Romans 12 (Part 6)

Let’s continue. For several Sundays now we have set this passage aside because of different things that have come up—absences, vacations, trips, and so on, guest preachers, and everything else—but we want to return to this wonderful passage and continue studying it until we can draw out all its teaching. You may not remember, but I think I know where we left off the last time here in the 9 o’clock service. I have had to keep a very careful watch because, since we also have the 12 o’clock service, sometimes I don’t know very well where I ended with one and where I began with the other. Let’s go there for a moment, to Romans chapter 12, verse 9. The last time, in this service, we spoke about love being without pretense, without hypocrisy; we said that “without hypocrisy” is a better translation.

Romans 12:9. It says: “...Let love be without pretense. Abhor what is evil; follow what is good; love one another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.” We’ll leave it there and, if necessary, continue with another verse.

But you remember that I told you I had made a translation by consulting resources in the original Greek in which it was written, and this is my own translation of it, although I am not an expert in Greek. But it says: love, without hypocrisy; abhorring what is evil, clinging to what is good; in brotherly love, being affectionate, loving; as for honor, putting one another first. There are three or four principles here that we can draw out and study for a moment to see what these things mean.

Let me go back a little so that you can see the flow of this text from the beginning of chapter 12. We have talked about—remember that we began with—the Apostle Paul’s idea that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. That is, this is the heart of the message, and what he does in the following verses is develop that central idea: the attitude with which we view ourselves and others. That determines the believer’s conduct, his ethical behavior, his way of relating to others, the way he behaves in the church, and the way he develops his life of sacrifice to the Lord. There are so many conflicts and so many struggles in families, workplaces, and churches because, among the people who are part of those institutions, there are sometimes individuals who do not think of themselves in the humble, wise, prudent, accurate, and truthful way they ought to think. They either think too highly of themselves or too lowly. They either have an ego that is too large and a sense of importance that is too great, or they have very low self-esteem and put themselves down. So the Apostle Paul says: Look, see yourselves as you are. Assess yourselves. Do not think you are more important, wiser, or more gifted than you really are. See yourselves plainly. Look at your brothers and sisters and see what they have and what you lack, and try to complement one another. That is the first part. Then two sections follow in which the Apostle Paul develops that idea through specific cases.

In the following verses, beginning with verse 4 and continuing through verse 8, he gives different examples. He says that we should think of ourselves as a body, that we should all do things with a sense of teamwork and unity, and then he gives different examples regarding service, prophecy, teaching, sharing with one another, and holding a position of leadership. Notice that this entire section from verses 5 through 8 has to do with service—with serving others in the church or even outside it in the community—but it is a call to be practical, to be humble, to maintain a sense of teamwork, and not to think only about what interests me, what I want to do, or what God called me to do, but to think about the body, to think about the whole, and about how what I want to do or what I believe God has called me to do affects others. Many people want to do good, but they are like bulls in a fine china shop: wherever they move, they knock things over and break things left and right. And that happens in marriage; it happens in different places. A man or woman is not sufficiently aware of how his or her personality affects a wife, children, or husband, and so they are so wrapped up in themselves that they break and destroy things and cause harm because they are too self-absorbed. Do you know what “self-absorbed” means? It means being too wrapped up in yourself. I believe that we should always be aware of how our lives affect the people around us, and how our behavior and good intentions actually affect the body as a whole. If we are not aware of that, we will cause harm, and we will harm ourselves.

So that section from verses 5 through 8 has to do with serving and acting within the context of a community, whatever community that may be. Now, from verse 9 onward, I believe it refers more than anything else to the realm of feelings. All those following verses have a great deal to do with love and with our inner attitudes, the feelings that move us. That is why it says that love should be without pretense; love should be without hypocrisy. And I pointed out weeks ago that love must be pure, without ulterior motives or hidden agendas. The word here in the original Greek is agape. It is the love with which God loves. It is that sincere love, that pure love, that love which expects nothing, that love which is given to the person who does not deserve to be loved. It is the love that forgives. As that wonderful passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 says, love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It is a pure love. In fact, it is connected with that verse which says that the one who gives should do so with simplicity, in verse 8. That is, there should be no layers or hidden agendas there. Love should be pure, innocent in the sense that it is open for all to see, and anyone looking at it knows what he is seeing. When we love while always having a hidden agenda, always looking for some advantage to gain, that is not love. That is self-interest instead, which is very different. So it says: let love be without pretense. Love, I said here, is generally stained by selfishness in many of us, but God wants love to be like a pure diamond that shines because of its purity. God wants to purify our love until it becomes completely selfless, like His. Christ came, I say, when we were mired in sin; He came when He had the least reason to come. When we least deserved to be loved, the Lord gave Himself for us.

Another thing: love involves something very important, which is honesty. Honesty should be a distinguishing mark of the Christian. In the church, we should not talk about one another behind each other’s backs. There should be transparency; that is why it says that love should be without hypocrisy. Many times, when the brother arrives, we say, “Oh, God bless you,” and we talk to him, and then: “He’s a scoundrel. You don’t know what he did, this, that, and the other. We have to pray for our dear brother because he is doing this.” And we cut the ground out from under him, destroy his reputation, and air all his dirty laundry, and that is hypocrisy. Brothers and sisters, we should treat one another with respect. We should always speak the truth face-to-face. We should not gossip about or criticize one another in a destructive way. If I have something to say to someone, I will try, as far as possible, to say it directly.

The Bible says: if you have something against a brother, call him aside first so that you do not do great damage to his reputation. The idea, I believe, is to protect that person as much as possible. Protect his public image; protect his name. Do not harm him first by announcing his faults to everyone and then, if perhaps there is anything left afterward, you... No. First call him aside and try to contain the damage at the personal level as much as possible. Now, if that person persists in continuing his harmful behavior, it says: then call two or three more as witnesses. And I believe they should be mature and wise people—or one or two; it does not have to be many people—people with the spiritual capacity to be discreet and mature. Then say to him again: “Look, brother, I want to resolve this. It is hurting me, it is hurting you, and I have brought this brother here so that he may be a witness and testify between us as to which of us is in the wrong.” The idea is to give the matter a little more seriousness. Now, if that person persists in continuing to hurt you or in behaving improperly, then you do have the right to make it public. The Bible says that if a person persists in that way, then you must regard him as lost, and there are times when one has to be clear. The Apostle says: let us live at peace with everyone insofar as it is possible. If it is possible. There may be times when a break will have to occur, but we must do everything possible to resolve matters with love.

The Bible also says: if someone is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual should treat him with gentleness; correct him with gentleness, watching yourself, lest you too be tempted in the same way. We must always do things with love, discretion, grace, and mercy. That is the distinguishing mark. That is why it says: let love be without hypocrisy, without pretense, without any of that. I say here that the church should be a refuge, different from the way the world out there handles relationships. Brothers and sisters, we Christians have a duty to do things as Christ commands us and to resolve conflicts as Christ commands us. We must treat one another with the love and sincerity of Jesus. The church should not be a place for lobbying and little games of royal intrigue, where everyone is watching his back because he does not know who is going to stab him. It should be a place where we all treat one another with simplicity, honesty, love, and tenderness.

Finally, if you have a conflict with someone, hurry to resolve it so that there will be no opportunity for hypocrisy or gossip. The church should not be a place where conflicts last too long. If someone has offended you, do everything possible to resolve the problem quickly so that love does not suffer from it. Because what happens? If you have something against your brother, and you are fighting and not speaking to each other or looking at each other, what happens? First of all, that harms the body, because that quarrel, that hostility, is like a wound in the body; it is like a little sore, an irritation that harms the entire body. Perhaps you think it does not because it is only between him and me, but no, it is having an effect because we are a whole. And besides that, it affects you. It is important for Christians... Sometimes you may not want to resolve a quarrel with someone, but you have to do so because you are a Christian, and your Christian standing compels you to seek reconciliation. That does not mean you have to go back to having the same friendship you once had with a person, but you should at least clear things up and establish a ceasefire. You take your pistols, remove all the bullets, and hide them in the drawer again. We say that we are going to treat each other civilly, that we are going to treat each other like brothers and sisters, because we are brothers and sisters. And that is important... That is why love is something very, very complex, but it is also something very, very beautiful when it is the love of God. And so the Apostle Paul says: let love be without hypocrisy, without pretense, without dissimulation. What a beautiful teaching!

Then the second thing he says here is: abhor what is evil and follow what is good. Abhorring what is evil, following what is good. The word translated as “follow” is coltomenoi, and the Spanish translation does not actually say everything it really ought to say. Coltomenoi is a word that means “clinging.” In fact, the English translation says, “Cleave to what is good.” “Cleave” means to cling. The idea is: hold on tooth and nail. That is not the same as saying, “Follow what is good.” In the original Greek, when Paul wrote it, it means, rather, “Cling to it.” Hold on as though you were like one of those cartoon characters clinging to the wing of an airplane while the airplane is turning, and you are holding on for all you are worth. That is the idea. Cling to what is good; abhor what is evil and cling to what is good.

The idea is two strong, intense emotions and attitudes. Abhor wickedness and sin, and hold on to what is good for dear life. Bind yourself to it as tightly as possible. You can see that this expresses the idea better, and it has very profound implications. Strong emotions are needed, brothers and sisters, in order to please God. A lukewarm person does not please the Lord. You remember what one of the letters to Laodicea says in the Book of Revelation, chapter 3, in the letters to the churches. It says: “If only you were cold or hot,” the angel says to the church of Laodicea, “I would tolerate you. But because you are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.” It is like lukewarm water. Have you ever tried to drink lukewarm water? What happens? You do not have to answer me. Lukewarm water makes you nauseated, and that is what happens with lukewarm Christians who are indifferent to sin or virtue: the Lord looks upon them from a distance. We must be fervent in doing good. We must love what is good, and we must abhor what is evil.

The church has grown accustomed to sin, and we are now so familiar with sin that we have become insensitive. We live in a culture where there is so much evil and so much corruption, even within the people of God, that we sort of say, “Hey, as long as I don’t fall into those worse and more reprehensible sins, well, it’s all right.” And now we live in a world that has grown accustomed to it. And there are so many things that Christian culture once considered totally intolerable that today, well, we have grown accustomed to them and practice them.

I myself had a struggle this week because I was invited to be part of a panel at Boston Children’s Hospital. They had invited me to that panel some time ago; it was for Hispanic Heritage Month. It was a panel on alternative medicine—how the Latino community uses different alternative means of healing besides traditional medicine. They invited me as an evangelical pastor to speak about how we Hispanics in the evangelical world view healing. We believe in supernatural healing, God’s healing, emotional healing, spiritual deliverance, all of that. Brothers and sisters, I believe that we have to take advantage of every possible opportunity to bear witness. There were doctors there, as well as social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists from Children’s Hospital, and I always see that as a great opportunity to speak about the Gospel and present these things. The only issue was that one of the other panelists was a Santería practitioner who was going to talk about how the Latino community uses Santería for healing. He was my colleague in the presentation. He was the one who followed me, and he had all the things he uses spread out on the table—herbs and all these things. He even had a jar of “bronquiplos” and a whole assortment of things.

The fact is that afterward I wondered, and I said to myself, “Lord, did I truly do the right thing?” Later I examined myself before the Lord. I believe I feel at peace, because God knows that I was there to bear witness; whatever someone else chooses to do is their business. But in any case, I think about this, and I use it as an illustration. Nowadays, people of science and all these things—and then a person representing the church of Jesus Christ and a person who practices witchcraft and spiritism, as he spoke about his saints and his spirits, and he was even dressed entirely in white, as Santería practitioners dress, and all that sort of thing. What happens? I was concerned about what might go through the minds of the people sitting there, because I thought: People might think that if there is an evangelical pastor there speaking beside him, then that too is an alternative medicine. They may think it is legitimate to go to a Santería practitioner, without realizing that what they are doing is opening themselves up to demons. When you turn to devils, to spirits, in order to be healed, you are giving them permission to enter your life. You are acknowledging that they can do something for you, and the devil never does anything—even for his own mother—for anyone’s good; he always gets something out of it. And because he has power, he may perhaps neutralize your illness, but afterward something ten times worse will come upon you. Never, ever let the enemy lead you into that trap of using or consulting anything forbidden by God.

But my point is this: Nowadays, there is nothing unusual about seeing a Santería practitioner and an evangelical pastor speaking at the same forum. In the past, people might have seen it and said, “No, that is witchcraft, Santería—no.” But nowadays we coexist, and many people see us as being cut from the same cloth, as belonging to the same profession, except that one heals with spirits and herbs and the other heals with religion. So what happens? People become hardened and begin to grow numb; they become accustomed to evil. Do you see the idea? Because now they see it as something respectable; evil now moves in respectable circles, and people gradually lose that healthy fear of evil, of darkness, of the demonic, of what is sinister. And then it sort of becomes just another thing. And we live in a world like that, where so many sins are now practiced, as we see with homosexual marriage and all these things. And we see so many other things as well—promiscuity, adultery, injustice—so many harmful things, and we practice them as though they had no consequences at all. Our conscience does not prick us; we see nothing wrong with these things. And so people are in church, and little by little, evil... we are gradually being anesthetized, and we are losing that fear and that hatred of wickedness and sin. And so the Word says, “Hate what is evil.” It is not that we should simply look at it with a little suspicion. No, it says, “Hate it.”

Brothers and sisters, let us ask the Lord to make us very sensitive to sin. If we sin, may we immediately feel the prick of a tender conscience before the Lord, and may we quickly seek God’s forgiveness and make things right before the Lord—but not practice it. The law says that whoever practices sin is not of God. Let us be careful, brothers and sisters, because we are Christians, we are children of God, we are children of light. Therefore, we must hate it. I was once reading a commentator on this passage who said that sometimes we do not hate evil as much as we hate the consequences of evil. That is different: We hate what it can cause us when we do evil. But there is a much higher level, which is when evil itself, regardless of its consequences, provokes a negative reaction in us because the love of God and the presence of God dwell within us. Just as God hates sin, we too must hate sin. Let us ask the Lord to make our conscience tender. Amen. And may He make us people who hate evil, who cannot have fellowship or coexist with evil because it simply is not for us. Now, let us not be negative; we must also cling to what is good. Because our human nature is not inclined toward what is good. That is the truth. We have a fallen nature; only by the Lord’s mercy can we love what is good. And sometimes, brothers and sisters, in order to do good you will have to hold on tooth and nail, because your nature will not want to do it. Your character, your personality, your flaws—our flaws—will not move us toward what is good. None of us, I believe, naturally gravitates toward what is good. If we want to do good, we have to take seventeen ropes, throw them around what is good, and tie ourselves to it with everything we have in order to remain within what is good, because it is easy to step outside the bounds of what is good. That is why we have to make something like a pact unto death with what is good.

There are many passages in Scripture that speak about people who were resolute in this way. One of them is Daniel. You remember the passage in Daniel, chapter 1—I believe it is verse 8—which says that Daniel, when he was in the Babylonian court as a young Jewish man who had been taken to Babylon, in that court where all kinds of things were practiced and the food was offered to the gods before being eaten by the nobility, did not want to defile himself. Daniel hated evil; he hated the idea of defiling his body with food sacrificed to unclean gods. And do you know what Daniel did? It says that he purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the king’s food. He purposed in his heart; that has always had a great impact on me. The idea is that he made a firm decision. He made an absolute determination. He made a pact unto death with God: “I am not going to defile myself spiritually.” Other young Jewish men had no problem with it and ate the food, but he wanted to live at a much higher level, and he purposed in his heart. And it was difficult, because there was great pressure on him to eat the food. There was social pressure; there was professional pressure. His future as a leader in the court was at stake, because he was being trained to enter the king’s court—all these things. But Daniel counted the cost, weighed one thing against the other, and then said, “No. No, in the name of the Lord, no matter what they say to me, no matter what they offer me, I am going to defile myself.” He clung to what is good. Do you see the idea?

Sometimes, brothers and sisters, the only way we are going to be able to survive in this world is by making a firm and clear decision in favor of what is good—of what is good—and holding on to it tooth and nail. The time in which we are living is like that. The only way you and I are going to survive in this corrupt culture in which we live is by clinging to what is good and saying, “No matter what, I am going to keep my values firm and clear, and if they fire me from my job, so be it. If I have to open a little roadside stand to sell plantains and cassava and lose my profession, amen. I will do it, because I would rather remain firmly attached to the values of the Kingdom of God.” Many people are sliding down the slope, and only by clinging to what is good will we be able to hold our ground.

It also says here, “Love one another with brotherly love,” and again, the original idea is that love... love one another tenderly; show affection to one another; show one another familial affection, as though you were family. In brotherly love, be affectionate. The word is philostorgos. Philos is the word for love, and storge is the word that refers to the affection of family and friendship—fondness, the outward expression of love. He has already spoken about love without pretense. Agape—the word used there is agape. But here the idea is that we must also be affectionate, and this is something that arises several times in Scripture: this distinction between sublime love, love like God’s, a pure and perfect love, and brotherly tenderness and affection. In Spanish, it is translated as “brotherly affection.”

Some time ago, we studied a passage in Second Peter where there was a sequence: to love add faith, and to faith knowledge; to knowledge add this and that... well, it speaks about this there too. It begins with love, and at one point it also mentions brotherly affection. After self-control and other things... brotherly affection. Because they are not the same thing, and you may remember that I said that sometimes a person may say, “Oh, I am willing to give my body for humanity.” There are so many people out there who love in theory. Many people are very loving toward the human race, but just step on their corns and you will see how they immediately grab a baseball bat and knock anybody’s head off. Just propose building a church beside their property that would block a little of their sunlight, and you will see that they do not care if half the world goes to hell because you are blocking their window. You know what I mean. There are many people who are tremendously liberal, and you hear them talk about social justice and injustice and all of that, but put a rehabilitation center for drug addicts or for women facing crisis pregnancies next door to them, and they do not want it because it will lower their property value, and that matters more to them than the salvation of humanity. It is as though suddenly all their theoretical love dissipates and comes to nothing. That is because they do not have down-to-earth love, practical love. And many of us Christians are like that. We love, and we are willing... that is why Paul says, “If I gave my body to be burned, and this and that.” We love in theory; we love everyone; we love humanity. But when the time comes to share with a brother or sister in their need, or simply to greet someone who looks lonely at the end of the service, no—because I have to go home and cook, or because there are other brothers and sisters I want to greet—instead of approaching that person because the love of Christ, brotherly affection, compels you. You see, there is a difference between sublime love and practical affection. And we have to ask the Lord, “Lord, make me a person who has that affection.”

You know, here we are all brothers and sisters. We use that word—brother here, brother there—so much that it no longer means anything. It is like a coin worn down from being handled so much, but we have to return to the idea that in this church we are part of a family. Yes, Lord, let the Colombian look upon the Dominican with affection, even if he does not pronounce all the i’s and l’s where they belong. Let the Guatemalan love the Panamanian, even if there was a war between the two countries a hundred years ago. I do not know whether there was, but now in Christ we are brothers and sisters; we are family. Do you understand what I mean? We are members of one body, and the rich person, the person who has money and a bank account, must love the dear brother who has nothing. We must express love, fondness, and affection toward one another, and put up with one another, and support one another, and greet one another, and show one another affection, because we are a family. And if there is any disagreement, we have to resolve it as a family. How many times did you fight with your brother? You did, didn’t you? And yet you did not change your name. Some perhaps have done so, but not everyone. Most people do not. They fight and pull each other’s hair, but three days later they are eating together at home again, because they are siblings and have the same blood running through their veins, and they know they are indebted to one another because of that family bond—and that is how we are. We are a family; we must show one another affection, and we must show one another love. We must actively cultivate Christian fellowship and friendship. We cannot merely come on Sundays and then disappear. One of the good and bad things about the Evangelical church is that it is not like... I love... I am not criticizing Catholics, but you go to Mass, and what happens? People go there, cross themselves, and then everyone goes home. There is no fellowship. Perhaps that is changing a little, but sometimes we come into the Gospel and think it is the same thing. Each person comes, we sit here, everyone does their own thing, we plug ourselves into the worship or whatever it may be, and then, when the service ends, we unplug ourselves, wind up our cord, and everyone goes home—until we come back the following Sunday. I believe that the relationship of worship is more like intersecting cords: we make a web of worship and praise, and we are interwoven with one another, and we have to... I do not believe in simply coming to church and then leaving without having community. For better or for worse, whether they wear deodorant or not, you have to love them. You have to greet them, you have to invite them into your home, you have to eat with them. Brothers and sisters, that is how it is. That is part of Christian love, and that is one of the great privileges. Yes, in churches there are sometimes quarrels and murmuring and things like that, but I prefer that to a church where no one speaks to anyone and no one knows anyone, and so there is not even an opportunity for us to fight. Glory to God, today we had a fight; that means that at least we are relating to one another. But the ideal is for us to have relationships that are sincere, affectionate, and caring, and for us to cultivate affection for one another.

Finally, I will close with this: “putting one another first.” Here it says, “preferring one another.” That word preferring is very refined, but the idea is really that we put one another ahead of ourselves. We should be contending for the other person to go first. It should not be like when meals are served here at the church and people fight to be the first to reach the place where the food is being served. Have you seen that? Suddenly love, affection, and loving one another are all pushed aside... and someone shoots like a bullet straight toward the food so as to be the first to eat. And forget everyone else; if there are seven shrimp, six are for me, and the others can fend for themselves however they can. That is not it. The idea is... I am going to ask the Lord, as an immense miracle, that one day the brothers and sisters will be arguing like this: No, you go first, brother; you serve yourself first. No, no, no, please—you, you. No, I beg you, you first. How wonderful it would be if I saw that! If I saw that, brothers and sisters, I would say, Christ is coming tomorrow.

The Lord says, put one another first. Many times in the church it is completely the opposite: instead, we seek preferential treatment—what people owe me, what they have to do for me. I come first because I have done more, and so on. I have been here since the church was founded and have given more in tithes; therefore, I have more right to do this or that. It says, put one another first. You remember the case of the two disciples who approached Jesus—with their mother, in fact—so that when the Lord was in His Kingdom, what would happen? That He would place one at His left and the other at His right—two vice presidents. They did not even ask Him, “Make me a representative, a senator.” No, put me at Your right and Your left. And then, when the other disciples realized what they were doing, they became upset—not because those two were doing something wrong, but because they wanted the same thing too. Then the Lord Jesus, seeing their hearts, said: Look, it is worth reading that passage in Matthew chapter 20. He told them, you know that the rulers of the nations—20:25—lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. But it must not be so among you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you will first have to serve the others, and whoever wants to be first among you will have to be their servant. Just as I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for many. Brothers and sisters, that is the spirit that must govern our lives. It is a spirit of putting others first. Do not think about yourself so much; think about others.

Brothers and sisters, the best way for you to be happy in life is to think about others. Think about others, and you will see that you will be blessed. When you think only about your rights, about what is owed to you, and about what you have the right to do, do you know what? You end up unhappy. Let me tell you that right away. You may gain something in the short term, but in the long run you are going to lose, because you obtained it through practices that are illegitimate before God, and what you are doing is deceiving yourself. Whatever you obtain by violating the principles of Christ will turn to water and sand between your fingers. It is better to suffer loss and do things in the love and integrity of Jesus than to do things contrary to the spirit of Jesus, because that is a false, illusory gain; in the end, it will not benefit you. But when you put others first and think about their well-being, even if you suffer loss, the Lord will tell you: Do not worry; I will restore it to you. Take it easy. There is more where that came from. How wonderful that is! We are going to be happy; we are going to be healthy.

Brothers and sisters, may the Lord enable us to live in that way: loving without hypocrisy, being affectionate and caring toward one another, putting one another first, and forgiving one another if we have anything against one another.

Let us bow our heads for a moment. As we prepare to celebrate Holy Communion, may the Lord enable us to do so with that attitude, that transparency, that humility. If you have something against your brother, right now I ask you to forgive him—right now, there in your spirit. Do not harbor resentment. If your love has not been as pure as it should be, ask the Lord to purify your love. If your affection toward others has not been as practical as it could be, ask the Lord right now to make you a person who practices brotherly affection.

Lord, all of us here need Your dealings in our lives this morning. We need You to purify our lives, to help us love what is good passionately and hate what is evil with equal intensity; to purify our love and make it clean and simple; to remove that excessive self-consciousness from us and make us so conscious of the worth found in others that, in a sense, we might even regard them as better than ourselves. Forgive us, Father. We want to be better. We know what You have called us to and what goal You have set before us, and we embrace it this morning. And we say to You, Holy Spirit, make us more like our Lord. Cleanse us, purify us, and make us more like Christ. Forgive us for imposing our agendas on others. Cleanse us. Thank You, Jesus, in Your name. Amen. Amen.