Major Ian Thomas emphasizes the importance of total commitment to Jesus Christ in his sermon 'Joshua.' He critiques the tendency of Christians to respond emotionally without addressing the deeper spiritual issues that hinder true discipleship. Thomas argues that many believers remain in a cycle of seeking blessings without recognizing that Christ himself is their life and strength. He encourages listeners to yield completely to Christ, asserting that true commitment leads to a life of victory and purpose. The sermon calls for a shift from self-effort to reliance on Christ's sufficiency in every aspect of life.

Moses was the man who tried, and he gave them the law, a set of rules, and you may remember that throughout his ministry he reduced his people to tears of repentance again and again. He was always making appeals, and they were always responding, and every appeal he made and every appeal to which they responded less than well, precisely where it found them, in the womb. That's something else to remember in your ministry as a Christian pastor, that unless you introduce boys and girls and men and women to a vital spiritual principle to which they are prepared to yield, they will respond again and again. You can reduce them to tears again and again. It's comparatively easy to reduce Christians to tears. It's comparatively easy to reduce anybody to tears if you know the technique. If you want to know how to reduce people to tears, just go to Hollywood for a bit, and they'll teach you, and unfortunately, in what an individual has simply learned the technique of how to reduce people to tears. It's the sole message that the Hollywood stars get, and the next moment they'll be, they'll be holding on to the side with the hair standing on end while Jersey Jit comes along with the, with the putty knife. Never had to harrowing two hours in normal life, tremendously, and when you've done that enough, they'll plop around to the side door and they'll, they'll get the autograph. Well now you produce the same techniques and you can get from the pulpit or the platform exactly the same response from your audience, and they'll all flock into the inquiry room and shed tears of repentance, and yet in a matter of days and weeks they were back precisely where they started, because he never let them in. So bear this in mind in your own Christian ministry, and that is total and that is final, in the light of which there is no further basic issue to face. Aim at that. Don't worry about your reputation. Aim at the ones and the twos whom you have conscientiously led to the place of total absolute divine government in human experience, and you've never got to face further issues. The tragedy of the Christian church, the tragedy if you like of the Christian population of our churches, is that they've never really been confronted with the final basic issue, which is a total sellout to Jesus Christ, and the result is they're always facing little baby issues. Suppose there was one, you'd never fully, really face the issue of alcoholic drinks, and it's purely an illustration. You were still reserved in your judgment. You'd never come to the place where you said, I've seen something with the evils of it, and I somehow feel that no matter how legitimate it may be for others, it's not going to be legitimate for me in my particular position, for the influence that I may wield over others, and therefore finally, once and for all, I face this issue. Supposing you've never come to that place. Every social visit you make in your offer to Jesus, you've got to face the issue again. Every party you go to, because you've never faced the conflict, but even alcohol, every individual to face. There is no other issue that you and I are called upon, none other, and you won't get an overwhelming response. You're not going to get an overwhelming response, because alas, the vast bulk of Christians will not be prepared for a total despicalship. Please don't reduce the issue to get response. By that you betray your ministry, your reputation more than your fidelity to basic principles. Your gift, your scholarship, your ability, your personality, any message, sermon, or testimony you ever preach is his truth content. The experience of Canaan by the human circumstances that kept him with Moses in the wilderness, do you remind ourselves of that? Because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land where into he went, and his seed shall possess it. Or verse 38, Joshua the son of Nun, Caleb when everybody else was buried, was demonstrated by what they had to say about it when they came back having been sent. They came as those who declared that the God who had brought them out was the God who was perfectly competent. They said in so many words, that would be our colloquial expression. You look in the 14th chapter in the earlier part. Verse 6, Joshua the son of Nun, Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes, and they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying the land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land. He, he who brought us out, he will bring us in, and he will give it us. We won't earn it, we won't merit it, we won't even win it, he'll give it us. Their defense is departed from us. The Lord is with us. Fear them not. Peter came. The congregation bade stone them with stones, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle congregation before all. How long will it be ere they believe me? All the signs which I have shown unto them. There were two who did believe, it was Caleb and Joshua. Within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth. And they were to get over Jordan. Well, you know what happened? And they came into the house of a woman, a harlot by the name of Rahab. It became known to the king, the intelligence service of the king must have been unusually good unto the... And he sent the two spies off, and the first night never came back. You sent that spy out of the land to see what the land had returned. And on that third morning, that anybody who enters into the forecourt of the king's presence, all the beaten Persians that night, and on the third morning, this trembling pale-faced woman stepped into the presence of Caleb, being that which alone qualifies. She'd been as good as dead, buried with Christ, three days and nights. See? She'd held on to what she'd got, she'd have lost everything she ever had. She threw it all away, and God gave it all back. Have that hasn't gone into death, and been given back by God to you, is yours legitimately. You've stolen it, ultimately yours until it's gone into the place of death, and been completely, totally, and irrevocably relinquished. This is what Rahab the harlot said to them, verse 9. She said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land. What did you say? I know that the Lord hath given you the land. All the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you. When was that? Forty years before, when you came out of Egypt. And what you did unto the two kings of the Amorites, and were on the other side of Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, forty years ago, any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. And the startling discovery, the alarming, dismaying discovery these two spies made was this, that the inhabitants of the land of Canaan had ceded victory to Israel forty years before. They said for forty years we've been trembling before the God of Israel. When did you receive Christ the victor in your heart? Ever capable of living the victorious Christian life? How long has Jesus Christ been living within you? Seven? Twenty? Is there any difference between the Christ who lives in you now and the Christ who lived in his own humanity then? Is there any difference? Of course not. You've been cheating yourself of the victory that, walking round and round, wandering round and round the wilderness, asking for a victory that has been yours ever since Jesus Christ, the only victory there is, has been within you. I never tasted a grape. Who has in Christ Jesus? Do you have Christ Jesus? Then how many blessings has the Father blessed you with in Christ Jesus? All spiritual blessings. How many more then can you have than you've got? How many more can you have than all? No. And some of you, it's true, some of you are still running around from meeting to meeting trying to get a blessing, trying to get some gooey experience. And the whole time that you're running around trying to find blessings and gifts, you are repudiating the blesser and the giver, and repudiating what you profess to believe. To a man, 40 years before, and buried them. And the Canaanites identified themselves with the enemy whom God had buried in the Egypt, in the Red Sea. And 40 years before, they said, if God buried them, God will bury us. The only thing that surprised them was the children of Israel. God sees in you absolutely no good things. You're rotten through and through. Did anybody ever tell you that? If they haven't, I'm telling you now. You're rotten. So am I. In our flesh, dwelt born into this world, total, spiritually alienated from the life of God. Dead in trespasses and sin. With our human personality dominated by a sin principle at one's host. Dominating our personality, which in a sense is neutral, and producing that self that you can only despise, and that God can dare. The I that Paul speaks of when he says, I am crucified. In his economy, identified with the Lord Jesus upon the cross. That is not to say that there is not a self that you can respect. When the devil behaves in terms of your humanity, that's so that there may be a complete chain of ownership. A complete radical. So that the Lord, that's why you can love your neighbor. Because you know that if there's anything in you that you have the right to respect, if there's anything whatever in you that you have the right to love, it is only what Christ is in you behaving through your yielded personality. Therefore, if you see your neighbor lying drunken in the gutter, you might despise him humanly, but you can still love him as yourself. Because you know this, that if ever there's going to be anything against him that he can respect or you can respect, you can love or he can love. It'll only be what Christ is in him, as it is only what Christ is in you. So you can love him on the same basis as yourself. Never imagine that God's ever going to improve you. You're not worth it. You're only fit for the dump. I said I don't put new wine into old bottles. I put the old bottles and the old garments where they belong. Rubbish. You'll never be any better than you are now. You won't. Are you hoping that God will change you? He won't. No more than the letter will ever change his spots. You've never seen about yourself and nothing that's ever shocked you about yourself. Not one of these things has ever shocked or surprised God. He's a jamb and a mistake. You won't. The evangelical language, and it'll stink just as much with evangelical language on 100. You'll be as wicked in your heart in a hundred years time as you are now. Oh, what a relief this is to discover. It saves you constantly coming. Forget this. You think you can make of yourself, which is nothing because I've repudiated you for all that you are. So you've got an old nature that is inherently wicked. It's incorrigibly bad and it's unsalvageable and God has sentenced it and God has repudiated it and God has rejected it. Word of God declares that you are by nature, by the nature that you have, by natural birth, you are by nature, a child of rock. Do you know what that means? Inherently a child of rock because it stems from the devil himself. That's why he that committed sins of the devil and God likeness. What is it that pertains to life and God likeness? 2 Peter 1.3. What is it that pertains to life and God likeness? The divine nature. Christ being allowed to behave non-duty every day. We imagine that sometimes. We think we'll get so much blessing by so many pounds of prayer or so many. How often do you pray? Pray without ceasing. Supposing you were to apply your definition of praying to pray without ceasing, what would you be doing all day? You'd have to have leather patches put in your knees. Hang on to like good death and we say it doesn't fit the text so we'll change the text. We won't change our definition. No don't change the text, change your definition. God says pray without ceasing and you have no right to change to without ceasing because without ceasing doesn't fit your concept of praying. You've got to get a new definition of praying that will fit without ceasing. There's only one way you can pray without ceasing and that's in an attitude. The Lord Jesus prayed without ceasing because Lazarus was stinking four days some of that or five thousand to be fair as we've discussed in one of our evening meetings. He simply focused upon the particular incident so that out of attitudinous praying there was a focus on the situation in particular and that might involve saying something. Might not or it might. Might say aloud or might be unspoken prayer but what you and I call talking in prayer is simply a focusing of an unceasing attitude automatically instinctively open a letter there's a new situation instinctively out of my attitude of dependence I simply related at once to Christ and say thank you this is your situation isn't mine. All you're doing is focusing an automatic attitude upon a situation in particular. Somebody comes up to me after a meeting and says I'd like to have a word out of my attitude of praying which you know his problems or his idiosyncrasies. He may come to me in business and may come to waste time. All you've done without a word spoken is to make unto us wisdom. See what I mean? Give you a bit of strength to Christ so you ask God to give strength to Christ. Does that sound intelligent? We can ask God to give strength to the old nature because he won't and we pointless to ask God to give strength the new nature Christ because he's got it. You've been revealing your ignorance or your repudiation of the basic principle of Christian life. Christ in you the hope of glory. You say that Christ has never left you since you were a general he's been living within you to whom all power in heaven and in earth has been given so long how long have you had all power in heaven and in earth? As long as you've had Christ. How much more strength do you want? Redeemed again and again and again and again comes day after day morning morning night by night and he says Lord redeem me Lord redeem me Lord redeem me he never will thank me for having redeemed him I can't give him what he won't take and the Christian who comes to me and says please give me this and please give me that and please give me the other and I've already given him Christ in whom I've blessed him with all spiritual blessings and heavenly things in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and it's complete in him but he won't take what I've given him he still comes begging. Oh God's sick and tired about begging prayers. Waste paper basket taps with chocolate rocking heads. The angels on duty they sort them all out and it's only one in 500 that's any good everything's wrong with it could be wrong. Human personality abused and misused and prostituted by the devil. You go around your old speaking fort and you tell everybody you go to bed. Oh what a relief it was to me when I discovered the Bentley. Then in the mercy of God a boy of 13 that's how we got to know each other there his parents and he was the first person ever cared about my soul. It's just as simple as that and during his time he put the old fort in the dump and began to act intelligently as though God meant what he said. Oh what a relief it was to me when I discovered the Bentley and dumped the old fort. I was brought up in the usual performance then in the mercy of God and he was the first person ever cared whether I knew Christ or not. He talked to me in language real language you know language they made up as though they were talking to somebody. This was all new to me. Eventually I went to camp with him that summer. Now on the third night of camp union leaders in England at that time he's dead now with Christ Mr. Lawrence Head. We used to call him bubbly. Couldn't say that but he was making the truth clear to kids. Hundreds and hundreds of boys must have come to know Christ. He didn't know he didn't make any appeals. Nobody ever told me and I just talked to the Lord Jesus Christ like that said nobody and that was quarter to nine Saturday night 13th of August 1927 and from that moment I never doubted my salvation. I didn't tell anybody that night didn't tell anybody for three days when one of the officers in camp chatting with me asked me if I'd ever received Christ. Yes Saturday night 13th of August 1927 quarter to nine and I knew. All and bubbly head happened to be walking past at that moment to give him a testament. I began to preach when I was 15 in the open air on the streets of London Park. By the age of 17 I decided that I'd become a doctor and go to Africa as a missionary and seven years passed in this way. During that all my vacations of course were spending Christian camps. I became a leader of course of a crusader Bible class morning and evening in some church or other apart from the Bible class in the afternoon. Windmill of activity. The only thing was at the end of seven years I recognized that in all this not one single soul had ever been converted. Nothing had ever happened. If you'd asked anybody they'd have said yes he's one of the keenest boys in this class he's always there if there's a key night if there's a prayer meeting if there's a Bible study he's there you can count on that and I was a Christian I was a hope. No I was preparing to go as a missionary to Africa and that night I just got down on my knees I can remember it as clear as anything November. I'm exhausted I've done everything I know I've done everything ever told me I ought to do in order to be a successful Christian. All I earned from my own family and my relations was just being peculiar that's all. I didn't care I knew Christ I loved him. I wanted others to know I believe the Bible from cover to cover. I know you don't suddenly become fruitful because you become a missionary. Don't please imagine that whatever your spiritual experience may be here Perth Bible Institute that one day when you leave this place highly qualified with your diploma whatever this may be that automatically at the moment you get in the pulpit blessing will flow it won't. Of course it won't. It'll just be a machine and I knew this. He made it abundantly clear to me that night. You beg for strength. Nobody's business to win souls except mine. I'm the son of man who came to seek and to save that which is lost. That's my business not your business. Only one thing I ask of you is your availability and the moment I have your availability I'm perfectly competent to do my own business perfectly and my own way. I've been waiting for this for seven years you've been too busy trying to do my work your way. Don't challenge your sincerity just your ignorance. This is true all over the world and again and again they'll come and tell the same story. You'll be surprised how many how many hopeless failures there are in the pulpits and the people that you would least suspect because they're charming lovely christians and it's only the charming lovely christian who knows enough to know their failures. It's the bullneck pig-headed self-interest individual who blazed his way through to the end and he'll never know how hopeless and calm and useless he's been. He'll always be up for the show. God can't start with him. But it's the gentle sweet lovely christian who comes to you with tears in their eyes and says I've been on this station for 29 years. A woman came up to me after a meeting I spoke in the english case. Two months time I'm supposed to be going back. She said every day I rise until yesterday I've dreaded the day I went back into that boat and went back to my feet. Because for 30 years I've battled and I've fought for God. For 30 years I've grappled with it and she said last night for the first time grappling with all the problems carrying all the burdens ministering himself through media's people. Thank you. I learned afterwards he'd resigned his posts his I didn't know who he was he was anonymous as far as I was he just remained with others for counsel. He was just a little child. When I told him about the Lord Jesus living his life in him and through him something he'd never never never grasped. And yet he was a man who all his days had been as it were in the the top echelon of evangelical activity and he said broken completely. He's I've lived as a pastor. I went to Minneapolis actually St Paul in the twin cities. I only had three meetings but I noticed a man sitting right from the very first night. He was there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. On the last night he slipped a letter into my hand. I've been talking then I think about God's people's appropriation of the land. And this is what he said. He said I've been a Christian for many years. For 18 years I've been a missionary and evangelist in the past. Many years ago God redeemed my soul. 18 years as an evangelist in the past as a missionary. All those years. Don't challenge his sincerity. He was no hypocrite. He was doing the best he could with them but if I could save any of you from the heartbreak of self-effort. If you'd reckoned upon me as your life you would never have kept on asking and begging for the things you have been begging for. You've asked for wisdom, strength, power, victory. All these things. I don't give you power. I don't give you strength. I don't give you any of these things. I am your life and because I'm your life I am your strength. I am your victory. I am your righteousness. I am your sanctification. These things aren't blessings or experiences. They are what I am. And I saw it. Never heard it from anybody. Never saw it in print. But I said God if this is true I'm going to act on the assumption that it's true. When I get up tomorrow morning though I can look back on nothing but a history of failure I'm going to thank you for your life. I'm going to thank you. Thank you. Never let anybody not one single one to Christ but I'm going to thank you. That it's your business not mine. I take my hands off. I'm finished and if nothing happens that's it. Well I got up the next morning and I did. Almost every day for five weeks people got converted. I didn't even try. They ran after me. Rang me up. Called on me. Just wanting to get saved. The very first meeting I went to it was a Bible class. I suppose they were in the class. But something in my heart said 30 boys were going to get converted today. Well I didn't even know there were 30 boys in the class. When I got there I found about 60 or 70. And for the first time in my life I never dared say anything like that until then. I didn't expect him to ever stay behind. But there I was 18 inches off the earth's surface. The Moody Church in Chicago. You know what you accomplished in seven years. You can only have my life in my program. You can't fit my life into yours. It does not work. There has got to be a total absolute capitulation. This is what I'm going to talk about tonight. You won't be there. I understand. But this is what I'm going to talk about. True commitment. One thing to bear in mind is this. You are not committed to any need. Anybody who stands up and says the need is the call is a lie. However sincere they may be they're not telling the truth. The need has never been the call under any circumstances. You get a lot of it at missionary meetings. They're well-meaning folk but they're misguided and they produce a tremendous amount of truth. The need is never the call. There are a thousand needs. Which of those thousand needs is the call? You go to a missionary convention you're getting 10 different missionaries stand up and they're all dangled letters with their fingers dropping off and they'll all tell you what the need is. Or they'll show you pictures of Korean orphans and say that's the need. That's where you want to be and if you don't go they'll go to hell in their millions. It's a form of spiritual blackmail. You're never committed to a need. You're never committed to a society. You're never committed to a board. You're never committed to a field. You're not even committed to soul winning. God help the man who's committed to soul winning. He'll learn all the devices and he'll become the hacky evangelist who guarantees results. God help the man who's committed to soul winning. Was he committed to man's needs? No. Was he committed to the contemporary situation of the Jewish people? The disciples thought so. When he said that he was going to Jerusalem and there be delivered into the hands of wicked men to be crucified they said no this can't be. This doesn't fit our preconceived notions of your messianic mission. You've got to break the Roman yoke and you've got to make it for people again. And Christ said no sorry. Not committed to you or your generation or any political situation or any ecclesiastical situation. I am no more committed to this generation than any generation. I am committed only and exclusively to my father. Now that's the heart of the matter. Start there. The Lord Jesus in so many words said I am committed to my father and only to my father and to all that to which my father is committed in me but in the supreme confidence that my father who lives in me is completely adequate for all that to which he is committed in me. So all he asks of me is my availability. I am. Jesus Christ committed in you. No strings attached. No preconceived notions. None. In you he's gloriously adequate for all that to which he is committed. So where are all the stresses and the strains? Where are all the burdens and the problems? Whose are they? The one to whom you're committed. For all that to which he's committed in you there is no other basis. And that is the only committal on any other basis. Don't you see that once you face this issue every other issue becomes superfluous? Once you've come to the place where you are prepared to be committed to Christ and to all that to which Christ is committed in you I come on to you. You prepare to go to the mission field. You say that's an silly question. That has ceased to be an issue with me. I am committed to Christ and to all that to which Christ is committed in me. And if Jesus Christ happens to be committed in me to go to Bolivia or South America or Timbuktu that's where I go. This issue is already faced. I never have to face that issue again. Please don't ask stupid questions. It's childish. And yet how many people have been invited to commit themselves to the mission field who've never yet committed themselves to Christ? To be successful you must get the folk to stand. And everybody goes away rubbing their hands. Isn't that something? Look at all those lovely young men and women. That beautiful young life. All committed to the mission field. Oh yes. But let's be realistic. It's been statistically worked out on an analytical basis. Perfectly corroborated. We get there. And of those three almost 50% come home after the first term and stay home. You say well mine really? So wouldn't it really if you're honest with God and not particularly interested in what men think. Wouldn't it have been really far better just to counsel with half a dozen and introduce them to the kind of principle. I say are you quite sure about the future? You say no I'm not sure about the future. But I happen to be committed to somebody who is. Don't you plead in bed with God to guide you? No. I'm committed to the one submitted in me and I'm supremely confident that he's and he says that if I acknowledge him in all my ways in other words commit myself to him and to him alone and to all that to which he is committed he will direct my path. So what am I going to ask about? The only thing I've got to watch is my commitment. The only thing I've got to be certain of is that at any given moment I am spiritually committed to Christ and to all that to which Christ is committed in me and he says under those circumstances he will direct my path. Oh but how do you know? Well I say that isn't my business. That's his business. He says he'll direct my path. Oh but supposing the devil comes along puts him mine. Well Jesus Christ happens to when he gave me his solemn word that if I would yield myself wholly to him not lean to my own understanding but trust him with all my heart and acknowledge him in all my ways he happened to have taken all these factors into account when he intelligently said to me he will direct my paths and I happen to be acting on the assumption that what he says is true. And so I'm not suffering from a nervous breakdown. I'm relaxed. Are you? Tell me this. Does Jesus Christ live in you? How many days at a time? One. Are you waiting for God's will for your life? Then in the meantime who are you committed to? If God has no will for your life right now today are you in the fridge? You're committed to him for today and for all that to which he is committed in you for today. Doesn't he have any program for today? Well did you thank him when you got up this morning for all that he is committed in you for today? Whose is the day then if you've done that? His. He is. At the end of the day though you may see nothing and be conscious of nothing you simply say Lord Jesus thank you so much I committed this day to you for all that to which you're committed in me. Whether it be studying or maybe just a letter a note I've written or maybe a phone call I've answered or maybe just a casual smile of which I was totally unaware as I walked through the room. Thank you so much and when today and when the day after tomorrow comes what will it be? Today. So how are you going to live your life? Just one day at a time. That's what God said we haven't got very far with Joshua but Moses my servant is dead now therefore arise go with us Jordan thou and all this people unto the land which I do give them even unto the children of Israel there shall not verse 5 any man be able to stand before thee all the months of their life is that what it says? No just the days of their life. One step at a time verse 3 one day at a time verse 5 that's all God asked you to live though and do you know what will happen? Not to me. How angry did I get here? Who worked it all out? And you'll suddenly realize I got here just one day at a time. Just allowing the Lord Jesus to live one day through me at a time in the sheer confidence that he was perfectly competent but that he that is spiritual hath a mind of Christ and when you give your mind your emotions and your will over to the Holy Spirit he is the one who collects the things of which you kept yourself intelligently alert and he quickens these things along the conclusions that the Lord Jesus wants to draw by his spirit in your mind in other words the spirit-filled life is the most natural poised relaxed life in the world always has misgivings about the person who goes around with the people who talk always about the will of God are those who know least about the will of God all you've got to do in the sneakity of your own heart is to establish your relationship with Jesus Christ and get on with your business that's all Jesus Christ said I do only always those things that please him and when you are prepared to do only always those things that please him you know what you can do please yourself when to please yourself you can just do as you please you're going to leave the university and you're not going to be missionary not even going to Africa you're going to leave the university straight away and go up and down the British Isles I was 19 years of age and you're going to tell people I'm alive I'm not dead now off you go but remember if you decide to go on being a doctor and the mission and go to Africa that's precisely so how do you respond to this stand on your feet raise your hand doubt it you don't respond with visions which is you're going to get and say Lord Jesus I I'm going to jettison just repudiate everything now except you but what a wonderful thing I'm now committed to you and to all that to which you're committed to me and you know exactly that to which you're committed and furthermore with all the illimitable supplies of deity you're adequate and I'm going to trust you to keep me in this relationship to yourself and make it increasingly easy for you to be you and for you to behave through me and I thank you for the future I'm not going to ask for your blessing for the future it's inevitable now because you always are about your own business I don't have to ask you to bless your own work it's going to be your work through me I don't have to ask a blessing for that if I'm in any given place at any given moment because of the will of God well it'd be stupid to ask God to bless me there we're saying God you put me here by your will please make it worthwhile well that would be stupid Lord if you put me here by your will you're going to bless me so I thank you now in advance for the blessing that's inevitable because you're going to lead me and put me in the place where you want me thank you for your victory thank you for your strength thank you for the blessing I may or may not be conscious of it and I shan't be the slightest bit interested you'll let me know all I can know because you'll love me to enjoy with you the sheer thrill and joy of being a blessing but if I can't see it or you're afraid that if you showed it to me I'd get wrong conclusions about it at this stage that's okay by me it's a Christian life simple isn't it every morning you get up you say thank you and every night you go to bed you say thank you and the first thing you'll run into which we don't have to talk about is language difficulties in your prayer meeting because you'll wonder what to do with the superfluous derby age don't worry about that don't even worry about language you're not committed even to language as long as your heart is right