Attitude – Attitude lays the foundation for the direction of our lives like plotting our course on a map. It cannot help but spume from our lips as James says (3-4) about our tongue, when he likened it as a ship's rudder that directs the ships, "though they are driven by strong winds."  We are always moving, like little wind-up toys that pace about the floor. Even if they are heading for the edge of the table, they do not slow down; Nor are we capable of putting ourselves on hold while we see the course of our lives heading for a cliff. We can only change direction as we crank out the products of our attitudes. We have power over our attitudes, but not over the effects they produce.

Believer owns everything -- The best proof of receiving from God His entire creation as an inheritance through faith is to merely assess what has been cursed through the fall of Adam, for God cursed Adam and everything that belonged to him. The list goes on to include the entire universe! It is a fact that the universe can exist for only so long until it finally burns out. In other words, there is a finite amount of fuel for the stars to burn until they simply die.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit -- God has always saved a remnant from the world to be His worshipers from each generation. However, we have not been given the wisdom or the authority to discriminate between the children of God and the children of the devil. The Catholic Church thought they could tell who was of the devil and martyred millions of innocent people during the dark ages. Conversely, the apostle Paul was someone who appeared to have a reprobate mind, but in fact he didn’t. There was a time earlier in his life when he seized Christians and delivered them to the authorities. One day as he was on his way to arrest a group of Christians and take them to prison, he saw a bright light and heard a voice that completely changed his life. After that, he became a Christian and eventually became the lead apostle of the Christian church.

So what was the difference between Paul (who was called Saul in his murderous days) and the profile of a psychopath? Saul should have known better, but he committed the terrible atrocities against the saints with a clear conscience, thinking he was serving the God of the Old Testament by stamping out factions. The Bible talks about sins committed in ignorance that do not have the effect of hardening your heart, as opposed to sins committed in full knowledge, such as with the Pharisees who sentenced Jesus to death, knowing He was the Son of God. This is something Paul would not have done. John 12:37 says, “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him” NIV. It is not easy to identify a psychopath; for this reason Jesus told His parable of the tares among the wheat saying, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest” (Matt 13:30).

Here is another example of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, if you witness an actual miracle such as a healing, and you don't believe it was from God (you thought the healing was a hoax), that is forgivable. However, if you knew the person your whole life, and that person has always been crippled, and you still will not believe the healing was a miracle, that kind of unbelief leads to a hardened heart from which you will eventually be unable to repent, because in your heart you know the truth. The reprobate mind is a mental state in which the person is no long able to tell the difference between truth and error. People can curse Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit will convict them of sin, but who will convict them of cursing the Holy Spirit? He is the persuader of truth; those who reject Him reject their only hope of knowing the truth. God cannot forgive them after they have rejected the Spirit of faith. After Paul’s vision along the road to Damascus he could have discounted his experience and blew it off as nothing more than a bit of porridge souring the stomach (Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens). This slight change in conclusion would have been the first step in developing the reprobate mind. (For further understanding about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and the reprobate mind read Jude 4-13.)

Catholicism -- The priests are required to bless the bread and the wine, which according to their phony doctrine transforms them into the literal flesh and blood of Christ. Doctrines like these made the congregation dependent on the priests as the central figure of the people’s. At the end of the age this same doctrine will condemn the Catholic Church when they stand before God and attempt to deny their involvement in murdering the saints. 

Circumcision/Baptism -- Both Circumcision and Baptism are symbols that essentially represent putting away our old sinful way of life that we practiced before our spiritual enlightenment. The Bible talks about the sign of circumcision. The fact that circumcision is a sign says that circumcision has no power to make you holy or more acceptable to God, any more than baptism does, because it too is merely a sign representing the same thing, only in New Testament terms. You will notice that in Circumcision, after you have finished the procedure of removing the foreskin, which represents removing the deeds of the flesh from your way of life, the ceremony is over. However, in Baptism, after being submersed under water, which represents death to the sins of the creature, you come back from the old man's watery grave to a new person who was made in the image of God. This is the difference between Circumcision and Baptism, hence the advantage of the new covenant over the old. 

Conscience -- Serving your conscience is equivalent to serving Christ.

Contentment -- Contentment is one of the greatest earthly gifts anyone could ever receive from God, perhaps greater than the gifts of the Spirit, since they depend on your devotion to Christ, which contentment guarantees. With contentment you won't become materialistic, full of want, but you will have more time to spend on things that you believe in, your relationship with Christ. Contentment has eyes that see better than the lustful eyes of materialism, which believes that things have the power to make you happy. Contentment instead knows that the inner being is most important, that things can't make us happy, and that our exterior will some day peel off, leaving the inner core of our spirit that will live on forever with God. Preparing to live with God is the direction everyone should pursue if they intend to enter eternity with God.

Darkness -- The university professor challenged his students with this question. "Did God create  everything that exists?" A student bravely  replied, "Yes, he did!" "God created  everything?" The professor asked. "Yes sir", the  student replied. The professor  answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since  evil exists, and according to the principal that our works  define who we are, then God is evil".  The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor, quite pleased with  himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more  that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student  raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?" "Of course", replied  the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?" "What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you ever been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question. The young man  replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of  physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit  energy. Absolute zero (-460° F) is the total absence of heat; all  matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that  temperature.  Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we  feel if we have no heat." The student  continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor  responded, "Of course it does." The student replied,  "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light.  Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white  light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each  color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can  break into a world of darkness and illuminate it.  How can you know how  dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light  present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to  describe what happens when there is no light present." Finally the young  man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the  professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see  it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil." To this the student  replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does

Distorting Scripture -- I have heard countless people say they don't read the Bible because they don't understand it; it seems to contradict itself, and they don't know which side to believe. If we start picking sides, we won't understand either one, and we will inevitably pick the side that most appeals to our flesh. It will lead to either licentiousness, turning into a spiritual corn flake, or legalism, trying to become spiritual in the flesh. We would see that the Bible actually does not contradict itself if we studied it enough to show ourselves approved.

The elect – Many have attempted to understand the concept of predestination and have come to the flawed conclusion that their future is written in stone. On the one hand, some think they don’t need to do anything because they have been predestined to an inevitable path through life; this is the height of trash theology! Our disobedience flies in the face of God; it did in the old covenant and it does today. What some fail to see is that paths are made for our feet, and the word “walk” used mostly by Paul implies human effort coupled with grace. The human side of that equation is anything but written in stone. It is totally up to us whether we will obey God even with the grace of God; so then, how are we predestined? On the other hand, predestination is very much a reality, but it is not our reality; it is the Father’s reality. When Paul speaks of predestination, he is speaking about the Father, who knows we will obey Him, but we don’t know that until we actually obey Him. God can take eternity past and eternity future in mind and treat them alike, thinking of every detail simultaneously, even the things that have not yet happened! He thinks exclusively through foreknowledge; that is where He lives in His mind; unfortunately, it has no direct application to us, so being predestined does us no good in terms of fulfilling His purpose and calling in our lives. The only reason the Bible addresses the subject of predestination is to cite the greatness of God, so we understand that we are dealing with a God who knows all things and can do all things. In this way predestination increases our faith. The only way we can become predestined from all eternity to do His will is to determine in our own hearts to obey Him and to actually do it, but if we just sit around claiming predestination as though that word has the power to cause our obedience, and somehow the will of God will be accomplished through us, this is simply foolishness, yet some actually believe this low-level theology, being indoctrinated into the strict Calvinist view. John Calvin (1509-1648) taught irresistible grace as something we could not avoid if we were chosen for glory and could not attain if we were not chosen. This doctrine erroneously combines God’s predestination with man’s will, which is like pounding a square peg into a round hole; they simply do not fit together. Paul taught in Eph 1-11 that God has a purpose for each of us, “who works all things after the counsel of his will.” So if God is working to fulfill His predetermined plan, how much more should we be working to fulfill His purpose in our lives?

Encouragement -- Jd-20 says, "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith ... " Encouragement is a very necessary characteristic that must be present in the church regarding how people relate to each other in terms of spiritual fellowship. God has given us the awesome opportunity and responsibility of building the temple of God (we being the bricks of the temple). Encouragement is the primary means in which the task of placing each brick in its proper place within the temple is realized and then mortaring them in place through the word of God and prayer. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the church does a lot of just the opposite (division) as orchestrated by the devil who has the most to gain from keeping us off balance. If the church ever stood on its feet and grew in the likeness of her master, Satan’s rule would come to an abrupt end.

Endurance -- Here is an illustration of endurance. Once there were two row-boats with a rower in each one. Each boat had a hole in the bottom, but the holes were different sizes. God commanded them to stay afloat by bailing out the water. The one with the smaller hole frequently took rests, leisurely going back to bailing out his boat, while the other with the bigger hole could not keep up with the inflow of water, and eventually sank. There in his helpless circumstances he persevered in his futile attempts to bail out the boat, complying with the word that God had told him. Finally, God miraculously raised the boat from the bottom of the lake and plugged the hole, while the rower removed every drop of water so that the boat was bone dry. The other  rower, however, fell asleep and awoke with water up to his arm pits. He frantically scooped at the water, but didn't have time or strength to bail out his boat, so it sank. Endurance never quits or considers the circumstances; it only remembers what God said and does it, having confidence in His character, that He who promised is faithful. The hole in the boat represents our weakness. Some are weaker than others, which makes it harder to do the will of God; but it doesn't take strength to love God and our fellow man; it takes endurance. Endurance invokes the power of God to help us step beyond ourselves, passed our human nature and weaknesses into a supernatural ability to live for God.

 Eternal security -- Mostly embraced by the Evangelical community, this doctrine has a chance in hell of being right, but not in the kingdom of heaven. For starters, what about the person who decides that he no longer wants to spend the rest of eternity in heaven with a lot of born again believers who can’t think of anything better to do but stand around and worship Jesus, and decides he would be happier in hell with his friends? Would God keep him against his will? God never does anything against our will. Eternal security is a hot topic in Christendom; many believe you cannot lose your salvation even if you wanted to. That sounds like God holds us in bondage to our salvation. Can you imagine God saying, 'Too late you already made your decision; you are mine now and there is nothing you can do about it!' That's absurd. There are many Scriptures to support eternal security, but there are sadly more verses to support the opposite. This whole subject should not alarm the person who intends to live for Jesus to the very end, but I understand the person who has reservations about living for God wanting a doctrine that furnishes him with the freedom to live however he wants without consequence. I don't believe you can lose your salvation with a good heart. God is not a heavy handed tyrant, waiting to wield His mallet at the first sign of weakness, but He did make man with a will, and man can do whatever he wants with it. If he no longer wants to be saved, God will accommodate him, but once he has made his decision, there is no turning back. You cannot be born again, again. 

Evolution (Defaming God) – Back in the 1950s a man named Alan Turing, an embryologist, designed a computer program that could play checkers. He calculated the possible moves rivaled a number with 40 zeros in it! So, he realized he needed to write a program that could select game winning moves among the vast number of possibilities, but teaching a computer how to play checkers is not easy. He tried a variety of approaches, and settled on a strategy that after tinkering with it a few years eventually beat some of the best checker players of all time. He came to the conclusion that he needed to design a program that could write itself, supplying it with the game’s objective and a set of rules to follow and then integrated a number of feedback loops into it, so the program could evaluate its own progress and learn from its mistakes. The more the program played, the more it tweaked its strategy and improved its game. In his book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett used this story as an analogy that non-living matter discovered life on its own and then taught itself how to survive and flourish (Dennett, pp. 208-212). In stark contrast to Dennett’s idea, the checkers program needed a god to create it (Alan Turing), but Dennett didn’t use Mr. Turing in his analogy, because Dennett is an atheist. The checkers program especially needed Mr. Turing to give it the rules of composing a strategy, so it could establish its own algorithm from millions of possible moves. When you include Mr. Turing’s input, the story works very well as an analogy for creation, but without him the story doesn’t make any sense. However, one thing does make sense about Dennett’s analogy, God designed life in very much the same way that Mr. Turing designed his checkers program: He designed it to take care of itself.

Freedom -- Def: The absence of restraints on our ability to think and act.

Gentiles Included – A massive paradigm shift occurred in Peter's mind and throughout all Jewish Christendom, inciting those Jews who did not believe to view Christianity with all the more distain, for Jewish Christians were teaching doctrines contrary to the traditions of Judaism. Most people today being required to make such a radical change in their belief system simply would not have done it. Had today’s Christianity been in charge during the period of the early church, the gentiles would have had no part in the grace of God, not even after God clearly revealed His will to them. However, Peter had the presence of mind to submit to the Holy Spirit when the needle was pointing on E at his wisdom and knowledge and when every fiber of his being was crying “NO!” Back then the church was open to the Holy Spirit, but today people consider it a risky endeavor to follow His lead. Christians don’t live this way anymore; they do only what they want. We have diluted the truth with our man-made religious doctrines that have substituted the truth, just like Israel did to their faith and customs handed down to them by Moses. This is the work of Satan! What Peter was doing was considered the height of Jewish blasphemy, as seen from the reaction of his fellow Jews in verse two; they took issue with him for fellowshipping with the gentiles. They considered Peter to have committed a heinous crime against their Jewish heritage. What made the old and new covenants seem so incongruent was the fact that many Jewish customs slowly veered into falsehood over the centuries, including this restriction on speaking with the gentiles. Their religion had evolved to nothing more than the traditions of men; however, God did in fact restrict them from intermarrying with the gentiles and worshipping their gods. They weren’t serving God anymore, not in their hearts and not in their beliefs. Peter needed help believing that this was no longer an acceptable facet of his culture. The concept that God was introducing to Peter was so foreign, so contrary to his Jewish heritage, he simply couldn’t have believed it without help. The change of heart and mind that God was commanding the whole Jewish church was big enough that the Holy Spirit was unable to reveal it to Peter without setting up a special meeting with a gentile family as a training exercise.

Hell – There are some who believe there is no actual hell, that people throughout the centuries have tampered with the Scriptures and injected their own ideas to instill fear in the people for the purpose of enslaving them. My biggest problem with their claim is that they would have needed to marble their deception throughout the Scriptures, which would have been a monumental task. Those who believe this think that people who don’t make it to heaven are destroyed; they simply blink out of existence. They use verses like the following to support their claim: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” Jn 3-36. It says they will not see life. If you don’t see life, then you are not alive, and if you are not alive then you must not exist. They say God destroyed the person’s existence. However, hell is a place where life does not exist as they say, yet they are alive. They just are not alive in the way we know it. They are the living dead. There are many movies based on that concept. Hollywood’s depiction of the living dead may not be the same as the biblical account, but it is similar. There is a hell and those who go there have already died, and so they have been disconnected from their bodies, and now they are wondering spirits futilely looking for a way out of their darkness.

Hiding place – There are two ways to build the temple (both of which are required in order for the temple to be built at all) these are: with hands and without hands. Building the temple with hands lays the foundation for the spiritual temple to be built without hands. Building the temple with hands is a matter of laying down the foundation of knowledge and obedience, while building the temple without hands is a matter of constructing the actual structure from faith. Knowledge and obedience are building materials that we can easily relate to in the everyday world, whereas faith is a purely spiritual thing, which yields a purely spiritual product, capable of assembling a spiritual structure made of a substance that is not of this world.

Kingdom Hidden From The World -- After rebuking the cities in the passage above, He gives rights to wisdom only to His children who believe in Him, and thus to the Kingdom of God. I have heard unbelievers complain that Christianity is too much like an alternate reality that only those with faith in Christ can comprehend, and that the rest of the world lies in the darkness about it. That description is accurate! The world hates that it can't get its grimy hands on the elusive kingdom of God (they can't see it or even fathom it), any more than than they could control Jesus when He was here in the flesh. To the people who use brute force to obtain what they want, bully people around, and operate in the all-too-common me-first mode, they don't have a chance of ever knowing about God's alternate world that is devoid of pain and sorrow. If it bothers them so much that they cannot have the kingdom, then they can drop their worldly paradigm of reality and believe in Jesus.

Ministering to God -- Although this topic is found in the chapter "Responsibility", it is an Old Testament priesthood term and would fit just as well in the Temple of God chapter. It makes perfect sense that we have a responsibility to minister to God, but it makes just as much sense that our ministry to Him is a perfect description of our priestly duties. Going back to the Old Testament, the priests would perform all the designated rituals within the temple in keeping with old covenant laws and regulations. Although the days are over for sacrificing heifers, doves and goats, the times when it was done was used as a representation of the kind of new covenant ministry that we now enjoy through the knowledge of the word of God and through prayer.

Priorities -- We have all heard this colloquialism: Which came first the chicken or the egg? As common and simple this expression, it is no less one of the most critical questions you will ever ask, and if you can answer it correctly, you can solve some of the greatest mysteries. Which ever came first will determine whether the chicken is dependent on the egg for its existence or whether the egg is dependent on the chicken. Here is another similar figure of speech: Don't put the cart before the horse. In terms of sequence (or priorities) one instance has the horse pulling the cart and the other has it pushing the cart (with what, its nose)? One way is possible and the other is not. Physicians and physicists struggle with this problem repeatedly in their efforts to unravel the mysteries of the human body and the universe. They often get their priorities backward and it blinds them to the facts that lay before them. Getting our priorities straight is like turning the tumbler on a combination lock; if you know the right numbers but not the sequence the lock will not open, but if you know the sequence too, you will have success and door will begin to open for you.

Reprobate -- Many people who seek God for eternal life will not be bad sinners like Paul, guaranteeing enough grace and mercy from God that we have not crossed a line (1Tim 1,13-16), but there are other people who have crossed that line who were not terrible sinners like other people, so crossing the line really has nothing to do with the amount of sin we have committed. The line is defined as blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin. Paul also referred to this as adopting the reprobate mind after a person has blasphemed the Holy Spirit so many times that eventually his heart hardens into stone. So long as we don’t have a reprobate mind, salvation is still on the table, regardless how many sins we have committed. We can even blaspheme (disobey) the Holy Spirit as Christians. If the Holy Spirit speaks to us and we refuse to do what He says, knowing it is God, but lying to ourselves, that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. We can do that and still get saved, but every time we do, our heart grows harder, and the likelihood of getting saved wanes closer to the line that only God knows, marking the point of no return. Crossing it, they can no longer be saved. They may not have broken the law anymore than anybody else, yet they forsook the voice that God who spoke in their hearts and thus developed the reprobate mind by constantly disobeying the Holy Spirit. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness” (Heb 3-7,8). Remember Israel. They are an example of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and look what happened to them. To this day they still can’t believe in Jesus. God will not strive with us forever (Psalm 103-9), but will wait us out and lead our children to the promise land. No one with a reprobate mind will see the Kingdom of Heaven.

Responsibility -- This chapter has its dry moments by the nature of the topic and material that it addresses, but it is no less important. Its greatest contribution and theme attempts to answer the age-old question we have asked throughout the centuries that the jailer, just prior to his conversion, asked Paul in Act 16-30: "What must I do...?" Whereas the jailer asked this question before he was saved, this chapter is devoted to explaining what we must do after we’re saved.

Repent -- There are many subtleties in the Bible that howl at us with resonate strength and we still do not see it. One such topic is repentance. Repentance actually has a purpose. If you recall it was John the Baptist's message. Not coincidentally, repentance is meant to prepare us for the ministry of Christ, just as John's ministry intended to do. Although it was Christ Himself preaching the message of repentance in this verse, He was preparing them for the ministry of the Spirit, both for when He came to their town and more importantly after He ascended to heaven to send the Spirit in His place. Therefore, repentance is how we prepare to receive the ministry of the Spirit. Without repentance the sin that is active in our lives will blind us to the things of the Spirit. 

Spirit and the Word -- This topic puts over 100 verses together, having one thing in common, they all refer to the combination of God's Spirit and His Word in one way or another. The significance of observing so many instances of the Spirit and the Word in the New Testament is that in each case it refers to the power of God. Thus the context surrounding each of these verses endeavors to instruct us about obtaining and walking in the power of God. The significance of knowing this is recognizing the much higher priority that God has placed on this topic than we initially realized. I challenge you to ponder this topic and look for the instances of the Spirit and the Word in each verse; it could change the way you interpret the Scriptures or perhaps even change your life! 

Thy kingdom come — Key verse for the chapter. Not only is this the key verse for the entire chapter, I believe this verse is key to understanding Jesus’ mission, and is therefore the key to the entire Bible!

Trinity – Identical twins have identical genes, yet are less identical than the members of the trinity. twins over the course of a lifetime deviate from each other as they strive to be unique. They are like a magnet broken in half, thus the same magnet but with similar poles repelling each other. In contrast, the members of the trinity have been attracted to each other over the course of eternity and have converged on a singularity of personal traits, though each member holds a separate office within the godhead. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are so much alike they are each other! What is more amazing is that this is also the case between the Father and the Son. Jesus Christ is so much like His Father, the book of Hebrews was able to say that He is the exact representation of His nature (Heb 1-3). Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also unlike each other in many ways, the most obvious being that one is a man and the other is a Spirit. Therefore, if there is such disparity in composition between the son and the Spirit, then there is equal disparity between the Father and Son, suggesting that we have no idea about the actual composition of the Father. We know the human form of Jesus, but we don’t know anything about the spirit realm; we only know there is such a thing, much less do we know the composition of the Father. He is not physical like Jesus and He is not spiritual like the Holy Spirit, but something altogether different from both. Jesus said, “God is Spirit” in Jn 4-24, suggesting that if has a spiritual form, then He must also have a physical form, and probably one other form, all three amalgamated into one that we cannot even postulate until we get to heaven and see Him face to face, and even then we may not comprehend his form, though all things will eventually be revealed throughout eternity. The Father exists in a form that most ardently represents God. When we think of God, we only know Him through Christ, but what actual form He takes is an abrupt mystery. This will be an interesting revelation when we get to heaven. The Bible says that we will have spiritual bodies; that is two of the three forms of God. We don’t know if we will ever take on a form in the likeness of the Father. There is one other thing we can extrapolate from the Bible in our limited knowledge of God, people in hell will be happier to live there than to live in heaven in the direct presence of the Father, for He will evoke more fear in the ungodly than all the demons of hell.

Unity —  

Witchcraft -- The definition of witchcraft: A means for extracting information or guidance or seeking favor from a pagan god.

Zeal without knowledge -- "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" Gal 3,1-3 says, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" The Galatians got ahead of themselves in the their zeal for the things of God. They went beyond their anointing by simulating it through the flesh, because of their lack of knowledge in the word. They wanted to walk in the spirit, but they didn't know how and couldn't admit that they were limited in knowledge, so they went on walking in their zeal without direction. Zeal without knowledge yields chaos, as knowledge without zeal yields arrogance. When we have both in equal portions, they balance each other. However, balance does not come naturally. For example, Half the church believes that all the power of God is needed just to get saved, while the other half believes that there is power to spare, but hardly knows anything about salvation. On the one hand there is only saved people and on the other hand is hardly saved, and almost nothing in between. The balance however comes in learning from each other, which will cause us to unite that we may gracefully step into the power of God together instead of racing each other to the throne.