Hi there and good morning. Not sure where you are in this wonderful world, but I felt like it was important to encourage you today. It is rainy here in New York City and cold, but we have an incredible God no matter the weather outside or emotionally.

And what I want to do is I was reading Jeremiah this morning, and it's not a very happy

text for sure. Jeremiah is a young man who is basically being used of God to tell the people

of Israel how angry and sad and frustrated God is with the people. And in Jeremiah 14, 14, God is talking to Jeremiah

about the false prophets and the prophets who are saying that everything's going to be okay. Don't

worry, guys. You're just fine. And it's really dismal what

God says about those prophets that are saying, don't worry, guys, you know, you're just fine,

what you're doing. And the prophets are saying it in God's name. And God says some really bad things are coming for those

prophets because that is not what God is saying. And they should not be saying those things in God's

name. And what I guess I want to say is over and over and over again, God talks to us about how our primary focus is our relationship with

him. It talks about the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your

heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And then it says the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself.

And if you've listened to anything with DYM, you know that what I talk about the most is that

second commandment and your first neighbor is your spouse. And after that, your kids, and after that, your ministry,

whether that's your work or whether that's in a church or whether that's with a nonprofit or

whatever that looks like in your life. So the focus on this podcast so often is around that second commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself.

But I want to encourage you today that I believe that God is willing to risk you being offended by him to draw you closer to him. I'll say it again. This is something that I didn't

hear myself. This is something that I'm not sure if you've heard of the International House of

Prayer, but it's an awesome organization that has 24-7 worship in it. But he's, I learned from that organization that God allows sometimes

things in our lives and they really risk us being offended by God to then draw us closer to

God. And I told you guys about how my brother was found without a pulse. And,

you know, easily any of us and all of us could have gone away from God in that time.

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