Gateway Church's Podcast
God's Ways Work
I've loved the one prayer series. I've been listening to everyone speak about their one prayer, and they have some great prayers. Here's my one prayer. Here's the one prayer I would pray. If I could pray, just one prayer. My one prayer is that everyone would know God and understand that God's ways work. That everyone would know God and understand that God's ways work. Not long ago, Pastor Robert told me he said, "Steve, you're the most blessed person I know." That's pretty good for my guy who wrote a book called "The Blessed Life," right? That's pretty good, and he's right. I'm extremely blessed. I have a wonderful marriage with Melody, and I'm going to talk about that in a few minutes. Last year, at Father's Day, I talked about the incredible relationship I have with my two daughters, and now my new son-in-law, Gabe. I've been extremely blessed financially and in business. I've been blessed in ministry. I've been blessed in relationships. Here's what I found out. In every area where you do things God's way, you'll be blessed. You'll be blessed. I'm excited to share this today about God's ways, because I want you to be blessed. I want you to live the abundant life. I meet with people every day, and they have problems in their marriage, and they have problems in their family. They have problems in their business, and it breaks my heart. I mean, it breaks my heart, but here's the only answer that I have. It's God. The good news is he's the only answer we need. In every area where we'll do things God's way, God's ways work. I was not brought up as a Christian, and so I didn't know anything about God's ways. When I started finding out about God's ways, I got excited, because most of the Christian life is about God's ways. You know, when David Smith talked about integrity, that's God's way. When Chris Hodges talked about eternal focus, that's God's way. When Mark Rutley talked about brokenness, that's God's way. Great faith is God's way. Walking in love is God's way. God's way's work in every area of life, and God's ways will work in your life, and you'll apply them in your life. And here's the thing, as an elder at Gateway Church, I want you all to understand. As these people come and speak in this series, don't just get information, get impartation. Okay? Not just information, get impartation. So today I want to impart some things about God's ways. Because before I became a Christian, I did things my way. I did things my way. I was a wild man. I drank. I was immoral. I was rebellious. I was not as bad as Pastor Robert. I've heard some stories you haven't heard. And I was not as bad as Pastor Robert, but I was out of control. I was a bad person. By the time I graduated from college, I'd been in 13 car wrecks and over 100 fistfights. Well, that's a bunch, right? Well, I remember my senior year in college, I was taking a road trip with two of my fraternity buddies. And I remember on New Year's Eve, we ended up in an orange grove in Florida. And there were three of us, and we were addressing our cowboy hats and cowboy boots, and there were about 200 people from Florida. And unfortunately, I had a friend that liked to pick a fight and then call me over and watch me fight. I mean, it was a really good friend, right? So that's what he did. He started talking trash about Florida. And so the next thing I knew, there were three of us standing in a circle of about 30 to 40 guys who were about to beat us up. And then all of a sudden, this orange crate comes out of the crowd and hits my buddy in the head and knocks him out. And now there's two of us. I don't know about you, but I'm so glad that God, even before I was a Christian, God protected me. You know what I'm saying? He protected me. It's like I knew there was a God, I knew he's protected me, and I was seeking for God, but I was just out of control. So as I'm standing there, it's like God gave me a thought. And so I said, "Who's the toughest guy here?" And nobody moved. And I said, "Who's the toughest guy here?" And this guy steps out of the crowd, he said, "I am." And I said, "Well, you're in trouble." So I went over and I kind of knocked him senseless, and I put him in his headlock. And so I'm holding him and it's a little known piece of information that if you take your thumbnail and put it between someone's teeth and their gum and twist, it's really painful. Okay? So I put my thumb on there, and he starts screaming, "Ah, ah, ah." And I said, "I'm breaking his neck. I'm breaking his neck. If anybody moves, I'm going to kill him." Just like everybody just froze, you know? And so I started dragging him to the car, and we drug our other buddy, and dragged him to the car, we hopped in the car, dropped this guy, and we took off. [laughter] And I remember if we were driving away, I had two thoughts. Number one, my way is not working very well. [laughter] And number two, something has to change in my life. Because my life was a mess. I could have written a book called The Unblessed Life. [laughter] And I was a mess, and I went to God and said, "God, my life's a mess. I need you to take over. I need you to change me, God." And I came to Jesus Christ, and I didn't just make him a Savior of my life. I made him Lord of my life. And my life changed that day. And when I became a Christian, I started pursuing two things, knowing God and learning his ways. I started pursuing knowing God and learning his ways, because God's ways are important. The word "way" or "ways" is in the Bible 867 times. Is that amazing? 867 times. Matthew 7, 13 and 14 says, "Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction." And there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life. And there are few who find it. Jesus tells us there is a narrow way that leads to life, abundant life, and blessing. The narrow way is God's way. John 10, 10 says, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." God's ways work. So I asked Pastor Robert how many points I should have in my sermon today, and he said at least one. So my first point is, our ways do not work. Our ways do not work. We want to do things our way. The problem is, your way and my way don't work. They just don't work. And most of the time, we don't know God's ways, though we think we do. I remember when Melanie and I were first married and was approaching our first anniversary, I'm praying about what kind of gift to get her. And I think, well, we didn't have any money, and we had these junker cars, and I thought, "I'll get her a car." So we had this car at our construction company. And it was in 1978 Ford Granada. Does anybody remember the 1978 Ford Granada? Yeah, it wasn't like a real stylish, okay? But it was cheap. So I drove home one night, and I took Melody out on a date, and we're driving along. I said, "Honey, what do you think of the car?" And she said, "It's fine." And I thought, "She likes it. She likes it." But you know God's way is to get wise counsel. So I called my brother-in-law, Melody's brother, and I said, "Chris, what do you think about me getting Melody this car for our anniversary gift?" He said, "Steve, she's not going to like it." And I thought, "What's not to like?" I mean, it's $1,800. So I bought it. God's way is to listen to wise counsel. But I bought the car, and on our anniversary date, I took it home, and I parked it in front of our apartment. I put this big red bow around it. And one inside said, "Happy anniversary, honey." She said, "Happy anniversary." I said, "Melody, I got you a gift." She said, "Really?" And her eyes got real big, you know? And I said, "Yeah, close your eyes." So I let her outside, stopped in front of the car, and I said, "Open your eyes. Surprise." And she said, "What is it?" And I said, "It's your anniversary gift." And she started crying. I thought, "She likes it." She didn't like it. Proverbs 14, 12 says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is the way of death." See, we don't do things, guys, the way. And many times we don't think its thoughts. I remember I was at church one day, and I was talking to this couple, and I said, "Hey, how are things going?" And the wife just immediately just launches into this lending of problems. "Well, my husband's job is not going well. We're having trouble with our son. We have health problems. We have some financial problems." She just kind of goes on and on. And at the end she said, "But I know that God never gives you more than you can handle." I said, "What was that?" And she said, "Well, God never gives you more than you can handle." And I said, "You know, that sounds really good. The problem is it's just not scriptural." I said, "Because God will almost always give you more than you can handle. He'll just never give you more than he can handle." Right? And I said to her, "I know the scripture you're thinking about, 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, "No temptation has overtaken you, but such is this common a man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape that you may be of endurance." I said, "That's talking about temptation. You're talking about what you can handle." I said, "The Christian life was never designed for you to handle it. The Christian life was designed for us to cast all our cares upon him. It was designed for us to depend on him. It was designed so that we would do great things for God, where he would have to come through in a supernatural way." And then he gets the glory and he gets the credit. God will almost always give you more than you can handle. He'll just never give you more than he can handle. Isaiah 55, 8 and 9 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, sore my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." See, God's not sitting in heaven saying, "You'd better do it my way." He says, "This is the only way that works. I love you. I want you to be blessed. Follow my way." And so I want you to encourage you today to do things God's way because point number two is God's ways work. God's ways work in every area of life. And today I want to give you some examples in marriage. Now, if you're not married, don't to me out because I'm going to share some principles that work in every area of life. They apply to every area of life, okay? For years, every six months or so, I say to Melody, on a scale of one to ten with ten being best, where are we in our relationship? And if she says eight, I'll say to her, "Well, what does it take to get to eight and a half?" Right? If she says eight and a half, I say, "What does it take to get to a nine?" Guys, do you understand that our wives know how to improve our relationship? Is that right, wives? Yeah, yeah, lots of nods, yeah. And here's the thing. Wives are much more realistic about where the relationship is than guys are. You ask the guy, "How's your marriage?" He'll say, "Oh, I don't know, six, seven." Wives will say, "Two." Right? I'll never forget we were teaching a marriage class and there were seven couples in the group and it was our first night in the group. And so we thought, "Let's just have everybody go around and say where they are in their relationship and what they expect out of the class." So we got about halfway around the group and we got to Ron, who was a salesman, and we said, "Ron, where are you in your relationship?" He said, "Well, you know, things are going okay. We've got a few little rough patches, little problems to iron out, you know, just a few little things. We just need a little tune up. It's okay. Turned his wife and said, "How are y'all doing?" And she said, "If this doesn't work, we're getting divorced." Women are more realistic about our relationships. So anyway, in February of this year, I said to Melody, "On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being best, where are we in our relationship?" For the first time ever, she said, "10." "Is that good? Can we give God a hand?" Yeah! Hey, listen, I was excited. I mean, I've been working all my life for this, right? That's how I was excited. I felt like I just won the Super Bowl. I felt like I was rocky. I was really excited. And as a matter of fact, I thought, "Man, I'm on a roll a couple months later." I asked her again, and I was still at 10. So I'm like, "Yeah, God's good." So here's what you're probably wondering. How do you get to a 10 in your relationship in your marriage? God has a way. God always has a way, and I'm always looking for God's way. So here's how it started for me many years ago. I was on a sabbatical and every year I take three sabbaticals that range from three days to seven days. And I was on a sabbatical with the Lord, and at this particular sabbatical, I felt like I was supposed to stay at the house. Now, I must always go somewhere else, but I felt like the Lord said, "Stay at the house this year." So a million of the girls went somewhere else, and I'm praying, and it's kind of unusual sabbatical. We've got a lot of things that I'm asking questions about. Usually when I go on a sabbatical, I just hang out with God, you know? Whatever he wants to do, whatever he wants to say, that's great. But I just had some things I was praying about and some issues that I wanted to hear from God. And I wasn't really hearing very much. It was very unusual. So I get to the fifth night at seven o'clock at night, and I just said, "God, what's going on? What's going on, God?" I mean, I'm not hard to hear anything. Melody's coming home the next day, and it's just like you're not answering my prayers. You're not really speaking to me very much. And God quoted me as scripture. You know, God knows scripture, right? Yeah, 1 Peter 3.7, he said, "Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way as with a weaker vessel, since she's a woman. And grant her honor as a fellow heir to the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered." I remember the first time I read that scripture, and I didn't like it. Because here's what I thought it said, "Husbands, understand your wives so that your prayers may not be hindered." And here's what I thought, "Who can understand a woman?" Right, guys? I'm not even sure women understand women. And so I just didn't like that scripture, but God said, "No, here's what he said, "You don't have to understand your wife. You just have to live with her in an understanding way." And I said, "Well, God, how am I not living with Melody in an understanding way?" He said, "Well, just look around." He said, "See that wall over there? You were supposed to paint it a couple of months ago. See this door that squeaks every time, the hinges squeak every time you open it?" He said, "Have you thought about the garage lately?" And he just started pointing all these things out. And so I said, "God, I'm so sorry. I want to live with her in an understanding way." So here's what I did. Starting at seven o'clock that night, I worked on the house all night long, until nine o'clock the next morning. I painted walls, I painted doors and frames, took me three or four hours to straighten the garage up and clean it up. I bought Melody a steam cleaner, you know, to clean up spots in the carpet. I think that was for Valentine's Day. [laughter] Not really, not really. Okay. So I bought Melody a steam cleaner, and so I got it out and started to spot, you know, cleaning spots and things like that. I worked all night long, and then when I got light outside, I worked outside in the yard. And I finished about nine o'clock. And I came inside, and I said, "Lord, am I done?" And he said, "Yeah, you're done." And an hour to two hours, he answered every prayer that I had, answered every question, gave me direction and vision. And why? Because God's ways work. God wants us to live with our wives in an understanding way. So how do you live with your wife in an understanding way? Well, here's what I did. I learned from the experts. The experts know how for you to live with your wife in an understanding way, they've written books. They've done CDs, they do seminars. We have a thrived conference coming up next week, a thrived marriage conference. Melia and I have been to every conference, every marriage conference that Gateway Church has ever had. You have to learn from the experts. For example, guys, there are two theories about arguing with a woman. Neither one works. But how would you know that if you didn't ask the experts? And here's the thing. I did not know how to be married. When we got married, I had no clue how to be married. After about ten years of marriage, Melia told me very graciously, "You know, honey, the first year of our marriage was the worst year of my life." I said, "That is so encouraging, honey." But listen, did I give you hope? No matter where you are, no matter where you are in your marriage, you can be a ten. You can be a ten in your marriage. Listen, God has a way. And so here's how to get to a ten in any area where you want to find God's way. Number one, read the word. Read the word. The Bible has an answer for every question you'll ever ask. The word of God is living in powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. So read the word and find God's ways. Number two, as I said, learn from the experts. Number three, get wise counsel. And let me emphasize, wise counsel. The Bible doesn't say get counsel, it says get wise counsel. He who walks with wise men will be wise, but a companion of fools is destroyed. Number four, prioritize. God's number one, melody's number two, Christian and Cassie are now gay, but number three. And that's how I live my life. I live my life with priorities. I had a guy ask me one time, "Steve, do you know why you've been so blessed?" And I said, "Well, you know, I love God. I try and follow God, do things his way, but what are you talking about?" And he said, "I think you've been blessed because you've been ruthless about cutting things out of your life that don't matter. You've cut things out and you've kept your priorities. We have to prioritize and live our life that way." And number five, hear God. Ask God. He is the one who has all the answers. He wrote the Bible. He has all the answers. And the way you hear God is you spend time with God. You spend time with God. I've been on 57 sabbaticals in 19 years. 57. I've never missed a sabbatical. If you want to hear God, you have to spend time with God, which leads me into my third point, that God's ways lead to God. God's ways lead to God. Our ways don't work. God's ways work and our ways lead to God. See, doing things God's way produces blessings, but the real blessing is in God. Listen to Moses' prayer in Exodus 33, 13. "Now therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way that I may know you, and that I may find grace in your sight." This is what Moses prayed. He said, "God, show me your way, that I may know you." See, God's ways are designed to lead us to a relationship with God and make us more like him. See, Moses met with God face to face, and God showed him his ways. In Psalm 103, 7, it says, "He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel." And God showed him his ways because Moses passionately pursued God. I mean, he met with him day and night. He met with him 40 days on the mountain. God made known his ways to Moses so that Moses might know God. God's ways are designed to bless you, to lead you, and to change us to be more like him. And God's ways work. If God wants to change what you're doing or how you're doing something, one of his ways is to apply or allow pressure. If he wants to change what you're doing or how you're doing it, one of his ways is to apply or allow pressure. And many times we think it's the devil or circumstances when it's really God applying pressure in our lives. James 1-2 says, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." See, God wants us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, so how does he do it? He brings us trials to test our faith. And here's what happens in these trials. God tells us what to do. And then if we'll believe God, God will show up, he'll do what he says he'll do, and then we'll have more faith in God. And the more faith we get, the more we endure, the more we become perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So God is wanting to build our faith or move us in a different direction when he allows trials to put pressure in our lives. About a year ago in late May or early June, I started getting all this pressure in my life. I mean, just pressure in my life. I didn't cause it. I wasn't in sin. And there really wasn't much I could do about it. But there's all this pressure and I'm saying, God, why is there so much pressure in my life? I mean, there was like seven or eight major things. And, you know, sometimes there were a couple of things, maybe three things in your life, but I mean seven or eight. And I just, God, why is there so much pressure? And then this couple came over to our house for supper, and I was telling him about all this pressure in my life. And he said, man, I've got a lot of pressure in my life too. And so we're talking about it, and I said, and I remembered something that Hudson Taylor said. Listen, it doesn't matter how much pressure there is, what matters is where the pressure lies. And if the more pressure there is, if it lies in the right place, it pressures you closer to Jesus. So I shared that with this guy and I said, hey, let's pray for more pressure. Press is closer to Jesus. And I remember Melody said, honey, I'd really appreciate if you would not pray that. I said, no, honey, this is going to be great. This is going to be great. This is going to be great, more pressure, get closer to Jesus. So we pray, God, more pressure. God answers prayer. On July 19, 2009, I wrote in my journal 18 major pressures, 18. I was not in sin. I didn't cause them. There wasn't really anything I could do about them. One of them was my dad was told he might have bladder cancer. That's pressure. We started having some foundation problems in our house that looked like they were going to be expensive. Pressure. And then we felt like God was telling us to sell our company, milestone construction. We started milestone construction in 1990. And last week was our 20th anniversary. And we felt like God was telling us to sell our company. And I didn't want to sell our company. We went under financial pressure. 2008 was our best year ever. 2009 was our fourth best year ever in 20 years. So that wasn't an issue. We were having a good year. But we just felt like God was kind of putting pressure on us to sell our company. I was working about 15 to 20 hours a week. I was doing ministry about 30 hours a week. And I was making a very, very large income. And I'm like, God, we got a pretty good thing going on here. Why do you want me to sell our company? But we felt like he was telling us that. So I went and met with a couple of business brokers. And I prayed about it and didn't talk that was the way to go. I met with four or five Christian construction business owners. And three of them were very interested in buying our company. And we prayed about it and just didn't feel like that was what God wanted us to do. And so we didn't know what to do. So we just kept praying. And then one night I had a dream. And I had a dream. And think about this. I had a dream as I read the scripture. Acts 2 17 says, "And it shall come to pass in the last day," says God, "that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." So what happens when God pours out his spirit on all flesh? Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. Listen, that doesn't mean I'm old because I've had some visions, okay? But I had this dream. And in the dream, we're at this hotel and we're standing by this huge swimming pool. And the street is out here and the storefront glass is out here. There's a swimming pool. And all of a sudden someone says, "There's a terrorist attack coming. There's a terrorist attack coming." You know, what are you doing? There's a terrorist attack. So we're sitting there and we start praying and like, "God, what do we do?" And all of a sudden this is a dream. But all of a sudden this huge bomb comes to the roof and lands in the swimming pool. And because it lands in the pool it doesn't go off. But you know, God's answer to our prayer. We know what to do. I said, "Run, melody, run." You know, so we start running and we start running and we're running and we're trying to get away from this bomb. You know, we're running and all of a sudden we stop and we look around and we're in a really bad area of town. I mean, really bad. And so I'm kind of looking around and all of a sudden about 30 guys step out of the shadows and just surround us. And I'm looking and all of a sudden this guy steps up and he says, he points his pistol at my head and he said, "I'm going to kill you." And he starts pulling trigger. And I said, "Whoa, whoa, stop, stop." I said, "You don't need her, let her go." And he looked me right in the eye and he said, "Okay." And the circle kind of parted and melody walked out. I said, "Run, melody." And she took off running and the circle got back together again and I'm standing there and this guy goes, "Okay." And he points his pistol at my head and he says, "Now I'm going to kill you." He starts pulling trigger. Now I don't know what I'd have done in real life, but in the dream I said, "Whoa, whoa, stop, stop." I said, "You don't want to do that." I said, "Listen, I've got a lot of money and if you'll let me go I'll give you all my money." And I told him how much it was, except I told him two-thirds of what it really was. You know, a bargain for my life. But he looked at me and he looked me right in the eye and I could tell he knew I didn't give him the correct amount. And he just shook his head and he starts pulling the trigger. Now I don't know if the dream ended or I woke up, but I was wide awake. I'm at 4-30 in the morning, I'm just like this in bed. "Wow." And I said, "What was that about?" I said, "God, what was that about?" And I'll never forget God said, "I'm tired of negotiating with you." I said, "God, I'm not negotiating with you." I said, "I'll do anything you say. I love you, God. I'll do anything you want." He said, "No, Steve, you've been negotiating with me. You've said you'll sell 80% of the company and keep 20 or maybe you'll sell 20 and keep 80. You'll do this kind of ministry. You'll do this kind of ministry. You'll speak here, but you won't speak there." He said, "I'm tired of negotiating with you." I said, "God, I'm sorry." And all of a sudden, as I said it, I saw this. I remember this vision that this friend of mine had, he's a physicist and he's a brilliant guy, he's a genius. And he plays chess. And in this vision, he's sitting at this big chess table, these big chess pieces, and he's looking at the game and the board, and he rises his turn. So he's trying to figure out what to do, and then he looks up and rises and he's playing against God. Sorry, somebody looks and he goes, "Your turn." And all of a sudden, this big hand comes from out of nowhere and throws the table across the room. And this voice says, "I don't play games." I thought, "That doesn't sound very good to me." And I said, "God, I'm sorry, God. I will never negotiate with you again. God, I'll do whatever you say." I said, "From now on, nothing's on the table." And then it was kind of funny because I thought, "Well, there's not even a table." I mean, just, you know, and so I said, "God, I'm so sorry. I'll do whatever you want." And he said, "Then sell the company. Sell the company." I said, "Okay." And God supernaturally provided a way to sell our company. On December 31st, 2009, we sold our company. I walked away from a job where I was working 15 to 20 hours a week making a seven figure income. You're probably saying, "Why would you do that?" Because God told us to. God told us to. Here's what he said, "This is the way. Walkie in it. This is the way. Walkie in it. I'm going to pursue God the rest of my life. I'm going to follow God. I'm going to learn his ways, and I'm going to pursue God." So here's my question. How much pressure are you under? What are you negotiating with God? Are you going to do things God's way? See, we think God's way are to get what we want. God's ways are to get what he wants. Us conform to the image of Jesus Christ. And then if we'll give God what he wants, we'll get what we want. The abundant Christian life. See, people say to me, "Did you sell the company so you could do ministry?" And that's what I thought. And about six weeks ago, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Steve, you didn't sell the company to do ministry. You sold the company to become more like Jesus." That's God's way. And the more you're like Jesus, the more ministry you'll do. If you want something you've never had, you're going to have to do something you've never done. God's ways work. You can have the abundant life. Everyone in this room can have the abundant life. You can have a wonderful marriage. You can have a great relationship with your children, a fruitful ministry. God's provision. You just can't do it your way. You have to do things. God's way. God is who he says he is. He will do what he says he'll do. So my one prayer is that you would know God and walk in his ways because God's ways work. Would you bow your head and close your eyes? As pastor Todd comes, I would like you to, let's just take a moment and pray and say, "God, what are you saying to me today?" Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me today? Listen, wherever you are today, God has a way. He wants you to walk in his ways. He will not bless your ways. He will bless his ways. Is there an area in your life that God wants you to walk in his ways? Is there an area in your marriage that God wants you to walk in his ways? What is God saying to you today? So let's just take a moment and ask the Holy Spirit, "What are you saying to me today?" If you're at Northridge and Hills or if you're at Harkins, here at Southlake, I want you to keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed and ask God to reveal to you what he's saying to you. If you're feeling any condemnation about your ways, that's not what this is about. God will bring true conviction. What conviction will do is draw you to him because he's the one who can make the change. So as you're asking God what he's saying to you, "I want you to let him reveal what it is." In just a minute, we're going to open up the altars and I want you to come down. If God's been speaking to you during this message, whether at Harkins or Northridge and Hills or here at Southlake, whatever God's saying to you, "I don't want you to leave without getting a chance to pray with somebody." This is a critically important message. And if you've been doing stuff that's your way, today's the day. Now's the opportunity to make that change. You can let someone agree with you in prayer about that. Maybe even today you've come here and you're new, you're new to the church, maybe the gateway, maybe new, and you don't even know really much about Jesus. Well, this is an opportunity for you to find out about him as well. The altar's going to be open to everybody. Whatever prayer need you might have. And listen, don't be embarrassed. If this is your first time here, I want you to know that this happens every weekend. People will be down here getting prayer. So it's not anything you need to be ashamed about. This is what we do. So I want to encourage you, just ask the Lord even right now. God, what are you saying to me? What action do you want me to take right now? God, I thank you for the words that you have spoken to us today. Thank you for your revelation. And I ask right now that you would draw any person to you, anyone who needs prayer right now, you'd let nothing inhibit or prohibit them from coming down and ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.