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Obedience Will Never Ruin Your Life · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to ask bestor John with a longtime author
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  Speaker 1: and pastor, John Piper. This fiscal year, which ends very
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  Speaker 1: soon for us, was a big one for Desiring God.
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  Speaker 1: comes to an end, would you consider joining us by
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  Speaker 1: That's Desiring Good dot org forward slash give. And if
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  Speaker 1: very much. Okay, Knowing from reading emails for thirteen years,
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  Speaker 1: I know many of you listening are facing huge decisions
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  Speaker 1: in life right now, a decision that will change your life,
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  Speaker 1: a decision from which there will be no turning back.
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  Speaker 1: You will live with your answer forever. And it's one
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  Speaker 1: of those moments when it feels like doing the right
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  Speaker 1: thing will be so costly that it will lead to
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  Speaker 1: your ultimate demise in this life. Like doing what you
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  Speaker 1: know is right and what will honor God will wreck
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  Speaker 1: all the plans you've had and the dreams that you
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  Speaker 1: were living for. If you make the right decision today
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  Speaker 1: on ask Pastor John, obedience will never ruin your life.
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  Speaker 1: It's the dilemma facing an anonymous woman right now, Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: what would you say to a young single woman, a
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  Speaker 1: Christian who is secretly considering an abortion because it would
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  Speaker 1: make life easier. This is where I find myself right now,
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  Speaker 1: and I never imagined it would happen to me. Yet
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  Speaker 1: here I am shattered and scared.
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  Speaker 2: I preach a sermon about the causes of abortion on
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  Speaker 2: January twenty four, twenty twenty one, at our North campus
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  Speaker 2: at the time, and I would really encourage our friend
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  Speaker 2: to listen to that sermon tailor made for her in
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  Speaker 2: her situation. It's at the Desiring God website. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: I would encourage everybody to listen to it because of
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  Speaker 2: one of the points I make is just so relevant
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  Speaker 2: for all of life, not just abortion. The title of
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  Speaker 2: the message and the point of this particular podcast that
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  Speaker 2: we're making right now is doing the right thing never
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  Speaker 2: ruins your life. That's the point of the that's the
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  Speaker 2: title of the message, and that's the point of what
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  Speaker 2: I want to say right now. In that sermon, I
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  Speaker 2: mentioned three causes that lead to abortion, and the third
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  Speaker 2: one was the failure to believe this precious biblical truth.
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  Speaker 2: Doing the right thing never never ruins your life. It
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  Speaker 2: may cost you your life, it may cost you your friends,
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  Speaker 2: it may cost you your previous dreams. It will never
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  Speaker 2: ruin your life. And by that I mean it will
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  Speaker 2: never make your life worthless. It will never make your
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  Speaker 2: life meaningless or useless or unlivable. It will never make
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  Speaker 2: your life more than you can bear. It will never
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  Speaker 2: make your life joyless or so bad that at the
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  Speaker 2: end of it you'll regret it. No, no, no, it won't.
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  Speaker 2: That will never happen if you do the right thing.
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  Speaker 2: And what I mean by do the right thing is
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  Speaker 2: do the will of God revealed in the Bible, depending
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  Speaker 2: on his grace to help you do it. That's what
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  Speaker 2: I mean by do the right thing, do the will
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  Speaker 2: of God revealed in the Bible, depending on his grace
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  Speaker 2: to help you do it. The right thing is do
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  Speaker 2: the will of God by trusting the grace of God.
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  Speaker 2: If you do that, it will never, never ruin your life.
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  Speaker 2: And the right thing when it comes to abortion is
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  Speaker 2: don't participate in the taking of your baby's life. Don't
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  Speaker 2: do it, don't get an abortion. The Bible tells us
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  Speaker 2: not to take the life of innocent persons, and it
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  Speaker 2: treats the Bible treats the baby in the womb as
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  Speaker 2: a person. We can give lots of arguments, but this
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  Speaker 2: is not the time for that. To do the right
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  Speaker 2: thing takes an active faith in a great, wise, good,
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  Speaker 2: sovereign God who can turn the most heartbreaking circumstances into
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  Speaker 2: something amazingly significant. The reason I emphasize the need for
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  Speaker 2: faith is because everything you can see in your circumstances
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  Speaker 2: right now appears to be so contrary to hope. You
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  Speaker 2: can't see any circumstances. Cry out if I stay pregnant
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  Speaker 2: for nine months, if I keep this baby, my life
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  Speaker 2: will be ruined. Or a mom or a dad or
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  Speaker 2: a boyfriend crying out the same thing. If you stay
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  Speaker 2: pregnant for nine months, if you keep this baby, our
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  Speaker 2: lives will be ruined. Thousands of abortions happen because pregnant
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  Speaker 2: women and boyfriends and husbands and parents and grandparents look
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  Speaker 2: at the implications for years to come and conclude this
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  Speaker 2: is going to ruin our lives. And my argument is this,
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  Speaker 2: that's not true. That is not true, and I can
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  Speaker 2: show it's not true from the word of God that
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  Speaker 2: doing the right thing never ruins your life. Never. And
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  Speaker 2: this relates to every one of us, not just a
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  Speaker 2: woman in Christ with a Christ's pregnancy. It's every one
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  Speaker 2: of us listening to this podcast because it has to
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  Speaker 2: do with facing a decision between doing the right thing,
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  Speaker 2: no matter the pain, and doing the wrong thing to
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  Speaker 2: minimize the pain. All of us have been there, all
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  Speaker 2: of us, little or big, we've been there. Abortion just
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  Speaker 2: happens to be one glaring example of facing that choice.
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  Speaker 2: There is such a thing, oh that you would believe me,
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  Speaker 2: There is such a thing as a beautiful, broken hearted life.
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  Speaker 2: Let there be no misunderstanding. Doing the right thing in
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  Speaker 2: reliance upon Christ and for the glory of Christ will
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  Speaker 2: bring suffering into your life, and not just avoiding an abortion.
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  Speaker 2: The words of Jesus are unmistakable. A servant is not
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  Speaker 2: greater than his master. If they persecuted me, that persecute you.
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  Speaker 2: John fifteen, I will show you how much you must
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  Speaker 2: suffer for the sake of my name. Act nine. People
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  Speaker 2: will hate you, and exclude you, and revile you, and
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  Speaker 2: spurn your name is evil on account of the son
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  Speaker 2: of Man. Luke six. Do not think that I have
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  Speaker 2: come to bring peace on the earth. I have not
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  Speaker 2: come to bring peace but a sword. A person's enemies
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  Speaker 2: will be those of his own household. Matthew ten, You
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  Speaker 2: will be delivered up even by parents and brothers, and
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  Speaker 2: relatives and friends, and some of you they will put
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  Speaker 2: to death Luke twenty one. And the words of Paul
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  Speaker 2: are just as clear. All who desire to live a
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  Speaker 2: godly life in Christ will be persecuted two Timothy three.
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  Speaker 2: Or it may be tribulation or distress, or persecution, or
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  Speaker 2: famine or nakedness or danger or sword Romans eight or
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  Speaker 2: Second Crintint eleven. It may be great labors, imprisonments, beating, shipwrecked,
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  Speaker 2: dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers in the city,
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  Speaker 2: danger in the wilderness, dangerous sea, danger from false brothers, toil,
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  Speaker 2: hardship through many sleepless night in hunger and thirst, in cold,
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  Speaker 2: and exposure, Welcome to the life of doing the right thing,
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  Speaker 2: the unruined, unwated, beautiful heartbroken life, afflicted in every way
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  Speaker 2: but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted
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  Speaker 2: but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. What does
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  Speaker 2: that mean? It means not ruined, not ruined, not ruined.
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  Speaker 2: That's what it means. Isn't that what the Great Apostle
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  Speaker 2: is saying. Afflicted in every way, but not ruined, not meaningless,
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  Speaker 2: not useless, not more than you can bear, not joyless,
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  Speaker 2: not regretted, but rather a beautiful life. A beautiful life
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  Speaker 2: of broken hearted joy, broken hearted love, unwavering faithfulness, built
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  Speaker 2: out of the jagged fragments of shattered dreams, and infinitely
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  Speaker 2: worth living. Why because the Christian epitaph on the gravestone
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  Speaker 2: over every buried dream reads Satan minute for evil, but
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  Speaker 2: God meant it for good. When you do the right
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  Speaker 2: thing in reliance on God, God promises to meet every
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  Speaker 2: need you have Philippins four. He promises to work everything
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  Speaker 2: together for your good Romans eight. He promises that abounding
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  Speaker 2: in the work of the Lord is never, never, never
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  Speaker 2: in vain onir corinstance fifteen, he promises that you don't
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  Speaker 2: need to be anxious about anything, because your father knows
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  Speaker 2: what you need before you ask him Matthew six. In
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  Speaker 2: other words, he will not let your life be ruined.
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  Speaker 2: He won't if you do the right thing in reliance
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  Speaker 2: upon his grace. The great purpose of life is not
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  Speaker 2: to escape difficulty or hardship or suffering. The purpose of
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  Speaker 2: life is to magnify the greatness and beauty and worth
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  Speaker 2: of Jesus. And we do that by trusting Him as
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  Speaker 2: we gladly and painfully do the right thing. So I
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  Speaker 2: plead with our young friend and many like her, don't
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  Speaker 2: believe the lie that doing the right thing will ruin
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  Speaker 2: your life. It won't, I promise you it won't.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, powerful word, Pastor John, it won't. Doing the right
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  Speaker 1: thing might cost you your life, it might cost you
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  Speaker 1: your friends, it might cost you your previous dreams. It
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  Speaker 1: will never ruin your life. So good, thank you, Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: The promise is that a life lived in obedience, even
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  Speaker 1: a brookenhearted one, is never wasted. It's never meaningless to
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  Speaker 1: live a life spent magnifying the beauty and worth of
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  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. So good, and on this very important topic,
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  Speaker 1: of abortion, the evil of abortion. We have covered a
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  Speaker 1: lot of angles, including Pastor John's eventful life and the
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  Speaker 1: pro life movement. If you haven't read that, see the
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  Speaker 1: Aspectrojohn Book, pages fifty nine to sixty three to catch
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  Speaker 1: up one last time. As our fiscal year A Digi
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  Speaker 1: comes to an end this month, please consider joining us
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: by giving a monthly or a one time gift to
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  Speaker 1: help offset the cost of free for thousands just like you.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Go to Desiring Good dot org for slash give today,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: and if you do already support us, thank you. We
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  Speaker 1: appreciate you very much for being a partner with us. Well.
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  Speaker 1: Living such a life laid out here in this episode,
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  Speaker 1: spent magnifying the beauty and worth of Jesus Christ and
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  Speaker 1: making the right decisions requires a vibrant prayer life that
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  Speaker 1: we turn next, breaking out of our prayer ruts. I'm
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  Speaker 1: Tony Ranky, See you on Thursday.