Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / How Do I Become Happy in God?

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How Do I Become Happy in God? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Christian hedonism is not a theory, it's a life practice.
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  Speaker 1: It's a heart cry. I desire for more of God
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  Speaker 1: and to share in more of His glory. So it's
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  Speaker 1: no surprise to me that we get a lot of
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  Speaker 1: emails from people who are asking for very practical help
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  Speaker 1: as they ask questions like, how do I become more
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  Speaker 1: happy in God? What do I do to find it,
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  Speaker 1: to get it and to keep it? What kind of
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  Speaker 1: daily habits and practices will lead me deeper in my
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  Speaker 1: joy in God? All great questions in line with this
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  Speaker 1: email from an anonymous young man Pastor John, Hello, and
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  Speaker 1: thank you for this outlet where I can ask you
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  Speaker 1: my question. Now, I must admit that I'm a little
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  Speaker 1: adhd and autistic, so it's very possible that I have
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  Speaker 1: missed what you have said in the past. But I
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  Speaker 1: feel like in all this Christian hedonism teaching, you never
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  Speaker 1: actually say how to get more satisfied in Christ. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I bought a lot of your books and read them.
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  Speaker 1: I ask God every day to fill me in satisfaction,
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  Speaker 1: and I read my Bible every day as well. Besides
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  Speaker 1: reading my Bible and praying, what else is there to do?
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  Speaker 1: What am I missing?
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  Speaker 2: More than once. Jesus spoke about his joy becoming our
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  Speaker 2: joy chapter fifteen, Chapter seventeen of the Gospel of John.
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  Speaker 2: And if you think about it, that's absolutely astounding, astounding,
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  Speaker 2: the joy of the Son of God becoming my joy,
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  Speaker 2: absolutely astounding. He said, I speak these things so that
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  Speaker 2: my joy may be in you, my joy in you,
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  Speaker 2: and your joy may be full. And here's something I
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  Speaker 2: hadn't noticed before yesterday. Surely it is very significant that
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  Speaker 2: Paul the Apostle speaks similarly. He says in tewod Corinthians two,
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  Speaker 2: verse three, I felt sure of you all that my
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  Speaker 2: joy would be the joy of you all.
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  Speaker 1: Huh.
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  Speaker 2: My conclusion from what Jesus said and what Paul said
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  Speaker 2: is that there is a holy contagion in Christ's exulting joy.
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  Speaker 2: So one answer to this young man's heart cry of
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  Speaker 2: how to be more fully satisfied in Christ is to
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  Speaker 2: draw near and hear, see, taste the joy of others.
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  Speaker 2: There's something about the stories of other people's experience of
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  Speaker 2: God that opens our heart to similar experiences. We see
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  Speaker 2: their experience of joy in God, and we say, there
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  Speaker 2: it is, I see it, I hear it, I get it.
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  Speaker 2: That's what it's like right there he's doing it, and
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  Speaker 2: that moment can be an awakening, existential appropriation of the
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  Speaker 2: other person's joy in his own heart. So what I
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  Speaker 2: thought I would do in answer to the question is
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  Speaker 2: kind of round about, and simply take a few minutes
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  Speaker 2: and tell the story of Hudson Taylor's quest for this
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  Speaker 2: very satisfaction and how he found it. So listen to
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  Speaker 2: the story. In eighteen sixty five, when Hudson Taylor was
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  Speaker 2: in Britain at age thirty three years old, God gave
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  Speaker 2: him the vision for founding the China Inland Mission, and later,
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  Speaker 2: I think about a year later, he his family and
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  Speaker 2: sixteen new missionary recruits sailed for China with no guaranteed salaries,
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  Speaker 2: and he would press on in this leadership of the
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  Speaker 2: mission for another forty years. Amazing life. I recommend that
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  Speaker 2: you read Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret three years later. Oca.
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  Speaker 2: He's he's been on the field now numerous years, but
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  Speaker 2: since he had the vision three years and he's walked
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  Speaker 2: through so many frustrations, temptations, failures, and holiness, weakness of joy,
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  Speaker 2: and suddenly, and it was suddenly an epoch making experience
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  Speaker 2: happened September fourth, eighteen sixty nine, in jing Jiang. He
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  Speaker 2: exulted to one of his associates like this quote, Oh,
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  Speaker 2: mister Judd, God has made me a new man. God
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  Speaker 2: has made me a new man. End quote. Now, what
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  Speaker 2: happened that day was not ephemeral. I mean, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of us have had mountaintop experiences, right, and three days
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  Speaker 2: later we're back where we were. This was not ephemeral.
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  Speaker 2: He looked back and wrote about it thirty years later,
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  Speaker 2: giving thanks for the abiding effect of that experience. And
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  Speaker 2: here's what he wrote. We shall never forget the blessing
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  Speaker 2: we received through the words of John four fourteen. Whosoever
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  Speaker 2: drinks of the water that I shall give him shall
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  Speaker 2: never thirst. Nearly thirty years ago, as I realized that
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  Speaker 2: Christ literally meant what he said, shall meant shall never
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  Speaker 2: meant never thirst meant thirst, our heart overflowed with joy
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  Speaker 2: as we accepted the gift. Oh the thirst with which
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  Speaker 2: we had sat down, but Oh the joy with which
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  Speaker 2: we sprang from our seat, praising the Lord that the
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  Speaker 2: thirsting days were all passed and passed forever. Now we
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  Speaker 2: should be careful here of being cynical. I mean my
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  Speaker 2: ment is to say, come on, he's not naive. He's
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  Speaker 2: speaking of a thirty year long experience during which he
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  Speaker 2: did battle with some very low times. When he says
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  Speaker 2: the thirstying days were all passed, he does not mean
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  Speaker 2: he never desired Jesus again. He doesn't mean he never
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  Speaker 2: longed for more of Christ again. His whole life became
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  Speaker 2: revolutionized by this experience. So what happened? What happened? On
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  Speaker 2: September four, eighteen sixty nine, when he was thirty seven,
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  Speaker 2: Taylor found a letter waiting for him at Ching Chang
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  Speaker 2: from John McCarthy. God used the letter to revolutionize Taylor's life.
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  Speaker 2: He said, when my agony of soul was at its height,
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  Speaker 2: a sentence mark that, a sentence in a letter from
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  Speaker 2: dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes,
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  Speaker 2: and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth
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  Speaker 2: of our oneness with Jesus, as I had never known
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  Speaker 2: it before. That's an important statement, as I had never
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  Speaker 2: known it before. So notice two things. One is the
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  Speaker 2: change in Hudson Taylor didn't come from new information. He
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  Speaker 2: knew this. He knew the teaching that he was talking about,
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  Speaker 2: and he'd read the Bible one hundred times. It was
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  Speaker 2: one sentence about an old truth, and we've all had
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  Speaker 2: this experience, right, the same truth we have read one
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  Speaker 2: hundred times in the Bible suddenly explodes with new power
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  Speaker 2: in our lives. That happened for Taylor, And along with
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  Speaker 2: that new sight of Christ's fullness and his union with Christ,
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  Speaker 2: there was also new yieldingness, a glad unreserved handing over
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  Speaker 2: of self and everything to Jesus. This new yieldedness was
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  Speaker 2: so powerful and so sweet, so supernatural, that it rose
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  Speaker 2: up like an indictment against all vain striving. When you
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  Speaker 2: have been swept up in the arms of Jesus like
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  Speaker 2: he was at that moment, all previous efforts to jump
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  Speaker 2: in seem vain. That's he've been trying to got to
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  Speaker 2: climb into the army of Jesus. In other words, deep, RESTful,
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  Speaker 2: joyful satisfaction in Jesus is a gift and in the end,
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  Speaker 2: not the result of striving. For Hudson Taylor, the heart
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  Speaker 2: of his discovery was that the fruit of the vine
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  Speaker 2: comes from abiding, not striving. That's the way he would
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  Speaker 2: put it to Let my loving Savior work in me
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  Speaker 2: his will, my sanctification is what I would live for
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  Speaker 2: by His grace, abiding, not striving nor struggling, looking off
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  Speaker 2: to him, trusting him for present power, resting in the
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  Speaker 2: love of an almighty savior. He wrote. So this singular
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  Speaker 2: experience gave vivid meaning to the difference between the works
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  Speaker 2: of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit in
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  Speaker 2: a fresh way, a life changing way. For Hudson Taylor,
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  Speaker 2: he said, work is the outcome of effort. Fruit is
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  Speaker 2: the outcome of life. A bad man may do good work,
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  Speaker 2: but a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Hudson Taylor
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  Speaker 2: and others at that time have been criticized for over
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  Speaker 2: emphasizing the passive aspect of sanctification. And there are passages
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  Speaker 2: we've seen them already in Taylor that sound that way,
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  Speaker 2: as though the New Testament portrayed no pursuit, no effort,
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  Speaker 2: no struggle on our part once we're saved. But when
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  Speaker 2: you study his life you realize he was not that lopsided.
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  Speaker 2: He wrote. Communion with Christ requires our coming to him,
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  Speaker 2: meditating on his person, and his work requires the diligent
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  Speaker 2: use of means, the means of grace, and specially the
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  Speaker 2: prayerful reading of his word. Many failed to abide because
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  Speaker 2: they habitually fast instead of feed. The reason Christian joy
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  Speaker 2: is so mysterious is me talking now. The reason Christian
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  Speaker 2: joy is so mysterious is that, on the one hand,
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  Speaker 2: it is a completely free gift of God to be received,
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  Speaker 2: not earned, not achieved by human effort. And yet that
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  Speaker 2: free gift comes through our practical experiences of seeing Christ
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  Speaker 2: in his word and serving Him in obedience of faith.
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  Speaker 2: It's a mystery. And Huddan Taylor believed that God worked
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  Speaker 2: a miracle that day, lifting the scales from his eyes,
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  Speaker 2: his Christian eyes, yes, so that something new about abiding
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  Speaker 2: in Christ gripped him very deeply, never left him. So.
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  Speaker 2: A closing word to our young friend who wrote this question,
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  Speaker 2: whether God gives you a crisis moment of realization that
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  Speaker 2: lasts for a lifetime, as he did Utson Taylor, or
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  Speaker 2: whether He leads you deeper over time, step by step.
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  Speaker 2: Don't settle for anything less than what Paul experienced in Philippians,
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  Speaker 2: for in every situation content in Christ, and what he
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  Speaker 2: prayed for in Ephesians three nineteen, that you might be
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  Speaker 2: filled with all the fullness of God. Don't stop wanting that.
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  Speaker 2: Don't stop pursuing that. But it is a gift, and
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  Speaker 2: if Taylor were here, he would say, it's yours. It's
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  Speaker 2: yours in union with Christ. Possess it, Abide in it
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  Speaker 2: like a branch in a vine, Enjoy it.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you Pastor John for that flesh and blood example
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  Speaker 1: from the life of Hudson Taylor and from his book
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  Speaker 1: Spiritual Secret. And thank you for joining us today. If
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  Speaker 1: you have a question to ask Pastor John, find a
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  Speaker 1: link to email us and even find our complete episode
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  Speaker 1: archive at Askpastor John dot com. Every episode with audio
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  Speaker 1: and full transcript available there. Well, is there a good
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  Speaker 1: magic and edifying sorcery? This is of course a debate
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  Speaker 1: that comes up all the time over the Lord of
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  Speaker 1: the Rings and Harry Potter and other fantasy literature. Pastor
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  Speaker 1: John dives into the debate next time with a twist
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  Speaker 1: of his own, as you would come to expect, and
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  Speaker 1: Thursday's question is going to be related as well. A
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  Speaker 1: week of witchcraft and wizardry coming up on the A S.
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  Speaker 1: Paster John Podcast beginning Monday. I'm your host, Tony Reiki.
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  Speaker 1: See then,