Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people.

I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and on this episode, I have a dear brother and a faithful friend

and a prolific author who has released a book called

Consider the Lillies, Johnny Artivantis. I need to click you in here like it's Dr. Phil.

Here you come. There he is. Johnny Artivanis.

Thanks for being on. Thanks for having me on. I'm not grateful to be here. I don't know how

prolific I am, but I accept the exaggeration.

Okay, so here's why I wanted to have you on.

We are in Christmas season, and I know there's a lot of people who are hurting.

They're going to be wrestling with anxiety, hopelessness, fear, all of it.

And let me just set this up

sharing a little bit of my immediate context, things that I'm shepherding and our elders are

and our friends here. But right now in just the past accurately to say three weeks,

and in particular, like specific age group age group infant like days old to weeks old

two in particular that I know of passing away dear brother of ours in the church his wife

swept away in a flash flood tragically passes away another family I know with a sweet baby girl who's battling for

life and to thrive. And then there's a host of other people. If it's not death and loss, it's conflict.

Maybe they're going into an environment at Christmas that makes them nervous. Maybe it's somebody

who has abused them. Maybe it's

sexual abuse. Maybe it's physical or emotional abuse. There are so many things at Christmas that

we forget and we are in context, maybe, if this is somebody who's listening, thinking right now,

the bins are coming down off the garage storage shelves. Grandma or Mama are putting out all of their decor.

...