God's Before and After

The sermon title is, God's Before and After. God's Before and After. Maybe you have seen that on television, on the Internet, as it's very popular to show before and then after for different individuals. You can recognize that it's very popular is weight loss. How about you? Is there some before and afters on when it comes to weight loss? Perhaps you have experienced big weight loss that you have before and afters. Many people have, I've heard it referenced, fat clothes and skinny clothes. Any of you had that? Right? Where you have clothes you can wear in the summer and then clothes you can wear in the winter or at different times in your life. As we see various people experience weight loss and we enjoy seeing pictures that where we once were and then perhaps where we are now. That's how they sell certain food packages. That's how they sell different products because everybody likes to see a before and after, but it likes to experience that. But it's not only in pictures of people, but also there are quite a few shows that are out there about houses, about perhaps a house that looks really bad at first and then it's rehabbed. As they call it, and it's a before and an after. After you go in and you've had all this work done and it typically looks a lot better. That's what we want to have anyway. Right? But it's a lot of work. Many of you have had houses that you've worked on that may look like a before and then you have an after. And you feel good when you look back at the pictures of the after. You feel good after you're living in a house that was perhaps very run down. Now, Mary and I, 25, 30 years ago, bought a house that looked worse than this house and we went in and completely reworked it, rehabbed it, and it turned it into my office after we had made it look so much better. Well, what about you? Have you ever considered yourself, perhaps, a rehab project? Have you ever considered yourself as God looks at you as a before and an after? Because hopefully we are not the same individual we were 10, 20, 30 years ago when God started calling and working with us. Hopefully there is a difference. I'd like to go into today and look at God's before and after in one church. And he gave that instruction to the church at Colossae. Colossae was about 100 miles from Ephesus in Turkey. And according to most experts, Paul never got to appear to them or preach to them in person. Never made it there. Made it to some of the other churches around, but never made it to Colossae. But he heard much about them and he talked about them and he was very positive in his instructions.

Colossae was a unique area. The city itself was destroyed twice by earthquakes during Paul's life. Each time they built it back. But in about 17 and then about 60, perhaps a year or so after this letter was written, earthquake destroyed most of the city. So they were not without their challenges.

I'd like you to turn to Colossae, Colossians, as he's talking to them, as this word has been preserved for us today, because as he talked to them about the before and after, he is talking to us today.

And hopefully we can learn from his letter.

It's interesting that a lot of experts in the last few decades have said that Paul didn't write this letter.

But for 1,000 years, 1,500, 1,800 years, almost 2,000 years, they felt he did.

And if you see some of the same phrases, sentences, even the same structure, it's pretty much Paul.

It's not hard to see that it's him, but the main reason they said this was that this book of Colossians contains 55 Greek words that are used in the Bible.

He made this.

I did turn myself off. I've never done that before.

But it shows that there is a very interesting dialogue between Paul and this church, that he is speaking to them because he has heard so much about them.

And they were mostly a Gentile church with a few Jewish people scattered in.

But we'll look at that as we go a little deeper into the word. I'd like you to go there, if we will. Colossians 1.

Colossians 1.

Because I like to look at the books of the Bible as not so much for our information, but the Bible was given for our transformation.

So that as we heard in the sermonette, we don't always have to stay one way.

We can look at ourselves and find we need to change in certain areas.

We see that in life.

At times if we're not paying the bills, we may have to get a second job or get a better job.

We have to look at that.

Well, with the Bible, hopefully we're looking at God's Word and saying, I need to work on that.

I do.

Because I haven't achieved perfection yet.

So Colossians 1 and verse 9, I'll be reading from the New King James Version.

So for this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you.

And to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

Knowledge.

Do we have enough knowledge of God's will? Do we know it?

We sometimes say, well, if it's God's will, do we know what His will is?

All the time? Probably not.

I need to be filled with the knowledge of His will.

And it says, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, takes it a little deeper.

I need the wisdom of God.

I need to have better understanding.

This is what Paul is asking for this church in Colossae.

Verse 10. Why?

That you may have a walk worthy of the Lord.

That's why we're hopefully studying the Bible, come to church, and try to live a righteous, or as righteous as we can get right now, life.

That you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Increasing in the knowledge of God.

How do we do that? That's good to say that. I want you to increase in the knowledge of God.

But how do we do that? Don't tell me to do it. Tell me how to do it. Right?

Because it's not going to do me any good unless I actually do it. And so He's telling this church, and we're going to look at that today. So how do we attain knowledge?

You ever think about it? Hopefully you do.

Because I'm going to give you four ways that you can attain knowledge.

And I want you to look. The first is empirical. Empirical. What's empirical? It's through information. It's through information. That's how you attain knowledge. Right? Somebody can tell you something, and guess what? They just educated you.

A teacher can teach you something. You can read it from a book. Hopefully you are. And you can gain knowledge. Empirical.

The next is experiential. Expiriential. Which is what? Experience. That's how we can gain knowledge. We experience something, and guess what?

If we go through bad times, hopefully...

So ask yourself. You learn from a teacher.

You learn from a teacher. You learn from a teacher.

We can learn. And we'll increase in knowledge from experience and from observation.

And then the next one. Rational. Rational. What is rational? What do you mean? It's through reasoning, or logic.

We learn at a very young age, if you take two of these, and you put two of these with two of these, you've got four. That's logic. Or you can also walk over to a stove and say, Ah, that's hot, and you burn your head. It's like... That's logical. It's also experience. That you're not going to do it again.

And the final one is revelation. Another way in which we can gain knowledge. Revelation.

Which is through what? The Holy Spirit?

Christ said, and it will teach you all things.

And also it's through the Word of God.

Through the Word of God, because He speaks to us through those words. As Christ said, My words are spirit.

Well, guess what? You want to feed your spirit, read His words.

So we gain knowledge from revelation.

His Spirit and the Word of God. So do you feel complete now?

Not quite. I'd like you to turn over, as we will finish His teachings.

Turn over to Colossians 3, if you will. Colossians 3.

This is where we will end up today.

Colossians 3.

Verse 1.

It says, If then you were raised with Christ, or raised in new life with Christ, as the New Living puts it, which helps you to understand that better. If you then raised to new life with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

So where is our minds?

Do we know what God's will is for us?

Do we know what He's thinking? Do we know the purpose for which we have been called, as it says, called out of this world?

Ecclesia called out once.

Do we?

Are we applying that?

Hmm.

And then He says, verse 2, Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of the earth.

Well, that's easier said than done because we live on the earth, isn't it? I've used that excuse before.

Yeah, I don't have to deal with the stuff up there. I deal with the stuff down here. The stuff down here is what causes me the problems. That's why He says, don't set your mind or fix your mind on the things on the earth.

Now to show that, in Romans 8.5 that we were last week in 8th chapter, Romans said, Set your mind not on the things of the flesh but on the things of the Spirit. Very sane concept, same writer.

But set your mind on the things above, not on the things of the earth. But it's so easy to worry about the things on earth because that's what we are confronted with day in, day out. And sometimes it feels hourly, doesn't it?

Verse 3. It says, For you died, and your life is hidden in Christ with God. When did you die? You died at baptism, the watery grave.

You said, okay, I'm turning, I'm going down, fully submerged, and you're going to come up, it says, as a new creation. We did that at baptism.

So that's kind of the before, wasn't it? We had a life before we were baptized. Most of us, most of us wouldn't like it to be shown up on the screen our life before, would we? I wouldn't want mine because it probably was not very pretty. It wasn't something you'd go, oh, look at me. Of course, any of those running for political office today, guess what? They're going to dig back and come up with anything and everything.

So it says, When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Change in a moment and twinkle in of an eye. So it says, When He appears, when He comes back, that's our great hope. Let's go to verse 5, because I love this word. Therefore, so He's telling them, you remember how you were and you remember how you need to set your mind. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth. Now, the translation of that seems a little odd. Put to death your members?

Okay, well, we've got some members over here who have some sin problems. So let's take them out, David, and let's hang them. No. No, the New Living Translation says, Have nothing to do with. Have nothing to do with or put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Because that's what we were motivated by. New Living Translation says, So put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you.

That's what we were to examine ourselves, count the costs before we're baptized, that we can no longer live led by the flesh but by the Spirit. Now, do we do it perfectly? No. But does that control our life? Do we have these sins that are just continuing sins that are constant? That's what Paul is talking about. He's telling them, Wait a minute, you need to put this away.

He had a reason for doing that. This church right in Turkey was one of the mainstays, as people were traveling through, of the Greek and Roman culture. It was very common for them to have these issues and problems, especially when it had to do with sensual or sexual immorality. It's just the way the society was. Can we say it's there yet now? Or heading that way? In our life.

And we're affected by it. So he's telling them what they already know. He says, Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth. That's sexual sensual desires that you may have, that he's about to confront. Are these things that pull you? He said, and the first one is fornication. The Greek word porneia, which is sexual immorality. Of all types, it was their society. It was a very carnal society in which they were living in. And God called them out of that. So he said, Make sure you...

This is what you should have gotten rid of before you jumped into this new life. This was the before. This was some of the before stuff. He said, fornication, uncleanness. Wow, which means impure, indecency. Then he says, passion. Passion? Wait a minute. We need to have some passion. We should have passion for our jobs. Passion for the Word. Passion for the things of God, right? Right! The things up above. But he's talking here that we were to put that passion for worldly stuff away. People think nothing of it today. Half-clad women, guys that go around with their pants hanging down and down.

I never got that. You know? The sad part was I was watching some cop show and this guy was committing this crime and they ran after him. And he had his pants hanging down. Well, he didn't get very far. And he was just trying to run. And he just...

You know? I mean, it's maybe in a younger generation that's sexy? I don't know. But he says, no, we should be past that. And talking about passion. And then he says, evil desire. Evil desire like lust. We have to learn to control our lust. And he said, you should have worked on that. And then he said, covetousness, which is idolatry. Hmm. That 10th commandment. Thou shalt not covet idolatry. Wait a minute.

Isn't that it? Yeah. It can become your God. Money does. And you can covet money, and the next thing you know, it runs your life. And you need more. When is enough enough? Well, when I have just a little bit more. This is what we hopefully put behind. Verse 6, because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. Not coming upon us. We're looking forward when Christ returns. Because we're to be battling these things. We're to be conquering these things.

Overcoming these things. Verse 7, in which you also once walked when you lived in them. We did. I did. Most people here. But we don't need to be walking in them now. Does it matter that we will stumble sometimes? Absolutely. Yes. But it can't be a way of life. This is what he's trying to tell the Coligians, and this is what he's trying to tell us. We're looking at before and after. Before and after. What were we before, and then what are we now? And is the project done yet? Hopefully we're still not in that before phase.

We're in the after phase. That's what he's talking to them. Oh, yes, you once, because you also once were part of this. This is what motivated your life. But now it should be different. Now God is working with you for that after picture. In which you also once walked when you lived in them. Do you still live in them? These things he just mentioned. Do they still control your life?

You're still in the before picture then. But he's saying, no, you need to be in the after. But verse 8, and I hope we can truly enjoy this. But now, but now, you must also put off all of these things. So God just gave us through Paul these instructions of the things that we should already have behind us. But he's giving us some more after pictures. Things we need to work on. That's us. He's not talking to the Greek world here. He's not talking to the Roman world time. He's talking to those in the church. But now, he says in verse 8, But now you must also put off all of these.

Put off all of these. You wanted to know how? Well, Paul's not going to leave you without an answer. This is how you do it. The after, the finishing touches. Right? When you have a house and you are redoing it, and then you have your before, before you take the after, you have to do some finishing touches.

Anybody who's in construction knows, oh, I've got to finish this. I've got to finish this because you can make the overall house project or whatever look pretty good for somebody driving by. But if they get closer, they realize, well, there's some finishing need to be done.

God's saying that to us. And that's great. Okay, you should put the stuff behind that he talked about earlier. But now, now I need you to work on this. And I had to really think about this. First one he says was anger. Anger. Ah, what's that mean? Driving on I-95? Or even the turnpike? Anger. Do you have a temper? Are you working to control it so that anger is not a big issue?

Anger, you've learned to control it because what does the Scripture say? For when you get angry, sin not. So we know there's some things that you will be angry about. But does anger control your life? Is it something that, wow, you're trying to overcome? Have you not met people who seem to always be upset? They always seem to be angry?

And we say, well, it's a negative person, but some people are just, they're angry all the time. They're looking for something to be angry about. And God says, no, not you, not me.

You need to be able to control that anger because you represent Him, and He needs you to be in that after picture. But do you want to be in that after picture? Just angry? Is that what He wants? Oh, see my son over here. And you've seen people who just, you know, Mary experienced one this weekend, where we live, and a guy picking, what it, lychee, lychee, whatever, and she went out there, and some guy came from the neighborhood, no more than us, chewing somebody out for picking some of them, or picking too many.

He just had to, He just, He was angry, and He couldn't just say, well hey, I'd like some of those, can you share some of them? No! He had to be angry. Would our neighbors equate that with us? Do they say, oh yeah, I know them, we can hear them two blocks away.

That's that family that yelled at each other. See, this is, this is, this is what He's trying to do with this, with this finishing touches. So we need to look at our anger, we need to look and see if we still have a temper. And I can tell you, she can tell you, 25, 30 years ago, I had a temper that would surpass all of yours. If you don't believe me, we can argue about it. But I, you know, I begin to realize that, I didn't want to be that person.

And I had to change, and hey, it didn't come overnight. Took a long time. Now it's, I can handle issues and problems, which I have to do, but I don't usually get angry. Some people think, oh, you're upset. Well, yes, but I don't lose it. But that takes time. It's taken a long time for me to overcome that. And then, there's this temper, and then he mentions anger, but then he mentions the word wrath.

Well, aren't they the same? No. No. There's a big difference between getting angry and showing you wrath. Yes, wrath is rage. It's extreme anger. It's fury. It's like doing something. Yeah, it's like, you do this, I'm gonna, you know, oh, let me have that. Yeah, so how are we working in it? Do you see a pattern here? He says, well, hey, make sure you're not known for your anger, and you're certainly not known for your wrath, because anger leads to wrath.

You've seen people, seen it on TV. They show these TV shows of getting people up, what was it, Jerry Springer, and I don't know if there's anybody that still just has human debris up there. Oh, and people watch it. Oh, yeah, and then they fight, and they, you know, do these things. I'm just glad I didn't see any of you there last week. You know? I mean, what would you think if you saw somebody that, would you gossip and go, hey, saw Mike Hamill on Jerry Springer?

See, God is working with us. He's trying to tell us, let's work on that anger. Let's work on that wrath. And then he brings up malice, which means hostility. Malice, which means hostility, hatred, ill will, spitefulness. Any of you feel that way? I did this week. I had to drive down. What was it? Monday? I can't remember. I had to go to, yes, I went to Humberto's, I think it was Monday, down at the hospital, and I was driving in traffic 95, Caesar, 95, and it was pretty busy, and all four or five lanes were going there were pretty busy, but I saw this guy just in this black Corvette, just, I could see him however he wanted to, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.

You know, I'm driving 75, he's driving 100, and he's just zipping in and out, and he's coming right up beside me, and there's not enough room, because I know he wants to, but there wasn't enough room. He did it anyway. He shot right, which I didn't even have time to react, but he barely missed my bumper and the car in front of it, bumper.

And I see this black strip school. Well, traffic caught us down the road. I happened to be in the left lane. Well, here it was. He was in the wrong lane, and he couldn't get up, and traffic's going slower, and all of a sudden, I'm passing him, and he wanted over, but I just kept my accelerator just so he couldn't get in when a guy... Yes. That's me. Yeah, but you're not the pastor. I was embarrassed when I came back that night and started working on the sermon. And spiteful, yes, I was! No, you say, well, that may be a minor thing.

It's not a minor thing, because I liked it. I just thought, you know, a jerk didn't even be driving that fast anyway. See, these are the things... They're the finishing touches that God needs to work on.

And I got to work on myself, because I realized, yeah, I repented for it, but at that time, I liked it. And I was spiteful. Or how many of us said, well, where's the police when that happens? Boy, I hope the police get him. What if it's an emergency? Then it comes down to blaspheme. Have you blasphemed?

Which can be defined as profanity or speaking ill of. Speaking ill of God, as it's generally referenced, but in today's society, it's speaking ill of anything. You blaspheme it. Talk down on it. The original Greek word from last, when it started, was to blame.

Blame. We're good at blame, aren't we? No matter who we are. We love to blame something. We love to blame someone. We love to blame the government. We love to blame, blame, blame. And it becomes a point to where we can be in a habit of just blaming everything, blasting everything. So you see this incredible pattern that's working. What? It's working on the inside, isn't it?

We looked at the other things that were addressed, and it was kind of an outside thing. Immorality, all these other things that we talked about earlier. It's kind of like, okay, you got the outside fixed. Now baptism, now we kind of need to work on the inside of the place. I need to work on the inside. So that this begins to show forth in your conduct and how you live and how you treat other people.

And then it talks about, what? Filthy language. Filthy language. I hope that's not your problem. I read something on the Internet this week in researching this sermon that I find hard to believe, but of course you know everything on the Internet is true. It said that men, the average man in America, has in his vocabulary 58 curse words. I didn't know there were 58 curse words. I may be behind times. And the average woman has 29. Is that right, Neil? But you're married to one.

But doesn't that even seem high? As I was studying this, I'm going, wow, that many curse words? Filthy, swearing, as he says, filthy language? Huh. There was a show. It was on for quite a few years. James Lipton hosted it. And it's called Inside the Actor's Studio. I don't know if any of you ever saw that. And this James Lipton would sit and interview some star. Okay, some mega movie star, whatever. And it would talk about his films, and it was kind of... And he had an audience of actors and director wannabes in the school. And so one of the questions that he always asked, because he had these cards, like I have cards, and that's what he had question, and he would ask this question, and then he'd go.

And then the actor, actors would answer it. And the same questions he would ask almost every time. Right, Chris? Yes. And then they had to answer it, you know, what was your favorite movie? Who was your favorite director that you worked with? What were the things when you did this amazing scene that caused you to have such emotion on the screen?

Various things like that that you would ask. But he would always ask this one question to every star. What is your favorite curse word? Right? Right, Chris? He'd ask, what is your favorite curse word? And they had to say it. And I remember one female, I can't remember one of the big actors, who said, I really don't want to say that. And he said, oh no, but what is it? And she said, well, I say it only because it's in the script, but I don't use that language.

What's she doing on the screen? But I'm asking you today, do you have a favorite word that you use when you get angry? Because it's amazing when you see something on the street, or you see something on television or whatever, and it shows that you have people who get angry and they're fighting, you know, or they're clawing each other or they're doing this.

Well, usually what was the TV show? A bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. They have to bleep out the words. Why? Because they've lost control. And they're using this. How about us? Do you have a favorite word? Or perhaps you've overcome that and you have a favorite substitute word. I don't see anybody going, yeah, they're all like, perfect, perfect. But this is, see, this is what he's trying to do.

He's trying to get the finished product. He's trying to work for that after picture. And so that, yeah, that may be a small thing. But wait a minute, I treat people well. I don't do this. I don't murder anybody. I don't sleep around.

I don't, you know, I come to church every week. But I let a few words slip occasionally. What's so bad about it? Well, God says, I just want you to, I want to perfect you. And that is hard. I had a guy in construction that I did some work for. He could not go one sentence without putting a curse word that I know of. He even put curse words before and after different words and put them in the middle. And Mary knows exactly who I'm talking about because you'd be like, man, do you have to say that?

He couldn't help it. Curse words are contagious, aren't they? They're so accepted. Now they have no problem on television saying, G.D. Do they? Wow. But we can't, this is not us. We need to be finishing the product. Let's finish this one now.

Let's finish this message. And in verse 9, he says, Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds. Stop lying! Why? You know, sometimes it's the easiest thing to do is to lie. It's so easy, it's the easiest road. Somebody says, oh, I just don't want to hear them anymore. Yes. Does this dress make me look fat? The worst thing you can say is, er. But what about us? Are we, you know, making sure that what we tell somebody, Mike, what we tell somebody is what we know is the truth, and not tell somebody what we don't know.

Because he's talking about one another. He's talking about church members. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, who is renewed in what? Knowledge. He's renewed not now. You know what we need to do. Who is renewed in the knowledge according to the image of him who created him. That's what he's doing.

He's wanting that after picture to be Christ-like, the after picture to be God-like. Before and after. It's important to God. Verse 11, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, okay, because they have a mixture of people, doesn't matter. You've all been called, no matter what you've been called out of, whether we're black, white, Hispanic, whatever we are, guess what?

We're all in this. We are all to be in the form of God, the form of godliness. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarians, Scythians. What? No, where else? Scythians. Why would he say Scythians? Who were the Scythians? Did a large study on that. It's incredible. If you want to go in and study all that this week, it really shows you. But they were war-like people. Obviously, they were still there. They thought they wiped them out with Alexander the Great, but obviously, he says they're Scythians.

Scythians were nomadic people who fought. They loved to fight. Even the women, when they dug up some of the graves, they found that a third of all the women were buried with a weapon in their hand. Now, maybe because they had bad marriages, I don't know. But we get an idea that it didn't matter if you were a war-like person, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. So it doesn't matter where you came from. It doesn't matter all.

You baggage. You carry. What matters is that God is working with you. And then he finishes up here in verse 12. Here he adds this word again. What? Therefore, therefore, as the elect of God, are you? I am. I'm the only one who got my hand. I am. I am the elect of God. Holy! Well, my hand goes a little bit slower because I, you know, I try to be holy, but I'm not all the time. And beloved, I can put my hand up there because I know he loves me.

Put on tender-hearted mercies. He's taking it to another step. What's he doing now? You know what he's doing now? It's just like we have a house and you have a house and you work on it. Okay. And you've got the, you got the framing done and then you worked on the inside and you get the finishing touches done.

But the house is not complete yet. You know why? Because there's always this thing. I had it. You had it. David's had it. Anybody that's done any construction had it. It's called a punch list. Know what a punch list is? It's that list at the end of every...when you think everything's great and you go through and you find little bitty things, right?

I've got a couple of women shaking their head. Oh yeah, that's called a honeydew list. Or yeah, that's...but it's that punch list. It's those extra little things. It may be a nail over here. It may be a little caulk over here. It's the thing that completes. So now you're as perfect on that house as you can get. Now, verse 12, we have what? God's punch list. God's punch list. And this is it. He said, now put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, which is the Greek word for humility, which in the Greek it means to esteem other superior than yourself.

Humbleness of mind. Meekness. Are we meek? How about patience, long suffering? Part of the punch list that we have to work on. Not easy, are they? Bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

Do you show mercy? Are you forgiving? Boy, this is a large punch list. I remember I used to have a little, I'd finish a big room. I said, well, I'll have my punch list and ask the customer to have theirs. I would walk through and examine it. And then a lot of times it would be like, okay, I got this list like this, and all things got to be done. And then they'd give me like page after page after page. Remember? Oh, you're like... But they want every little thing. God wants every little thing with us.

Are we? Are we prepared to do that? Verse 14, but above all these things, I'm going to give you all this punch list, but above all these things, put on what? Love. Agape. Agape. Wow. Which is the bond of perfection. When we have agape ruling in our life, godly love, we have perfection. Verse 15, last verse. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called, in one body, and be what? Thankful. Thankful. That's the after. Just think about now. What do you got to do next week?

The list just got pretty big, didn't it? We've got some work to do. Is it impossible? Absolutely not, because God says with Him all things are possible. All things are possible. Are you ready for your after picture? Are you? Do you feel like you are truly ready for God, for to tell God, okay, now you can take the after picture? I don't see a lot of people going. Whew! There's a before picture. Recognize Him?

Hmm. That was God's before picture. Now I want to show you the after. Do we perhaps need a little more time? Yeah. No. It tells you no matter how big the project is, God can handle it. Brethren, we can be thankful that there is a before and there is an after, and this is what He is calling us to be. We are Gods before and after project. Enjoy your work this week.