 Ephesians chapter 6 verse 15 I'll read verses let's see where will I begin I'll begin at verse 10 and I'm gonna read to verse 15 so we can get a little bit of context and then we're gonna move into our study so beginning at verse 10 Ephesians chapter 6 the Apostle Paul writes and says finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand stand therefore having girded your waist with truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace so we're looking at the weapons of our warfare now Paul has already told the believers that positionally they are seated in Jesus Christ by God's spirit they've been baptized into the one body the body of Christ and that's made them both Jew and Gentiles citizens of heaven in Colossians he had said in chapter 1 verse 13 that he has delivered or he has rescued us from the power of darkness and conveyed or transferred us into the kingdom of the son of his love so before we were saved we were enemies of God and the Bible teaches and we'll look at this in some detail in a moment that we were enemies of God and in hostile opposition in Colossians 1 21 he said you who once were alienated you were estranged and enemies you were hostile in your mind by wicked works yet now he has reconciled before you were saved he says you were estranged and hostile towards God enemies in your mind your enemies being enemies in your mind was simply meaning that your mind had been revealed by your wicked works but by his grace and mercy he through Jesus Christ has reconciled us and he did that through his sacrifice Colossians 1 20 through Jesus he reconciled all things to himself having made peace through the blood of his cross and so we who were estranged and alienated from God are now reconciled and that's a very important thought we are reconciled to him at one time we were his enemies but now we are his children and as his children we give the message that we receive we live and we give out the gospel which is his message of reconciliation we have received this message and we became instead of God's enemies we have become Satan's enemies at one time we were on Satan's side but now we are in opposition to him and we are now in a state of spiritual warfare and he's after us every one of us knows that and one thing about the enemy is he is relentless he doesn't let up in 1st Peter 1st Peter 5 8 and 9 it be sober minded be watchful your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour resist him firming your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world he roams about seeking whom he may devour so since the battle is spiritual our weapons must also be spiritual 2nd Corinthians 10 3 though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does our weapons are not physical like the world's weapons we have divine power and that's what we've been looking at we have divine power and there are times when the Holy Spirit will make it very obvious to you that the incident you're involved in at that moment is very spiritual it isn't physical I've shared this before it came to mind as I was reading this I was in India and we were down in an area called Rameshwaram it's one of the places that they have what they considered to be holy rivers and we went to the shore of this river and we are watching the people there as they would bathe themselves trying to be purified from their sinful ways if you will and so we had an opportunity to take a walk and so we walked through this very narrow streets very narrow streets of this very small town we had come to a like a T the road intersected but it didn't go any further because in front of us was a temple and so as my friend Randy who is pastor of upland Calvary Chapel and I as we came to the corner we saw a man who was being dragged from our left you saw him he was being pulled by two men or three men and he was fighting them as he was fighting with them there were these there was they have carts with small horses and the carts were coming through this cart was coming through the street I'll never forget this as I was standing there on the street corner and with Randy we were about to cross the street the street couldn't have been 20 feet wide it was it was not that far at all this man stops and he's fighting the men who were dragging him up these temple steps and he looks at us and as he looks at my direction my my blood froze in me he was demonically possessed and so I remember him looking at me and then I thought what should I do so I grab Randy and put him in front no I and I ran jumped on the horse and took off no that the horse was coming and the horse stopped the man was looking at us you can sense evil people have said before how do you know when you come face to face with a demon you know you know and so when I looked at it just was there's no doubt what was going on but this horse this small pony that was dragging the cart with this man in it stopped and would not go forward it would not get near this person who was demonized and the man who was who was in the cart was hitting it with his whip and the horse got it reared up and was fighting him it would not get close to that demonic man he had too much horse sense he wouldn't go he wouldn't go I don't know I'm sorry had too much sugar that anyway so but he finally he ran past and he and this man and they and I turned to Randy and I said get ready get ready there's gonna be a battle on the street here so it's not physical I wasn't thinking how am I gonna hit this guy I was thinking other thoughts you'll know and the point I in that story that I'm giving you right now it just came to mind is you don't have spiritual warfare with physical weaponry it doesn't work that way you cannot take them out and throw them on the ground and all I've had friends who've done deliverance is they it's not like we look for it but it happens and the demonic person has so much strength and so much they throw him around a friend of mine raw Reese see everybody knows raw Reese most people do raw is kung fu master and and there was a demonic possession and it was we were actually all at a pastors conference and and this woman was demonized and raw and some of the guys went because they were asked to go and pray for her and my friend Mike McIntosh took her by the arm and she was out in front of a church the police had come and asked for some of us to go over and so Mike took her by the arm and he says all I said it's under my breath as I said Jesus he said the moment I said Jesus she became wild raw jumped on her back to bring her down she was a small woman a little over five feet tall little over a hundred pounds and he jumped on her back to bring her down and she was swinging him Mike said like a rag doll so they have a physical power very often that's much greater than we could imagine just a small person like that you're not going to defeat the enemy using kung fu you're not going to defeat the enemy using physical weapons a lot of times we fail to realize that this this nation that we're in right now is in a physical is in a spiritual struggle that's being manifested by by physical things but it's spiritual in nature and remember the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God they're their spiritual weapons and so prayer we'll see all of this prayer and and being prepared in all of these things as part of spiritual warfare we can't forget that we can't get that out of our mind we're living in the world but we don't wage war as the world does our weapons aren't physical they are spiritual now Paul has been saying put on and take up the whole armor of God there to stand against the wilds of the devil with the mindset of those who are victors and they were to do so while bracing for individual battles that they would be in their victory in Christ is assured so their mindset is one of faith in James 4 7 submit yourselves therefore to God resist the devil he will flee from you first John 5 18 we know that those who are the children of God do not keep on sinning the son of God keeps them safe the evil one can't harm them and so this is a spiritual war that we're in and we've examined some things already we have seen that our enemy is the devil we've looked at two pieces of armor the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness so tonight we examine the next piece of armor that we have we're gonna look at our footwear now I had a I think we have a picture I wanted you guys to get an idea of what we're looking at right now so I asked them if they'd put up a picture and you can see the different pieces of armor that we're looking at you see the shield and the breastplate you see the belt of that is girding them you see they're the boots and all of that the sword of the spirit the helmet of salvation we'll be looking at those individually but today we're gonna be looking at at footwear notice verse 15 he says having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace footwear in in warfare a soldier's shoes are important because his life depends on them and there are specially developed footwear for the military person and it protects them when I was in the army in the service we had two different kinds of boots that we wore we wore regular boots that a lot of people by common usages refer to as combat boots but we also because I was in in the airborne we also had what were called jump boots and they were specialized boots they're different kind of footwear that you have and so they're this footwear especially developed it protects the soldier from environmental hazards they're used these these soldiers shoes that they wore during that time even to this day are to protect his feet from jagged rocks from thorns from the hot roads from the hidden spikes in Vietnam during the Vietnam War they would the the vietcong would dig holes and they would put punchy sticks in them and sometimes they would they would they would make them they would put things on them that would make them very filthy and so they'd infect anybody who would step on it and our soldiers when our soldiers first were going into Vietnam they were being crippled by these punchy steps six because they would step into this trap and when they went in the the stick with sharpened bamboo would go straight through the heel or the sole of their foot and that would take them out of the battle and so they designed shoes to wear boots they that had metal so that if they were to step in a trap like that they would be protected so during the time of the writing of Ephesians the Roman soldier had sandals that were thick sold because they would protect them against the spikes that were planted in the road he also had brass shin guards they covered his sandals and laced around the the instep and the souls of his shoes were often embedded with metal or nails that gave him added grip when he was climbing a hill it gave him stability when when he was he was digging in for warfare you see it protected his feet because his life depended on them because in battle footing is pre-eminent everybody knows that if you watch ever watch any of these contests these MMA fighters and all you know they have their stand up but they're often trying to get you on the ground and the way they do that very often is by kicking you or trying to take your legs out from underneath you that's what they do when I was a kid I had a friend I have friends of mine we grew up in Norwalk and some of you may be familiar with Norwalk but the Norwalk I grew up in it was very much like Chino in that we had a lot of dairies you know you don't associate Norwalk and dairies anymore but we had a lot of dairies and so when I grew up we would go into the dairy the pasture land there there were a lot of pastures and we had you know we my friends and I would go up in these haystacks and we would sit in the haystack and and we were 14 years old so we would talk about our dreams you know one day we're gonna do this and that you know kids do that and it's a good memory for me but one day I was walking through the through that pasture and I stepped on a souvenir that a cow had left that's bad enough it's pretty uncomfortable I was barefooted yeah yeah that's even worse right but it also had a two by four with a nail and I stepped full force on the nail I still remember it hit and it like stop make there's a bone in your heel I discovered it I hit and I flew in the air I actually just you just I just went up and did a flip and landed on my back I have I've only had one other thing that hurt that bad that's when I lifted my toenail off of my foot one time that was bad too but I'll stay with the nail for the moment so when I'm reading these things I I have a practical understanding of what it means to have your foot injured and not be able to stand and continue I know what that is I've I've had that happen just in life itself where your your foot is injured when I was a little boy I decided to go on the back of a bicycle my brother was riding it I sat on the behind him and I stuck my foot into the spokes and stopped the bike tore off so much you know to the bone I've had experience with this and I can tell you that when you're when you can't stand it doesn't matter what else you can do when you can't stand you're in a lot of trouble you're just in a lot of trouble so they would try to cripple the soldiers they would put these traps for them so when the soldiers would walk they would be crippled and that's what the enemy wants to do the enemy wants to cripple your walk and he puts things in front of you to trip you up or take you out to injure you and so Paul speaking concerning this as he's writing about the weapons of our warfare and so the soldier may gird his loins he puts on his breastplate but he can't neglect his shoes because in battle if you injure your feet you will be defeated now I want to look at this with you a little closer in verse 15 I want you to note something look at the word preparation he speaks concerning the preparation of the gospel of peace the preparation the word preparation has the general meaning of being ready being prepared Titus 3 verse 1 says it like this remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities to be obedient to be ready to do whatever is good but there are other applications there are at least two basic applications that can be seen in this verse the first one is this he's exhorting us to safeguard our Christian walk have a personal readiness take personal responsibility that means that we are to constantly safeguard our spiritual lives Satan is working constantly against us he works tirelessly to undermine you to stumble you in your walk your enemy as we saw a moment ago is on the prowl so be constantly alert and be personally prepared he's on the prowl to trip you up and to cripple your walk he wants to undermine your foundations that have given you confidence but preparation also is a word that can describe a foundation or even a stand so stand your ground in order to stand your ground you need secure footing and that he's saying comes by the gospel if there's anything Satan wants to do we'll look at this closely later on he wants to undermine your confidence in God's word that's the number one thing he wants to do I've said this so many times to you what is the place in Scripture where you find the first question mark the first question mark you find in Scripture is actually found in the book of Genesis and the first question that is asked is found in the mouth of Satan and it's when Satan says to to Eve has God said that's your first question that's where you find your first question mark in the Bible has God said from the beginning in other words Satan has called into question the word of God from the beginning he has done so and even when Jesus was responding in personal temptation when the enemy was there trying to cause Jesus to fail and all the scriptures were used by Christ but Satan also used the scriptures and what he did is he misquoted them in order that he might try to undermine but he's speaking to the one who breathed out the scriptures there's no way that he could actually defeat Jesus in that way but we know that the enemy will do whatever he can to change Scripture or to cause you to not trust it you have to understand that your your your whole life is built on the confidence you have on the word of God and what the enemy wants to do he constantly wants to do is cause you to doubt the reality the truthfulness and its effectiveness and a lot of people have put themselves in a position of having a a stultified walk a crippled walk because they don't read the word they're not in the word they're not meditating on the word they're not obeying the word and they find themselves being defeated he wants you to build your life on something that can't support your weight in Matthew 7 24 through 27 this is what it says therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain descended the floods came the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock but everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand the rain descended the floods came the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell and great was its fall in that story the parable draws a contrast between the hearer and the doer the two people involved in the parable encounter the same trials but the difference is one house is built on a rock and the other is built on sand you see Christians aren't insulated from life's pain we simply know that God's in control of everything and we've learned to trust in God through his word to us I know God's promises are not my feelings God's promises are his declarations found in scripture it's not how I feel right now it's what he says and so I want to trust what he says versus what I'm feeling and when I go through struggles as I do I have to I have to remain solid and firmly founded on God's word and I know the enemy wants to trip me up I know he wants to take out every leader in the body of Christ because if he can take out the leader he can take out the sheep and so there's constant warfare that goes on and so we need to know that we're not insulated from the pain of life but we do know that our God is in control so what we do is we trust the Lord and we believe his word you see a Christian doesn't only hear and agree in theory a Christian hears and does and true disciples remain faithful especially in hard times the devil attempts to cripple and to assemble us but as he does so we're gonna stand our ground we stand in the preparation of the gospel of peace we stand built on the peace we have with God and we stand built on the peace that we have from God you see we engage in warfare from the position of having peace with God and I want to develop this because the Bible reveals that mankind is at war with God we are not naturally inclined to do the things that are pleasing to him by nature we actually habitually resist agreeing with him as well said by Isaiah when he said in Isaiah 5 20 and 21 he said what do those who call evil good and good evil who put darkness for light and life for darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter what do those who are wise in their own eyes clever in their own sight they're hearing what God says and if God says it's black they say it's white they God says it's sweet they say it's sour if God says turn to the right they turn to the left that's man's nature and so before we came to Christ the Bible says we were enemies in Romans 5 6 through 10 he says when we were still without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly for scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die but God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us much more than having now been justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by his life Paul describes the unsaved as without strength ungodly sinners and enemies but in spite of this God made a way for us to have fellowship with him and it came through receiving by faith the message of the gospel you see this is the message that proclaims what Jesus has done for us in Romans 5 1 & 2 therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand rejoice in hope of the glory of God so the gospel and I'll give you some some insight into this the gospel speaks of what is called unconditional surrender see when God defeated Satan through Christ on the cross God has now given us a message I'll show you this in a second it's called the message of reconciliation to what God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself he has given to us a message to declare and the message that we declare is called the gospel but in the writings of Paul he also describes it as being terms of surrender and so the gospel is God's declaration of victory in war and his terms of peace are unconditional surrender you don't have a negotiated surrender with the Lord you have an unconditional surrender it's not a conditional surrender it is unconditional so you don't come to Christ by saying I'm sorry for some of the things I've done but I like these other things and therefore I'd like to follow you and still keep these other things it doesn't work that way what happens when you got saved hopefully this will make some sense when I got saved I didn't negotiate with God I didn't say I'll come to you on my terms God won it's like you get a picture of that in World War two when MacArthur was on on the Missouri and and he he received the unconditional surrender of Japan it wasn't a negotiated surrender it wasn't a conditional surrender it was an unconditional surrender and that's why hero he presented the sword to him saying that we are now at your service that's how that worked because the United States won complete victory and declared terms of peace which was unconditional surrender we've had that in recent history here in the United States the gospel is the message of terms of peace God says you're in sin he said that to us he's saying the wages of sin is death but he also says it is appointed unto men to die once and after this judgment and so these are all the conditions that we find ourselves in he says you are hostile towards me you are in opposition to me I say it's black you say it's white I say it's sweet you say it's sour I say it's up you say it's down you are in constant hostility towards me you are in your mind enemies but God sent his son Christ who dies on the cross he pays the penalty that I owe God and I have a now a message from him that is called terms of surrender it's the gospel and so someone preaches the gospel to me and says you're a sinner you're going to hell you're going to stand in judgment I may not like that but it's true that's what God says so I unconditionally surrendered to God I say God be merciful to me I'm a sinner it's like the parable of that man who was standing just beating on his chest saying how evil he was be merciful to me when I was a kid being raised as a Catholic I went to to mass and we had the Latin mass I wonder how many of you ever just out of curiosity never asked this Latin mass how many of you know that yeah some of you did maya culpa maya culpa maya maxima culpa remember what that is my fault my fault my most grievous fault right what it what were we saying when we smote our breasts we were saying it's my fault I have done this I can't blame mom I can't blame my lack of education I can't blame my neighborhood I can't blame my race I can't blame any of those it's my fault that's how I got saved that's how you got saved it's by admitting unconditionally I am at fault that's what the gospel is supposed to do see that's the only way you can be healed is by saying God be merciful to me a sinner that's how it works right amen so when I surrender when you surrender to Christ you have peace with God the war is over he's no longer at war with you he's not bringing you to judgment in Romans 5 verse 9 much more than Paul says having now been justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him so we have peace with him but not only that we can have peace from him you see when you're reconciled to God you can have peace a peace that comes from God Isaiah 26 3 says it like this you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you for he trusts in you in John 14 27 peace I leave with you my peace I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid Colossians 3 15 let the peace of God rule in your hearts Philippians 4 7 the peace of God that passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus there have been so many times when you and I when we have gone through things where people will watch us as we're going through it and ask us how could you have such peace when my father went home to be with the Lord and we were there in the waiting room and we heard those words some of you have heard code blue my mom turns to me and says to me that's your dad and I said yes and here comes a doctor through the door a few minutes later he says Rosales family and there we are and he walks up and says those things that some of you have heard we did our best we tried our hardest it's kind of words that you're not really listening to at that moment they're just you already knew that right he turns and he walks away my mom and I and my some of my family are standing there and I take my mom by the hand and Marie and a couple of my kids and we hold hands there in that waiting room and we pray and we ask God's and we thank God for my father for all he was to us and went and did our last farewells and came back in the room and as I came back in the room a woman approaches me and she says I have to ask you what are you and I said I'm excuse me she goes what are you because they saw us as we prayed in and I said we're Christians where those where the peace come from Kim's room above we have peace with God but we have peace from God too and he takes us through these things that's why you can go to the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil for he's with you that's that's what that's all about that's how that works and so the gospel not only am I reconciled to God are you reconciled to God but you also have peace from God and peace with God now Satan attempts to undermine your confidence in him he desires to undermine your confidence in his love and his peace in his joy but when our feet are shot and founded on God's peace he can't be moved now there's another application I I'd like to give about this it it relates to our readiness to proclaim the gospel to others you see we personally have made peace with God we have received his peace but now we take the message of peace to the world in 2nd Corinthians 5 18 through 20 Paul said it like this he said now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation that is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation now then we are ambassadors for Christ as so God repleting through us we implore you on Christ behalf be reconciled to God see God you have been reconciled to God through the gospel and you stand in in in favor in God's favor but now you take that message and you give it to others if there's anything that I think that Bible studies like this and others ought to do is it ought to prepare us equip us to take this word to those who are lost it's been said the most selfish man is the one who goes to heaven by himself God would have us to share what we know with others and sometimes people will say you know what I just don't know that much well you don't have to be a theologian you need to know the Lord and you need to know proper scripture you know but me when I first got saved you know I didn't know what do you know you're you know I I would say this I was blind but now I see I was lost but now I'm found that was it that was my testimony and I tell my friends you you know that I used to do this I used to do that I used to do this and they know that because I did it with them and just this last week I had some friends over on Friday they're there it's hard I've known them so long it's hard to see how old they've gotten but but one of my friends Bobby Bobby and I have known each other since we were freshmen in high school I've known him since I was 14 since he was 14 and he and my friend Bill who I went to kindergarten with and then my friend Art who I've known since I was 14 they came they met with me on Friday and we had a lot of fun a lot of fun but Bobby looked at me in our conversation and Bobby said you know I knew he was talking Bill my friend Bill was talking in the Bobby and Bobby says you know Dave he said I knew he said I knew when I ran into you after you had gotten saved because I had gotten saved when in the military Bobby had been in the military before me so I hadn't seen him he said when I saw you and I was about 23 the next time I saw him he said I knew something had happened to you he said I knew it and Bill saying what are you talking about he says no he said there was something different about David he said God had gotten hold of you David he said I saw that in you and that's what you want to hear that's what you want to hear you want to hear people say God has gotten hold of you and that gives to you credibility so when you share with people they see that you're living what you're giving you know sometimes people don't practice what they preach we tell them that you shouldn't smoke dope but you're drinking with them and they're saying come on it's just one form of inebriation you don't you drink this but you don't smoke that who are you to tell me what to do see when we're captured by sin in our flesh we don't have much credibility but when God's Holy Spirit is empowering your life and he's removing these things from you and your life is moving forward you have credibility people will listen to you now they may not immediately they may just watch you my brother watched me for several years my brother thought I was a hypocrite my brother thought I was a liar my brother thought I was in some fad that's what he told me he watched me for years I got saved in 1970 my brother gave his heart to Christ in 1974 75 he watched and you know what that's all right I don't mind being under the microscope I don't mind people watching my life I want to be an example of a believer I don't have a problem with that at all I don't have to hide anything I want to live up front before people that's the way it should be right but when you do that they'll watch you they may watch you for a week a month a year sometimes several years sometimes they'll watch you for numbers of years you'll blow your mind and how long they'll watch you and eventually they come to faith in Christ and we take that message and we give it and so we have the our feet are shot with the preparation of gospel of peace we may not only are standing in it but we also march in it we take this message to others and we take the message into hostile territory in Mark 16 15 Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature so we take this message to the world because our desires are released captives from the enemy God once asked very simple question it's found in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 8 I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us and then I said here am I send me I think every believer ought to be prepared don't you if the Lord just say I've got something for you to do because some of us will say there he is send him but the Lord would say here am I send me so we take a message of healing we take a message of healing to those who are crippled we take a message to those in great need in Luke 4 18 and 19 the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord if there's anything that we as a movement Calvary chapels as a movement have been since pastor Chuck pastored the first Calvary chapel and many of us came under the influence of his ministry and teaching if there's anything that we have always been it's evangelistic we have a heart to reach the lost think of some of the guys perhaps you're aware of in in the Calvary movement guys like Mike McIntosh heart to evangelize we're all reason the heart to evangelize many of us have a heart to reach the lost why because we once were blind we now see and we want to help those who are blind to come to sight that's what it is and the Lord has put that on our heart I really truly believe that we have great opportunities right now guys there are people who are scratching their head in wonder saying what's going on in this world I don't have a clue I've heard this I've heard actually say it they'll say it and gives you an opportunity to share with them you know what you're right you know the things that are going on they're things that that are are pretty bad guess what you know I I serve the Lord and the Lord gives me peace or how do you get that and they have a conversation you're able to share and a lot of times I think people get concerned because they feel like the gospel is their product and they're the salesperson and they're mad because they don't close the sale no I see it more like us sowing seeds I sow seeds somebody else comes to water but God gives the increase we need to work together so that the body of Christ using his gifts and giving the message will see people coming to salvation I believe I had my friend Bill said this the other day he said I don't think we're going to see a revival and my friend Bobby says no I believe that we're going to see a revival and then so they look at me oh master oh guru what do you think you know I believe this I believe that no matter what my job as a pastor in my my life as a Christian is to go down fighting I'm not going to give in to the enemy I'm not going to give in to the world I'm not going to do that and so if I go down I go down on my knees and I rise in Jesus Christ I'm a winner any way you look at it so when you get opportunities take those opportunities share those opportunities share tell about Jesus Christ tell him about what he's done in your life be open to that in Romans chapter 10 13 through 15 whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach unless they're sent as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace who bring glad tidings of good things have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace take the word out share it with your friends share it with your family share it with those in need feel free to do that and watch what God will do there was hardly any greater joy that I have ever had that is anything close to seeing someone give their heart to Christ because it's not for the moment it's for eternity it is for eternity they will be right with God and enter into heaven and who knows we we like to talk about these things who knows in heaven one day we may see people and they may say because of you sharing Jesus with me I'm here today now what could be better than that right what could be better than that