The following message is by pastor John Piper.

More information from Desiring God Ministries is available at

W. W.

Desiring God.org.

Let's pray together.

History belongs to you. It's all about you.

So don't let us think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.

Make us lowly as a people. make us humble, make us servants, forgive, Lord, our presumption,

our swagger, our cockiness, our self-centeredness, our self-protection, oh that we might be a more lavishly generous people.

May we be a more zealous people?

May we be a more jealous people, may we be a more cheerful people, may everything we do,

Lord, have a kind of lavish letting go about it.

We should be the freest, homeless people, happiest, boldest people on planet Earth because our future is so absolutely secure no matter what.

So come now and help me be faithful to this powerful word of the apostle Paul

under the inspiration of your Holy Spirit. May the same spirit that inspired these words, illumine our minds and convict our hearts and transform

us into the image of Christ for the sake of the world to see our good deeds and give glory

to our Father in heaven. In Jesus, in name I pray, Amen.

If you are one of the hostages somewhere hidden in Iraq and you have on an orange suit.

And in front of you there are five hooded men,

four of them with rifles,

and one of them with a knife.

You might say,

...