Happy Reformation Day!

Food and God

So I was driving home yesterday and I heard this great sermon by Wayne Braudrick, pastor of Frisco Bible Church, on the radio.  The title of the sermon was "Fact or Fiction: Christians Should Eat Only..."  I have never heard a pastor tackle this subject and Wayne did an amazing job.  Truly, I have gotten quite annoyed at the focus people have on food nowadays and Christians have been dragged into worry over food more and more.  Braudrick mentioned that in our culture today there are so many arguments over food.  I have seen an increasing amount of judgment from certain Christians towards their brothers and sisters, judgment that insists in order to treat our bodies like a temple of the Spirit, we have to eat this and such and not that and such.

A friend of mine said that food has become an idol for many Christians and I agree.  Many in the church have turned food into a legalistic fighting grounds.  Personally, I think Christians have done this for two reasons: 1) We live in a food obsessed culture and we are reflecting our own culture's preoccupation with what goes into our mouths.  2) We have bought into the lie that eating somehow affects our spirituality, that in order to be truly good temples for God, we have to eat certain things and avoid others.  The problem is, number one reveals Christians overtaken by culture, not God, and number two isn't biblical at all.

If you are a Christian who has become consumed with food, obsessing about it day in and out, or, like me, you want a biblical perspectice to wade through all the voices shouting at you about food, I recommend Wayne Braudrick's sermon.  He brings a refreshing biblical perspective to a topic so overwhelming in our society.

For the sermon, click here.  You'll find it on October 23 and 24.

Singles in the Church

I need to start this post off by coming clean and noting that I am not a single.  I did get married later in life than most young marrieds, so I did live in the real world as a single for a little bit, but I am not single now.  I am not writing this post to presume I can sympathize with singles.  I am writing to address a church that has lied to singles over the years and to tell the church, "Stop!"

Now, I have to confess that I have been one of the liars.  No, I never lied on purpose, that is, I didn't think I was lying.  But having several single friends share their struggles with me has opened my eyes to things I said that were outright unbiblical.  I read this article recently and the author, who is single, explains the single perspective on these lies well.  What I want to do in this post is point out the lies we tell singles in the church and call Christians to stop using these lies to "help singles" and instead, to speak God's truth.

Let me also define what I mean by single.  I mean anyone who is not currently married.  That person can be a youth, an adult in college, a working adult, middle-aged, older, widowed, divorced, etc.  I include all singles however they are single.

So, let's take a look at the lies and their truthful opposites:

1. "You need to keep yourself pure and wait to have sex because God is preparing someone you will have wonderful intimacy with."  The problem with this statement is the because.  How do I know God is preparing someone for this person?  Does God promise anywhere in scripture that he is going to provide a spouse for every single person that waits to have sex?  No!  Then why do we say this?  We say it to encourage a single to be pure sexually.  But listen to the implications of this lie: "If you keep yourself pure, you are guaranteed a spouse sent by God."  That is what a single hears!  A single thinks, "I keep myself pure because I want a spouse."  But that is not why we keep ourselves pure.  In fact, nowhere in the Bible does it say this is the reason we keep ourselves pure.  Then why be pure?  Consider these verses: "Love the Lord your God and keep His requirements, His decrees, His laws and His commands always" (Deut. 11:1).  "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15).  "This is love for God: to obey His commands" (1 John 5:3).  Why do we keep ourselves sexually pure?  Because we love God!  Our motivation in keeping one of God's commands should always be love of God.  Yes, God gives commands for our benefit, so there are always additional reasons we should follow his commands.  But throughout the Bible it is clear: We obey because we love God.  That is foundational to Biblical truth.  The truth: "Keep yourself pure because you love God."

2. "Maybe you aren't married yet because God is molding you into the kind of person you need to be to be married."  This lie makes me cringe.  I love how we throw in the "maybe" just to make sure we aren't being "judgmental."  But really, what does a single hear when we say this?  "You aren't good enough to be married yet.  You aren't virtuous or spiritual enough.  If you were, you'd be married."  Oh, yes, because all married Christians are perfectly virtuous and spiritual.  Seriously, this lie is so outright ridiculous and yet I have heard people say it over and over.  News flash!  God doesn't require us to be perfect before we get married.  If he did, no one would be married.  So stop implying a single is somehow less spiritual because she isn't married.  Truth: "God is molding you into a reflection of Christ" (and end there, no implications).

3. "Maybe God is just waiting to send you the right person."  This lie is kind of a combination of the first two.  I can ask once again, "How do we know that?"  We don't!  I don't know God's plan.  (Yes, I see the excuse of "maybe" thrown in again, just to soften the blow and make me look less non-biblical when I talk to a single.  I did say "maybe" after all).  What I am doing when I say this is giving a single false hope.  If there is no one planned for their future, I have just pushed them into a hope that is not going to come to fruition.  I have encouraged them, not to seek God's plan, but a future plan that may or may not exist based on their desire.  So once again, a single hears, "Keep waiting and God will surely bring someone."  So will we keep telling a single that when he's on his death bed at ninety and still single?  Truth: Just don't say this.  You don't know God's plan, so don't pretend you have some special insight a single doesn't.

I'd like to give an example from my own life now, but it's kind of odd because it doesn't exactly concern singleness, but its opposite: marriage.  Bear with me.  The point will become clear at the end.  I am a weird person because I had determined that I was not going to get married and remain single, being a single missionary on the mission field.  I told this to a mentor and she said to me, "Do you realize you are telling God what he's going to do with your life?"  That thought hadn't occurred to me.  After all, I was giving myself to him wholly, so didn't he just want to take me that way?  After I talked to her, I had to repent and pray, "Okay, God.  Whatever you want with my life, that's what I'll do."  A week later, my now husband asked me out on our first date.  I write this to say that none of us can assume what God is going to do with our life.  We have to let him have complete control, which is a pretty scary prospect, because at that point, I relinquish my desire to make everything happen the way I want.  This goes for all Christians, single or married.  The point is, we shouldn't be telling singles to wait and be godly and just, you know, God will probably send someone because we don't know that will happen.  We can't presume to speak God's plan into the life of someone else, anyone else.  And I can't make assumptions in my own life.  I need to follow God and say, "Whatever you want."  That may be singleness and it may be marriage.  Who knows?  God and only God.

So, I am a reformed liar.  I don't say any of the above lies to singles anymore.  What I do do is encourage everyone, whether single or married, to seek God now.  Love God now.  Show him you love him by obeying him.  Make him your center.  That is biblical truth and that is what we should be telling everyone in the church, regardless of her marital status.

Divine Service

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
        If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
        Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
        I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
        "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
        Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
        "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
        So I did sit and eat

-George Herbert

I've been doing a Bible study this summer on Psalm 23.  Today the author included this poem since the verse that we were meditating on was 23:5, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."  In relating the meaning of the poem, she described anointing with oil as an action a host undertakes for an honored guest.  Then she said this:

"As you sit there, God comes up behind you and begins gently pouring oil on your head to anoint you. This signals to your enemy that you are someone special whom God has anointed and that you are protected. You might imagine God’s palms resting on your shoulders, maybe God even leaning over you in endearment. Can you feel God standing behind you this way?"

I realized I rarely think of God this way.  Like in George Herbert's poem, Love bades me sit and be the honored guest and I object that I am the one that must serve.  I was reminded of Peter when Jesus washed the disciples feet.  I've read that account hundreds of times, but never analyzed where I put myself in the scene.  I'm definitely with Peter.  If Jesus kneeled down to wash my feet, I would ask him to please let me wash his instead.  I don't feel like God's honored guest; I feel like his servant alone.

But doesn't God call us to be like he is?  If God says, "serve one another in love" (Gal. 5:13), then he is telling us to do what he himself does.  God serves us in love and we reflect this to others by also serving in love (1 Pet. 4:10).  God serves me so I serve others.  I learn what devoted service is because God is devoted to me and treats me like an honored and loved guest.  Not only that, but serving others IS serving God (Eph. 6:7).  It's a beautiful cycle of service: God serves me - I serve others - Serving others serves God - who serves me.

In Luke 12, Luke relates a parable that Jesus told about people waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet.  They are waiting for his knock on the door so they can let him in.  Jesus then says this, "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them."  Jesus pictures his return as a master clothing himself to serve his faithful servants.  His servants recline at the table and he waits on them.  Is this not a startling image?  Do you see Jesus as returning to serve you, delighting to wait on you while you recline in peace?  It startles me.  I don't keep this image at the forefront of my mind.  I think I have to work and work; rest and peace and letting God serve me are far from my mind.

O Lord God, may I capture this image!  May I walk in confidence and peace knowing you have chosen me as your honored guest.  May I rest in this picture so that I can reach out to others, wanting to be to them what you are to me.

Devoured or Strengthened?

"Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion,

seeking someone to devour."

1 Peter 5:8

How does the devil devour people?  How do I know if I am being devoured?  In the context of the above verse, Peter talks about humbling ourselves before the Lord so he may exalt us.  If we are not humble, we are ripe pickings for the roaring lion.  Our pride propels us away from God and into the mouth of the adversary.  In a previous post I explored what it means to walk humbly with God: It is to "recognize his sovereign rule, to trust his sovereign knowledge, to love and serve him by obeying his commands."  In pride, we reject God's rule and knowledge.  How does this make us weak and easily devoured?  The devil is called the Father of Lies (John 8:44).  The devil feeds us lies and encourages us to doubt God's rule, God's goodness, God's very existence.  He calls us to put our faith in ourselves, to throw off humility and clothe ourselves in pride.  Paul depicts the devil as firing arrows at believers (Eph. 6:16), flaming arrows of temptation and lies.

"For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth

to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."

2 Chronicles 16:9

When I read the above verse, I immediately thought of its similarity and contrast to the verse that describes the devil as a roaring lion. Whereas the devil prowls the earth, seeking someone to devour, God looks throughout the earth to find people to strengthen.*  The context of this verse involves King Asa of Judah, who took gold and silver out of the temple and gave it to the King of Aram so that the King of Aram would join with him against Israel.  In doing so, he demonstrated that he put his faith and trust in another nation to save him and not God.  In other words, Asa did not walk humbly with God.  He did not view God as sovereign ruler and protector of Judah.  Who does God strengthen?  Those whose hearts are fully committed to him.  Those who know God is sovereign and who trust his rule.

It is by trusting God that we are strengthened and defeat the devil's flaming arrows.  Ephesians 6:16 says, "take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one."  The devil is defeated when we defend ourselves with trust in the Lord.  As we stand firm, we are strengthened by God who sees our faith and bolsters our committed hearts.  The more we stand, the more we will be strengthened.

Today, are you a candidate for devouring or strength?  Are you prey for the roaring lion or a faithful heart upheld by the Lord's strength?  We are either one or the other.  We either listen to the lies of our adversary or trust in the Lord's power.

 

*Another telling contrast in the this verse is that the devil is a lion, a created being with one form who has to roam the earth looking for someone to devour.  God's eyes search the whole earth.  In other words, God can see all at once and strengthen everyone whose hearts are committed to him.  The devil is a limited being who can only devour one at a time.

Following God Is Easy...Kind Of

I don't know about you, but I am a person who likes simplicity.  If you throw a lot of information my way at once, my mind is overwhelmed with the effort to keep it all organized, which makes sense.  I have an analytical mind and whatever I hear is evaluated and connected with other ideas.  Too much all at once means I don't have the time I need to evaluate and connect.  Sometimes, I come to the Bible with this kind of feeling, that there is so much to take in and implement in my life that I get stymied, worried that I can't even figure out what is required of me.

There's so much information in the Bible about what we would should and shouldn't do.  Now, I am the first person that will tell you that the Bible is not a rule book--it's about how to have a relationship with God.  That relationship is what leads to righteous living.  It is precisely because I have a relationship with God that I desire to know how to live a life pleasing to him.  We are blessed that God doesn't let us wallow around trying to figure out what pleases him.  He gives us all the instruction we need.  But with all the instruction in the Bible, I sometimes feel overwhelmed, worrying that I can't do it all or I'm missing something.

Recently, I read a verse I hadn't read in a while.  When I read it, my heart calmed and my mind stilled, for in this verse was simplicity.  It's actually easy to know how I can please God.  The answer is found in Micah 6:8: "He has told you, O man, what is good ; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  Micah has said it so clearly.  What does God require of me?  1) Do Justice  2) Love Kindness  3) Walk Humbly With Your God.  It's that simple...well, kind of.

Turns out, what God asks of us is simple to state and simple to remember.  If I am doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God, I am living a life pleasing to him.  These three simple descriptions bring the clarity I need to direct my life in a godly way.  It may be simple to state, but I don't think it's always easy to follow.  What does it mean to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly?

Walk Humbly With Your God

So, yeah, I'm starting out of order.  The reason is that, in scripture, it is clear that walking humbly with God comes before doing justice and loving kindness (there is a reason for the order Micah used which I'll explain later).  There is another place in scripture that also states what God requires of  his people:

"Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?" (Deut.10:12-13)

These verses give a perfect description of what it means to walk humbly with God.  Walking humbly begins by fearing God, by recognizing his sovereign control.  Recognizing his right to rule puts me in a position of humility, knowing that God is God and I am not.  Since he alone knows what is best, he alone has sovereign knowledge, I trust his will and give my love to him.  I serve him with all my heart and soul.

To love God is to walk in his ways, i.e. to obey him.  I display my love for God by doing what he instructs.  Deuteronomy 11:1 says, "You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments."  Why is love tied to obedience?  Let me use an analogy.  A father gives his life to his child, training his child to be a person of moral character.  The child leaves the father and denies all that he has been taught, living and reveling in evil.  In this act, does the child show love to the father?  No.  The child is showing selfishness, pride and arrogance, declaring the father's authority void and his commands worthless.  But if the child listens and applies what his father has taught him and recognizes his father's authority, the child is in a relationship of love and trust and humility.  This is the same with God.  In obeying God's commands, our love for him is revealed.

Now, some may wonder if any of this truly applies to Christians today.  After all, the verses above are addressed to Israel, not us.  And Christians aren't under the law, so loving God isn't equated with following commands, right?  But yes.  Two verses from Jesus make this clear:

"And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment" (Matt. 22:37-38).

"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15).

Jesus himself tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all we are.  Jesus is God.  In loving Jesus, we love God.  How do we reveal this love?  Jesus makes it clear in John 14:15: our love is revealed in our keeping his commands.  Once again, to love is to obey.

To summarize, to walk humbly with God is to recognize his sovereign rule, to trust his sovereign knowledge, to love and serve him by obeying his commands.  Then, what are his commands?  Are we back to a whole list of confusing rules?  Not entirely.

Do Justice

I started with walking humbly with our God because this is the foundation for the other two requirements in Micah: to do justice and love kindness.  After loving God, all the other commands God gives relate to other people and all those commands fall under these two headings: to do justice and love kindness.  How we treat others directly reveals the state of our relationship with God, if we are loving him or not.  Remember what Jesus added right after he said loving God was the greatest commandment? "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:39).

Part of loving others is doing justice towards them.  The reason Micah lists doing justice and loving kindness first in his list is that the context of this verse is the sin Israel had committed that God was judging.  God's number one indictment against Israel was its lack of being just.  Justice in Hebrew is mishpat.  Mishpat means fair judgment.  The Israelite courts of the time acted primarily in the interests of its leaders.  They were corrupt, unfair courts.

If we are to do justice, we treat others fairly.  God most often mentions orphans, widows, foreigners and the poor as those who need justice.  In other words, we are to treat everyone, from the leaders to the least with fairness.  We can do this today in grand ways as we lend our support to third world countries, go on mission trips, sponsor poor children, etc.  But we can also do this in simple ways at home, treating our spouses, children and friends with fairness, not gossiping about them and being honest with them.

Love Kindness

The Hebrew term for kindness is chesed.  This term is actually translated in various ways in different Bible versions because it holds a deeper meaning than English can grasp.  Chesed incorporates kindness, loyalty and mercy all rolled into one.  It is often translated as lovingkindness, a term most used to express God's love for man.

People display chesed when they treat others kindly and gently, as they put aside anger and selfishness and seek the good of another.  People display chesed when they are loyal, preserving the honor of others.  People display chesed when they act in mercy, not holding offense against someone who has hurt them.

The commands in the Ten Commandments that involve people are all expressions of chesed: honoring our father and mother, not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, not lying against others, not wanting what others have.  The majority of the commands in the Bible involve treating others with chesed.

In doing justice and loving kindness, we obey God's commands, showing we love him.  Why does God command these?  Because this is who he is.  What God asks us to be is a reflection of him.  Just as a child reflects a father, so we should reflect God.  "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; lovingkindness and truth go before You" (Ps. 89:14).  God's character is just and kind.  God commands us to be as he is.

To evaluate my life is simple.  I only need to ask three questions of myself.  Am I doing justice to others?  Am I loving kindness?  Am I walking humbly with my God?  All other issues can take a backseat to these three.  We worry so much about exactly what God wants us to do when he's already given us the answer.  His will is found in his Word.  It doesn't matter if your role in life is as a housewife or an employee.  It doesn't matter if you stay home or go overseas.  It doesn't matter if you are a garbage collector or a CEO.  The issue is how I live--walking humbly, doing justice and loving kindness.  That is what God requires of those who choose to follow him.

Amen--Part 2

A couple posts ago, I wrote about what the term "amen" really means.  If you have the time, I recommend going back and reading that post before this one.  I'll go ahead and summarize here.  Amen literally means "faithful, true."  God is called "The God of Amen" (Is. 65:16) and Jesus is called "the Amen, the faithful and true witness" (Rev. 3:14), revealing both God and Jesus (who is God) as sources of truth.  In prayer, we say amen and what we supposedly mean when we say amen is that "you believe that God's character is trustworthy...that you are confident He will hear your prayer, be faithful and true to do what He promised, and fulfill His purposes in your life" (Mary Kassian).  When we say "In Jesus' name, Amen" we are saying that God's faithfulness and truth are fulfilled through Christ in our lives.

I took the stance in the last post that the above facts mean that amen is not just the ending to a prayer or a simple "so be it," as I had always been told growing up.  The meaning is far deeper.  It calls into question what we pray before we say amen.  Do we really speak prayers that can end in amen?

I decided to go back to the Bible and look up every instance of amen.  What I found was exciting, stirring and gives me a direction to head in my prayer life.  Here's what I found: 

In the Old Testament, amen is used as a response that affirms what was previously said.  In other words, what was said before is truth.  Amen is spoken in one of two instances: 1) It follows a truth statement.  An example of this is 1 Chronicles 16:36, which says, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, From everlasting even to everlasting. Then all the people said, 'Amen,' and praised the LORD."  The truth statement is that God will be blessed from everlasting to everlasting.  2) It confirms that God will carry out what he has said he will do.  A clear example is in Jeremiah 28:6: "[A]nd the prophet Jeremiah said, "'Amen ! May the LORD do so; may the LORD confirm your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the LORD'S house and all the exiles, from Babylon to this place.'"  There is also a series of "amens" used in Deuteronomy 27, where the Israelites confirm all the curses God will carry out if the people break his word.  Interestingly, and of importance later, is the fact that all amens in Psalms follow the phrase “bless the Lord," the same as in 1 Chronicles 16:36.

I thought what was in the Old Testament was interesting.  What was in the New Testament floored me.  There are 29 occurrences of "amen" in the New Testament, not counting when Jesus says "verily, verily" in the gospels before he utters a truth statement or the Revelation 3:14 verse stated previously (I didn't include his statements because I wanted to focus on how "amen" is used by people).  Here is the break down of when the term "amen" is used:

21 times: The overwhelming majority of the amens in the New Testament follow statements that say "blessed/glory/dominion be to God/Jesus forever and ever."  As stated above, amen means faithful/true.  The majority of the statements in the New Testament are similar to the usage in Psalms.  The term affirms the truth that God is the one to blessed forever, God is the one who has glory forever, God is the one that has dominion forever.

5 times: Amen follows five statements in the New Testament where the author says "God/Jesus be with you all."  Four times, Paul is writing and one time, John is writing in Revelation.  In these instances, the author is affirming the truth that God is with us, a truth that Jesus himself has proclaimed in Matthew 28:20.  (On a separate, but related note, I did a word study recently on when God tells people not to fear; the majority of reasons not to fear are because "God is with you.")

3 times: The last three instances of amen are found in Revelation.  Two of them affirm the truth of Jesus' second coming (Rev. 1:7, 22:20) and the other affirms God’s judgment at the end of time (Rev. 19:4).  Once again, these are statements that are meant to declare truth, the truth that God's future plan is true.

The application question then is, "How should amen be used in our own prayers?"  Every use of the term amen is tied to the truth of the statement proceeding.  Every use of the term refers to a truth involving God's character or his actions.  In our prayers, amen should follow truth statements.  The shocking, life-changing truth here, then, is amen doesn't follow such statements as "God, please heal granny."  "Please heal granny" is not a truth statement; it is a request.  We definitely should present our requests to God (Phil 4:6).  But requests are not truth statements, so amen does not apply to them.  Our amen is the affirmation that God is God, that God has the power, that God is with us.  Those are statements of truth.

Somehow we have come to treat "In Jesus' name, Amen" in one of two ways: as a meaningless ending of prayer phrase or as some kind of "in" with God, that by saying amen, God somehow is obligated to answer.  So then we get confused when God doesn't do what we have requested in our prayers.

In my previous post on amen I wrote this "Prayer is fundamentally about shaping my will to God's will.  Prayer is a way to remind myself of God's truth and faithfulness.  I pray, not to get what I want, but to call God's truth to mind and to declare to God that I know what is true about him, that I know he will be faithful to me."  Prayer shapes God's way into my life.  Prayer draws me intimately to God, reminding me that he is powerful and in control, that his will will be carried out.  My amen is an affirmation of this truth.  So I pray, "God, I ask for healing for granny," but I end with "you have the glory forever, your will will be done on this earth, amen."  In fact, I think we should even pray deeper for granny.  Instead of "please heal granny" it would be much more meaningful to pray "show granny that you are in control and that granny can trust you no matter what happens," because those are truths about God's character and can be followed by hearty amens.

Finally, it is instructive what follows Paul's admonition that we present our requests to God.  He writes this, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  Paul does not say, "Present your requests to God and you will get everything you want."  No, he says, "Take your worries to God, remember to thank him, and he will bring you peace."  Ah!  This is an amen!  This is a truth!  God is the God of peace and God doesn't want us to worry.  We pray to God, not to get what we want, but so that we shape our will to God's, that our worries dissolve into the truth that God is the giver of peace.

Wow and wow.  I am humbled and amazed.  My prayer life has been weak; I have used it as a vessel for request after request.  My amens have been following statements that lack truth.  Could it be that my trust of God withers as I focus on my own selfish desires in prayer and not on truths about his character?  Could my prayer life be transformed if I prayed carefully, not haphazardly, to make my amen a true amen?  Yes!