Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
With that said, we have choices that we need to make in life. A lot of them are life-altering moments and we don't even realize it.
Sometimes we make a good decision and good things come of it. Sometimes we don't always choose wisely though. We miss the mark.
We fall short. Things don't necessarily end up the way that we want them. I think we've all been there.
When I say that the choices that we make have life-altering ends, I don't necessarily mean for us individually.
Sometimes the choices that we make impact others and we won't even see it. Sometimes we do see it, but not always.
Why do I bring this up? We're on the backside of Halloween. We're going into the holiday season.
We're in that stretch where we're officially looking at a lot of different things coming up really quick.
We have Tuesday's Election Day, we have Veterans Day, Thanksgiving's coming, Christmas is coming, so on and so forth.
With that said, if you haven't voted early, I do encourage everyone to go out and vote. It is your choice.
Pray on it and vote as the Lord would lead you. With all that, things are getting tense.
We don't always act in the most gracious ways. Tempers flare. It could be from a number of things.
People like to feel loved. People want to try to be the popular one, to fit in, to be accepted for a number of reasons.
Fear of man, fear of loneliness, fear of being outcast. Things aren't necessarily always the way that we would make them.
Even with politics, we don't necessarily have the person that we want in office. It happens.
The team that we're cheering for lost the game. There's a big one on the holidays, right?
We have Thanksgiving right here, even going into New Year's. New Year's is the big one for college football.
People are going to be yelling and throwing things at the TV. It won't be long before we see people posting videos of,
well, let's just say some happy fellow throwing their TV out on the lawn, smashing it with a sledgehammer.
I could go on for hours with examples, but there's a lot of things out there. For time's sake, we're not going to go into all of it.
I'm trying not to hold you all hostage. With that said, this week's message is falling in love with your neighbor.
As we saw this morning, sometimes it's really hard. This gentleman, he's been here a number of times.
He's been here a number of times just this morning, but he's not unknown to us.
Unfortunately, that is an example of someone that we have to pray hard for, because we need the Lord to soften his heart.
He struggles with a lot of things. Yes, we'd like to have him here, but not in that capacity.
We know there's a time and a place and a right way to do things. Unfortunately, by injecting chaos, that is not necessarily the way.
As much as we all want to have the spotlight on us, it shouldn't be. It should always be going to him. It should be going to the Father.
Let's open our Bibles. Let's open our apps. We're going to actually start with Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 28.
I'm sure when you get there, you're going to recognize very quickly where we're starting today.
Luke 10, verses 25 through 28, the word says,
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said to him, What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?
So he answered, You shall love your God with all your heart and soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
And he said to him, Excuse me, sorry. He said to him, You have answered rightly. Do this, and you will live.
Now, this is also in response to what Jesus has told us, isn't it?
It's a really good summary that Jesus has used himself of what the Ten Commandments are.
You know, if we want to be with Jesus, we want to be in heaven, you know, we want to be united with the Father, you know, for all eternity, to have a seat at the table.
Then we follow the commandments, right? Now, that's not what gets us there. It's Jesus who gets us there.
But because we love Jesus and because we have a relationship with him, we want to keep his commandments, right?
So it's not that that legalistic of doing them. You know, it's, oh, these are the commandments. These are laws. We do this because we have to.
Right? It's kind of like mom and dad. Why do I have to do this? Because I said so.
That answer doesn't really fly, especially as an adult, right?
So it's because we want to. We have to do so with a joyful heart, you know, and when you love somebody and you're in relationship with them, when they ask you to do something,
it's a lot easier to do, even when it's something that you don't want to do. It's still a lot easier to do.
Right? For instance, my son loves to golf. I think golf is so boring, but I'm more than happy to go and watch him and cheer him on.
Kind of a bad example, but you know, I'm a dad, so that's where it is.
You know, so, you know, we love God fully. We'll worship him and no one else, nothing else.
Because when we recognize, you know, we had that relationship with Christ, we recognize God as a father.
And he said, hey, this is what I expect of you.
When you have that relationship with somebody, you don't want to let them down.
Right? Like growing up, my grandfather on my dad's side, Flick, he had a different way of punishing the same.
If I messed up and I got home, I knew good and well, I was going to face my dad's wrath.
I was going to go and I was going to get the duck belt, bring it to him, and he's going to whoop me something fierce.
You know, my mom, if she had a wooden spoon or a clog or something, well, you know, that's probably going to get busted over my knuckles,
because if she had a good hand or whatever, it came out, came out, you know, of targets, you know.
But my grandpa, his way of dealing with things was so different because he would sit down with them.
Okay. Tell me what you did. Is that what you should have done?
How should you have responded? And he would talk to you so gently, so gently.
And when you were done, he would tell you, I love you, but I'm really disappointed in you.
And it made you feel this big, just tiny.
There was no yelling. There was no whooping, nothing. It's just talking.
It's just hearing him say, I'm disappointed was enough that you shed a tear to you.
And you felt horrible. You felt that conviction.
As we go through life that that we have that same convention, that same conviction coming.
Because we have the Holy Spirit sent down by Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in us and convicts us and does the same thing.
When we mess up, when we messed up, it's not what you were supposed to do. It's not what you were told to do.
I'm disappointed. And we feel guilty.
So, of course, you know, when it comes back to the commandments, it's good that we learn what they are.
But it's really hard, right? It's like, okay, your first commandment, your second commandment, your third commandment.
Some of us aren't very good at memorizing certain things, right?
Which is why it's summed up like this. Love the Lord.
You know, I love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor.
And at that point, it becomes easy.
Because if you love God, you're not going to want to let him down. You're not going to want to break the rules.
You know what's right. You know what's wrong.
Even without knowing exactly what the wording is, you know inside, you know, it's in your heart.
And when it comes to loving your neighbor and you truly love other people,
you don't want to sin against them.
You want to take them to the side. You want to talk with them about what's going on with them.
You don't want to badmouth them. You don't want to put them down. You don't want to hit them, hurt them.
You don't want to be jealous. You don't want to take their things. You don't want to sleep with their wife or their husband.
Right. You don't want to separate them from other friends or interfere with their work.
Instead, you want to lift them up. And I'm not saying, hey, you want to give them a handout.
Because a handout is one thing. When you love somebody, you give them a hand up.
Right. You think of that football player that's down and the guy from the other team comes over, offers a hand,
helps pull him back up under their feet. And that's what we should be doing with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And not only that, that's what we should be doing for others. Giving them a hand up.
Helping them. Not a handout because nobody learns from a handout.
They say, what can I get? Okay, I'm going to mark this place. I can come back. I know I'm going to be able to get.
For some people, hey, that's how you get them back. And so you can give them that handout.
You know, because you've got to get that foot in the door.
But truly the ultimate result there or the ultimate ending that you want to get to is giving them that hand up.
So they could see the light that's reflecting you and they could come to Christ.
We have to learn to love our neighbors again. We have to learn to show the world what love is and thereby who God is because God is love.
Right. Instead of having a mindset of whether or not I'm doing what I need to do to get to heaven.
We need to change our mindset to that of saying, am I doing everything I need to do to please God?
Am I doing everything I need to do to honor God? Am I pointing the way to him in everything that I do?
Am I glorifying Christ or am I glorifying myself?
Because just wanting to get to heaven is not enough.
You think at the terms of coming home to our families.
Am I doing enough to get home to my house, to where I live, or am I doing enough to take care of my family?
Because our family is our first ministry and that's always what should come first. Right.
When we fail, fall short and we mess up, we feel bad for letting them down. Right.
We feel bad when we hurt their feelings.
And it's the same thing when it comes to our relationship with the Father.
It's not enough to go home. It's about him.
You know, it's tough to get that mindset. We're so consumed with the who's who and the what's what of the world and everything that's going on around us.
Which is why when we go to verse 29, the word says, but he wanted to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?
And it's sad because here we're talking about a lawyer. Right.
And he's running into that same problem that we all run into. It's a legalistic problem.
We're told, hey, you need to do this. And now all of a sudden say, okay, I need to do this. All right.
Well, now I want to know, I need clarification. You know, let's break this up. I need to know exactly what's what.
I want to know the who. I want to know the when. I want to know the where. I want to know the how.
The why may or may not pertain. Right.
Because when we're given a task, sometimes, you know, it does come down to that, you know, hey, do it because I told you.
And when it comes to our job and our boss says, hey, take care of this. Take care of that.
Say, OK, I'm going to jump on it. So sometimes it just doesn't apply. It doesn't doesn't matter.
It's based off the answers that we get based on all the rest of those questions, all the rest of those facts that we need.
And the problem is we set our sights on the world.
And not on Jesus.
So we struggle. Jesus knows this.
Which is why he told this parable as we continue on into verses 30 through 35.
Then Jesus answered and said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing,
wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.
Now, by chance, a certain priest came down that road and when he saw him, he just passed on by to the other side.
Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the same place, came and looked.
Passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.
And when he saw him, he had compassion.
So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he said among his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, take care of him.
And whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.
So here's a man who was beaten severely, robbed, basically left for dead, right?
A priest saw him.
Now here's someone you would think would stop and have some compassion, right?
He's just cruising along and he does what so many other people do.
Put his blinders on and just kept on cruising past. I don't see a thing, right?
Nothing.
He didn't want to get caught up in whatever had happened, for whatever reason.
Instead, he kept on cruising.
Right on down the road.
You know, maybe he was like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
Ooh, I'm late, I'm late. We don't know. It doesn't really matter.
It's simply the fact that he saw this poor man beaten and left and ignored him.
Like he didn't even exist, like he didn't matter.
He was too busy, like a lot of us.
We get caught up in what we're doing and we give that the priority.
We put on those blinders.
And we just keep going forward without paying any attention to anything else.
We don't give it the time of day.
Kind of like a racehorse on the track.
Just going after that, that win, right? Going for the goal.
We get preoccupied with what's in front of us and forgot to put God at the forefront of our life to make sure God is involved.
We miss the mark.
And then came the Levite.
A lot more of us can relate to him.
Here he comes.
Here's this dude.
He sees something's not right.
And what's he start doing?
He's rubber-necking.
What do we do when we see an accident or something on the side of the road?
Ooh, what's going on over here?
We slow down.
We back traffic up for three miles.
People are late to work.
We're just too busy.
But we don't want to get involved, right?
We want to know what's going on.
We want to see the cool flashing lights.
Are the police here? Is fire here? Is the ambulance?
You know?
Maybe we see something.
Maybe we don't.
But we don't want to get involved.
Just enough to get to our destination and be like, ooh, guess what I saw on the way to work?
Or maybe we can use it for an excuse and call our boss, hey, I'm running late.
There's an accident.
Really, you know, they're kind of trying to scoot on by.
Maybe they get by quick, so they use the time to go and hit up a coffee shop on the way, right?
You know, that's pretty common these days.
But, you know, no thought is given.
And as Christians, as believers, the same thing happens to us because we fall into the same trap.
We treat this incident that we're coming across just like the Levi treated this victim on the middle of the road as a sideshow,
something to be looked at, driven past, and forgotten.
Never giving thought, hey, who's there?
Is there something I can do to help the situation?
Is there something I can do to help the person?
Right?
It's like I don't see any first responders there.
Is anybody calling 911?
I don't know, so maybe I should do it.
You know, or maybe I have the know-how to do something.
Or maybe I should just stop back here, hit my flashers, and divert traffic so that they don't keep trying to go into this porcel.
We're too busy.
We're too preoccupied.
So we start looking for that way to get around traffic and get back on our merry way.
Let it be someone else's problem, right?
Good luck.
Maybe you have the thought, oh, I'll pray for you.
Is that everything you could have done, though?
Is that everything you should have done?
Then we have the Samaritan.
He comes by.
He doesn't know who this person is.
He doesn't know what's happened.
And just from reading this passage, the implication of it is that this victim is a Jew, which says something very specific,
because the Jews and the Samaritans were at odds.
They didn't like each other very much.
See, the Samaritans were Jews who married and had families with other tribes who were not Jewish after the Jewish exile, right?
Whereas the Jews, for lack of better terminology, but it really does fit, saw themselves as the master race, who were God's chosen people.
Sound a little familiar?
Are not too distant past?
It happens.
So that right there is the background just for what's going on, which shows just how powerful what the Samaritan did is.
The Samaritan, he didn't let any of the past influence him.
He didn't let the culture or the race or anything else have an influence on what needed to be done.
Not the world, not society, none of it.
There was nothing there that was going to dictate what he was going to do next, other than the fact that he knew what the right thing was.
What God had set in his heart, the thing that God sets in our own heart, but we ignore all too often.
So he did the right thing.
He loved his neighbor.
Remember, love is an action, not just a word.
It's an action.
He picked him up.
He put him on his animal.
He took him to an inn.
He saw to his wounds.
He paid for him to be put up in a place, right?
He paid for him to be put up in the inn.
So this thing is costing him money, right?
This isn't coming at just a low expense either.
It's coming at a great cost to him.
Because now he's using his time, his effort.
We've already looked at a little bit of the money.
How about the oil and the wine that he was treating his wounds with?
He puts them up in an inn, tells the innkeeper, hey, take care of this guy.
Whatever it costs, I will repay you when I return.
So he's already expecting more cost.
So this is adding up very quickly.
And he's doing it all without any regard to what that cost is.
You know, he didn't take the detour.
He did the loving thing.
He did the right thing.
And when we look at the denarii that's mentioned here,
because it specifically says he gave the innkeeper two denarii.
This is Roman coin, Roman currency.
And at that time, one denarii was roughly what somebody would earn for a full day's work.
And he gave him two.
And the promise that he would repay him whatever other expenses were incurred.
So just from the time that he stopped, picked this guy up and took him to the inn,
he's already spent the better part of a week's worth of earnings.
How many people in here would consider helping somebody at that kind of cost?
I'd venture to say that thought wouldn't go very far.
It's like, oh, I got bills to pay, I got food to put on the table.
I just I can't I can't afford I'll do what I can.
But drop, drop the guy off at you and him and be on our way.
Right.
All too often.
Where's the love?
Where's the light?
Where's God?
When you have the ability to do something, you should do it because of our relationship with him.
You know, this going through and we're looking at the priest, we're looking at the Levi, we're looking at the Samaritan.
It actually reminds me of an experience from my own life when my son was still a newborn.
We had the family loaded up.
We're headed out of town to go to other family members house for.
In fact, I think it was Thanksgiving.
I can't remember exactly, but we're heading out.
We're right here on the freeway.
We're headed out west.
And this dude, he comes zipping along.
He's got a shiny sports car.
He's in and out, bobbing and weaving between cars going way too fast.
Way too fast.
He gets up a little ways ahead of us.
I see him dart to the right.
I lose sight of him for a second.
Next thing I see, he's completely perpendicular to us.
He shoots straight across into that median wall and wrecks.
I'm already in the far left lane, mind you.
I'm the first car that was able to come to a stop once he cleared through all that.
I stopped.
I hit my flashers.
I get up.
I go to take care of this guy.
At this time, I still work for UNMPD, so some of my first aid skills are still pretty fresh,
but I'm not uniform.
I'm in my regular clothes.
Nobody knows me from Joe Schmo.
I got a relative in the car.
They're calling 911.
This guy, his car is totaled.
Airbags are all deployed the whole nine yards.
It's done.
This guy's bleeding.
He's got injuries.
And the whole time I'm sitting there and I'm talking to him and I'm trying to comfort him
and calm him down, but hey, help's on the way.
Help's on the way.
And in the back of my head, I'm sitting here and I'm like, who's helping me?
Somebody needs to come and help me.
This is a lot.
Not a single other person got out of their car.
I didn't have help until the first police car arrived.
And that took some time because he hit that wall.
When he hit that wall, he didn't just hit it and stop.
He hit that wall and bounced back.
So two out of three lanes were blocked.
People are trying to get around on the far right side.
There's nobody on the far left able to move, maybe a few people here and there in the middle lane.
And not a single person got out.
Once I was able to actually get up after I had a first responder there, you know, when the police arrived,
and not too long after, fire, we're still waiting on AMS, I was able to kind of take a look as I'm walking back to my van.
One person got out at that point.
None of them had their flashers on, not one to warn people, hey, there's something up here.
And that one person only got out to tell the police, hey, I saw the whole thing if you need a statement.
And then they hopped back in their car.
One incident.
A whole lot of priests and a whole lot of Levites.
Now, I don't look at myself as a good Samaritan, just as I'm sure this good Samaritan wasn't looking at himself as just being a good person.
It was hopping out and doing the right thing for the right reason.
For doing whatever I could with what I had, which wasn't much.
But most of us see something and we just want to cruise on by.
And that's life.
That's what we do.
Modern day priests, modern day Levites, you know, the priests are cruising on by, ignoring it, the Levites are rubbernecking,
and maybe you have one or two people that actually get out to do what needs to be done.
All the more reason we need to pray for our first responders out there, because all too often they're the only person that's actually getting out and doing anything.
Which by now, I'm sure you've been reflecting on that video we watched when we started.
That illustration is coming back through and it's meaning a little bit more. What would I do?
What should I do? What could I do in that situation if it was me?
But we come in these kind of things all the time in our lives.
So in case you forgot the video, let me refresh your memory here.
We have a young man.
He's getting beaten by a bully.
Here comes a passerby and the boy is like, what are you going to do?
We're all that passerby.
So what are you going to do?
What are you going to do that's going to reflect God's love and God's light?
What are you going to do to shine glory on the Lord?
It's a hard thought.
But we all have to decide who we're going to be and who we're going to love.
Which leads us to Luke 10, 36 through 37.
The word says, So which of these three do you think was a neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?
And he said, He who showed mercy on him, and Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise.
Go and do likewise.
This is the same thing that God, that Jesus is telling you and is telling me.
Go and love others like you love me.
Go and treat others the way you would treat me.
Right?
We forget about the golden rule.
Treat others as you want to be treated.
You know, we have to show the world the love of Christ.
And we can't be legalistic about it saying I can do it for these people, but not these people.
There's not a cookie cutter mold when it comes to loving our neighbor.
We're told to love everybody, whether they're a believer or not.
That's the whole reason why Jesus went to the cross was to bring down those walls,
to cut out the division and to reunite us all, not just with God, but with each other.
Again, we do this because we want to.
Because when you love Christ with all your heart, you're going to love your neighbor with all your heart.
And when you see something that's wrong, that's going to break your heart just as our sin broke Christ's heart.
We do the right thing, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because of what God has done for us,
what Christ did for us and what the Holy Spirit continues to do in us with that daily conviction,
guiding our steps, whispering to us gently in the back of our mind, Hey, are you sure you want to do that?
I bet you don't. So why don't we do this instead?
Maybe we don't have that answer, so we have to pray. We need to ask the Holy Spirit.
Hey, you're right. I don't want to do it, but I don't know what I want to do.
What should I do? Talk to me. Tell me.
Let's turn now to 1 John chapter 4.
1 John chapter 4, verses 17 through 19.
So 1 John 4, 17 through 19, the word says, Love has been perfected among us in this,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment.
But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
We love him because he first loved us. Love starts with God.
It starts with our connection with God. God is love, and he created each and every one of us, you and me, in love.
He sacrificed in love.
And when we realize this, and we have the relationship, and we feel it inside, and we grow in it, and we grow in our relationship with Christ,
that fear that we all have from our humanists starts to go away. It shrinks more and more all the time.
And so it gets to that point where that fear that we once had is no longer there. It is gone.
We're not afraid to stand up to the bully and say, Hey, knock it off. What you're doing is wrong.
We're not afraid to call people out on the sins in their own lives, saying, Hey, yes, I've messed up, but you know what? You're messing up, too.
We're not afraid to speak to those who are down and out.
Right?
We're not afraid of it. We're not afraid of what the world thinks of us anymore,
because what the world thinks of us no longer matters. It's only what Christ thinks of us.
That fear is pushed out because it doesn't belong to us. It was never given to us by God.
It was never supposed to be a part of us. It's a tool of the enemy.
And that's who it belongs to, because the enemy is the one who should be fearful, because they know where they're going,
whether they fool themselves into thinking that they can take over or not. They're going to end up in that pit.
So they absolutely should be fearful. Not trying to put that into us, trying to convince us to go down with them.
Which is why in 2 Timothy 1 7, the word says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
That one right there, that's a good one to underline, highlight, make a note next to.
I know a lot of people put it out there, but it really is a good one to meditate on.
Because when you love others and you love God and you grow in that relationship, that fear goes out.
This right here, those little moments when the enemy attacks you and you start feeling that anxiety seep in,
this is a good verse, some good scripture to throw at the enemy.
We have to stop letting the enemy have that foothold in our hearts and our minds.
You think of those old wartime movies, oh, we're out here winning hearts and minds.
God's winning hearts and minds. The enemy is destroying them.
We have to start praying. We have to start depending on God fully to give us the means to overcome those things that bring us fear,
that bring us anxiety, that bring us doubt.
That help to overcome the hate and the discontent, not just in the world, but what comes into our own lives,
what comes into our own hearts and hardens them.
We have to start to fall in love with people all over again. And for children, it's a lot easier.
Children are really close to God's heart. They're very innocent. They don't know.
And they don't know what they don't know. They don't even know that much.
But as adults, our hearts harden because we do start to know, we start seeing things, we start doing things,
and we become very jaded in our own lives. Our hearts harden.
And it gets really tough to soften them again. It gets really hard to see Christ again.
It gets really hard to hear God or the Holy Spirit when he's talking to us.
It's even harder when we stop opening our Bible.
Because that's where he starts. In his word.
You know, we get scarred by the world. The world isn't going to love us.
The world doesn't have to love us. Because if the prince of this world, it can't love us.
It just can't.
But even with that said, people don't have to love you in order for you to love them.
We've all been at that point in our lives where we needed someone to stick out a hand and give us that hand up to love us.
And sometimes we've waited. Oh, man, we've waited a long time to get that hand.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Because we've all been that victim waiting for that Samaritan to give us a hand up.
So why can't we be the Samaritan when it comes our turn?
You know, you've heard it before. I've said it before. Other people have said it.
The way we live our lives, the way we interact with others, the way we love others,
is all a lot of people are ever going to know of Christ and his love.
It's all a lot of people are ever going to know of the Bible.
So why not open that Bible up and let it fill them? Let it fill them.
You know, are we going to be that priest cruising through life?
Are we going to be that Levite rubbernecking along the way?
Are we going to be that Samaritan reflecting the love that's in each and every one of us?
Which brings us to 1 Corinthians 16, 14. So 1 Corinthians 16, 14, very simple.
This is another one. Matter of fact, I've already highlighted it on the slide.
Let all that you do be done in love.
Do everything in love. God is love.
So to do everything with love means that we're putting God first.
We're letting God lead us in how to do these things.
And if we're not at that point where we could do things yet, then we're letting him lead the way to soften our hearts
and overcome the issues we have to bring down these walls that we all build up in our lives.
To allow Christ's sacrifice served the purpose that it was intended and to bring out that division
to reunite us all with one another and with God.
If someone can lay down their life for all time, we could sacrifice what we have to help someone else.
You know, sometimes, you know, I say it's time for us to fall in love with our neighbor.
Sometimes it's hard.
So we're going to love our neighbor. Part of that is forgiving, right?
And we have to forgive over and over and over because their heart is so hardened, they're so attuned to the world,
they're going to keep messing up, they're going to keep doing wrongs.
But you know what? Hey, keep loving on them, keep praying on them.
Because your prayer, your love might be the only thing that's acting in intercession for them.
It might be the only thing that brings them to Christ.
So do everything in love. Be willing to give up your time.
Be willing to make the effort. If you have something else that you can give up that's going to help someone, do it.
Because the secret ingredient in life is just like the secret ingredient in a kitchen.
It's love.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for loving us first.
For teaching us love that is your character.
We ask that you help us not only to grow in it, but to learn to let yours shine for others to see.
That it be a light for others to come to know you and in return reflect even more light into an otherwise dark world.
That the things that we say, the things that we do, not just start with you,
but never stray, that they go from the beginning to the end with you.
As your world tells us, let the light shine, excuse me, let the light in us shine before men.
This way others can come to heal. Others can come and bask in the warmth and the glow that is you.
And that everything that we do brings glory to you and not ourselves.
That we recognize and we remember the sacrifice that you made that broke us from the bondage of sin.
That gave us a chance to be reunited and adopted into your family.
And the example it set for us to follow.
All those people said, Amen.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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