In this sermon, the preacher shares a story about two missionary children who remained joyful and carefree during a storm on a boat while others were in despair. The preacher emphasizes the importance of having Jesus as our pilot in life and experiencing the abundant life He offers. The sermon encourages believers to keep their minds stayed on Jesus and to continually pray without ceasing, as it is necessary for our spiritual life. The preacher also highlights the significance of living out our faith in between church meetings and practicing the presence of God in our daily lives.

I was trying to sing the Ritney Grove Spiritual Walter and Bert the other day and I couldn't remember but a few words, but those words were significant. They didn't know it. Oh, Miss Hannah, ain't you going out tonight? The mockingbird am singing and the moon am shining bright. And the vendor said, put on your Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. Well, that's what we do. Our Sunday go-to-meeting clothes and our Sunday go-to-meeting face. But you know, the thing that really counts is what we do between meetings. That's the place where we meet God. You ever found that out? That is not near as important to make a holy face in meetings and then to look like an old hag outside of it. Oh, no one. In between meetings to practice the present, oh, that's the wonderful thing. That's where Jesus lives out his life within us and that's how he taught his disciples. And I'm so thankful for the simplicity, the utter childlike simplicity of this godliness. Godliness is profitable for all things. And oh, God, thou has searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. What are your thoughts? When you get up in the morning, when you go to breakfast table, when you go to your work, when you meet with trials and difficulties, God watches, God knows, God sees. Thou knowest my thoughts afar off. Why should God be interested in knowing my thoughts? Shouldn't I be interested then to adjust my thoughts? Why, that's praying without teaching. Nothing else is. Oh, my Lord, keep my mind stayed on Jesus all the time. It is a wonderful job, a very wonderful job, but how long does it take until we discover it? We think we're doing God a favor when we practice his presence for two hours a meeting. Well, we are, of course. God's doing us a favor. He's setting us in. He's adjusting us. He's helping us. He's anointing us with fresh oil. He puts the armor of God upon us. He makes us able to go forth to warfare. But what would you think of a soldier who struts around during the parade, and then when the real fighting starts, he runs and goes to pick strawberries? Well, that's the kind of soldiers we are very often, isn't it? Yes, as long as the parade lasts and we sing, redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, why, we, we have quite a good time. We're quite spiritual, but to be anointed, to have a wonderful blessing when everything goes wrong. Yes, when everything goes wrong. That's the proof of real Christianity, when everything goes wrong. The man worthwhile is the man with a smile when everything goes dead wrong. Oh, God, what hypocrites we are. What, what white as sepulchers. Really, put on your Sunday-going-to-meeting clothes. We met some in Germany, some young ministers who came under conviction when they came to us. They'd been preaching all around the district there, and they told us later how they used to live careless lives, and then when they came to the church where they had to hold meetings, they'd make a joke of it. They'd go like this and say, now, put on your holy faith. Then they'd go into the church to preach, but they found out what hypocrites they were. Yes, we're like that, unless, unless we live the life at home and in between meetings. Oh, Jesus, what a discovery to make that Jesus is my life. Jesus is my life. If he isn't my life, then I don't possess him, then I don't have him. If he's only mine in meeting, then I'm one of those white as sepulchers. But no, thank God, he is my life. He came that he might, that we might have life, life, life. You go to the table three times a day, perhaps, and in between to the ice cream parlor, you get strength. Well, sure, you live while you're sitting at the table eating a good meal, but you don't stop living when you get up from the table. That's what you're eating for. That's what we go to meeting for, to prepare for in between meetings. I think it would be a wonderful lesson if we reiterated our understanding of it this morning, if we wrote it in our hearts again and joyfully and gladly said, oh my Lord, I'm so glad. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising, and we keep our mind stayed on Jesus all the time. You know, after all, the Lord Jesus is our Redeemer. He has come to redeem us from the corruption that is in the world through love. By giving us his own life, by living out his own life within us, here's the new creation, and only God can create it. Only Jesus can do it. How strange that we think we can sanctify ourselves, that we can choose how to please God and how to live before God. We're choosers. We choose our prayer time. We choose our Bible study time, when it really ought to be God working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. How will I ever expect to be like Jesus unless I really get down, as Brother Gardner says, get close to Jesus so that he will have his way. All his way is life. I am the way. I am the way. The Lord says we have not found the way unless we have found him to be the way. Oh, it eliminates all my own plans and all my own wishes and decisions and desires and all my own opinions, all my own knowledge of what God is going to do or should do. It eliminates all that. It takes out of his fullness the kingdom of God, the reign of Christ, moment by moment, moment by moment, I'm kept in his love. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. Oh, how I need life. Why, he says in that wonderful 139th Psalm, I thank thee, Lord. We ought to give thanks all the time. I thank thee because I'm fearfully made. How fearfully? Somebody asked me, how do the oranges taste in Palestine? Well, they taste like oranges. They're a little flat to my taste, but I ate some there and I had a wonderful blessing out of eating an orange. You know how I was thirsty? And I took an orange and put it in my mouth or part of it and started to eat it and started to chew it. And I thought, now, isn't it a wonderful thing? Now, I have nothing to do with the assimilation of this orange and turning it into blood and tissues and strength. And God does all that. God has supplied my mouth with saliva. You ever thank God for your saliva? Well, really, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful solution. Marvelous. It's the best hair tonic. If you ever do this, really. Well, we ought to be thankful. I mean it. I'm trying to get something under your skin. And as soon as I put that orange piece in my mouth, why, the saliva went to work and dissolved the sugar. And the whole process was done by God himself. Scientists will say nature, nature nothing. It's God that does it. God that takes care of your skin, your freckles, of the hair on your head, of every part of your body, functions so marvelously that I'm not surprised that David says, I thank you, Lord, because I am fearfully made. It's right to think about those things. Why tell you it's wrong not to think about them? And if the body is so marvelously composed that no scientist, no human mind can comprehend the marvel of it. When you think of the brain, for instance, that incorporates a billion organization institutions, as wonderful as the Rockefeller Institution. Every one of those billions. And they all function together in a most marvelous way. You look, you say you see something. You don't see it at all. There is a million thoughts of God that take the light rays and put them through the lens of your eye. That lens alone is a perfect marvel of God's creation. My, just to think of those things, just to contemplate these things, make your heart leap within you. And if the body is so marvelously constituted, what shall we say of the soul? This soul of mine. O Mount High, Mount High, O soul of mine, rise up and soar away. This soul that takes in the whole universe, takes in heaven and eternity. This wonderful creation that no one can fathom. You've got it. I have it. God gave it to us. God keeps it going. God every moment keeps it aligned. But what shall we say of the spirit that has become united to God through the power of the Holy Ghost? What shall we say of this outpouring of the Spirit of God? Moment by moment, what marvels God is performing. Shall I not pay attention to him? Shall I not pray without ceasing? It isn't something I can choose or drop at will. It's a necessity of life, divine life. If I don't pray without ceasing, I cut myself off from this life. Giving stream of God. Why in every meeting God opens the heavens and he pours out special blessings. And as I said on my trip, every step of the way in the plane and on the earth and in the ground and every place, I'm surrounded by that marvelous presence of God. Oh how wonderful it was. And two weeks ago when I was so sick that I really thought of dying one night, I looked at my watch and I said, somebody's praying for me at home. And with that thought of faith came a marvelous healing. Beloved, praying without ceasing is breathing without ceasing, is the privilege of every newly born child of God. And if I confine that to meeting, to prayer meetings, I cut myself off from the fountain of living water. God has been keeping this lesson before us for 30 years. It'll be 30 years this month that our meeting started on Patson Avenue for 30 years. The Holy Ghost has incessantly kept this matter before our attention in many different ways. And thank God there are many that have learned the lesson. And now I know something's going on in some minds. I'll tell you something. Some of you think you've done very ill and you have and so have I, but God has done very, very well. You know that there are many people in this assembly who pray without ceasing. Maybe they don't know they're doing it, but they're doing it just the same. God's doing it for them. When your heart is always warm and your thoughts instinctively turn to Jesus. When you wake up at night, instinctively you think of Jesus. Anytime while you stop working for a moment, instinctively you think of Jesus. Why, that's the proof of the fact that the light is burning, the candlestick is burning, the fire of God is burning in your heart. And one great mistake I've made in my life is to depreciate what God has done for me. I wish today I had appreciated, I wish I had known the great wonders that God has wrought for me. God does not want us to depreciate what He has done. He wants us to have great faith. The trouble is we try to have faith in ourselves or we have faith in our faith. But Jesus does not want us to have faith in our faith, but He wants us to have faith in Him. And that's why He says, let not your heart be troubled. Right now at this moment, don't let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. I'm here, it's okay. Is the storm tossing around your bark? Why, that's the time to have faith because Christ is there. Oh, ye of little faith. After He had commanded the storm to cease and there was a great calm, they didn't have to believe anymore. But while that boat was going up and down and Peter was hanging on to the mast, that was the time to recognize why Jesus is here. Hallelujah. Okay. Like the two little missionary children, when everybody was barking and vomiting and crying and thinking they were going to drown because of the storm. These two little children had a wonderful time. The deck was polished, of course. And when the boat went up on this side, they, they sat down and slid down the other side. And then the boat went up by itself. And then they turned around and slid down. And they were frolicking and having a good time until one of the despairing dying passengers got hold of them. Children, it's time to pray. Don't you know that we're dying? The boat's going up. Ha, little Fritz said, this boat, my pa's the pilot. Who is your pilot? Oh, hallelujah. Beloved, we have reason to distrust ourselves, but we have a thousand-fold reason to trust our pilot. Hallelujah. We will meet storms and that's the time to be spiritual. And that's the time not to let your heart be troubled. That's the time to put your confidence in him. I've learned to say this when everything seems to go wrong. Jesus, this is the time I trust you all the more. It's a wonderful experience and you'll find that he's never failed. He'll never come back and say, well, I wasn't able for that situation then. Oh, let us learn our lesson. We might as well learn them now. We might as well. We have a sister in this assembly who didn't eat wisdom by the shovel full, but she has learned one lesson. Aunt Rose told her one day, you know, where too agree is touching anything, it shall be done for me. Since then, she comes with every little thing to Aunt Rose and says, come on, let's agree. We might as well take advantage of it. Well, why not? Hello. I am with you always my father. I know you want us to be spiritual in between meetings. And so if you think I'm not spiritual now, why come around?