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442 | Throwback - Following 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, we invite you to sit down with us as we look
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  to the scriptures to learn more 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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  God's commandment was not only for us to love one another, but to love as He
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  loves. Now that is a tall order.
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  It would be an impossible request if it weren't for the fact that His blood
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  flows through you and His grace will enable you to love as He loves.
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  What does that kind of love require? It requires faithfulness,
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  mercy, and above all, sacrificial giving.
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  Join us in this program, Following Christ, as Kim Miller of Women at the Well
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  Ministries takes us through John 13, 34, which says,
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  A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved
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  you, that ye also love one another.
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  Hello and welcome to this broadcast of Women at the Well Ministries. Let us pray.
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  Our kind and most gracious, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this
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  and other opportunity to come before you.
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  Lord, I thank you for the way that you love me. I thank you for the way that you speak to us.
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  And I thank you, Lord, that it's a personal relationship that you allow us to
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  have for you and with you.
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  And Lord, I just ask as we look at this scripture that you would help us to
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  have eyes that see as you see and a heart, Lord, that is open as yours is.
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  And Lord, I pray that you would look deep within our hearts and that you would
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  convict us of anything, Lord, that we need to get out, anything that we need
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  to hand to you, and that you would fill it with your presence.
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  And Lord, that you would allow us and enable us to be better servants of thee.
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  I pray, Lord, that you would make us courageous believers.
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  And Lord, I pray that you would increase our faith in such a way that we are bold,
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  but with the love that you have, Lord, that our boldness would not scare others
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  and our boldness would not hurt others, but that our boldness would be a shining
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  light that others would come to know you.
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  I pray, dear Heavenly Father, for the ability to love more, and I pray,
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  Lord, that you would teach us to love as you've loved.
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  In Jesus' name I pray, and I amen.
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  The Bible gives us many commandments. these commandments
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  are from god and they're
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  his rules for successful
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  christian living the great thing about god is that he doesn't ask us to do anything
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  that he won't enable us to do the great thing about god is he doesn't lead us
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  anywhere that he doesn't first be in front of us and take us where we need to go.
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  And the great thing about God is that he requires faith, but that he gives it
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  to us. And he says he gives it liberally to those who ask.
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  The Christian life is a life of faith. It's a faith in Jesus Christ.
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  It's not a faith in ourselves.
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  It's a faith in trusting him to have our best interest at heart and knowing
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  that his commandments are not just rules and regulations to constrain us and restrict us,
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  but the rules and regulations that allow us to have the best opportunity to
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  live the life he's intended to give us, And that life he has promised because
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  he told us was a life that would give us prosper us and to give us a hope.
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  And that by living in the center of his will, we will have the most wonderful and best life possible.
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  But as human beings, it's hard for us to relinquish our own self-will.
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  And so we often think that we have the answers ourselves.
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  And we often think that we know what's best for us when the truth of the matter is,
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  if you just stopped for a moment and looked at the realization that the King
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  of kings and the Lord of lords is the creator of all things,
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  and he was the one who made the blueprint for who you are,
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  and he's the one who knows what's going to happen tomorrow, and he's fully aware
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  of what's happened up until that time.
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  And therefore he would be most capable of
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  understanding what you need to be and where you
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  need to be and what you need to do to gain
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  the most out of this short life but
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  a vapor that we have here on earth so just
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  even common sense would allow you to
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  understand that the best thing for you is
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  to yield to the will of god but somehow
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  common sense eludes most of us some of
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  us the majority of the time but all of us some of the time but
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  the scriptures give us all that
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  we need to follow christ in a way to live in a life of blessing to live in a
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  life of peace the peace that passeth all understanding with a joy unspeakable
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  and full of glory is promised to those who follow after christ in his will and
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  as we begin to look at the word of god and look at some of his commandments.
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  We see that some of them seem hard for us, because after all,
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  we're just mere humans, and this one is one of those, where he says that you
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  love one another as I have loved you.
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  Well, we can look at people in our lives, and we can see, well,
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  that would be easier for this one than it would be for me to love that one,
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  and it would be pretty easy for me to love this one, but I just can't really
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  think about loving that one that way.
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  And we begin to parcel out how we're going to comply with this commandment.
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  Because we're trying to figure out how to do it on our own. And we're doing it within our own logic.
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  And we're trying to reason out how to live this commandment.
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  And that, my friend, is your first mistake.
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  We can't love anybody all the time without the love of Christ flowing in and through us.
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  The bible says that we love him because he
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  first loved us and that god is
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  love and it's god who enables us.
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  To love one another in a way that is sacrificial
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  and giving and even with that
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  knowledge we sometimes suffer when
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  we have to try to love someone because we step
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  out of the will of god and what i'm suggesting is what the scriptures teach
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  us and that is you got to love people the way christ loved you and he loves
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  you unconditionally and aren't you excited about that,
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  and nothing the bible tells us in romans chapter 8 that nothing can separate
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  us from the love of god because he loves us for who we are and he loves us for
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  our potential he doesn't love us just because we love him because he loves you
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  and some of you listening to me don't love him at all.
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  See, as humans, we love somebody mostly because of what they can do for us.
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  But as soon as they do something against us, we have a hard time forgiving them,
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  which means we really aren't loving them.
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  You see, Christ's love is so strong that daily when we come short of his glory
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  and daily when we do things that we aren't supposed to do And sometimes very
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  much like the same thing we did the day before that he chastised us about.
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  We as humans, if somebody does that, we say, well, you know,
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  I can forgive them maybe, but I'm just not going to give them an opportunity
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  to hurt me again. That's not true forgiveness.
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  Forgiveness is when we throw it into the sea of forgetfulness,
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  never to be brought up against us again. That's how Christ loves us.
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  And Christ gave all he had for you.
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  Even you who have not received him
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  as savior when's the last time you
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  gave something till it hurt not just
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  money in many ways money is the easiest thing in the world to give because you
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  can get more usually get another job if you had to or whatever you've got to
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  do something somehow you can usually get more money and though it's important
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  and we definitely need to give ties and offerings that are inclusive of our finances.
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  But how about your time?
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  When's the last time you went to visit somebody who was lonely that maybe the
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  whole world has forgotten and you know about them?
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  Maybe at one time you even knew them, but it just doesn't fit in your schedule.
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  So many of us are us four and no more.
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  And what I mean about that is you just take care of your very select few people
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  in your life. And that's true.
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  God gives you people in your life that are your responsibility to watch over
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  and take care of and to love.
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  But he also puts people in our lives every day that we are to reach out and
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  we are to touch with his love and his grace.
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  The Bible says that we are to love one another as I have loved you,
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  that ye also love one another.
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  That's what he says that's his commandment that
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  he tells us that i need to love everyone he places in my world with the same
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  kind of love that he loves me i need to be forgiving i need to be giving i need
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  to give of myself i need to give of my time i need to be patient and.
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  When someone makes a mistake, I don't need to be the one who's condemning them.
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  I need to be the one that walks alongside them and lifts them up and encourages
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  them with the love and the grace and the mercy of God.
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  I don't condone it if it's a sinful action, but I need to be able to point out
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  in the loving goodness of God where they are wrong according to the scriptures, not according to me.
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  And I need to love them and I need to be thankful to the Lord that because of
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  his grace and his mercy upon me and because of the relationship I have with
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  him that that's not the sin I'm sinning.
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  Don't condemn somebody because their sins are different than yours.
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  You heard me right. We all sin and come short of the glory of God.
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  And we all expect the Lord to forgive us. And he does. And he says he's faithful
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  and just to forgive us if we confess our sins.
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  But we are also to hand that same kind of grace and mercy out to others.
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  That's the commandment.
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  Have you thought about the love and the grace and the mercy that God gives you daily?
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  Not just when he died upon the cross where he gave everything he had.
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  Few of us will ever be called upon to give everything we have for the cause of Christ.
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  But all of us are called to give our entire being to him.
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  To allow him to direct our paths.
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  So that we could bring glory to him through our life and our work and our love
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  and our mercy so that we could be his hands extended we could be his eyes that
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  see the need we could have his heart of compassion and forgiveness for a lost
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  and dying world so that when they know you they see him.
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  We are to love one another. It's not just a saying to love. Love is action.
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  Love is a purpose in your heart. Love has nothing to do with what anyone else is giving you in return.
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  When you love someone, you love them because of who they are.
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  And I am thankful that the love of God will never be short towards me because
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  nothing I can say and nothing I can do can separate me from his love.
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  But I pray to God that my entire life is lived in such a way that he can flow
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  through me and his love just flows through me so that I can love others the way Christ has loved me.
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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 Women at the
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  Well Ministries in your app store or through our website at watwm.org We're
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  on Facebook at facebook.com slash watwm If you visit our website you'll be able
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  to subscribe to Bible Bits a daily devotion written by Kim and delivered Monday
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  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. We are praying daily for our listeners.
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  Remember that God loves you, you.
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  Music.