be thoroughly equipped that you might stand against the attacks of the
devil. The devil doesn't attack. What a foolish enemy if he attacks
someone that he has absolutely no power against.

You know where he gets his power through? You start to doubt. You start
to waver. You start to waffle.

You start to question everything. Pretty soon the devil is there and
he's buffeting you. He doesn't quit until he gets a hold of what he's
looking for.

He wants everyone to destroy everyone, but we are able to resist him
steadfast in the faith. Being girded, being strong, having the helmet of
salvation, holding up the shield of faith above all, having a
breastplate of your righteousness in his, walking in covenant with God,
having your feet shod with the sandals, ready to share the hope that you
have in Jesus, having the belt which holds all the armor together of
truth, brother, sister, love truth. Even if it hurts, embrace truth.

Kiss the sun lest he be angry with you. Let the Lord chasten you and
receive the correction from the Lord so that you can learn his way.
Never seen a hunter shooting feathers out of his rifle hoping to
accomplish a kill.

Never seen it. When you preach, make sure that you have his authority.
Otherwise you won't see the power and the glory of God.

And if you don't let him break you, then he can't use you. You can see a
field of wild horses, powerful and strong, yet useless unless they're
broken to be ridden by the master. There were two donkeys there.

He said, go and unleash those donkeys. He said, I have need of them. He
said, well, what if they ask? He said, the Lord has need of them.

Just sitting there, tied, waiting to be loosed to be used of the Lord.
Be a donkey that's ready to be used of the Lord. When he speaks,
respond.

Respond. That's your part. And when you get used, don't get puffed up
and get your head all swollen.

Just be thankful that the Lord could use a wrecks like you. That's the
amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that he could use a wrecks like you.
Man, when I don't, I think back, I once was lost, but now I'm found.

Was blind, but now I see in part. Could change that. But now I see in
part.

We have, but what does the brother say? We ask for more. We have, but
still we ask for more. May the Lord finish the work that he's begun on
us.

And I'm thankful for Uncle John. Thankful for that man. He doesn't even
know those words.

They still ring true in my heart. It's not how you start, my friend.
It's how you finish.

My brother, James, that prophesied like none other, that had the gifts
of the spirit, and men would weep and cry out because the secrets of
their heart would be revealed. Today is on the wayside. When I thought
of him, when I sang that song, I had a prayer for my brother, James.

May the Lord have mercy on him. Let's read in Isaiah 55. The flesh is
crafty.

They can put that thing on my tombstone. Isaiah 55 verse one. Everyone
who thirsts, come to the waters.

Couple days ago, I looked out my window, I saw a family of raccoons, six
of them, all drinking from the pond here. They were thirsty. I don't
know if you know much about raccoons, but they're not very friendly.

They can be nasty. They carry disease and everything else. But they were
thirsty, and they came.

Brother Abe said he looked out the window, he saw there was a deer in
the yard. Maybe that deer was thirsty too. I guess the question is, are
you thirsty? As the deer pants for the water brook.

Brother says, so my soul longs for God. It says here, everyone who
thirsts, come to the waters. Does your soul thirst for God? What do you
thirst for? You thirst for video games? You thirst to get home from work
and get on your phone? You thirst for a week off? Get some rest? What do
you thirst for? May it be that you thirst for the Lord, wherever you go,
whatever you do.

Don't lose your thirst for the Lord. Everyone who thirsts, come to the
waters. He says, and you who have no money, this gospel is not for the
rich, it's for the poor.

You have no money, you don't have anything. Why don't you come? Why
don't you buy? Why don't you eat? And you say, well, what does that
mean? You have no money, come buy and eat. How are you gonna buy
something to eat if you have no money? I see guys standing at the
corners all over the place.

They got their signs up, they're looking for money. And then they say,
well, I need something to eat. The brothers came back from the well
there where Jesus had just spoken to the woman at the well and she
dropped her water pot and ran and told everyone about a man that she'd
met.

And they had food there. And he said, master, eat something. And he
said, I have food to eat and no nothing to do as well.

Come buy and eat. There's a scripture in Proverbs, I think it's in 24
verse 24. It says, come buy, well, let's read.

We'll come back here. Proverbs 24, Proverbs 23, 23, Proverbs 23, 23,
sorry. Buy the truth and do not sell it.

Come buy and eat. Buy the truth and do not sell it. Buy wisdom, also
wisdom.

Buy instruction, buy understanding. You have no money. You say, well, I
have nothing.

But you know what? He says, buy the truth and don't sell it. How do you
sell the truth? Buy a lie. You know, there's a scripture in Revelation
that says no one can buy or sell except the one who has the mark.

I tell you this, buy the truth and don't sell it. Otherwise you'll be
deceived by any Christ spirit. You'll go the way of the wicked one.

Love truth. Love the Lord Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength. Love wisdom, get wisdom.

Get understanding, get knowledge. Not to know it, not that your head
would get swollen, but that you might come to know him. That you might
experience the power of him.

That you might experience the power of his resurrection. Not just a one-
time deal. And every day, knowing God.

And every day, miracles. And every day, an unveiling and a revealing of
his nature and who he is. Of his power and of his glory.

To know his voice. There was a time we were worshiping the Lord. And all
of a sudden, my friend James and I, like we would really press in.

All of a sudden, we look at one another in amazement. And we both
pointed to the same corner in my house where we were worshiping. He
said, do you hear that? I said, I hear it.

We heard the exact same thing. He says, it's quiet. I says, it's very
quiet.

The brother said, it's the still waters. I said, it's so quiet. And you
can liken it.

Can you imagine hearing nothing? I was one time at a lake, a small lake,
a way out of Meriden. And nobody there. We were camping there.

And there were no crickets or no dogs barking or nothing. And the peace
at night on the lake. It's quite amazing.

This was 10 times quieter than the quietest thing I've ever heard in my
life. Yet the music was playing. But we both heard it.

The peace that passes understanding. The quieting of one's soul like a
weaned child on the mother's bosom. This is the things that God wants to
reveal to us.

There was another time when the Holy Spirit manifested among us. And the
dread of the Lord came and we had an area right there. And the both of
us at the same time tried to crawl under the mat.

We literally tried to get under the mat. You see two grown men trying to
get under an area rug on the floor to hide themselves from the holiness
of God. When an angel would show up or the Lord would come, terror would
come on them.

They would fall like dead men before the Lord. The Lord wants to reveal
himself. And then yet he shows himself so gentle, yet so powerful.

The word of the Lord can snap off the cedars just like a nuclear
explosion. If he speaks, he can just shear them right off. The Lord is
awesome.

Expect to hear from the Lord when you get alone with him. Wait on the
Lord, he'll bring it to pass. He's able to do exceedingly and abundantly
more in your life than you've let him so far.

And he's not a bully. You're not gonna force yourself. But if you wait,
you'll be renewed.

You'll be strengthened with all power in the inner man. Buy truth, don't
sell it. Don't buy a lie.

There's enough preachers coming, peddling different things here and
there, new teachings and this and that. You can spend all your lifetime
searching and reading and researching. Get alone in the closet with
Jesus.

Let him teach you. There's a scripture, it says in 1 John chapter two,
he says, you don't need any man to teach you. You don't need any man.

Of course, we learn from one another. But the Holy Spirit is able to
lead us and guide us into all truth. So some man comes to town selling
you a used vacuum, you can pick it out because you've been with Jesus.

You say, ah, this guy, I recognize this spirit. Get alone with God,
Isaiah 55. Why do you spend money, verse two, on what is not bread? Why
do you spend your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen to me carefully
and eat what is good.

Let your soul delight itself in abundance. You could preach a whole
sermon just on that right there. Why spend money on what's not bread?
Why spend all of our wages on that which leaves us empty and longing for
more? I mean, do we not learn? Are we still ignorant? Yet we continue to
do the same things over and over and over.

You get stuck spending money on what is not bread, spending your wages
on what does not satisfy. He says, come buy and eat free without cost of
money. Get alone with Jesus.

Let him satisfy the longing and thirsting of your soul. Come to the
waters, feed on the word of God. Jesus is the bread of life.

We're spending our money on all kinds of things but we're not coming to
feed on him. I was in California not too long ago. I got a call from
someone I wasn't expecting.

Hey, when are we gonna have communion? I said, communion? Feed on the
bread of life. They went from house to house. They had communion, I
think, every day.

They were eating of the flesh and drinking of his life. I know there's a
form of where we have a remembrance but we need to remember every day
when you go and spend your money on what's not bread and the next time
and you sit there and you think, man, what did I do this for? Why did I
do this? Why didn't I just come by and eat and feed on his faithfulness?
Did I need that next thing? Did I need that another thing? Do I need to
go buy that thing? Do I need to waste my money on this and that? Is that
gonna get me through? Is that gonna satisfy? Just repent. Lord, I don't
wanna get out of the way.

I wanna get back in the narrow way. I just wanna keep coming to you.
Man, you're never gonna go wrong coming to Jesus.

Just keep coming to him. Let the word of God dwell richly in you through
faith. Brother shared about the faith.

You still strengthen yourselves in the faith. Now, we need to have a
strong faith because we're living in the last hour. There's a lot of
nonsense out there.

Even people who seem to have power and signs and blind wonders, a lot of
stuff going on. We need to know the truth. That's what's gonna make you
free.

That's what's gonna liberate you from bitterness and covetousness and
pride and being easily offended and all these things. Coming to him is
gonna liberate you. Jesus was never offended.

You know, when they went there and they were plucking out his beard and
everything and then they were mocking him. Hey, you think you're a big
shot? You think you're the Christ? Come down from the cross. And if you
come down from the cross, then we'll believe you.

I would have tried with all my might to get off of there to prove
something to those guys. Get off of there and maybe give them one good
punch in the face. Not Jesus.

I'm not there yet, but I wanna get there. And then to say something like
this while he's hanging there dying, fighting for every breath, fighting
for every breath before he finally yielded up his spirit. Father, I
said, well, of course they knew what they were doing.

They were mocking him. They knew exactly what they were doing. For had
they known, they would not have crucified him.

Lord, go away from me. I don't know your ways. Lord, I wanna learn your
ways.

You know, you've heard it said love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But the Lord says, I tell you, love your enemies. Pray for those who
spitefully use you, say hurtful things to you.

Go learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. He doesn't want
you to put back the two pieces of bacon.

Right? He wants you to forgive people and love them in spite of them. Go
learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

I desire compassion. Go learn it. Spend a week and learn it.

It'll be good for you. Be good for us all. You can't offend a dead man.

You go and kick a dead man, he won't move. You go and poke a half dead
man in the ribs. He might swear at you.

He might tell you off. He might tell you what he really thinks about
you. It's not the one that poked you that we should be upset about.

We need to look at ourselves and say, why did I respond that way? Lord,
am I going the way of King? Am I going the way of Cain, Lord? Do I want
to kill my brother? Am I angry with my brother? Why don't you justify
me, Lord? It's not about that. It's about him. The Lord takes us through
many things in our lifetime to give us light on ourselves, that we might
be conformed into the image of Jesus.

That's the goal. And I can say probably most of us here at one time or
another, we slipped because we became envious of the proud or the
boastful or we were offended or something happened. But it's not how you
start.

It's how you finish. Don't give up. A righteous man may fall seven
times.

Our righteousness is in Christ. You have to get up. The devil would tell
you there's no hope, but Jesus would tell you, follow me.

Keep going with God. Surround yourself around brothers that have the
same heart desire. They're probably not perfect.

None of us are. But go with brothers who want to follow Christ. And if
you can't love the brothers that you've seen, there's no way you can
love God.

You deceive yourself. If you have an issue with a brother whom you've
seen, how can you say you love God? That's the scripture. We need to
take all the scriptures.

We need to just let things go. We need to just make things right. And we
need to repent because the world doesn't care what you know, but they
watch us.

They want to know that you care. And the way that you know you're a
Christian is the love you have for each other. We don't have to sit
across the aisle.

Hope no one talks to us or walk out. This is not from the Holy Spirit.
This is from the devil.

We need to reconcile and we need to work through things and love one
another. Even if we can't fix things, even if we see things differently,
we still need to love one another. Love is of God.

And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And the one who
can't love, well, it's very clear, he doesn't know God. God is love.

I understand we're gonna have doctrinal differences and things are gonna
come up. We see in part. And we need to be patient with one another.

And sometimes the more mature one needs to be more patient with the one
who's not overcoming at the time. But love has to prevail. Without love,
we're wasting our time.

It says they'll know you're Christians because the love you have one for
another. That's how they'll know that you're a Christian. There's no
gossiping and backbiting and trying to get people on your side and
sending texts and shooting this and that and mouthing off.

You're not even a Christian, you do stuff like that. If that's the way
that you are, you need to look in the mirror. Take a good hard look in
the mirror.

That's not Christianity, that's not Jesus. You may as well say those
things about Jesus. Some of us have.

Blame him for it all. Who are the things created? What's the clay
supposed to say to the potter? Why are you making me like this? What's
your problem? Why are you making me like this? Why did I become marred
in your hand? Problem's with you. Listen, let's just put our cums in the
dust and say you are almighty and I am vile.

You are holy and I am nothing. Brother David said, I am a worm and I'm
not a man. We are small and he is awesome.

Let's just tremble at the Lord. You know, and then when it just pleases
him to meet with us, that is so humbling. That is just so humbling.

I cry when the Lord meets with me and I say, who am I that you're
mindful of me, Lord? Who am I that you care for me? Messed up so many
times yet you still meet with me. That's how humble the Lord is. He's
not ashamed to call you his brother and sister.

He's not ashamed of that, but we've been ashamed of him. May the Lord
help us and forgive us. Come buy and eat without money.

Feed on his faithfulness. Feed on his blessings and feed on his goodness
and feed on his severity. If he's getting your attention this morning,
whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges.

Every son he's received. There was a time I was at the creek and I was
preaching on discipline and the Holy Spirit said, take your belt off
now. Take your belt off now and hold it in the air.

I was right in the middle of preaching a real wonderful sermon on
discipline. I took my belt off and I held that thing in the air. And I
says, if we won't receive his kindness, we're gonna get the belt, the
white belt.

And some of the men were trembling in fear. One guy ran right out of the
room, but then afterwards he came back and he said that you scared me
there. But what else did he say? I see the love.

I see the love. A good father disciplines his children properly. It's
good that I was afflicted.

Before I was afflicted, what was I doing? Going astray. But now I keep
his word. Every good father disciplines his children as what he thinks
best, but our heavenly father disciplines us perfectly for our good that
we might bear the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who've been
trained by it.

Will you come under the discipline of the Lord? Will you come under his
authority in your life? Will you let him put his saddle on you? Will you
let him put the bit in your mouth and not let you speak what you want to
give someone a piece of your mind? Will you yield yourself completely to
the Lord Jesus Christ? Even your tongue, even your feet, even your ears
and your hands, even your wallet and everything about you, you'll put it
on the altar of God and say, have thine own way. Will you offer your
body a living sacrifice to God? All the pieces of the bullock on the
altar for God. Let the fire come on it.

The fire will never come until you put all the parts on the altar. Until
you yield everything to the altar. That's when the fire will hold you
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.

Worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. That's what
Jesus told the devil. Don't compromise.

Go through with God. Maybe you've had a season of backside. You will
join yourself with ungodly friends and ungodly people.

Delete them from your thing. Cut yourself off from all the uncleanness
and ungodliness and make straight paths for your feet and follow the
Lord and go through with God. It's high time.

Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Go through and
go with Jesus. May the Lord help you and strengthen you and encourage
you and establish you in the faith that you might become a pillar.

Even become steadfast and immovable. That you won't blow over with every
wind of teaching that comes into your ears to tickle you and take away
the fear of God. May you walk worthy of the calling of God and fulfill
the purpose and call of God for your life that many would see and fear
and trust in the Lord through your testimony.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, does not respect the proud
nor such as turn aside to lies. Many will see it and fear when they see
you walking with God. They'll be afraid of you.

I've seen it time and time again. People, I text them, they don't
respond. I text them, they don't respond.

They're afraid. I see them, they try to skirt around. Why? Because they
don't want me to ask them those tough questions.

How are you doing with Jesus? Because then they'll have to lie to me.
Good. Oh yeah.

Liar. Antichrist. Who is a liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the
Christ.

Be honest. You don't have to tell them all your laundry. You say, you
know what? I'm struggling right now.

Pray for me. Or you know, I'm going through some things. Or good
considering.

Be honest with the Lord Jesus. Let him establish you in Jesus' name.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/gSVW7TWYID8.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/randy-krahn/finishing-well-in-the-christian-race/
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