My Heart Is On Fire by Doug Apple - a short Christian devotional to open the Scriptures and make your heart burn within you!

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

Why is Home Depot on lockdown?

I just wanted to run in, buy a new weed eater, and go home.

But that’s not how it works these days. Why? Because Home Depot is on lockdown.

What I mean is, some of their stuff is now literally chained up behind bars right there on the shelf.

Am I in one of those big cities with looters and riots? Hardly. I’m in sleepy Tallahassee, Florida. And yet here I am, looking at weed eaters, not Rolex watches, chained behind bars. I will have to wander around the store and find an employee to unchain it for me.

Now why would they do this? Because of theft, of course. They didn’t want to do it. It’s a pain for them, and a pain for their customers. They wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t have to.

That means the theft was getting so bad that they had to invest in anti-theft measures, and that makes me sad.

Now let’s talk about our local Walmart. When was the last time you went in to buy shaving cream? Guess what. It’s locked up, too. Shaving cream!

Walmart didn’t want to do that. How many customers just said, “Forget it. I’ll order it from Amazon before I’ll track down an employee to unlock the shaving cream.”

And don’t think you are going to walk down the makeup aisle at Walmart without being recorded on high definition security cameras. Why would they invest so much money to record you in the makeup aisle? They didn’t want to. They had to because so much of it was being stolen.

Last Christmas I talked to a security guard at Walmart who was standing near a back door, an emergency door. He didn’t really look at me while we talked, because his eyes were scanning the people around me. I asked him how it was going and he vented a little. He said, “You know we have about 3,000 people in the store right now.” No, I hadn’t even thought about it, but wow, that’s a small town.

He said, “And these people don’t realize how much theft hurts everything. Everyone has to pay more because a few people just won’t be honest.”

I said, “Why are you standing back here where there aren’t as many people?”

He said, “Because believe it or not, people will grab items and run out this back door. They’ll even try to run right past me just to steal something. I have to chase them down.”

This was a big man. I would not have wanted to test him, but apparently others were willing to.

Now let’s look at one thing he said. “These people don’t realize how much theft hurts everything.”

Of course, when people steal, they aren’t thinking about its impact on everyone else. They just want to have something without paying for it. And there’s a certain thrill about getting away with the big heist. Yes, your big shaving cream heist.

Why is this happening? Because more and more people are willing to steal.

Why would that be? Let’s look at the big picture.

Almost everyone in the history of the world knows that stealing is wrong. It’s a universal concept. No one wants their stuff stolen from them, and everyone whose stuff is stolen cries “foul!”

Many people believe that God created the world, and that He created it to work in a certain way, AND, important for this discussion, God is the policeman and judge of His creation.

The God of the Bible says that we will reap what we sow. What we do to others will be done to us. Some call that karma, what comes around goes around. And we who believe in God believe that God Himself enforces these rules. He makes sure that they work just as He says.

With that in mind, you don’t want to steal because if you do, God is going to make sure it goes badly for you. And that’s true whether you get caught by the human authorities or not. If you dart out of Walmart with your stolen shaving cream, and the big security guard doesn’t catch you, it doesn’t matter. You are already caught by the God of the universe and He is going to make sure that you reap what you sow.

If you are paying attention, you see that it really does work that way.

But again, why is theft increasing, even if the thief reaps what he sows?

I think it is because more people don’t believe in God, don’t believe He is watching, don’t believe it will come back to bite them, and think if they don’t get caught, they are actually ahead in the game.

If you take Creator God out of the equation, and you think our life here is a random chance, then just living for today, grabbing what you can and making a run for it might make sense.

But of course stealing still doesn’t make sense. Look at all the stores that are closing entirely in certain cities because of theft. The idiot thieves can’t even go in and steal anymore because their idiocy killed the whole store. And all the honest shoppers lost a good store, too. And the business is hurt by having fewer stores to sell their wares. And there are fewer jobs in those neighborhoods, meaning more poverty.

Stealing literally hurts everyone, and most especially the thief.

Because God IS real. He really IS watching. And He really IS enforcing the laws of the universe He created. The thief really WILL reap he sows. It really WILL come around to bite him in the end. And that’s bad for him, and it’s bad for all of us because we need every person doing their best to make this society the best it can be for all of us.

I’ll close with these powerful words from Ephesians 4:28, “Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.”

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

A man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps.

That’s what it says in Proverbs 16:9.

We see a great example of this when looking at Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus.

Jesus was crucified. He declared, “It is finished.” And Mary Magdalene was part of the crowd who watched.

Joseph of Arimathea took His body down, and he and Nicodemus prepared it for burial and placed it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. And they rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb.

Then Matthew 27 verse 61 adds this interesting part of the story: “And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.”

The crowds were gone. The sun was setting. The great Jesus was in the tomb. And there was Mary Magdalene, sitting opposite the tomb, watching. Observing. Thinking. Feeling.

Fast forward and we find Mary Magdalene and other women returning to the tomb with spices to anoint the body of Jesus.

They had plans. They thought it through, made preparations. set the time, got together, and went to the tomb.

But when they got there, Jesus was gone!

Mark 16 says that inside the tomb there was a young man in a long white robe who said, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples – and Peter – that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”

Mary Magdalene had a very clear idea of what she was going to do that Sunday morning, but God had other ideas. She had her plans, but what she didn’t know is that God had a mission for her.

And I believe God has a mission for each of us. Yes, we are to do good. We make plans and organize our days, that’s all good.

But watch for it. Watch for God to intervene and give you a mission.

Maybe you have a dream of what you want to do with your life. Maybe you are making a list of pros and cons. You’re making plans.

But watch for it. Watch for God to intervene, to interrupt your plans and in their place give you a mission.

Because a man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

Have you ever heard of mesothelioma?

Most likely you’ve heard of it from the class action lawsuit ads on television.

The ads are run by lawyers who want you to sign up for the class action lawsuit, IF you are one of the people negatively affected by the defendant.

If you answer the ad, sign onto the lawsuit and join the “class,” then you are in line for any benefits that come from winning the lawsuit.

But what happens if you don’t answer the ads? You don’t sign onto the lawsuit. You never join the class. No one even knows that you, too, were a victim of the defendant. What will you get if they win the lawsuit?

Nothing. You didn’t join the class, so you don’t get the benefits of being in the class.

Sometimes I think of salvation this way. It’s like Jesus has already won the case and is paying out benefits to anyone who joins the class.

He has put out the call far and wide, all over the world, come and join the class! The price has been paid, the case has been won, benefits are already being paid out by the truckload, just come and join the class!

And millions of us have already done it. We were damaged by sin. We got the raw deal. It was a rip off. Then we heard about this offer from Jesus. “Come to Me,” He said. “I will take care of that sin problem. I will forgive you. I will wash you clean and make you whole. I will restore your soul, and your relationship with the Heavenly Father. Then I will give you My Spirit to fill you and walk with you for the rest of your life here. And then I will take you home to heaven to be with Me forever.”

Those are the benefits of this class action! All we have to do is sign on.

How do you sign on? Tell God you want to. Say, “God, I’m in. I want in on this deal. Please forgive my sins and wash me clean. Make me new and whole. Make me that new creation You talk about. I’m sorry. I repent. I’m ready to leave sin behind and come to You. Sign me up for this class!”

Then you’re in!

But what if you don’t? What if you never do? What if you never turn to God like that?

Then you’re not in. You’re not in the class. You can’t get the benefits of the case if you don’t sign onto the class.

There’s almost nothing sadder than finding out there was a huge payout in a class action lawsuit that you should have been a part of, but you weren’t, simply because you didn’t make the effort to sign on.

So…sign on today! Turn to God and say, “Here I am! I want in!” Like the old song says, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me…O Lamb of God I come.”

But keep this in mind: like all class actions…this is a limited time offer.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

What is sin?

The Greek word for sin in the Bible is ἁμαρτία which is pronounced ham-ar-TEE-ah. It’s literal meaning is “to miss the mark.”

Sometimes we whitewash sin. We give it different names, like adultery becomes “having an affair.” We try to minimize the impact by acting like it’s not so bad, if it’s even bad at all.

So let’s look at it from a different angle. Let’s look at it through Jesus’ construction analogy at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

In Matthew 7 Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house…”

That’s a construction analogy. He “builds his house.”

When you build a house or some other large structure, you build it using a blueprint.

The expert creates the blueprint, then the builders build what they see designed on the blueprint.

So when the wise man builds his house, as Jesus said, what is his blueprint?

Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of mine…” That’s the blueprint. The Word of God is the blueprint. It’s the blueprint for building our life well.

When we follow the blueprint closely, we build well. When we stray from the blueprint, we build poorly.

So back to this definition of sin as missing the mark. If you are spending your hard-earned money to build your dream house, how many times do you want the builder to miss the mark on the blueprint? None! You want him to NEVER miss the mark. You want him to follow the blueprint precisely.

So when it comes to building our lives, why would we ever want to miss the mark, if missing the mark means building poorly?

Sin often happens after some alluring temptation. We fall for the lie that “it’s going to be so good and fun.” But if sin is missing the mark and building poorly, it should be easier to avoid, because who wants to build poorly? It’s a waste of time and resources. It ruins your reputation. Poor buildings even hurt people, and sometimes people even die due to poor building practices.

There is much more to this topic, but today let’s stick to this one slice of it. What is sin? It is missing the mark. God has a blueprint for building our lives well, and whenever we sin, we are disobeying the blueprint and building our life poorly.

As for me and my house, I want to be the wise man who built his house well; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was built precisely according to God’s blueprint.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

“The other driver got aggressive, so I got aggressive, too.”

That’s what my friend said.

He continued, “But I don’t do that anymore. The Bible says, ‘Don’t return evil for evil,” so when another driver gets aggressive, I just let him go his merry way…even if I feel like speeding up and tracking him down!”

Have you ever been there? You felt like letting someone have it, but because you know God doesn’t really want you to go around letting people have it, you back off and let it slide.

That’s a great first step! But now let me show you a better way.

The better way is love.

In Matthew 5 Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies…”

The better way is love.

That aggressive driver? Yes, it is better to let him go and not follow your impulse to get aggressive back. But the better way is to love him! It is better to love all of your fellow drivers on the road today.

First Corinthians 12:31 literally says now let me show you a better way, a more excellent way. One translation says, “Now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.”

And what, pray tell, is best of all? First Corinthians 12:31 leads right into First Corinthians 13 which is also known as the love chapter. That is the best way of all, the way of love.

We should be able to look at every person around us and say, “I love this one and this one and that one and him and her and all of them.” That is the better way.

We really can’t do that on our own, but this is where the fruit of the Spirit of love comes in. As born again believers with God’s Holy Spirit inside of us, HE will bear the fruit of love in our life. And He will do that to the degree that we let Him. Our part is to humbly submit to Him, as sheep to a shepherd, and follow as He leads.

And this is where He is leading. He is leading us to a better way of living. It’s the way of life that is best of all. The NIV says it is “the most excellent way”!

It’s the way of First Corinthians 13.

It’s the way of Jesus.

It’s the way of love.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

The laundry basket crashed at my feet.

I looked up the stairs and saw my mother-in-law at the top.

She had literally thrown her laundry basket down the steps because it was too hard for her to carry it down.

That was a clue that it was time for us to move to a house without stairs.

But as you know if you’ve done it, finding a new place to live is a huge and important decision.

I wanted to come up with a prayer my wife and I could agree on. I had recently memorized Matthew 18:19 where Jesus said, “If two of you agree on earth concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.”

What’s the weak link in that prayer formula? It’s getting two people on earth to actually agree on something!

So I wanted to come up with a precise prayer for our housing that my wife and I could agree on, but what would it be?

I was thinking of all the things we could ask for in a new house, but I was also thinking, “What do I know?” I don’t know the future or what we will need and how life will play out. But God does. Matthew 6:8 says that God knows our needs before we even ask!

Then I got to thinking about a basketball game. What if I was the coach, and time was running out, and the game was on the line. And oh yeah, Michael Jordan is on the team! Would I try to draw up some elaborate play out of my own thinking and tell them what to do? Or would I simply hand the ball to Michael Jordan and say, “Here you go. Just do what you do.”

God is far more capable than Michael Jordan, so why would I come up with an elaborate prayer to tell God what to do?

So this became our prayer for a new house, “God, please, just do what You do regarding our housing.”

No, we didn’t sit back and do nothing. My wife was on the hunt, diligently looking at what was on the market. And I think she just liked looking at all the houses, which is something I don’t really care about.

Then one day she took me to see a house, and when I saw it from a distance, something “pinged” inside of me and I thought, “This is good. This could be the place!”

And it was! It turned out to be the perfect place for us and our needs and even what was coming in the future that we had no idea about.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.

Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…”

Yes, many times I pray very specific prayers, “letting my requests be made known unto God.” But other times, like in this housing situation, I just trust the Lord, put the ball completely in His hands and say, “Here you go. Here’s the ball, Lord. Please, just do what You do, and I know it’s going to be wonderful. It’s going to be the best it can be!”

So if you need a short prayer of faith today, and one we can easily agree on, here you go. Just pray this prayer with me.

“God, please, just do what You do.”

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

What do you do when you doubt?

Did God ever do anything for you?

Did He save you? Did He spare you from the net of the fowler?

Did He forgive you and shine His grace upon you?

Did He give you wisdom when you lacked it?

Did He ever bring conviction on you that led to repentance?

Did you ever read the Bible and feel like God was speaking directly to you?

Did one of God’s people ever minister to you at just the right time, like they were on a mission from God Himself?

This is what you do when you doubt. You go back and remember what God did in the past.

Maybe you aren’t feeling His presence right now. Maybe He seems far away. Maybe He let you down. He didn’t do what you thought He should. Maybe you are starting to believe those who say there is no God at all. What should you do?

Go back and remember what God did in the past. Or as one old Gospel song says, go back to the old landmarks.

There’s another old Gospel song called Jesus Gave Me Water.

The chorus says, “Jesus gave me water and it was not from the well.”

It’s based on the story from John chapter four about the woman at the well.

Jesus and His disciples went to a city of Samaria called Sychar. Outside the city was Jacob’s well. Jesus sat by the well while His disciples went into Sychar to buy food.

Then a woman came out to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her for a drink, and ended up talking to her about “living water.”

Jesus told her that whoever drinks the water from the well will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks God’s living water will never thirst because it will “become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

That goes along with what Jesus said in John chapter seven. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Then verse 39 explains that when Jesus said living water He was talking about the Holy Spirit, “whom those believing in Him would receive.”

The woman at the well believed in Him. And she brought a bunch of people from Sychar and they believed in Him as well.

And those who believe in Him would receive the Holy Spirit, which is the living water.

Did you ever have the living water of the Holy Spirit flowing like a spring of water within you? Maybe it is hard to remember, so go back to the old landmarks. Think back to what God has done for you in the past.

What do you do when you doubt?

Think back!

Back to the song Jesus Gave Me Water. Later in the song there is a line about doubt. It says, “every time she doubted.”

Now you’d think the woman at the well would never doubt, right? I mean, she talked in person to Jesus and He read her mail. He prophesied to her. What’s to doubt?

Or maybe she never did doubt. It’s just a song, right? But doubt has a way of creeping into everyone’s life at one time or another. Even John the Baptist in prison sent a message to Jesus saying, “Are you the Coming One or do we look for another?” And that’s the same John the Baptist who announced, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

So back to the song. What did she do every time she doubted? It says…

“Every time she doubted, she’d start to think about Him,

When you begin to doubt, go back to the old landmarks. Think about what God has done for you.

For the woman at the well, at least according to the song, she would remember when the Lord had her shoutin’ and there was no room for doubtin’, that Jesus gave her water and it was not from the well!

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

Why doesn’t God just do everything?

Why does He leave anything up to human beings?

I don’t know, but He does, and one great example of that is the story of Paul and Ananias.

We can read the story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9, chapter 22 and again in chapter 26.

He was called Saul at the time, and he was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians.

Suddenly Jesus Himself spoke to him from heaven!

I know that is strange by itself, but something even stranger happened.

Jesus Himself spoke to Saul, but He didn’t give him the whole message.

God didn’t just do everything. He got other people involved, including a Christian named Ananias.

In Acts 9 verse 6 Jesus said to Saul, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Jesus could have just handled everything Himself, right there on the spot, but no. He sent Saul into Damascus with only a vague notion of what was going to happen next.

Meanwhile, in Acts 9 verse 11 the Lord appeared to Ananias in a vision, called him by name, and told him to go see Saul.

And oh yeah, God gave Saul a vision of someone named Ananias coming to minister to him!

God could have just taken care of everything Himself, right? But He didn’t. He got Ananias involved in His work.

What does that have to do with you and me? All Christian believers are members of the Body of Christ, and when God wants to do a work on earth, He uses the Body of Christ, His people, to carry out His plans!

You’ve heard the old saying, “We are His hands and His feet.” That’s what this is, the Christians, the Body of Christ, His church, doing His work as He leads us.

And listen – each believer has an EQUALLY VITAL PART in the Body of Christ. Sure, we have different gifts and callings, different backgrounds and different experiences. But each one of us is important to God’s work.

There’s Saul, who would become Paul, and reach the Gentile world for Jesus and write a good portion of the Bible, and yet God chose to include little old Ananias in His grand master plan.

I have no idea why God uses people because we are generally an unreliable lot. Nevertheless, here we are, God’s people, His vessels…and His vassals! He has work He wants done in the earth, and He’s not going to do it all by Himself. He’s going to use people, and you and I are one of them.

And listen: it’s about to get exciting!

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

To obey is better than sacrifice. What on earth does that mean?

We find this phrase in First Samuel 15:22. It’s the prophet Samuel talking to King Saul, the first king of Israel. Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…”

Saul insisted that he HAD obeyed, he just hadn’t TOTALLY obeyed. What was the big deal?

Apparently it was a HUGE deal. The very next verse, First Samuel 15:23 has some of the most sobering words in the whole Bible. Samuel said to King Saul, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

So back to this phrase “to obey is better than sacrifice.” There is something inside of us that glorifies sacrifice. We give up something. We lay down something. We sacrifice something, and it’s a noble thing to do.

We often think of our veterans and how they sacrificed their lives, many of them to the point of death…a noble sacrifice for the rest of us in the country.

Now think of this in military terms. Which is better: sacrifice or obedience?

What do we want our soldiers to do: to wake up each morning and decide what they are going to sacrifice for their country, or to wake up each morning and do what they are told?

Do we want a national defense plan where everyone does what they think is best, or where there is a unified plan with commands from the top that the soldiers carry out?

Imagine a soldier is told to stand guard and watch the horizon for planes coming from the west. But instead of just standing there, watching the sky, he decides to really sacrifice himself and go clean the latrine, a disgusting job that no one wants to do. What a noble sacrifice, right?

But wait. What if it’s December 7th, 1941, and no one is watching for planes and we end up with the disaster of Pearl Harbor? Sure, it was a sacrifice to clean the bathrooms, but it would have been far better for him to obey his commands and stand watch.

This is why it is better to obey than to sacrifice. We’re not saying sacrifice is bad. In fact, you have to sacrifice in order to obey. The key here is that obedience is BETTER than sacrifice. We don’t just make up what we want to sacrifice and then tell God, “Oh, I’m sacrificing for you.” That’s what King Saul did. He was preparing a wonderful sacrifice for God, but he did not OBEY God.

So yes, as Christians we need to be prepared to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice, as it says in Romans 12:1. But we do that, not by coming up with something to sacrifice, but by obeying God.

Even Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, didn’t just decide one day to do something sacrificial and give up His life for the sins of the world. Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus became “obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Romans 5:19 says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Yes, Jesus was sacrificial, but more importantly, Jesus was obedient…obedient to the Father’s will. “Not my will, but THY will be done,” Jesus said.

So as we go about our day, we don’t say, “Gee, I’m going to do something great for God. I’m going to sacrifice and give up something just for Him.”

Instead we say, “God, what do You want me to do? I want to obey You. I want to follow You. Not my will but Your will be done. Lord, help me not do MY thing, but help me be obedient. I want to fulfill my part in the body of Christ and carry out Your perfect plans. Not my plans, but Your plans.”

It’s not about sacrificing something for God. It’s about obeying Him…because to obey is better than sacrifice.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.