Sons Reflection | 04-23-2025 | Jesus the Pattern Son | Bill Britton | Chapter 8

Summary

In this deeply reflective and spiritually charged discussion from "Sons Reflection | 04-23-2025 | Jesus the Pattern Son | Bill Britton | Chapter 8," the themes of spiritual discipline, submission to God's will, and true freedom are explored. Participants engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the significance of becoming a "prisoner of Jesus Christ" and how this concept of bondage leads to authentic liberty. The conversation touches on Biblical figures like Paul, Peter, Moses, and Joseph, emphasizing their transformative journeys towards Godly submission and maturity. Through prayer and shared insights, the group finds inspiration in embracing spiritual constraints as pathways to deeper freedom and fulfillment in God's divine purpose.

Highlights

• The concept of becoming a prisoner of Jesus shows how spiritual submission leads to true freedom. 🔗
• Discussion about Paul’s journey reflects on becoming completely submissive to God's will, leaving behind personal decisions. 🙏
• Moses's transition from a prince of Egypt to God’s servant highlights the stripping of self to achieve divine purpose. 🏜️
• Joseph’s prison experience teaches reliance on God’s timing and purpose before his rise to power. ⏳
• Reflection on modern implications of spiritual imprisonment as freedom from worldly limitations. 🌍

Key Takeaways

• Choosing to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ can lead to genuine freedom through spiritual submission. 🔑
• Biblical figures like Paul, Peter, and Moses exemplify the journey from self-will to divine submission. 📜
• True freedom is found not in unrestrained choices but in the liberty of following God's will. 🕊️
• The path to spiritual maturity often involves hardship and discipline, leading to profound transformation. 🌱
• Understanding spiritual bondage as a paradoxical gateway to ultimate freedom in God's service. 🔄

Overview

The session opens with a heartfelt prayer, setting the tone for a deep dive into the transformative journey of divine submission. The participants engage in a robust discussion about the dichotomy between worldly freedom and the spiritual bondage that leads to liberation. They explore the lives of key Biblical figures who epitomized this path of submission, notably Paul, whose imprisonment unto Jesus represented the height of true freedom.

The narrative continues exploring Moses's and Joseph’s life stories, drawing parallels between their experiences of hardship and the ultimate freedom attained through God's will. Moses, initially a figure of worldly power, undergoes a transformation in the wilderness where he learns to rely solely on God. Similarly, Joseph’s trials culminate in a divine appointment where his bondage becomes his elevation.

The conversation wraps up on a note of inspiration and contemplative joy, as the participants reflect on the beauty of submitting to God's greater purpose. Special emphasis is placed on the liberty found in choosing the right spiritual bondage over the deceptive freedom of self-will. The session closes with a sincere prayer, encapsulating aspirations for humility, joy, and thankfulness in the journey of spiritual sonship.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Opening Discussion and Prayer The chapter begins with a request from a group member, Benji, to pray. The prayer is addressed to the Lord, expressing gratitude for the movement of the spirit among them.
• 03:00 - 12:00: Reading from Chapter 8: A Prisoner of Jesus Chapter 8: A Prisoner of Jesus delves into the theme of spiritual growth and steadfast faith. The narrative encourages drawing closer to Jesus and listening for His guidance. It emphasizes the importance of faith and trust in the Lord while learning the virtues of patience and waiting upon divine direction. The chapter reiterates the necessity of spiritual development by being attentive and receptive to God's teachings.
• 12:00 - 23:00: Discussion on Freedom and Submission The chapter titled 'Discussion on Freedom and Submission' captures a reflective prayer or meditation dialogue with recurring appeals to a higher power. In this chapter, the speaker acknowledges the omniscience of the Lord, expressing that the Lord knows their heart, desires, and intentions comprehensively. It illustrates the speaker's introspective journey and reliance on divine guidance for discipline and helps in life orientation. The central theme revolves around seeking and submitting to divine will, indicating a relationship between freedom in submission and spiritual discipline.
• 23:00 - 59:00: Examples from Scripture: Peter, Moses, and Joseph The chapter explores biblical examples through the lives of Peter, Moses, and Joseph, focusing on the theme of prioritizing one's love for God above all else. It emphasizes the importance of opening hearts and minds to divine guidance and human connection.
• 59:00 - 77:00: Concluding Thoughts and Prayer This chapter is a prayer focusing on the gratitude for the ways the Lord operates and a request for awareness to observe and follow these ways. It emphasizes being keen to see the fruits of the Lord's work in each other's lives and encourages followers to seek understanding and observance of the Lord's methods.

Sons Reflection | 04-23-2025 | Jesus the Pattern Son | Bill Britton | Chapter 8 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Benji, can you pray for us? Lord, we we each come to you, Lord, this morning. Father, we are thankful for the move of your spirit, Lord, and the the
• 00:30 - 01:00 work within. I just would ask that you would draw us near, Lord, to you, Lord. That you would continue to teach us, Lord, through faith and trust in you, Lord. that we would have patience and learn to wait upon you, Lord, to hear your
• 01:00 - 01:30 voice, Lord. You already know our hearts, Lord, to the fullest, Lord. You know our desires, Lord. You know our intents, Lord. The things that we hold most important to us. Lord, I I pray that you would continue to to discipline, Lord, and to Lord, help us to to orient our lives
• 01:30 - 02:00 around you, Lord, to to have you as our first love, Lord, and to Lord, have you as above everything else, Father. We ask that you would speak to us even here today, Lord. That you would, L would open our hearts and minds to you, Lord, into one another,
• 02:00 - 02:30 Lord. That we would even be able to see, Lord, the fruits, Lord, and the the real thing, Lord, in each other's lives. Lord, I do thank you for the way that you do things. And I pray, Lord, that we would be keen to observe, Lord, those ways and to, Lord, seek to to follow
• 02:30 - 03:00 them, Lord, and to be like them and to practice them, Lord, in our own lives. I thank you for each one, Lord. And may we know one to speak, Lord, and one to listen, Lord, and to to share, Lord, from your heart. I pray this in your name, Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen.
• 03:00 - 03:30 Okay, I think we'll just hop right into the reading today. You guys know of course that this is an open time um to to share with us anything that is moving in your heart. Sometimes there are things that just won't sit still in us. So it's it's not always a good thing to just let them let those thoughts move around without some kind of release. And I'm
• 03:30 - 04:00 obviously talking more about things that the Lord has laid on your heart. Uh so yeah, I hopefully at this point you guys have learn not to to hold those things back for any any insignificant reason. Uh anyways, yeah, just expect to be inspired while we read too.
• 04:00 - 04:30 So this is chapter 8. A prisoner of Jesus. The apostle sat in his prison cell working carefully on the scroll as he pinned a letter to his friend Filimon. But this was a special letter for it was being written under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit and would eventually find its
• 04:30 - 05:00 place in the scriptures as part of God's inspired written word. The first few words of greeting from this apostle of God was simply Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ. But these words coming from Paul himself had great significance because Paul had learned what it was to be a prisoner of Jesus. He knew what it was to sit on the
• 05:00 - 05:30 backside of the Arabian desert for years. With the light of this newfound truth burning in his heart like the noonday sun while a lost world perished in darkness, he learned how to be disciplined under the ministry of a local church in Antioch until the spirit gave the word through them for him to go. He had felt the harness of the spirit about him to the extent that he was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. Acts
• 05:30 - 06:00 16:6 He had been through he had been through the training of being bound to the will of God to the extent that when they assayed to go into Bethnia, the spirit suffered them not. Acts 16:7. He had become so disciplined to speaking only the word of the Lord that when in Acts 16, a young demon-possessed girl followed them day after day for many days, crying out after
• 06:00 - 06:30 them, Paul answered not a word until the spirit moved him to speak and deliver the girl. Acts 20:23 tells how while on his way to Jerusalem, prophecy came to him from prophets in every city, telling of the bonds and afflictions that awaited him in Jerusalem. But he said,"None of these things move me." Acts 20:24. Because he was committed to the will of
• 06:30 - 07:00 God. He was a prisoner of Jesus Christ and could no longer make his own decisions or choose his own course or run his own life. He was disciplined to the will of the spirit. I think just even that small part um just kind of seeing someone's life who was completely kind of
• 07:00 - 07:30 um kind of hindered to the not hindered uh what's the word I'm looking for submissive to completely submissive to the will of God and his spirit And even I think even looking at this last um line here on this page, he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ and could no longer make his own decisions or choose his own course or run his own
• 07:30 - 08:00 life. I think that can initially sound pretty restraining to most people. I mean it sounds even it does sound restraining but I don't know some it's something that's actually been on my heart for a little bit and thinking about what true freedom is and it can't be true freedom can't be that we can do whatever we want. I think that's
• 08:00 - 08:30 lawlessness. And I don't know, I see as opposed as it seems, having a life that is completely willed and submitted to the Lord, a greater cause, a a greater way and all knowing God. I think that is true freedom because we aren't. It has nothing to do with our own will because we are restrained by
• 08:30 - 09:00 our own will. I think that is truly what allows us not to be free is our own will. I agree. I think that you're a prisoner or a slave or whatever word you want to use, but to your own desires very often. I think that the even the concept of freedom itself is a little misleading because I think all of us uh regardless of uh being in the spirit or not have vices that you are a slave to
• 09:00 - 09:30 and many times it's actually unknowingly. I think there's definitely a beauty in submitting to something that's greater than yourself because you know being a slave to something such in such a lower realm is kind of a sad way to go through life. Yeah, very lacking of any real context or purpose. But I I I I 100% agree what you're saying with the true freedom aspect of it because I think that no one that even someone who claims
• 09:30 - 10:00 to live life completely free of any, you know, wills or burdens and kind of just does whatever they want is a slave to something, right? Exactly. Yeah. It reminds me a lot of uh his other Bill Brun's other writing, the harness of the Lord, which is one that I I don't know if I shared with some of you guys that was brought up to me a few weeks ago, but I just been thinking about it. And even mentions that harness. Yeah. Yeah, I think you mentioned it before in one of our other
• 10:00 - 10:30 meetings, but I was reminded of that uh the picture there. And I definitely do agree with your thoughts as well, you know, it being a true freedom, you know, cuz the young cults are able to experience freedom in their own eyes and have all the open land to be able to run around and streams and once they're brought into the discipline, it's the most terrible and horrible thing. And they're constrained in every way. You know, in a lot of ways, they're put to death there. And
• 10:30 - 11:00 uh you know it's not until after that one of the young cults that rebelled and didn't want to come under the discipline comes to the other brother right that was disciplined and that was able to endure the discipline of the Lord and there's a famine in the land and the freedom you know that was back then is no longer. So, I don't know. Just been thinking about that a lot. That picture
• 11:00 - 11:30 of, you know, how we don't really understand or, you know, even feel like the discipline of the Lord is going to lead to anything pleasing. And obviously, that's not like our goal or what we're trying to achieve. It's just our happiness in life, you know, to feel good. But there's, you know, it's an honor to be able to to carry the king's carriage and to be given to a greater purpose ultimate. Ultimately, that's what
• 11:30 - 12:00 brings, you know, that that freedom that's beyond just the physical, you know, life here. So yeah, we were even talking yesterday about adversity and how that has often been twisted into something that is that equals misery or that equals being unhappy. But it's in our response to
• 12:00 - 12:30 adversity and the the hand of discipline that brings us closer to the Lord and lets us submit to him in that way. I was reminded of the uh essay you had us write a little bit ago on the rules if you recall. It reminds me very much of that. I I I think one of the uh one of the more interesting things of
• 12:30 - 13:00 that was when he says that he will inscribe the law on our hearts. What that actually looks like is that it's it's it's very similar to the sort of son versus servant thing we talked about a little bit, but it's no longer being tethered to or, you know, a prisoner of Jesus Christ. No longer becomes something where you feel very constrained like it's a bunch of rules or whatever else that you need to follow, but it literally very similar to how your desires work. It becomes
• 13:00 - 13:30 something that it it becomes your own will in a way. You adopt that. That's what it means to have those laws inscribed on your heart. I think an example I had actually used in my own essay also involving horses or maybe it was sheep, something some uh roaming farm animal, but it was actually on how fences are used in that and how uh you know a a fence might at first seem like a very restrictive thing, right? But if you are but they are essentially a lesser expression of what
• 13:30 - 14:00 the shepherd is. Yeah, I think it was sheep that I was using. Right. And that if you can learn to stay within the lines of the uh the fence, right, that these laws, these restrictive rules, it actually leads you towards the path of finding the shepherd. And when you find the shepherd, it's no longer about fences or no fences. That doesn't really even that's not even really something that crosses your mind anymore. You just follow him. You know what I mean? Because you know his voice. Exactly.
• 14:00 - 14:30 Yeah. It's not necessarily about this, you know, these rules, these do or do nots. Those are kind of where you start off as a as a fledgling, right? As someone who doesn't really know his voice, doesn't know how to follow him, doesn't even know where to look for him, right? But the re the purpose of these fences are kind of towards to to guide you towards him. And then once you find them, they well, yes, you're still saying within their bounds or whatever else, but it's not even something that really crosses your mind. It's not like, oh, am I in the fence right now? Am I am I coming against it? Whatever else. No, it's just I'm following the shepherd. And I think very similarly of what Paul
• 14:30 - 15:00 is kind of describing here. It's not even it's not something that feels quite so restrictive because it's not something you even really have the desire to do. It's it's you have a desire to follow the shepherd. These are kind of Yeah. Not going to repeat myself. I said what I said. Yeah. Thank you. Let's continue here. Peter, another shall carry
• 15:00 - 15:30 thee. In John 21:18, Jesus just before his ascension spoke these words to Peter. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou was young, thou girdest thyself, and walkeest wither thou wouldest. That's some good old English there. Mhm. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and
• 15:30 - 16:00 another shall guard thee, and carry thee whether thou would not. In our spiritual youth and immaturity, the Lord permits many things in us that he later strips away as we become more mature in the spirit. One of these is the freedom of our own choice. When we were young, like Peter, we girded ourselves with our armor and went forth to battle, walking wherever we desired, wherever we saw an opportunity to do a good work for
• 16:00 - 16:30 God. There was a freedom granted to us. And God graciously blessed and anointed our efforts as we prayed and sought his help. If we pastored, he blessed and gave increase. If we decided to go on the evangelistic field, he blessed and anointed and gave us souls. If we decided to teach, he blessed and gave us revelation of his word. And though we sought his guidance and tried to be led of the
• 16:30 - 17:00 spirit, there was not that absolute binding to the perfect will of God and the voice of the spirit. This was in our strength, our youth and immaturity. But with growth and maturity there come there came a discipline of the spirit bringing us into submission to his perfect will. Sometimes because of the strength of our own wills or the stubbornness and hardness of our own spirits, there has to come affliction
• 17:00 - 17:30 and tribulation to weaken our own flesh in order to make us submit to his purposes in us. Paul prayed three times for deliverance from a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. However, God would not deliver him, but in effect told Paul that he was doing this to keep him weak. My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9.
• 17:30 - 18:00 Peter found that as he grew old in the Lord, there was to be no more of the walking whetherither thou wouldest. But there was to be a binding of his own strength, and his girding would come from another, and he would be carried to destinations determined by someone else. This is a mark of maturity. There is a work of the spirit now going on to bring us to a place of absolute
• 18:00 - 18:30 imprisonment to the direct guidance and will of the spirit. What a glorious confinement just to know that I am bound up in his divine purposes regardless of what he chooses to do with me and to me. It is a difficult and torturous path at times until we recognize who our jailer really is. We fret and worry when we think that we are bound by our circumstances or by our associates or by the
• 18:30 - 19:00 devil. But those who are called into the high calling of God need to realize who controls their destiny so that they can come into a rest and submit to his workings and dealings in their lives. For like Paul and Peter and those other heroes of faith, we are prisoners of Jesus Christ the Lord. Uh, I had a quick question. There was It's something I've seen a couple times and I can't remember who had it explained to me, but what is the uh
• 19:00 - 19:30 thorn in Paul's flesh? It's something that actually nobody knows for sure. It was never really specified. What I guess without specifics obviously, what's your personal interpretation of something that it it res like something that it is in the realm of if not specifically? I I don't know. I see. I don't I don't carry a strong opinion. It it I mean people have guessed that it was perhaps some kind of physical struggle
• 19:30 - 20:00 that he carried with him or obviously with physical struggles there come mental issues as well and how you process that and carry it with you. Sure. Um, I don't know and I don't even necessarily care to guess what the specific thing was, but it it's its purpose served to uh to weaken something in Paul that would have otherwise served as a kind of
• 20:00 - 20:30 uh not not like a a distracting strength in him per se, But Paul had Paul had a very agile and and powerful mind. He was a very passionate person, very zealous person. And the way in which the Lord deals with such people depends on each person. And
• 20:30 - 21:00 of course, what the Lord being the one who knows the most about each individual chooses to to temper that person with. And in Paul's case, it was for a very long time this thorn in his flesh. And something about that may seem to some of us to be a somewhat odd way of of dealing with of moderating a person. But the Lord obviously knows much better
• 21:00 - 21:30 than than we who live much much later than Paul do. even more than than Paul himself did about his p his own person what what his strengths and weaknesses were what was best or not best for himself that was all something he left to the Lord but even today it serves as a a I think a very unique example to us in how the
• 21:30 - 22:00 Lord will will deal with certain individuals in in that way. Um yeah, our view is always it's always so limited. Mhm. And the sooner we realize that the better. It really does it really does keep us from from pride. It keeps us from It actually
• 22:00 - 22:30 keeps us from presumptuous sin cuz we we get to that that place of of rebelling against God in a way that we're not even aware of when we start to to try to figure out what is or is not fair, what is or is not right in our own eyes. even imposing those opinions upon God himself. Anyways, no, I think you did answer my
• 22:30 - 23:00 question because I I didn't know whether to interpret it necessarily as a vice or like a physical uh impairment, you know what I mean? And I I think you you helped me a bit with that because that's what I was I I I actually can picture that quite well because I I can understand the uh I guess it is a form of pride that that can happen with a uh a shurness in your own abilities in that way. Yeah. And so it being a a vice that he struggles with makes a a great deal of sense at least
• 23:00 - 23:30 in that way. Yeah. I I don't think Yeah, I agree. I don't think specifics necessarily matter. It was just I was trying to understand in what way he was being made weak. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. I'll keep reading here. Moses, man of action, sidelined. And Moses was learned in all of the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds. Acts 7:22.
• 23:30 - 24:00 This man, Moses, ordained in predestined of God to deliver his people from Egypt's bondage, was laid in an ark or basket of bull rushes and carried by the current of the river right to Pharaoh's palace. There he was taken in and raised as Pharaoh's own grandson, taught in their finest schools, and trained to lead the armies
• 24:00 - 24:30 of Egypt. His name went abroad throughout the land as a great orator and a great warrior. As far as natural ability was concerned, there was no other man in Egypt who was as qualified as Moses to organize the children of Israel to rise up and escape the slavery of Egypt. None of the children of Israel and Gan had the ability, background, or knowledge to do the job as well as Moses as far as their own natural strength was
• 24:30 - 25:00 concerned. What was God trying to prove? He wanted to leave no doubt as to how far the ability of natural man could go in bringing the people out of bondage. But Moses tried. Oh, how he tried. In his great ability and strength, he made the supreme effort. And he failed miserably. Just as we all in our day have failed to evangelize the world and conquer sin, Moses found, just as we all do to
• 25:00 - 25:30 our utter dismay, that his own strength was pitifully weak in comparison with the task that must be done. But this was all in the plan of God. For after he had proved that the greatest of the great was insufficient for the job, then he sent his chosen servant into the wilderness to be stripped of his strength and ability to die to his own will and knowledge and
• 25:30 - 26:00 desires. I'll keep going here. Out of the wilderness, a deliverer. In his own efforts, Moses had slain one of the enemy and had hidden his body in the sand. But that decaying stinking thing in the earth, hidden in the earth, was a testimony that this was not the deliverance God's people were after and needed. And in their perplexity, many in
• 26:00 - 26:30 the ministry today seem to feel, is it not better to at least get rid of one enemy than to pass the time in the wilderness doing nothing? But remember that Moses's own efforts, although he was called and ordained of God, delivered and temporarily relieved only one Israelite. God's purpose, however, was that all of his children were to be set free and the entire strength of Egypt crushed. This could only be done after
• 26:30 - 27:00 God had sent his chosen one into the wilderness and stripped him of himself and made him into a vessel that God could use. How often we have seen big evangelistic revival and healing campaigns where with many pressure tactics men have striven and worn themselves to a frazzled trying to produce miracles or a great ministry or deliverance. Many ministers have cracked
• 27:00 - 27:30 up under the strain. And many of God's people have become disillusioned and disgusted at this high pressure type of thing as men have tried to rise up and slay the enemy before they themselves had come under the wilderness stripping and discipline of the spirit. With what rest and what ease Moses lifted up his rod and delivered God's people and destroyed the might of Egypt once God had brought him into submission.
• 27:30 - 28:00 This is the work God is doing today with his true ministry. The answer does not lie in the few sheep Moses fed in the wilderness or how fat and productive he could make them. For the purpose of God during that 40 years was in that man, that ordained and chosen one who was now in the process of God's dealings. Some accuse this Moses company today
• 28:00 - 28:30 asking, "What is the matter, Moses? Don't you know that Israel is suffering under the heel of Egypt? Don't you have any compassion for them? Don't you feel the weight of their burdens and hear their pitiful cries for deliverance? Why don't you at least wear yourself out trying to break their bondage? Are you satisfied here in this desert place with your few sheep? Oh yes, Moses hears their cries and feels their burdens. For he has joined
• 28:30 - 29:00 to them by the spirit and suffers their reproach. But he has tried and found that the answer is not in him and his strength or ability. He must hear the voice of God and he will not move until this comes. 40 years of discipline. And all that time, the weight of Israel's burdens pressed down upon his heart, and their cries for deliverance were continually in his ears. And there was a travail in his
• 29:00 - 29:30 soul that finally brought him to a face-to-face meeting with God at the burning bush. When God finally spoke to this man to go forth and bring deliverance to his people, this Moses who had been so mighty in words and deeds confessed his weakness and inability to God and declared that he could not even speak properly and needed someone to do his talking. What a stripping of his own
• 29:30 - 30:00 strength. What a binding of his own freedom. until at last God had a prisoner who could only move at the word of the Lord. Then he was ready to bring deliverance to the nation. No longer could he come and go as he pleased or do or say as he wished, but he was bound to the absolute will of God. Now God was ready to give into the hand of his chosen one the greatest
• 30:00 - 30:30 power and authority that had ever been possessed or used by man. He was a prisoner of the Lord.
• 30:30 - 31:00 any thoughts on this example of Moses? I think it's encouraging, at least to me, that Moses felt their suffering the entire time and that that was in a way of him dying to him himself. I think I I would assume that he had struggled I mean obviously with his own attempts of
• 31:00 - 31:30 delivering his people that I guess you could call it altruism of wanting to be able to do these things in your own strength. You know what I mean? And it I don't know it is just personally encouraging to me to see that that was something that he struggled with as well because I would say that's still something that flashes upon my mind occasionally of even even having the knowledge of everything that we have.
• 31:30 - 32:00 It's seeing the suffering of the human condition is still something that weighs on me and that's it sucks. So I don't know. I I'm I'm just encouraged to see that I guess that that desire wasn't something that was necessarily wrong, but just being tempered in the right the wrong way. You know what I mean? Because that's that's something I often think of is like is part of my growth and discipline in that losing that desire. And you know, obviously I I don't know
• 32:00 - 32:30 what the Lord has in store for me, but I don't necessarily think that's the case. I think things like that are instilled in people for a reason and that very often we try to take those desires and run away with them ourselves when they're actually something the Lord instilled in us for his own use. And so it's it's just personally encouraging to me that that desire was put in him for a very real reason and that it just need to be tempered and used the correct way.
• 32:30 - 33:00 You know what I mean? I think it gives us something to even look forward to as sons of God and the path of submission and of death to self. Mhm. There is a part of your soul or my soul that does squirm a little bit when thinking of complete submission to the Lord and not being able to to make my own decisions in that
• 33:00 - 33:30 way. But when you really think about it, the freedom that you think of when you think of freedom isn't really even that appealing. Yeah, that's what Elijah and I were just talking about a little bit ago. Yeah, for sure. Because you realize the decisions you make on a daily basis are fruitless and they lead you down the same paths.
• 33:30 - 34:00 And a lot of the time when I have a choice and I choose to do what I feel like or what I think is right, doesn't end well. It's fruitless, right? Because we're so limited. our minds and our capacity to even have certain desires are are many times just limited to the world's limits.
• 34:00 - 34:30 That's why we should put our trust in try to share desires with God who who's obviously unlimited and his broadness and and um capacity in his in his will and his way. Mhm. I think as well with that in that lower way you're speaking of, I think there are certain desires that you
• 34:30 - 35:00 are like we discussed earlier a slave to and can make decisions based on those, right? And those obviously always just feel so pointless, you know, like why why why even do that? But I I really do think there are deep desires implanted in us from our creation that I I think God has given to individuals to serve a purpose that he has not yet like allowed us to take part in. Do you know what I mean? Right? And that's what I and that's why I think why this work is like the only
• 35:00 - 35:30 fulfilling thing you could really do on this earth is because when you submit to any of those lower desires even if you do fulfill them by whatever twisted way that ends up working out it doesn't feel very fulfilling. You are left with a I did it so now what you know if there if there are those things that God instilled in us then they can only truly be fulfilled fulfilled through Yeah. That's exactly what that's exactly mean. Even if you have a twisted way you think
• 35:30 - 36:00 you can go about fulfilling him, it's just going to feel so hollow. Yeah. You know, we we actually I think talked about it a little bit yesterday of like or at least I mentioned it at the very end of our meeting that uh there is something very uh profoundly I guess beautiful to me about the human desire and our our wills being this everreaching thing that's never really satisfied. And that God is this thing that is so overwhelming and so uh
• 36:00 - 36:30 fulfilling I suppose that it almost feels like too much sometimes. You know what I mean? It is it's literally like like two puzzle pieces this overflowing cup basically. It's so overused that that phrase but that's kind of No, I I agree 100%. It's like I I think of two puzzle pieces, you know, this everreaching grasp that can never be satisfied and this overflowing uh cup that is entirely like you almost feel like it's too much. You know what I mean? It's like it's the reason that that was put in us is to be a conduit
• 36:30 - 37:00 for him, you know, and it and when we try to fill it on our own, it's impossible. I mean, think of you can look at pretty much anybody that has any uh great degree of success or any sort of riches in this world and you kind of just look at them and they always look miserable. Yeah. You know, it's always just more money, you know, more status, more whatever, right? the only thing that even can satisfy that inner uh desire I I don't know quite how to
• 37:00 - 37:30 put what word that would be but is God and I I just find that I I find that more beautiful in just how we were made you know what I mean I think it is very interesting that that kind of fits together like a puzzle piece that greatest desire it has to be his kingdom though oh for sure no yeah I'm just saying that everything else follows after that like even those other other things everything will fall into place if our number one and that's what I'm saying that is the only way there can be fulfillment yeah because if not if even
• 37:30 - 38:00 if you can reach those other things in your own way there will always be something in you it's like more more more right that's how we are as humans what's cool to see here is just like Isaac was saying it can feel kind of daunting to think about you know that full conforming you know to the Lord's will and how you know that's everything nothing can be left behind in that but I
• 38:00 - 38:30 think what's encouraging to see here even through Moses's example is you know how he is able to even begin that process is his humility before God you know that he confesses his strength isn't able you know to do what he needs to do and That's all that God was looking for, you know, in him to be able to work through him was for him to recognize that he's not able to do it
• 38:30 - 39:00 through his own strength. So, it's not even like you need to consciously, you know, be letting things go in whatever way you think. But it's more just that humble place of I don't know how to, but I want to, you know, before the Lord. That's actually Yeah, that's a huge encouragement for sure. Yeah. I I think that often times being willing and submissive to his will and just having that humbleness to say I don't know I
• 39:00 - 39:30 don't know what that looks like. It is encouraging that he will use that you know because I I agree with you. I sometimes fall into the stupid trap of thinking what can I do here? What is being asked of me? And sometimes it is just that. It is that admission. I don't know. I don't know what to do here. I I want to know. Exactly. Exactly that. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that stands out to me with this example of Moses, especially his
• 39:30 - 40:00 uh being sent out into the desert before he's brought back the calling of God to deliver his people from bondage. I think of uh how God will strike us to the very core of our identity, especially as it concerns how I perceive myself, what I hold to be valuable and good and even
• 40:00 - 40:30 given by God in myself. So basically the the question We're seeking an answer to the question of who am I? And we see that Moses was brought up in a very powerful and privileged and unique place as a prince of Egypt.
• 40:30 - 41:00 And I mean, I think Egypt's probably one of the best examples of an ancient kingdom, maybe really any kingdom or culture, where perception of self was brought to unimaginable heights. I mean I know there are many kingdoms that that
• 41:00 - 41:30 um manifested this or or carried this ideology of divine kingship. But Egypt was actually one of the first if not the first that that really uh exercised that idea. The giant monuments to prove it. Yeah. That's that's the kind of culture that Moses lived in was like it's all it's all about the the ruling family.
• 41:30 - 42:00 He he was he lived in that family. That was not just his that was not just the culture of that people. That was the culture of the family he lived in or am or among was just self-promotion. So that's that's what he was exposed to even from a very early age. And just imagine how
• 42:00 - 42:30 how difficult it was when God brought him out uh out of that place and into one of the most humble stations as a a shepherd in the desert. It's no wonder he had to spend decades in that place because there was a lot that probably needed to be flushed out of him, disciplined out of him.
• 42:30 - 43:00 And what what I see as the parallel in our own lives is this this idea that we carry even if not especially before God that this is who I am as a person. This is what makes me unique. These are my talents and God gave them to me. So this is these are things he's going to use in me somehow. Even there's even like a a a
• 43:00 - 43:30 hint of humility to that. Like they're they belong to God. So he's going to I know he's going to use them. But deep down there's still there's still that same self-promotion. There's still that same love of self. And that's that's what God exposes when you when you have opened yourself to the the work of his disciplining and correcting hand. And that's some of the
• 43:30 - 44:00 hardest that's some of the hardest discipline to go through is when he exposes what you thought was the the best part of you. God will hum humiliate you there and not simply for the sake of uh putting you down. It's it's to it's to show what's what it's really rooted in and it is it is rooted in the pride of this life which God in the scriptures
• 44:00 - 44:30 talks about hating. He hates that. He opposes it because it opposes him. It's not of him and it and it corrupts what is to what is supposed supposed to be good in you. I that was uh something I it's funny like I thought that would be a bigger struggle for me that concept because I I had ran across that a couple months ago with my mom and uh that was
• 44:30 - 45:00 actually a a point of freedom for me for sure as someone who you know I have had a bunch of labels put on me you know being smart or whatever else and those things or titles that I don't quite feel worthy of or live up to or anything like that. And knowing that any of my natural talents or abilities or things that I'm supposedly, you know, I've been told a lot of my life actually, oh, God's going to use that. That's a good gift. You've
• 45:00 - 45:30 got you've got to hold on to that. And not having that be a burden on me and knowing like it's really he might actually put me in a field where I'm actually have the weakest points in. That was actually such a big release for me of just knowing that that's no longer a a standard I have to live up to with my own strengths. You know what I mean? Mhm. I I remember uh being, you know, told that like I I have a natural affinity for teaching and that oh, God's going to make you a
• 45:30 - 46:00 great, you know, there's like all that I I I don't remember the name, but you know how there's like those classes of people like teacher, prophet, whatever those, oh, God's going to turn you into a great teacher one day, spiritual teacher, whatever else. And that was something that kind of terrified me because I was like, I don't know if I have the abilities for that. And anyways, I I came across a very similar uh set of teachings once and that was a huge release for me of just knowing that like it does not that that's not
• 46:00 - 46:30 something I have to live up to. That's something that he releases us from and that that was really that that was a blessing for me. Yeah. Yeah. I think of what you were saying too, Noah, with the even how Moses grew up in a powerful place and can parallel that to us here in America. Like what more self-promoting all of that? Yeah, I was thinking the
• 46:30 - 47:00 same thing. We make our monuments, too. I mean, I'm even realizing how ingrained that is into me. not just myself, but even like just what life is meant to be and what success in life looks like. It's like I consciously know that success is not what America says success is, but it's still like it's it's ingrained in me in a lot of ways of like success is money and status and
• 47:00 - 47:30 family and what you think your vision of life should be. Mhm. Realizing that you can have none of those things and if you are yielded unto the Lord and his purposes, that's all that's all that needs to be. You even look at Emanuel's life. He didn't check almost any of those boxes. that
• 47:30 - 48:00 the the uh how important he was to the Lord's purpose and how the Lord used him was gigantic. Mhm. That can't be can't be understated. But from the world's perspective, I mean, he was homeless. That's for a long time. That's almost the lowest of the low you can go. It's so opposite. Mhm. Yeah.
• 48:00 - 48:30 I always love that that correlation of God just taking what would appear to be the lowest as a way of making himself known. Yeah. Yeah. That literally that verse that we just read with Paul with the thorn in his side like I am made strong in weakness or however that verse went paraphrasing but I don't know that's a very beautiful concept to me. Mhm. And you can see the fruits of that
• 48:30 - 49:00 selfmpowerment and make your own decisions and that that way of looking at life. You can see what that is doing to America. And even look at most of our generation and the path that they're going down and what their struggles are. Obviously, we're not completely separate from that, but it's a very dark dark place. Yeah, in a lot of ways America's, you know, compared to the Greco Roman
• 49:00 - 49:30 Empire, just in a lot of the similarities and I I can't help but notice a similar path of history correlating to the fall of Rome that we're kind of entering in in our era of history now. Yeah. It kind of makes you wonder. But yeah, I think not only with all the economic and political factors, whatever, I think in our way of just society and kind of the I suppose sociological climate of today, it's very
• 49:30 - 50:00 bleak. It's kind of sad. and you look at and you say that that is the fruit of your own decisions when you have your way and what you think is right that that is the fruit and then you go but well maybe maybe I don't maybe I don't want to carry the burden of always yielding to what I want it is a burden that's a great way to put
• 50:00 - 50:30 it yeah that's that's why I think it there is such a a freedom in this bondage, you know, because you are burdened with and chained to and made prisoner of so many things in life. You're just unaware of them, right? I think that the fact that not only that you're choosing this is significant, but the fact that you are yielding to something that's higher than you, not lower, you know what I mean? Instead of being chains that are pulling you down, it's almost like chains that are pulling you
• 50:30 - 51:00 up. All right, let's look into the last few sections here. Joseph, from childhood freedom to bondage, prison, throne. One of the most notable of God's
• 51:00 - 51:30 prisoners in the Old Testament is Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob. In his childhood, he was beloved of his father and had freedom to move about as he chose. But he had seen a vision of the throne, of rulership and authority, and he believed God was going to bring this to him. But this vision was not shared by his brethren. And because of this vision, he was brought into a very real
• 51:30 - 52:00 confinement by his brethren, into a pit with nowhere to look but up, then sold into slavery. He was brought into Piper's house in chains of bondage. But God blessed him there in such a way that Piper gave him a measure of freedom and authority. And he was the means of feeding and caring for the others who were also in bondage. Joseph may have become a little satisfied with his measure of authority
• 52:00 - 52:30 and his measure of freedom and the good work that he was doing. Or perhaps he travailed before God to complete and fulfill the original vision he had seen. At any rate, God began the work of bringing him to the throne. How? By setting him free. Oh no. By bringing him into a terrible disgrace and the loss of his reputation and that measure of freedom and authority. For he brought Joseph into a
• 52:30 - 53:00 greater confinement than he had ever known. And for years God kept him confined in a prison cell. Desiring deliverance, Joseph tried to enlist the aid of anyone who could get a word with the king to get me out of this place. There was a real travail of his soul. Psalm 105:19 tells us that the word of the Lord tried him. But even in his darkest hour, when it looked impossible for his vision to
• 53:00 - 53:30 come to pass, when it looked as though he was a complete failure and his life was nothing, Joseph never lost the vision of what God had shown him. He held on to the word he had received from the Lord. And when he was completely submitted to the dealings of God in the fullness of time, God brought forth his chosen vessel to feed the nation in the time of need. God was not late, and neither could he be forced or pressured into
• 53:30 - 54:00 moving too soon. He was right on time, and he had Joseph, his chosen one, ready for this hour. Glory to God. bringing a nation into submission. Speaking of Joseph, Psalm 105:20-22 says, "The king sent and loosed him, even the ruler of the people, and let him go
• 54:00 - 54:30 free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his substance, to bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his senators wisdom. Thank God for the day when wisdom and justice and the law shall flow forth like a river out of Zion. The day when the great ones of the earth get their instruction from the church. And thank God for the hour when princes, principalities, and powers and rulers of darkness will be bound at the
• 54:30 - 55:00 pleasure of the sons of God. Today we wrestle against these powers. But we have such a small measure of authority and such little success. But on the throne there is no defeat or resistance. For all the power of the king is behind this one who has been made ruler over all the king's substance. For seven years there was a plentiful harvest. Then came seven years of
• 55:00 - 55:30 famine. The first year the people spent their money for bread. Still there was famine. So the next year they sold their cattle to Joseph for corn. And Joseph brought all this money and cattle to Pharaoh. Then the people came and told Joseph that rather than die in starvation, their need for the corn that Joseph had was so great that they would sell Pharaoh their land and themselves as slaves if only he would feed them.
• 55:30 - 56:00 Thus Joseph bought the people and their land so that they were in complete submission and slavery to Pharaoh. And they were moved from one end of the land to the other according to the will of the king. For they no longer had a will. They were slaves to Joseph's king. But as his slaves, he fed and cared for them in the time of famine. The Lord must first have a
• 56:00 - 56:30 prisoner. Before there can be a bringing of the world into submission to God, he first will perfect and mature the tool he will work with. You can never be in this company who rule with him on his throne until you have become his prisoner and been brought into absolute submission and obedience to his perfect will. Every knee shall bow and every
• 56:30 - 57:00 tongue shall confess, but you will never be used to bring others into submission as long as there is the least bit of the rebellious nature within you. But when I realize that I have been struggling with this atom nature for 25 years since conversion and still see a lack of submission in the deep recesses of my heart. I wonder when and how this work will ever be done. But Joseph never knew how close the time was. And when the call of the
• 57:00 - 57:30 king went out for him, he was not ready and had to shave and change his raignment before he could look upon the face of his king. Today, God has his ministry in a place of close confinement. Many of us would like to be out in big tent revival or building big revival centers or promoting nationwide radio and TV broadcasts. But the spirit has his chains upon us. And we can only move as
• 57:30 - 58:00 the spirit says move. We are learning to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ. God forbid that we take up our own wills again at this stage and have to be processed all over again. God grant that we will let him bring our stubborn wills into complete obedience and submission. This may seem now like the wrong direction for the delivering of God's people. But this is a necessary part of the training before God will put all his
• 58:00 - 58:30 power and authority into our hands. Even the military knows better than to put dangerous and powerful weapons into the hands of an undisiplined and rebellious group of men. First, the soldier must learn to take orders, to march, and to obey every command. Then, he must be trained in the use of weapons. After he is obedient and trained, then they place a weapon in his
• 58:30 - 59:00 hands. God is not weak. He has always had the power necessary to defeat the enemy of mankind. But he has not had a people ready for this power. However, in this end of the age, when the consummation of all things is upon us, God in his great mercy is doing a work with an ordained and predestined people, bringing them into complete submission, digging out every bit of rebellion, every spirit that opposes
• 59:00 - 59:30 God, and every spirit that exalts itself. He is making us prisoners of Jesus Christ. Let us stop ftting about the confinement, the wilderness testing, and let us submit to the dealings of God for this hour.
• 59:30 - 60:00 [Music] Yeah, it's interesting the uh the kind of subject matter here kind of a submission into that freedom which because it's something I've been thinking about for a few days actually um even last night praying about and and asking the
• 60:00 - 60:30 Lord what true freedom is and here you go kind of like right here. Um I mean I still think there's more that God wants to reveal about that because this is just looking at others lives. I I look forward to seeing that in my own life how it plays out and you guys and all of us. But um yeah, kind of a clear view on that cuz I I don't think I've looked at even these,
• 60:30 - 61:00 uh people in in history and and the in their relationships with the Lord kind of this restraintment, this this bondage, confinement to the Lord's will and kind of how that had to be shaped around in their lives. um in in different ways, different people, but pretty um insightful
• 61:00 - 61:30 uh encouraging, but also a little sobering while the Lord works in his in his sons. The encouraging aspect to me is that we don't have to have that figured out, right? I I there's a literal analogy in the example of Joseph. You know, whether that was something he brought upon himself with his own pride or whether that was something he asked for God to do for that work to be completed in his life, who knows? But I mean, you know, he was thrown into prison and accused of
• 61:30 - 62:00 things he didn't do entirely out of his own control, right? That was not something he brought upon himself or a necessarily, you know, self-discipline or anything like that. That was work that God did or allowed to happen. Right. Right. Joseph didn't have any measure of like knowing the parts in himself that he needed to cut out and work on through whatever of his own ability, right? He submitted to what God was doing and allowed it to happen. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I worry about God's plan for me. And I mean
• 62:00 - 62:30 that's an example dad used for me is David firstly and his I mean he knew he had a greater purpose but he was just in the field for so many years and then you and Joseph in the prison cell I imagine that a lot of times it just didn't make sense why you have me in this prison cell. I thought I was going to do this for you. But there's that, right? That that faith and the trust in the Lord and the letting go of our own imagination of
• 62:30 - 63:00 what makes sense for our lives. Yeah. Or what we want to do. Agreed. Yeah. I don't know, maybe it's just me. I just I find that to not have to have it all figured out is a huge encouragement. Yeah. Because that I even think of like with the circumstance with Emanuel or something like that. I the prospects of needing to have an idea of what I'm doing is a very scary
• 63:00 - 63:30 thought to me because you know especially in even today's world you know you can not be capable of you know making it you know or whatever else there are you you can fall into whatever pits or you know horror stories of trying to make it out on your own right but The best part about this path that God lays before us is that there's no personal ability required. There's nothing we have to
• 63:30 - 64:00 worry about in terms of am I strong enough to handle this? You know, can I do this? Am I good enough in this way or that way? It is just submission that he requires. I don't know that that's that's something I worried about a lot when considering career paths before getting into a lot of this is I did not know if I was capable of making it, you know, of doing any of these things. I didn't know if I was smart enough, if I had the enough discipline, if I had any of this. But I don't know to me just compared to how much pressure this world
• 64:00 - 64:30 puts on you of needing everything figured out of knowing all these things and strengths of yourself of you know pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and all that. It is an encouragement that the only thing that God requires of you is humbleness and submission to him. It might be you know restraining. It might be confining. It's definitely not easy, but it is simple in that way.
• 64:30 - 65:00 There's something to me about being a prisoner of something or someone of being constrained even a even a slave to something that
• 65:00 - 65:30 is it's to put it that way is is almost a kind of a illusion to me in that I think those of us or anyone who is is truly and most thoroughly enslaved by something doesn't realize they are. So that goes
• 65:30 - 66:00 for those who are enslaved by sin and death. I think those individuals or people who are deepest in that enslavement or in that that constraint are those of them who don't realize they
• 66:00 - 66:30 are their lives seem entirely in their own control. Yeah. Mhm. There's it's it's when they are by whatever means brought to an awareness of just how uh entrenched and limited their lives are by this this nature in them by sin. that they they they begin to
• 66:30 - 67:00 feel the the constraint. They they begin to detect and perceive the the reality of things. And that's that's by God's design because that that kind of awareness is eventually to lead to repentance. It's it's to bring you
• 67:00 - 67:30 to and and to lead you to the one who can provide the that release can that can redeem you that can deliver you from it. that that person of course being our savior Jesus Christ as the only way that that release and that deliverance can
• 67:30 - 68:00 happen. At the same time, I think those of us who are on the other side most deeply committed and submitted to the our our bondage to Jesus, to this this way that we have entered into this kingdom that we are now members of.
• 68:00 - 68:30 We we don't we eventually come to not see it as a a constraint and a limit. It's like you've you've been brought to the complete opposite end of that spectrum. I mean that's exactly what I was saying at the start with the shepherd versus the fence. And I don't Yeah, I don't mean to refer to it as like a blissful ignorance. I'm not I'm not calling it that. There's it's it's just it doesn't really matter. Right. But by before you get to that point when you've entered
• 68:30 - 69:00 into this this bondage which you have come to know as a bondage it it it can and does and is supposed to be uh or is supposed to feel very limiting. It's supposed to feel very like you're very restrained. That's that's that's part of the the discipline in the desert, if you will. Mhm. That's that's a stage of spiritual development that is
• 69:00 - 69:30 absolutely necessary. It's the it's the learning to die to the self. Mhm. And I can't help but think of the the uh parable of the prodigal son when the young man had left his father's household when he his desire to return
• 69:30 - 70:00 was like I I I know that at least his servant get a portion and that they're wellfed and taken care of. And so I'm going to ask for at least that place and upon arriving he's he's celebrated the the master of the house brings out his best robe and his best shoes. That story is actually very a very fitting analogy for this entire process of going from one end of that prison spectrum to the
• 70:00 - 70:30 other. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he starts off in that life of luxury and spending all of his inheritance where he doesn't even realize he's a prison until he spends it all up. And I guess you could call that of being aware, but made aware of his own shackles where he, you know, works doing whatever he can to barely even scrape by before he realizes that why be confined to these shackles when I know my father would treat me 10 times better and as his own prisoner or servant, right? And then he goes there. And then when he actually meets his father, which
• 70:30 - 71:00 I suppose would be akin to no longer being a servant of the Lord, but coming under sunship is when those shackles themselves, like you were exactly talking about, it's not that they're not necessarily there, but they kind of fade away. They become of lesser importance because you're now a son, not a servant. Although I guess you are a ser, you know what I mean? It's it's one of those things that escapes [Music] uh any real definition in a
• 71:00 - 71:30 conversation, but I really see this I really see freedom in the way that it's almost always discussed as such a such an illusion as as it is for those who are at that beginning point of being in bondage to something that they they're not even conscious of. And then you're brought to a place of awareness of it and you realize how
• 71:30 - 72:00 limiting it is. And then you are saved into brought into a a life of a new kind of constraint and bondage. Mhm. And it's only when you realize the the the the nature of that that slavery of that of that servantthood of that new life that you
• 72:00 - 72:30 come to know beyond what any conversation can enlighten you with. you come to really know as an experience in your soul and with a body of people what true freedom is. I think in that light I think freedom and free will and that I think we have a lot less of that than we actually think. I think the only real choice we can make that matters is what shackles we want to wear. You
• 72:30 - 73:00 know, we can we're going to be slave to something no matter what. I mean, we've repeated that a bunch, but I I think that the only freedom we really have is to choose what master we want to serve. You're going to serve one no matter what. You know, if you want to live in ignorance and try to ignore that, well, sure, but you're still going to serve one. You can just be ignorant about it. I think that freedom of choice though is something that the Lord gives us and why
• 73:00 - 73:30 it is a great honor to him when we pick him because otherwise it's not like we're choosing freedom by rejecting him. No, we're just choosing different chains, ones that will lead us down a much worse path. All right. Jaden, do you want to wrap it up for us today?
• 73:30 - 74:00 Sure. Father, thank you for this time today. I'm aware that this is a sobering message and I don't want the weight of that to be lost on any of us. But Father, I also cannot help but be encouraged in learning all these things
• 74:00 - 74:30 about you because I think Lord that all of these things that while sobering, yes, seeing them in the context of your greater will excites me. It it fills my heart knowing and seeing the progress and way of submission that
• 74:30 - 75:00 we are all coming under as we approach you as the fences start to fade away and we start to get more glimpses of the shepherd. Lord, I I know our our days in the wilderness probably have yet to even truly begin for any of us, but Lord, I welcome it for myself, and I imagine that all of my brothers in this room would say the
• 75:00 - 75:30 same. Thank you for giving us the freedom to choose. And Lord, we choose to give ourselves back to you. The greatest gift of all that you give us is so honoring when we are able to hand it right back to you, Lord. And I pray that that's not lost on any of us either. the sobriety of being your
• 75:30 - 76:00 prisoner, but also the deep fulfillment and recognition that it really is the truest expression of freedom. I pray for that humbleness in each of us, Lord. I pray for that sobriety and for that weight to not be lost on any of us,
• 76:00 - 76:30 Lord. But I pray that that also would not be another chain that drags us down, Lord. I pray that that heaviness would be appropriate and not misplaced and that the the joy of being your son, of being your servant would also not be
• 76:30 - 77:00 lost. Thank you for the wilderness, Father. Thank you for the chains. Thank you for the freedom. Thank you for all of it. The path itself is a glorious thing. We honor and bless your holy name. Amen. Amen. Beautiful prayer. Thank you.