Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 364 | Throwback - Laughter, the Best Medicine: Embracing Joy in Christ

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364 | Throwback - Laughter, the Best Medicine: Embracing Joy in Christ · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  Music.
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  Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries,
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  where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
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  Our highest priority is making God real in your life.
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  Whether you are listening in our app, in your favorite podcasting app,
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  or on our website at watwm.org,
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  we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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  about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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  Living a life for Christ. She's a happy girl.
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  Music.
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  She's a happy girl.
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  Have you noticed it just feels good to laugh? God knew exactly what he was doing
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  when he developed laughter.
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  He gave you a way of ridding your
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  body of unnecessary stress and producing chemicals that soothe the soul.
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  If your heart is light and full of joy, then your days go by better and you
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  enjoy life. You are far better suited to enjoy the precious gift God gave you,
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  life. He meant for you to be happy.
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  Join us in this program, Laughter, the Best Medicine, as Kim Miller of Woman
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  at the Well Ministries takes us through Proverbs 17, 22, which says,
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  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
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  Hello and welcome to this broadcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  The Bible tells us that Jesus came, that we might have life and that we might
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  have it more abundantly.
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  An abundant life is not one that is characterized by lots of material wealth,
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  but certainly is characterized by a peace and joy that just exudes from someone
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  who feels they have an abundant life and who is living the abundant life that God has for them.
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  And since he came to seek and to save those which were lost and all of us are
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  lost and anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,
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  and we know that his purpose was to come and save us and to give us that abundant life,
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  all of us have within our capacity the ability to live a life that is abundant in Christ.
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  And when we think about that, we can think in terms of the blessings that God gives us.
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  And we think about the truths that are revealed in the scripture and that he
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  impresses upon our heart when we spend time praying to him and listening to
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  what he has to say in our hearts and our minds as the Holy Spirit reveals to
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  us that which he would have us know.
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  And all of those things combined in the believer's heart and life leads us to a life of joy and peace.
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  You see, the Bible says that the world didn't give it to us,
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  so the world can't take it away from us and our joy is from within it is not
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  dependent on our circumstances and i've come to realize in my lifetime that
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  where i place my focus has a direct bearing upon how i feel.
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  Emotionally, mentally, and even physically.
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  There can be nothing medically wrong with you, but if you are concentrating
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  and focusing on the negative things in the world and in your life and around
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  you, then you can have an immediate drain of energy.
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  You can begin to feel melancholy.
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  You can just begin to feel yucky. And
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  the only thing that has changed has been what
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  you've been thinking about where your mind is
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  focused and we are wired in such
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  a way that our thoughts have a very strong impact on our health that's why doctors
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  are always talking about stress is bad for you and how they're always saying
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  we have to reduce our stress and you go to the doctor and they're always discussing
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  the impacts of stress on your life,
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  because stress is the term we give to that feeling we have when we're focusing
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  on negative things in and around our life.
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  But this scripture says, a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
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  Now, when we are sick, we have strep throat or we have some other kind of infection,
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  we go to the doctor and the doctor gives us some medicine.
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  And by the grace of god that medicine is able to take care of us and relieve
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  us of the symptoms and the problems that were calling it causing us to feel
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  bad so a medicine when used properly,
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  results in a positive effect and so he says a merry heart.
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  Doeth good like a medicine. So a merry heart can have a positive effect on how we feel.
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  And how we feel has an effect or impact on how we operate and behave.
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  So the grassroots problem for many of us has to do with our thoughts.
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  And the Bible says that we are to place in our heart the word of God that we
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  might not sin against him.
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  And when you think in terms of this verse in Proverbs that Erica read in your
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  hearing, that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
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  And we think in terms of the psalmist David telling us that we are to hide the
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  scriptures in our heart, we can begin to see how the scriptures can be an impactful,
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  positive influence on our life.
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  They are the guide for which we
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  can trust and lean upon as
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  we are trying to understand what god would have us do
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  and it's the scriptures that the holy spirit uses to interpret in our hearts
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  and minds so that we understand what god expects of us what he requires of us
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  and what he gives us in the form of blessings.
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  And so as we begin to put scripture in our heart, we are beginning to have within
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  us the medicine to fight the devil, to fight the negative thoughts, to defeat the enemy.
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  It all starts with where we put our heart and what we put in it.
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  And the eyes that we have are windows of the soul.
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  And so if we're looking and focusing upon Scripture,
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  then we're putting that in through our eyes, we're committing it to our memory,
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  so it's embedded in our heart, and we begin to walk around with this amazing protection of God.
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  And so that the more we study, the Bible says in 2 Timothy 2.15.
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  So the more we study, the more we put in us, the more our heart is equipped
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  to deal with anything that the devil should throw at us.
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  And the battle is in ours. It belongs to the Lord.
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  So the first thing we put in our hearts is the scripture. Scripture.
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  The second thing we need to put in our hearts is an increase of faith.
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  Obviously, faith is the beginning of all of it because we have to believe in
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  God in order to receive the free gift of salvation.
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  We have to put our trust in Jesus, and that's a form of faith.
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  But as we study his word and we begin to put the knowledge of his promises and
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  we begin to exercise our faith and begin to trust and obey his words,
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  that we begin to build this amazing
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  immunity not to the devil trying
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  to hurt us or to the devil trying to sway
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  us or the devil trying to tempt us but it will have no effect upon us because
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  greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world and so as the devil
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  tries to turn our focus we We can just bear down a little harder and turn our eyes upon Jesus.
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  And there's no room for gloom and doom there.
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  For every page from Genesis to Revelations is a love letter that Christ writes.
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  That Jesus lived out and that God preordained that we might know him.
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  And that we might have a personal relationship with Jesus.
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  And so as we look at this scripture about a merry heart doeth good like a medicine,
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  but a broken spirit drieth the bones, what we're told in this proverb is that
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  if we are merry and happy in Jesus, that we're going to have a healthy,
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  productive Christian life.
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  That in no way means that we're not going to have sickness come our way.
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  It's not going to mean that disease may not find its way in our life.
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  What it's going to mean is that our
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  outlook on life our effectiveness on
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  this world will be positive and
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  will be godly and will bring joy not only to ourselves but to others there are
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  some people you just like to be around because they're always talking about
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  good things and their life just exudes this positive light of who God is in
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  that even in the darkest of situations,
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  they're fully aware of the depravity of the situation, but they are even more
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  aware that God is in control.
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  And so they don't become downtrodden. They don't become incapacitated with the
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  inability to function or move because of fear.
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  Because perfect love casts out all fear, and God loves them perfectly and they love God.
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  And they have put in their heart his word and his knowledge so that they could.
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  Implore it, implore it when they needed to, so they could use it when it was necessary.
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  And his promises, his love, their knowledge of his love,
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  their ability to feel his love is surrounding them in such a way that they are
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  excited of every moment of every day because it's a day they can draw closer to the Lord.
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  It's a day that they can trust him more.
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  It's a day that they can prove him o'er and o'er.
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  You see, there's a lot to be said about a merry heart.
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  But it's not something that is just for the select few or just for the elite.
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  It is available to every child of God. But we must choose to believe.
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  We must choose to love him in such a way that we have communication with him
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  through prayer and his word.
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  We must be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to comfort us, to lead us,
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  to guide us, to direct us, to interpret the scriptures for us.
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  We must put away ourselves and allow him to clothe us in his righteousness and
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  to equip us for this world with his armor.
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  And we must go forth in this world, realizing that we have the blood of Jesus covering us.
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  And that the God of the universe, the King of kings and the Lord of lords has
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  his eye upon us and he is supplying our every need.
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  And he is watching over us and no good thing will he withhold from them that love him.
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  And he has a plan to prosper us and to give us a hope and an expected end.
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  We have so much to be thankful for and so much to believe in when we believe
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  in Jesus that we can have the true confidence it takes to live a merry life
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  because Jesus loves me. This I know.
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  Music.
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  Thank you for joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for
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  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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  We pray today has been a blessing and we encourage you to reach out to us through
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  our app, our website, or our Facebook page.
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  You can find our app by searching for Woman at the Well Ministries in your app
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  store or through our website at watwm.org.
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  We're on Facebook at facebook.com slash watwm. If you visit our website,
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  you'll be able to subscribe to Bible Bits, a daily devotion written by Kim and
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  delivered Monday through Friday by text message.
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  Woman at the Well Ministries is a non-profit organization dedicated to serving our Heavenly Father.
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  And it is through your loving and generous support that our ministry continues to bless others.
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  To learn how to partner with Woman at the Well Ministries, please visit our website.
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  Thank you to the Gospel Group Fudge Creek for letting us use their hit song, Happy Girl.
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  We greatly appreciate your prayers.
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  We are praying daily for our listeners. Remember that God loves you. You are loved.
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  Music.