Teshuva- Seasons Of Repentance (Part 1) - Beth Mills

The season of repentance is about actively turning away from evil and turning towards God. While we choose to walk in repentance every day, there are times to celebrate and observe corporately. This time is about more than just choosing obedience, but about turning to God to restore relationship with Him.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):

​Well, I'm really excited to be here with you guys today. I just wanted to share some of the things that the Lord has been showing me about this season. It's called to teshuva. I'm sorry, I don't know how to say it correctly in Hebrew. I'm guessing it's teshuva. And that's kind of how I've heard it said, it's a really, it is a special kind of intense season. And the Lord actually began to show me some things about it a couple of years ago. I don't know you guys might have remembered 2020? Anybody remember? 2020? Yes, yes. So during 2020, there was a lot of time to just be in our homes. And we felt it was a time to really spend time with the Lord, so many distractions. And normal activities that aren't distractions, just our normal workday world, was shut down for quite some time. And it gave us some time to really spend that time seeking the Lord and hearing from Him. And so during that time, I began to learn about this season and learn that it was 40 days long. And it was a season it means turning or returning. And Teshuva is often translated as repent, it's a time of repentance. And the Lord laid it on my heart at that time to just begin seeking out some scriptures to begin to pray and share that to Facebook world. That was when I was still on Facebook. And so each day, I would just find a scripture to pray something about returning to the Lord and then pray over it. And so I did that for those 40 days, I think I missed the first three or four days and started mid season. It ended up surprising me how much it was a blessing to the, to the friends and friends I had out on Facebook, and how it was impacting, but it was also surprising how it was impacting my own heart, just taking these 40 days to return to God. And I didn't consider myself as being far away from God. But we'll talk about this later. There are times where the Lord is drawing and pulling us closer and closer to him where we can feel that like I want to be even closer than I am to you right now, Lord. And that's what ended up happening for me during that time. Well, skip ahead, here we are in 2022. And I've been going through and reading a following a daily Psalm schedule. And it's according to how the Jewish people read through the Psalms once a month. And so they complete the book of Psalms in a month. And I opened it up and it said, today is the first day of Elul. And then, in the explanation, it said, this is the season of teshuva. And I went, Oh, it's here again. Oh, that's that season once again. And as I was praying that day, the Lord just said, Let's do this again. Let's do it again. And so that's what I've been doing. If you've seen on our purse teams and stuff I just been sharing now some of those scriptures that the Lord had given me before and new insights that he's giving me. And so here we are today to kind of explain what is this season all about? And why would we as New Testament believers, we're not Old Testament, Jewish believers. But why would we join in to this time this season of turning and returning to God? So this actually, it has its roots in Israel's earliest identity as a nation, if you remember that the nation of Israel wasn't just a group of people that God said, hey, you know what, you guys all live in the same general vicinity. I would love to be your God. And if you would like to gather together, you can be my people, and you can worship me, and I will bless you. It wasn't that way. God looked for a man and he began his promise with Abraham. And Abraham said, Yes, I want to follow you. And the Lord made a promise to make Abraham into a great nation and you guys know all of the, the trials and the mountains that he faced with that and really only having one son of promise And God then made a great nation, his promise to Abraham was to make his descendants as the stars in the sky, and the sand on the sea. And we are counted in those generations and adopted into those generations. And the Lord said He would cause nations to come from him, not just the one, he would cause nations to come from him. But the Lord focused in on the one nation that would be his own that he called out and he made promises to Abraham, and then to his son, Isaac, and then to Isaac sons. In it, we follow it through with Jacob, Jacob became a mighty tribe, basically, a large group having lots of sons. And then eventually, when they went to Egypt, they grew to be a great number. And when they describe themselves, they describe themselves as the stars of the sky. Because there were so many of them in the best land in Egypt. But they were there for 400 years, and eventually ended up in slavery, because they were so great in number that the Pharaoh became afraid. And so he subjected them to slavery. So you guys know the whole story. All the Exodus, they went out into the wilderness, but you have to remember, this is a group of people who have this set of promises that have been given to them. But their mindset is that of being slaves, they have been treated as slaves for years, all of their lives that they have known, they have been slaves. So that's the mindset they're in a God is drawing them up and out to say, You are my treasured possession, you are not my slaves. You are my treasured possession. And this is who you are as a people, and this is who I am, as your God. So three months, after all of these miracles, of leaving Egypt, God then meets with them in a very fiery meeting on the mountain, Mount Sinai. And he says to them at that time, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, et cetera, et cetera. You guys know it's the 10 commandments, right? He gives, He lays all of that out in the midst of the trumpets, blasting, and the fire and the cloud. I mean, it was an awesome meeting with the Lord. So awesome. The people were like, Moses, you go and talk with God. Well, we'll stay here, we'll, we'll catch you on the flip side, and hear what he has to say through you. We will trust you and what he says. But that was a lot. That was a lot. So eventually, God calls Moses up onto the mountain now that fire and the cloud, we think of it maybe lasting a moment, right? It's like, no, no, the cloud. And you could see the fires like the mountain was on fire that lasted for six days. It went on for six days, the presence of the Lord so strong amongst the people. And eventually they heard the voice of the Lord calling Moses up the mountain. And so he went up into the midst of the fire, and the cloud, and the unknown. And then Moses was gone. And he was gone for 40 days. And during that time, in meeting with the Lord, the Lord was revealing himself and his character, and who his people were, and how they were going to conquer the land. I mean, it was 40 days, Moses with God. But the people were waiting. And the people became restless, because the one who had taken them out, Moses, following God, and they were, they were used to following that pillar of cloud and having that pillar of fire guarding them. The cloud and the fire, were no longer on the mountain. They could no longer see Moses. He had been gone a long time. And the longer he was gone, the more their hearts became restless and fearful and kind of an Oh, no, what are we going to do? Oh, no, what are we going to do? And in Exodus chapter 32, it begins by saying, When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us Gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, this man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we did not know what is become of him. As far as they were concerned, he went up on the mountain and he's gone. And then they rose early on the next day, they offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Go get down for your pee your people like that. Your people? Have you guys ever do that with you? When when you're married? Your son, your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They've turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshipped it, and sacrificed to it and said, This is your God, oh, Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Oh, man. Do you guys remember the first words that he said on the mountain? What happened to I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, you shall not have any other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a golden calf, a carved image. And yet here they've done it, bing bang, boom 123 in 40 days. And the Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people, and indeed it is a stiffnecked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them. Catch this, and I will make of you a great nation. God is offering to start over with Moses to just wipe out the last how many hundreds of years they were there in Egypt 400 years. And he's offering to Moses, step aside. We'll start over for you with you. I will make you a great nation. You're a descendant of Abraham, it continues to the promise. But the humility of Moses in that moment. He cries out to God for mercy upon the people. Instead of just stepping aside and letting God wipe them all out. That is amazing to me. Moses interceded for his nation. And this is what he said, turn from your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to your people. Remember, Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of, I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. So the Lord relented from the harm which he said that he would do to his people. Moses stood in the gap, even though the people had immediately disobeyed the commandments of the Lord. Moses didn't, I don't know fall into the temptation of saying, oh, man, I could, this nation just could come from me. I could be the main leader. No, he was humble. And he was really patient. In that moment, I would say with the people, and crying out to the Lord and repented on behalf of his nation. This is one of the meanings of the word turn. And he asked the Lord to turn from his fierce anger. In returning to the Lord, he's asking the Lord to turn and not send forth the punishment that he said that he was going to send. And this is one of the meanings of this season of Teshuva where we can intercede for our nation and cry out to God and ask for his forgiveness for our family or for ourselves. So when Moses returned to all the people, and he saw the calf and saw the celebration, and he saw them worshipping the idol, he threw down the tablets that God had written on smashing them to pieces, basically expressing this Coven is broken, and you broke it. What a mess and There was a lot of different things that happened in that moment he melts down the calf. He, he grinds it to dust, pours it into the waters, has the people drink it. And he's like, this is this should not be this is not who we are as a nation, we must repent, we must turn. And eventually the Lord calls him back up again. For another 40 days, did you guys realize that I didn't realize he hadn't gone up for another 40 days. And so the Lord even said, cut out a couple more stones Moses, and come back up here. And in Exodus 34, verses five through nine, they have a conversation. And according to true Jewish tradition, this trek up the mountain this second 40 day period, that is the beginning of Elul. That is the beginning of the 40 days of turning to God. Yeah, according to according to the tradition of the rabbi's. That's the day not the first 40 days that he went up, but after the golden calf incident, the second 40 days to return to go up on the mountain with God for another 40 days. And in that 40 day period. Moses had asked the Lord to let him see His glory. Just prior to that 40 days, he said, Lord, show me your glory. And the Lord promised that he would let all his goodness passed before Moses. And the word translated for goodness is has said, which is deep, loyal love. It's his love. It's his faithfulness. And it's also translated as mercy. And he promises to Moses that he will allow His mercy, His great loyal love to pass before him. So the next day, Moses goes up the mountain, it begins this return to the Lord. And in chapter 34, of Exodus, beginning in verse five is when God came down. Oops, lost my spot. The Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And that's what he said he would do, I will proclaim My name to you. And what does that mean? I mean, it's more than just an introduction. Hi, my name is Beth, it's nice to meet you. You have no idea who I am, if I just tell you my name, right. But when the Lord said that he would proclaim His name. It was not only maybe what we should call him, but it was his character. It's who he is. When he said to Moses, I will proclaim My name to you. He was saying, I'm going to show you all of who I am. Remember, he said, I will let all of my goodness pass before you. I'm going to show you, Moses, who I am. And I'm going to describe myself to you. And that's what he means by proclaiming his name. When Jesus came to the earth, he spoke to the disciples and he let them know, I came that you might see the Father. And at the end, when he was talking to his disciples, I can't remember who it was who said that they said, Lord, show us the Father. And that will be enough. And he said, Have I been with you so long? And you still don't know me? You haven't seen me. And when he's praying in John 17, that beautiful prayer of unity of I'm in the Father and the Father is in me and they want, we will be in those who believe in me, that beautiful prayer. He says, in that prayer, I have revealed your name to them. His entire life upon the earth, was in order to reveal God's character to reveal his name. But here when God is meeting with Moses on the mountain, He reveals His name to Moses and this is what he says, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious long suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 1000s, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. That's who he is. This season of returning to God is remembering who he is, looking into who he is, not just what others have said about him. But what does he say about himself? I think it's pretty important that we understand who God is, by the very words, he chose to describe himself. And to study and ask Jesus to show us the Father, and ask the Holy Spirit to show us the Father, because that's who he is. And that's what he does, during this time to remember who he is to get rid of any false perceptions that we might have made about God, the Father, Jesus, His Son, and the Holy Spirit. Because we have false perceptions, was were weak and broken people, we don't know it all. And so, during this time, we can ask the Lord to search our hearts and show us places God, what do I believe about you, that isn't from you at all. Whereby listen to the voice of the enemy, the accusation and the enemy or, or just listening to my friends or what other people say about you. But that's not truth at all. This is that time to get clarity with the father of who he is. And he says, besides being the Lord, the Lord God, he's merciful. That first word can be translated as compassionate. The first descriptor, he's compassionate. That means you can come to him without fear, he's going to have compassion on you. He's gracious. He's long suffering, meaning he's very patient, and he puts up with a lot. He's long suffering. He's abounding in goodness, that word, goodness, there is the highest said kind of goodness. He's abounding in this great love. He's abounding in faithfulness. He's abounding in kindness. All of that is said. He's abounding in truth. When I looked that word up, the word truth is, is more than just what is true, but it provides stability. It also means faithfulness, and strong ground. He's the rock. He's the foundation. He provides that stability in our lives. There is a truth. It's not my truth, your truth, their truth, what they feel like is truth. There is truth. And he is the God who abounds in that truth. And that truth gives us solid standing. Because as as we have, we've seen it as we've declared that there's like, well, you know, truth is relative, man, we kind of start to look like sailors on the dry ground, you know, rather than God or no. But he gives that solid truth. And that's who he is. It's not just what he gives. It's who he is. Keeping mercy for 1000s Keeping his said, All right, and when I looked up the word keeping there, it's more than just up. It's not a protection kind of keeping. It's more along the lines of keeping it fresh. So there's that scripture, I think is in Jeremiah, His mercies are new every morning. It's fresh toward you. He's not merciful and has been he has been merciful for forever and forever as far back as you can think. Right. And he will be merciful forever as well. far forward as you can think. But it's not covered in mothballs is not old mercy. It's fresh and new. Every morning, every time we go to him. It's fresh mercy for you. It's not hey, you know, you've come to me about 15 times over this same sin right. All right, I gave him mercy last time gave him mercy this time go. That's not fresh. It's a fresh mercy. It's a yes, I give you mercy in this area. I forgive you. It's a freshness. It's a it's a word that's translated as green, and as branch. So that's kind of cool how Nancy had given that word about, you know, God is able to hold on to our little branch, right? But he doesn't just hold on to our little branch. It's fresh, it's green, it's alive. As we stay connected with him, he keeps our little branch fresh, green, alive, fruitful, His mercy is fresh. And he keeps it for 1000s. I find this interesting, I get to thinking about these things sometimes. And so this is not this isn't the scholar saying this is this is me going home, I wonder if okay. But when he says keeping mercy for 1000s, I wonder if it's more than keeping that mercy for 1000s of people, but also for 1000s of years. Keeping mercy for 1000s, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin. Thank you, God for your forgiveness, for every kind of sin that we can think of. And this is the part that gets a little interesting in translations, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generations, which can also be translated as by the by no means clearing the guilty as in there, they're clear, they're clean, they're free of punishment. But it can also be understood as he's full of forgiveness for all of these iniquities. And yet he is just that our iniquity and our sin has consequences. And though we are forgiven for the sin, the consequences are still there. And so he is just because the consequences are still there. In the visiting of the visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and the children's children to the third, and the fourth generation, can be looked upon as this generational sin, I will forgive as you bring it to me. There are sins that tend to follow families through generations, and we, we have the ability to cut them off and to declare them null and void in our lives and asking forgiveness over those things. And the Lord will forgive them. It's the sins of the fathers, we may not have done it, but he will cut it off, as we have asked him to. And then it says that Moses made haste in that moment about his head toward the earth and worshipped because God has just declared who he is. All of his goodness passing before him. It's a lot. And the only response is, I worship you. You're amazing. And he said, If now I have found grace in your site, oh, Lord, let my Lord I pray go among us. Even though we are a stiff necked people, even though we are stubborn, and self willed. Go among us, God, be our God, pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as Your inheritance. God had declared that Israel would be his special people. Moses said, yes, we want to be your speech, special people. We want to be your inheritance, take us as Your inheritance. And in that the relationship is restored. And when you look at the word, that Hebrew word, to tshuva, the root is Shiv, which literally means to turn, to return, and to restore. And in Moses turning to God in that time, the nation was restored because of his request for forgiveness of their sin and his intercession for them. When we return to the Lord, he also turns to us I really appreciated how you share that today rod you were talking about in James you draw close to the Lord and draw near to the Lord and He will draw near to you. In Zechariah verse one, chapter one, verse three, says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, returned to me and I will return to you. That's what this season of Learning is that we returned to the Lord, it's a time for us to look deep within our hearts, and ask the Lord to do the searching in there and ask him, What could be holding us back from getting closer to you, God? What is there in my own life that I won't let go of. And because it's there, it keeps you from being able to draw closer, because I'm keeping you at a distance. I'm not reaching out to you, because of whatever it is that's holding me back in my heart. And some of those things, we know what they are. And some of them we don't. But the Lord knows. And that's why his Holy Spirit, in his kindness, his has said, he can search our hearts, and he can put his finger on it. He can say, remember this? Remember what you're holding on to here? Do you remember, do you see how this perception of me is actually a false perception of smart who I've said, I am at all, and it's not who I've been in your life, if you'll remove that perception to be able to see me for who I really am. And our relationship with God can be restored, which means to bring back to a former or an original normal condition. It's used for buildings, it's used for furniture, you know, restoring old table, whatever, but we also restore order to our households, or we restore order in the city, order in our nation's government. Or we restore relationship, restoring relationship with God, and restoring relationship with one another. When our relationship with God is restored, it's easy, it's easier for us to receive his love into our hearts. And that's a love that do does a mighty work that we could not do on our own, that our love could not do on its own, to restore relationships that are broken in our lives. A restored relationship with someone else is going to be the outgrowth of a restored relationship with God. It takes baby steps. He doesn't say, okay, you've spent this time with me, Alright, go. There's baby steps in there, he works with our hearts, he remember his long suffering. He's kind. And it's his kindness that will lead us to repentance. And those relationships that are broken in our lives, and we don't see how they can be repaired, and maybe we don't want them repaired. But the Lord can work in our hearts if we let him to bring us to a place where we might be able to see how the relationship could be repaired and what it could look like. Or that we would be able to want to see it repaired. And he'll take us through the steps that it takes on our end, to be able to repair the relationship. He'll give us the patience to wait on the other people on the other end, to want the same thing. Because that's a two way street. But we can trust him in that. That eventually at some point, that relationship can be repaired. Especially if it's a relationship between Christian brothers and sisters. Because if you're a Christian and you believe, though, the Lord God, you've received Jesus as your Savior, and you walk under his blood and his cleansing, and the person that you are in a broken relationship believes all the same, I guarantee you, you're going to see them again. And it will be a beautiful meeting in heaven. But it would be great for it to be a beautiful meeting here on the earth to when God can make away God can do that. I think I'm gonna stop here. So we can discuss some of what I've been talking about. There's more to this season of turning. But that gives us some history. And a little bit of why we might want to be turning to the Lord right now in this season of turning. Just for clarity in case most of you probably pick this up but to tshuva in in Israel began on the first day of Ehlo which is the month below and it went for 40 days. And the 40th day is Yom Kippur tours. The Day of Atonement is the most important day of the year. And in Israel because that The day when all of the sins of the nation are forgiven. And you know, that's each year that they do that. But I wanted to make a couple of observations if I could, because, I mean, I was just like, I had to start typing, I just couldn't hold back because they're just revelations flowing. Most of the time, I think a lot of us Christians, we look at the golden calf stories, and we're like, oh, we would never do that. And that's the hubris of modernity. That's the pride of a generation. We all you know, you ever noticed how, in this generation is one of the worst for this looks back on other generations and has all these criticisms and anger and unforgiveness and how evil they were and how terrible they were? And we're better than them. And the truth is, is that we're probably a lot worse than them for a lot of reasons. And in Christianity, we have to be careful not to do that. Every generation has its golden calves. And that's important for us because if we look at him and go, well, we don't have our golden calves. What is an idol? An idol is anything we put above God that we adore. The word worship means a door that we glorify, that we adore, that we respect that we admire. These are, these are smaller words for worship. But the point is, every generation has its golden calf's just because you haven't been at home tempted to carve out a calf doesn't mean that you haven't had your temptations of your golden calves. Golden Calf can be a career, a golden calf can be money, a golden calf can be, you know, a car could be a house could be how people view you, you have to fill in the blank stare and let the Holy Spirit show you. But what I love about this, this practice of Teshuva is and and really what what Beth is suggesting is that we don't wait don't start following the law. But we see what the the what the Scriptures call, there's one place I love in the Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, where he calls the the Old Testament copies of what is real, and that's my paraphrase. There are copies of what is real. So the real thing is not the Old Testament practices. The real thing is what we're doing now, and we talking about repentance. I want to have a life practice of repentance in my life. I want a life practice of repentance. And you guys have heard me tell like, I used to think like when I was younger, I'm like, Well, what the only time I need repentance if I've got like this sin in my life like this, you know, I know I got this big sin in my life, I need to repent, right? Well, you know, you need to repent when that happens. And then I tell that story how the Lord says will run. You don't wait every time until you stink, take a shower, at least you shouldn't, you know, wait till people start going. What's that smell, you know, and then you go out there take a shower this week, right? We repent as a regular basis. But what I love about to Shiva is it's an entire season of just reflecting. That's one of them is reflecting. And we're literally it's a time of introspection. When we say for this entire season, I'm going to be introspective more than I usually am. And I'm going to say, Lord, what in me needs to change. Where do I need to turn? Sometimes, by the way, this word is Hebrew word means to turn or return. Now return is a 180 degree term turn is zero to 179. I don't know exactly. But my point is that turn if if I'm off course five degrees. Yeah, a turning and we're gonna say it again. But a turning repentance can be a turning of five degrees, a turning of 10 degrees. It may not be a 180 degree turn, it might be a three degree turn. But you guys know if I if I stay on a three degree course, for five years. The longer I'm on that course the further off course I am. And to remove the curse of the golden calves in our lives, we must have to tshuva. Do you see what I'm saying? In other words, I don't just wait until Oh, there's a golden calf. I see it because by if I do that, then by the time I do that it's already taken root in my life. There are many Christian families who are puzzled and they don't understand why they're being plagued by generational sins. They think it's like, well, we just were unlucky. Like, that's not the way it happens. You know, you're not plagued by generational sin because your family is unlucky. Do you hear what I'm saying? That literally if we will become people who say, You know what, I'm going to observe a season, and it doesn't have to be during the Israel to tshuva. For us. It's just a good landmark to go, okay. This is a good time for us to, to be in a season of repentance and a season of turning. And then what happens is the whole rest of the year, it kind of produces in me a life practice that says, I need to be introspective, I need to be thinking about Lord, where are the golden casts? Where are the idols? Where are the things that I have turned away from you. And you know what gold in and of itself is not evil. Cavs in and of themselves, are not evil, right? It's what we do with them. It's what place they hold in our heart. Now, they made it for a place in their heart that it didn't belong. So obviously, Moses has like, melt that thing down, put it in the water. I didn't know about the drinking part, I have to look into that. But to tshuva, this whole idea this this, what I love about this is that God says, Hey, you're not just going to be introspective. What you're saying, Beth, you're showing us is God's going to show Himself to us. It's not me just going oh, well, God's faithful. Oh, yeah, he's faithful. That's his name faithful. It's God's showing himself as faithful. Has the Lord ever shown you something about himself. And when you see it, like, you can't hold back the tears because it really touches your heart, you're like, Oh, my goodness, God. But if I don't get rid of those golden calves, and see the goodness of God, the chances of my children getting rid of the golden calves. And the chances of my children seeing the goodness of God are diminished. You see what I'm saying? I'm not saying God can't reach them. I'm not saying he can't break it. But why not be a vessel for God to remove the golden calves in our lineage, the generational sins in our lineage. And I just shared the whole thing on this recently, where I was talking about, I think it was last week where I was talking to you were you weren't here. But I was sharing about how Beth and I we got married, we go, hey, you know what? We recognize that our family has baggage, some some of its golden calves. And we're like, but we also recognize that each of our families have really redemptive qualities. And so in our first year of marriage, we were talking about this, we said, let's do this, let's bring all the redemptive qualities in and prune off all those other things. And we weren't perfect at it. But what we did was we were intentional. And that's what to shuba is to be intentional, determined, being intentional, to prune off the golden calves and melt them down, to be intentional to have encounters with God, where God shows up. It's not enough for me just think about God, I want God to show up in my life, and reveal Himself to me. And when he does, it affects every cell in my body. It affects every cell in my spirit, if you will, every cell in my heart, my mind, my soul, everything. And so this is just guys that this is so important for us and for our children and for our future generations to live this way. Because if we become people who know who God is up here, yeah, we know is faithful. Yeah, we know is this, and we don't become people who God Passes before us. And we have encounters with him. Then our hearts get hard. And yeah, our minds were still ascribed this to the Lord. Oh, ya know, the Lord is faithful. But we don't feel that the Lord is faithful. Like we don't know it down in our hearts. We know it up in our minds. And I want it to be in my heart. I don't want to just love my wife with my head. So that I go Yeah, I love her. Yeah, I want to feel it in my heart, my life, my body, my cells, my my whole being I want to feel that love. And when I say feel, I'm not talking about emotions, only I'm talking about my spirit, and all the emotions that in composite. And so to tshuva. This is about deliverance. And matter of fact, I don't know if you knew this. I was looking this up. And it's amazing how much deliverance is connected to Teshuva and I'm on a whole lot of different levels. So maybe you'll be able to teach some on that as well. Because it's it's about deliverance from Um, the powers of things that don't belong in my life, not just big sins, little sins, of course, sins, idolatry, just things that the enemy uses to harden me and get me really interested in the world. I'm gonna, you know, the devil, if he can't get you to stop serving God, what he'll do is, he'll just get you interested in a whole lot of hobbies, and other things, and this and that and the other, so that your heart is taken up with other affections. So that I don't have time to really feel those affections. And so this takes me back to this back to God, back to what's precious to him back to these experiences with him. And I want to experience God, I don't want to just know about him. And this is my prayer for us. And this is my prayer. For the for many others, you know, I believe to Shiva is something more than just annual, I believe it becomes this practice in our lives. I think I mentioned this recently, our skin gets brand new cells every 28 days, every 28 days, our skin reproduces brand new cells, the you know what you would look like, if your skin still had the old cells, I can tell you, you're pretty but you wouldn't be pretty right now. If that was the case, guys are handsome. But we need spiritual renewal and restoration. We, the, you know, the skin is one of the most protective organs in the body. I don't know if you guys knew the skin is an Oregon Did you know that is actually an organ of the body. And it's probably the most protective organ in of the entire body. I mean, it's hard to it's apples and oranges when you compare organs. But the point is that we need this replenishment in our lives, we need this revitalization in us. And so this is my prayer that God will give us insights and that and you guys be praying, if you have time, go back during the week and look at some of this and just read some of the scriptures. And I believe that the Lord will give you insights as well. So I'm going to pray and I'll close this time and then we'll have our discussions Lord, we are just I'm so just today I'm so moved by this and just couldn't stop taking notes of feeling like Lord, you're speaking and speaking and opening our eyes and our hearts. We pray, Lord, bring us into just deep experience life practice of Teshuva of turning of repentance. And Lord, we pray in this season of Teshuva in of of really seeking you and being introspective and experiencing restoration, that you will make us hungry to go up on the mountain as Moses did in that first to tshuva in that first season up to tshuva. Lord, make us hungry to be with you on the mountain. And to spend time with you. And to honor you and to to want to see you like Moses wanted to see you and to turn toward you and to and to have these desires in person and discernment to melt down the golden calf so they don't exist in our lives, to break the power of generational sin. Maybe that's been passed on to us from parents, or maybe that we are in danger of passing on to children. Lord, we pray that you will make this a revelation to us not just knowledge, not just information, so that we can live in the joy of it in Jesus name and the fruit. Amen and amen.