Hello, welcome back for season two of the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris

Emerson, and I'm here to encourage you with tips and strategies to help you build stronger

relationships, deepen your faith, and just get the most out of your life. Thank you for

joining. Let's get started. Welcome back to the program. Today, I feel compelled to talk to you

about being prepared by God.

I hope you can understand that maybe in every day of your life,

certainly as you live the Christian life, God is always preparing you.

He is training you, molding you, and making you stronger,

because there are very important things he needs you to do, work that he is preparing you to do

for his cause. I'm reminded here of Ephesians chapter 2, where it talks in

8 and 9 about how we've been saved by the grace of God. As we have faith in him and we obey him,

he showers us with the blood of Jesus. But that's not the end of the story. It's actually the beginning.

Verse 10 says, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, four good works that we would walk in them.

If you are a child of God, you probably remember at the very beginning that you were

pretty rough around the edges. You might still argue that you are, but the truth is you and I have

grown, haven't we? Through the experiences that God has led us through, even the challenges that we

faced, the kind of diligence that we've had to

keep in place, all of that has changed us. The Bible talks about how we're renewed. Our minds are

conformed into the image of Jesus, and we change. Why? Because God is preparing us for his work. There are things he needs you and me to do.

From the most basic of elements, like when Jesus talked about being lights in the world,

there are people who will never see heaven unless God positions you to have an effect on them.

And I need for you to understand that at the very beginning of our study today,

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