Hi, this is Joel in Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry.

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God bless you. It's great to be with you today.

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and you can come visit us in person. We'd love to have you be a part of one of our services.

I like to start with something funny and I heard about this pastor.

He found a dead mule on the church grounds. He called the health department and they said they couldn't pick it up without authorization from the mayor.

Well, the mayor was known to be rude and hard to get along with. When the pastor called, the mayor didn't disappoint.

He started ranting and raving. He finally said, isn't it your job to bury the dead? Why did you even call me?

The pastor asked God to give him the right response. He said, yes, mayor, it is my job to bury the dead, but I always like to notify the next of kin first.

Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. And him what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do.

Today I will be taught the word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive. I will never be the same in Jesus name. God bless you.

I want to talk to you today about necessary endings. We all have times when things come to an end that we weren't expecting.

We were going along fine, enjoying life, then the company downsizes and we're let go. A relationship doesn't work out. The door closes on a dream.

We didn't have any control over it. It's easy to get discouraged. God, where were you? But God is called the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

He has designed certain things to come to an end to move us into a new level of our destiny. We may not understand it.

It doesn't make sense, but it's a necessary ending. Without that door closing, you wouldn't see the greater things God has in store.

We believe in holding onto our dreams and standing on the promises, but sometimes it takes more faith to accept what God is doing, to recognize that the ending is a part of His plan.

The same God that opens doors closes doors. The same place you saw abundance in one season may seem like a famine in another.

You had a great friendship with that coworker, but now things have changed. They've moved on. If you don't understand that God has necessary endings, you'll fight every closed door.

Try to hold on to things that God has done with. But the ending wasn't random. You're not just unlucky, a bad break, it was the hand of God. The author and the finisher.

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