Have you ever heard someone say the God of the Old Testament
seems so different from God in the New Testament?
Maybe you've thought this yourself.
God in the Old Testament seems harsh and demanding and even
cruel, but God in the New Testament seems loving and
gracious and merciful and kind. The sermon series that we're in
bridges the Bible. It explains how his name is the
same in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, that his
heart, his character, his nature is the same across all time.
He's the same God with the same power and the same promises to
everyone who believes in him in all times, including right here
today and you and me. I want to welcome all twelve of
our locations, those joining online and inside.
We are so glad that you are a part of this church and this
mission to make Jesus Christ known, to make this region the
hardest place on planet earth to get to hell from.
And if you're new around here, I want to give you a special
welcome. We are so glad that you came.
Well, one of the names of God that underscores the fact that
he is the same God from Old Testament to New Testament is
the name Jehovah Rapha. Say it with me, Jehovah Rapha or
Yahweh Rapha. It's a Hebrew word that means
the Lord who heals. Now I bet when you think about
the Lord who heals, your mind goes to Jesus.
Because, after all, besides being a great teacher, Jesus was
known as an incredible healer. He cleansed lepers.
He unstopped deaf ears. He opened blind eyes.
He gave them you to voice. He rebuked fevers.
He made withered hands whole. He put the paralyzed back on
their feet. He casts out demons.
He delivered people from the powers of darkness, and he cured
chronic hemorrhaging. He restored the ear of his
attacker. And he raised the dead back to
life. But wait a minute.
Where did the revelation of Jehovah Rapha come from?
Oh, it was in the Old Testament. And oh it was early in the Old
Testament, the second book out of the 39 books of the Old
Testament, the book of Exodus. And I bet that some of you are
thinking this is great. Oh I need some healing in my
life. But I also bet that some of you
are maybe not feeling the same way.
Some of you have questions, some of you have frustrations.
Because if God's a healer, why didn't he heal the person that I
prayed for? If God's a healer, then why
don't we see more healings today?
If this Jehovah Rapha thing's true, why don't we see it around
us and we just hear stories about distant places where that
happened or just back in Bible times?
Or is there something wrong with me that I don't have enough
faith to be healed? I want you to know that anytime
God reveals himself by a name, which he only does in a few
times, that it's an indication of his nature, and it's a pledge
of a promise. So what we're going to do today
is we're going to go back to the original story where God first
revealed himself as Jehovah Rapha.
Because not only does God want us to hear the revelation that
he's Jehovah Rapha, but he also revealed himself to to us in
this way with a story. And the story has details that
teach us lessons to help us answer the questions that we
have that are keeping us from trusting in him so that we'll
fully believe in his revelation as Jehovah Rapha today.
So here we go, the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 15,
verses 22 to 26. Then Moses LED Israel from the
Red Sea and they went into the desert of shore.
For three days they traveled in the desert without finding
water. When they came tomorrow, they
could not drink its water because it was bitter.
That's why the place is called Mara.
Mara in Hebrew means bitter. So the people grumbled against
Moses, saying, What are we to drink?
Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a
piece of wood. He threw it in the water.
The water became fit to drink there.
The Lord issued A ruling and instruction for them and put
them to the test. He said if you listen carefully
to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay
attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not
bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for
I am the Lord Jehovah who heals you.
Rafa. Well, the first lesson that God
wants us to catch in the story came from the first verse.
Let's go back and look at verse 22.
It says for three days they traveled in the desert without
finding water right out of the gate.
That seems to contradict the declaration that he is Jehovah
Rapha, the Lord who heals. Because why did he wait three
days? I mean, if he's Jehovah Rapha,
why not give him water on the first day and every day
thereafter? It's because God is teaching us
a lesson about what it means to trust and know Jehovah Rapha.
The first lesson is our timing isn't always God's timing.
Why didn't God heal the person you prayed for, at least here on
earth? I can't answer that question for
sure, and nobody can. But it could be that God's
timing was different than your own timing, but his timing is
still better. You know, I have a sister,
Jessica, and she was a quadriplegic and for 35 years
our family prayed and prayed and prayed that Jessica would walk
and now she can in heaven. Just because God's timing wasn't
our timing does not change the fact that He was the one who has
healed her and she is well now for all of eternity.
But then there are times when he does heal immediately, and his
timing is now. In 2010 we were living in
Princeton, NJ. I was a campus ministry there
and the campus ministry was going great.
And we were about to go on a week long retreat, taking a
couple 100 students up to Vermont and we were so excited
about it. I was going to be driving a van
up there along with the rest of the caravan.
I was going to be leading worship for that week.
And Karen and I were out to dinner the night before we were
supposed to leave for this trip. And we're so excited.
Just talking in anticipation. What's God going to do?
Because it had been the ministry had more than doubled in a year
and Scott was on the move. So we got home after dinner, we
get our finished getting stuff ready and I told Karen I got to
go lay down. I'm not feeling good and I call
her over a little bit later like hey, can you bring me some
blankets? I'm just shivering cold and I've
got this awful fever and I've got 5 blankets on me and I can't
get warm. And at the same time our
daughter, our one year old daughter at the time, Annalise,
was sick with a fever as well and Karen remembers how sick she
was because the temple was so high.
It was 104.5° fever. And so all of a sudden our
excitement turns to doom and we're like, Oh no, what are we
going to do? Like who's going to drive?
Who's going to lead worship? And we're going to totally miss
out on all this. But a few moments later, after
having those thoughts of despair, I thought, wait a
minute, we got to at least pray like Karen, let's call all of
our friends, text all of our people on the team, all the
people from church we can think of, and let's pray and see what
God would do. And so she starts praying
fervently, and not too long goes by, maybe an hour or two, I
don't remember exactly how long. I start shedding blankets.
I'm starting to feel better. She's telling me from the other
room. Annalise's fever is starting to
go down. We slept through the whole
night, woke up, no fever, no symptoms, and we went on that
retreat and God did incredible things that I still remember to
this day. And about 1/2 a dozen students
gave their lives to Jesus for the very first time on that
retreat. And I got to say, Jehovah Rapha
is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
His timing might be faster than we think, it might be slower
than we think, but it does not change the fact that He is the
Lord who heals. But I got to tell you something
else. Sometimes things can go from bad
to worse. You see that in this story.
They've got three days no water in the desert.
Not a good scenario. They're on their way through the
desert and they see off in the distance in Oasis and they're
thinking, oh, wait, there's water.
There's a source of water. We're going to be OK.
Things are going to turn around and get better.
They go to the water, they get down to drink it, and it's
bitter water. In fact, it's so bitter that
it's undrinkable. Why?
If he's Jehovah Rapha, he's the
God who heals. Why didn't he heal the water
before they got down to drink it and not after?
Because there's a detail. There's a lesson.
Jehovah Rapha wants us to understand and think about it
this way. What did the people do in their
journey for those three days? Did anyone cry out to God in
their pain? Did anyone turn to him and say
Lord help us out? Did anybody say God give us the
strength that we need to get through this?
Know they were completely self reliant and God allowed them to
learn what life is like when you try to do things on your own.
Maybe the reason that your life seems to go from bad to worse is
that God is lovingly trying to get your attention.
He's letting you taste the bitterness of sin so that you'll
go to Him for the rivers of living water.
You know, I grew up in church and here in the Bible and about
God and all these things, but I didn't realize how bad I needed
Him until I tasted the bitterness of life without Him.
Maybe it's the things that you've done, or maybe it's the
things that have been done to you that have soured life's
water for you. But the lesson here is that God,
and only God can change the water of our lives from bad to
good. And there's a deeper lesson that
God's teaching us through all of these things we've seen so far,
and that is that the healing we need goes beyond physical
healing. Because you probably heard this
at 1st and you're thinking cancer, heart disease, or
something else bodily. But what we're learning in this
story is that the promise of Jehovah Rapha is that he can and
wants to heal the deepest needs in our lives that go deeper than
physical things that are spiritual things.
I mean, think about this story. Who in the story is sick?
Is there anybody sick in the story?
No, but they are in desperate need.
In John chapter 6, Jesus is doing his Jesus things and
there's over 5000 people who are there with him.
They've been there with him all day and he wants to feed them.
He doesn't want to send them away to have to go find
something to eat. So he tells his disciples, hey
we're doing this and what do we got to eat?
And they say hey we got 5 loaves of bread and we got 2 fish.
And Jesus, like, I can work with that.
And he multiplies it and he feeds over 5000 people with
leftovers. What a miracle, Jehovah Rapha.
Well, the people go away that night.
They come back the next day and they're looking for food again.
And this time Jesus says no, Why?
If he's Jehovah Rapha, why won't he give them food again this
day? It's because Jesus knew that
they wanted physical food, but what they needed was spiritual
food. What they wanted was temporary
blessings, but Jesus knew they needed eternal life.
See, the miracles in Jehovah Rapha is meant to point us to
faith in him. And they missed the point of the
miracle. And maybe you've heard of
miracle stories around the world where missionaries are and and
you hear all these like wonderful multiple stories about
how God does this. Why is that?
Because God, a lot of time uses miracles to validate the truth
of the gospel and to point people to something greater, a
deeper need to look to Jesus as Lord and Savior.
But he doesn't continue to do that, at least with the the same
amount of frequency. He still does it, as I've
testified earlier, but not with as much frequency.
Because He doesn't want us to live on miracles.
He wants us to live on faith in a relationship with Him.
Parents, you love to provide for your kids needs as they're
growing up. It's great.
It's part of one of the things that you look forward to.
But as your kids get older and they're adults, what do you want
from them? You want a relationship like you
want them to come over to your house and just want to hang out
with you and not just come over looking for a handout every
time. You want them to call you up and
say, hey, how you doing? Not just, hey, I need something
Now, don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that God doesn't
meet Our Daily Bread, doesn't give us things, doesn't meet our
tangible needs, doesn't want to heal as physically all those
sorts of things. It's still true.
But there's a bigger lesson that Jehovah Raphael wants us to
hear, and he wants us to. He wants to meet our deepest
needs. He wants us to know that a
relationship with him is the greatest thing that we can have.
And it's far more important to God and to us that we get the
Spirit spiritual healing that we need so that for all of eternity
we can be with him in heaven, so that we do have no physical
needs where there is no pain, no sadness, no sickness, no
heartache at all. Well, there's another lesson
here that we learned from Jehovah Rapha in this story, and
it's back in verses 24 and 25. Let me read it to you.
So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, what are we to
drink? Then Moses cried out to the
Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood, and he threw it
in the water, and it became fit to drink.
So here we go, The people grumbled and Moses prayed.
People grumbled. Moses prayed.
Let me ask a question, which one was more effective?
And another question, if I could, Which one are you doing
more of? When we taste the bitterness of
life, will we pout or will we pray?
Will we cuss and rage or will we call on His name?
Will we wallow and cower or will we trust in His power?
Will we forget that He's with us or will we remember His promise?
Will we bellyache and bitterness or will we believe in His
goodness? Will we look at our
circumstances or will we lift our eyes to the Lord?
Will we say woulda, shoulda, coulda or will we say my God is
Jehovah Rapha? And whether we grumble or
whether we pray also reveals a lot about our relationship with
God and what we actually believe about him.
You know the reason why the people grumbled in this story?
It's because they didn't believe that God was real.
They didn't believe God really cared about them.
They didn't really believe in his presence, in his power right
there with them. They were living outside of
their relationship with him. They had a relationship with
him, but they weren't living like it was real.
And check this out. You know, they went three days
in the wilderness. You know where they came from
three days earlier, the Red Sea, like one of the greatest
miracles God has ever done on planet Earth.
He literally moved waters so that they could walk through dry
ground and escape from their enemies and go to where God was
taken. And so just three days later,
they need water and they forgot that he's the water mover and
that he could probably give them the water that they needed.
That's just like us sometimes. And you know what we call this?
This is called practical atheism.
It's where, oh, in theory, we believe in God and we're
Christians and we can answer all the right questions about who he
is. But in practice, practically day
in and day out, there's nothing about our lives that actually
shows that we believe in his power, his presence, His promise
that the name of Jesus really does have power.
We don't show it because when things come our way, we don't
turn to him right away. We don't spend time developing
our relationship with him. We just live our day-to-day
lives like it's just us and the world around us.
But the reason that Moses prayed is because he was living inside
his relationship with God. He believed with all his heart
who his God was. He knew what God could do.
He remembered it, and he called upon him to do it.
So we got to be quick to go to God in prayer.
We got to let it be our first reaction, not our last hope.
Dads, when your kids do the same thing that you asked them not to
do 100 times, you got to be quick to go to God in prayer.
Moms, when your husbands do the same thing that you asked them
not to do 100 times, you got to be quick to go to God in prayer.
Husbands and wives, life's going to come at you fast.
You got to be faster to your knees, young people.
The world, the devil and sin wants your soul.
You got to be with God to defend against every evil attack.
If you're in the valley right now, now is not the time to give
up on God. Now's the time to cry out to him
all the more. And even if he doesn't answer
your prayer the way you thought he would, does not change the
fact that he's Jehovah Rapha. In fact, you will gain through
that a greater trust, a greater peace, a greater perspective and
contentment in your situation by the power of God.
Did you notice how God answered Moses prayer to heal the water
for the people? Look again in verse 25 it says
then Moses cried out to the Lord.
The Lord showed him a piece of wood, he threw it in the water
and the water became fit to drink.
I love it when the Bible makes you laugh.
I mean, you got to think about this situation.
Moses is praying and this is a desperate situation.
You got an angry mob. They're not just hangry like
hungry and angry. They're they're like about to
die of starvation or thirst and they're angry.
And so Moses is praying. God help me out.
What do we do? Do something and God shows him a
piece of wood and he's like, I got to be mishearing you.
God like this can't be wood. What's what's this going to do?
But he. Does it?
Anyway, He grabs the wood, he throws it in and you got to
think about what the people are saying to Moses.
They're like, great Moses, good idea.
Let's throw stuff in the water. Like that's going to change
anything. If there's a rock over here, you
want to throw that in, How about some sand?
How about, hey, we can throw lots?
Are we angry at the water? Is that why we're like beating
the water with all this wood and stuff, But God healed the water
through the piece of wood. What does this teach us about
Jehovah Rapha? It teaches us that God heals
sometimes through means. God could have healed the water
in lots of different ways, really spiritual ways.
He could have everybody come around the water, extend your
hands while I pray, and the water gets healed.
He could have Moses touch the tip of the staff on the water
and and it would be healed. He could have had an Angel come
down and hover over the water and it could have healed.
God chose a piece of what? Because sometimes God heals
through means. Does medicine heal through God's
power? Absolutely.
Does God use counselors to heal emotionally and relationally and
things like that? Yeah, he does.
Does does God heal through diet and exercise?
He absolutely does. Just because God uses someone
else or something else doesn't change the fact that he is the
ultimate healer. And there's another part of this
He heals through means that we got to catch.
We got to think about for a minute.
And that is that sometimes the means he chooses to work in our
lives looks weird, you know, throwing a piece of wood into
the water. Well, here we are.
And we're gathered at all these beautiful rooms where we're
worshiping God, these great lights, sound, all this sort of
stuff. This is awesome.
But if you're here for the first time, you're kind of wondering
like what in the world's up with the hot tub in the corner or the
tub at your location? Like do people just like to get
a bath every once in a while? Is it like a dual purpose?
Like, hey, it's a party room, hot tub night on Friday night
and church and Sunday morning? Well, God says repent and be
baptized and you'll have your sins forgiven and you'll receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit. It might seem weird around here
to raise your hands as you're praising God in song, but God
meets you when you do it. It might seem weird to come
forward to the steps and pray in front of this whole crowd of
people, but a weight lifts off you when you do it.
It might seem weird to bring up Jesus to your friends out of the
blue, but somebody's eternity can be changed when you do it.
It might seem weird to praise God even more in your deepest
darkest pains, but God gives you a peace that passes
understanding when you do it. Even if God tells you to do
something weird, don't doubt what he will do on the other
side of your obedience. There's an important part to
this revelation of Jehovah Rapha that we have to catch and that's
that it's a conditional promise that means we have a part to
play to realize the promise of the Lord who heals verse 25 and
26 again, they're the Lord issued A ruling and instruction
for them put them to the test. He said if you listen carefully
to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay
attention to his commands and keep all His decrees, I will not
bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for
I am the Lord who heals you. So all four of those conditions
right there are boiled down to basically two things.
Make sure you're listening to the word of God and make sure
you're doing what it says. Now you might be asking yourself
like though this was in the Old Testament and if you know
anything about the Old Testament, he just said it
there. It's like there's a lot of
decrees, a lot of commands you got to keep.
Like what does this mean for us? What does this mean for me
today? How can I know that I can have
Jehovah off as my healer? Well, Jesus answered that
question in John chapter 6 verse 28 and 29.
They asked him, what must we do to do the works God requires?
Jesus answered the work of God is this to believe in the one he
has sent. So today the promise of having
God as your healer will be met if you believe in the one whom
he has sent. Who is Jesus?
If you want Jehovah Rapha, not just the name, but the power and
the promises for the healing of your whole self, mind, body,
soul, and spirit, and for this life and for all of eternity,
you need to believe in Jesus. You need to turn your life over
to him. You need to take him as your
Lord and Savior, and you need to surrender to his will for your
life. And this point answers that
other question that we raised, which is what kind of faith do I
have to have? What level of faith?
What sort of faith does it take for me to be healed?
Faith indeed is required to be healed.
But what kind of faith? Jesus just told us it's faith in
Jesus whom the one that the Father has sent, the one who has
all authority, the one who commands the winds and waves,
the one who raises the dead, the one for whom nothing is
impossible. If you have that kind of faith,
Jehovah Rapha is your God. If it took a special kind of
faith or an additional sort of faith to experience Jehovah
Rapha is your God, then Paul would not have had the thorn in
the flesh that he wrote about. He had this thorn in the flesh,
which is some sort of physical malady.
We don't know exactly what it was, but it bothered him.
And so he prayed multiple times. He wrote about this in Second
Corinthians. He prayed multiple times that
God would remove it, that God would heal it, but God didn't
because sometimes there are things that Jehovah Raphael
wants to do that go beyond the physical and temporary blessings
that we're asking for. And so this is what the Lord
said to Paul in Second Corinthians 12/9.
The Lord said to me, my grace is sufficient for you from my
power. My power is made perfect in
weakness. When you trust in Jesus as your
Lord and Savior and as your Healer, you will have the
confidence that He will do whatever's best for you, whether
it's in this life, for the next, and whether it's in this body or
not. Well, the last lesson that we
see here in this story has a veiled reference in the story,
but it is crystal clear throughout the rest of
Scripture. I want to read verse 25 to you
one more time, but in a different version.
It says this. Then he Moses cried out to the
Lord. The Lord showed him a tree and
he threw it into the waters and the waters became sweet.
So I just read from the NASB version of the Bible, which is
the the most literal English version of the Bible today.
I've been reading from the NIV. Great versions, just just a
different approach in philosophy of translation.
But if you're especially observant as I read that, you
notice the difference that it used the word tree instead of a
piece of wood. And so I kind of like, oh, I
wonder if this is significant. So I do a little bit more
research and literally the word, the most accurate translation of
that word in Hebrew is tree, not just like a log or a limb or a
stick. Why might that be significant?
First Peter chapter 2 verse 24. He Jesus himself bore our sins
in his body on the tree, that by that we might die to sin and
live the righteousness. By his wounds you have been
healed. And first Peter was written in
8060, thirty years after Jesus's death and resurrection, and he's
quoting in that verse from Isaiah written 700 years before
Jesus. And Isaiah said, But he is
pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our
iniquities. The punishment that brought us
peace was on him. By his wounds we are healed and
Isaiah is building on the revelation of Jehovah Rapha 1500
years before Jesus, where God said I am the Lord who heals
you. He is the same God with the same
power and the same promises for Moses, for Isaiah, for Peter,
and for everybody within the sound of my voice who trusts in
Jesus. God chose a tree, and he took
all the bitterness of our sins and all the bitterness of our
past and all the bitterness of our losses and our fears and the
bitterness of death itself. And he put all the bitterness on
his Son to bear on a tree of death so that everything that
tree touches turns to life. And when you take the tree of
Jesus into your life, Jehovah Rapha will turn the water of
your life from bad to good and from bitter to sweet.
We're moving to a time of decision.
I want to talk to those who are here today, those online who
have not yet started an intimate personal relationship with
Jesus. You haven't yet had that
spiritual healing. I bet that you are here today.
You're listening today with the absolute best of intentions, I'm
assuming, and I bet I'm right, that you want to be a better
person. You want to be a better husband
or father, a better mother or wife, a better son or daughter.
But I need you to know, and God wants you to know that you have
a spiritual sickness that you cannot heal, that in fact we all
have a spiritual sickness. The whole human race is plagued
by this invisible cancer called sin.
And we can't heal ourselves of sin.
No one can. But God tells us in His Word
that there is a spiritual transaction that happens in a
moment for you to have your sins removed from you.
And you may not even realize when it happens or how God does
it. But on the other side, if you'll
trust him, you'll see a know that it's happened.
And what do you have to do to it?
Step into and experience that spiritual transaction.
Let me tell you, the word of God makes it very clear.
Romans chapter 10 verse 9, if you declare with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him
from the dead, that he died for your sins and rose again three
days later, it says you will be saved.
And check this out. The Greek word for saved in the
New Testament, the original way it was written is the exact same
word that's used for healed. If you want to be healed from
your spiritual sickness, declare that Jesus is Lord and your Lord
Believe that God raised him from the dead and that what he did on
Calvary's cross 2000 years ago can change your life today.
There's another passage like that that's in, I'm sorry, in
Acts chapter 2, and it says if you repent and be baptized for
the forgiveness of your sins and for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Let me tell you something. You cannot go from having sins
to gradually not having sins. Either you've got them or you
don't have them. Either you're guilty of them or
you're forgiven of them. And you can't gradually move
yourself along that spectrum. Only God can do it.
And he says repent, be baptized, and I'll wipe away your sins.
I'll erase them, take them as far from you as the east is from
the West. And he also says you'll receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power of
God living inside of you. And if you're not a believer in
Jesus Christ, you don't have him living inside of you.
You can't. I can't give you the Holy
Spirit. You can't somehow work yourself
up or gradually move to having the Holy Spirit.
Only God gives the Holy Spirit and he says repent and be
baptized and you'll receive the Holy Spirit.
You'll have the power of God to enable you to start changing
your life and living the way that you really long to live and
that God wants to bring about in you.
So today is the day that you can step into that.
You can take hold of that in just a minute.
We're going to stand and we're going to sing, and some people
are going to come to the steps and pray, and you can come
forward right over there by the baptistry under that screen and
you can tell the person there, I want to give my life to Jesus.
I want to get baptized. I am ready to make him Lord and
Savior and have him as Jehovah Rapha and everything else that
he promises to be for those who trust in him.
Would you do that today? Don't leave this place until you
do. It'll be the greatest decision
you've ever made in your life. And to those who are Christians,
I want to say to you, to all of us, life is full of challenges
and bitterness sometimes, but are you bearing it alone?
Have you been just going through life being a practical atheist
and not bringing what you need to God?
Are you wandering through the wilderness and you haven't even
thought to pray about what you're dealing with?
Come this morning and get down on your knees and say, God, I
need you. I need you to meet my needs
because he wants to not only meet your physical and temporary
needs, he wants to meet your spiritual needs.
He wants to meet your mental and emotional needs.
Whatever you're carrying today, whatever you came in with today,
bring it to him in prayer. And the Bible says come to the
throne of grace with boldness, with confidence.
He loves it. He's waiting for you to come,
but there isn't. If you've got to come forward
and say, God help me with this and let him take it from there.
And the last thing that I want to say, if you've been bitter,
if you've been carrying around resentment towards God because
you prayed for somebody whom you loved and God didn't heal them
the way that you thought he would, would you come this
morning and release that over to him.
Do not let that disappointment drive a wedge and keep you from
the God who loves you. Just come and say, God, I don't
understand, but I do trust you and I want you as Jehovah Rapha,
whatever that looks like. Would you stand with me and
pray? And as I pray, I want to ask you
to bring in your minds and bring to the Lord whatever need you
have right now. As I pray, Godfather, Son, Holy
Spirit, we believe that you're Jehovah Rapha, God, we believe
your words that you are not a man, that you would lie, that
you're the same yesterday, today, and forever.
And so, God, I know that you can and will and want to meet every
single need that's here right now.
And God, we just trust you to do it the way that you know is
best. But I pray that we would come
with expectation right now in our response for what you're
going to do. We would play our part of
putting our faith in you, and you would do your part of
healing and working in our lives in ways that go beyond our
understanding. In Jesus name, Amen.