if reading the bible is hard for you, watch this
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Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Christ with Coffee on Ice. I am your host, Allie Yost. It is, why did I say my last name weird like that? Yoist. I'm your host, Allie Yost, and it's a joy and honor to be here with you guys. Hey, I love you. I love you guys. CWCOI, we're back. Christ with Coffee on Ice. I love it here. I love it. I also love my tank top today. Look how cute it is. We got cherries. We also have our Coffee on Iced

What is happening to my speech today? We're keeping all of this actually. Forget it. I have my coffee on ice. No tea at the end of that. And our Christ. Hold on. This is going to spill. Which does have a tea on the end of it. Christ. Coffee on ice. Okay. We're there. We've made it, guys. We're here. We're here for another day and I love y'all. And yeah, we're in my bedroom again. It's fun though, isn't it? I need to put some lip balm on. Hold on.

We gotta get our road lip balm. Not sponsored, but would be delighted to. Would gladly. Her peptide lip tints rock. I've been using the shade Ribbon. Daisy got a hold of it, so there's a bunch of... You can't see it from here, but she really... It looks a little banged up, but it goes right there in the back of my phone. It's the best. Okay, guys. Happy day. What a day to rejoice in. Actually, I feel... Let's pray. Let's pray.

Let's just pray. Jesus, God, thank you for being here. Lord, thank you for being here and dwelling on this earth with us, God. We thank you for your guidance. We thank you for your love. We thank you for joy. We thank you for the joy that we get from you, Lord. And I just impart that. Is that the word that we use? I just send it out.

And I declare it over my friend on the other side of this podcast, Lord. I just declare joy over their life, God. I thank you that that is their portion. Joy is. Even in the midst of the trials, in the midst of the storms, in the midst of the valley, there is still joy to be found in your spirit, God. I thank you that in your word, it says that there is nothing...

that can actually take joy from you away from us. And so Lord, I pray joy over their life in Jesus name, even in the midst of the things that could be happening. God, I just thank you that there's always joy to be found even in the uncertain seasons, in the seasons that don't make sense, in the seasons that we don't have all the answers, Lord.

And thank you, God, for being in the valleys with us. Thank you for being on the mountaintops with us, God. Thank you for being everywhere in whatever season, God. Thank you for being with us at all times. Thank you that you are omnipresent, that you can just be with all of us. You're here in my room with me and you are there on the other end with my friend. And so, God, we just thank you that you are such an intentional God. You're a loving God and you are a God who is here to just support us and love us and give us the things we need, like joy. And so I pray joy over us.

As we enter this episode, God, thank you for the opportunity to commune with one another. And I just bless my friend on the other side of this. God, thank you, Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Guys, what a good day. Actually, what a good day it is. You know, I'm going to be honest.

I'm going to be honest, as I'm recording this, it's near the end of my day and there have been some hiccups in my day. There have been some things that have happened where I'm like, ooh, don't love that. Ooh, that wasn't my plan. Ooh, that, ow, that's annoying. But today is a good day. Today has been a good day and it will continue to be a good day. And yeah, I feel hope. Oh, what's that song? Let hope arise.

Arise, let hope arise. I feel hope arising in me after the day I've had. I love these glasses, but I can really see the reflection of my light in them. I gotta keep my head down. I gotta...

Stay down here. I have not drank enough water today. Let me actually go get my water bottle. Hold on. So I haven't been really... I haven't really been a Stanley girl lately. I love Stanley! Wait! Stop! Hold on. Before you guys run with that and go crazy, I love Stanley. I love Stanley. But as of late, I've been using this water bottle here. This isn't sponsored, but...

Not that sponsorship is a bad thing, actually. It's the thing that literally pays my bills and keeps me alive. So thank you, sponsorships. I love you all and also love you guys. I would never sponsor anything I don't believe in. But so you know, I think you as listeners, you guys deserve that disclaimer if it is or not. This one is not. But I have been using this water bottle called Ouala. Is that how you say it? O-W-A-L-A.

Okay, a lot of you guys probably already own these, but one of my friends, Sage, we went to Hawaii not too long ago, and she had this one. And I was like, um, I'm sorry, that's amazing. It's just so travel-friendly. And what I love about it is you can still go boop,

And you can just sip right out of it. Yeah. So it's amazing. Got it off Amazon. So I'm still a Stanley girl. Don't get me wrong. But when it comes to like more travel-y stuff, I don't know. I just love my oh-wala, oh-wala, oh-wala. I don't know how to say that. Okay. I have been crushing the coffee on ice today, but not nearly enough water on ice. So that actually might be what we're drinking today. All right, y'all. What are we going to talk about today? What are we doing?

I feel scripture on my heart. I feel word of God on my heart. I think we need to talk about word of God. All right, y'all. Can we read the Bible today? I need it. I don't know about y'all. I need to read the Bible today, okay? And if this is something that's hard for you, if reading the Bible is hard for you, watch this. That's what I'm gonna name this episode. If reading the Bible is hard for you, let's just, how about, let's read 2 Corinthians together. I don't, I just feel like we should do that. 2 Corinthians.

Just so everybody knows, because I love my Bible here, I read the NLT translation. My Bible is also from a company called Hosanna Revival, which is an incredible company. They are actually the best. And I do have a code with them if you guys are interested. They have beautiful Bibles. I also have a little travel-friendly one that I bring with me everywhere all the time.

This is my like when I'm at home studying the Bible Bible, but I don't really bring this one with me out and about in life because it's just too big and bulky. But the travel size one that I have is perfect. It fits in most of my purses. It fits right under my arm as I'm, you know, out and about in life or going to church. And so their Bibles are the only ones I use right now. And I love them. They're also just all so stunning. They're beautiful. They like literally look holy. So gorgeous. Like the detailing on this and the gold is just like...

Wow. And then they also have really beautiful journals too. So you guys are more than welcome to use my code. It's just my first and last name, Allie Yost. And it should give you like 10 to 15% off if you are ever curious to shop their site. But that is the Bible I'm going to be using. I would encourage you guys to read along with me. I really think that that's like

the most effective is being able to just really read with me and follow along. If you have a different translation, that's okay. We will be able to still read this together. But if you're not, that's okay. I'm happy to still just read it to you. Yes, we're going to read 2 Corinthians. We're starting right at the top of that. So verse 1, chapter 1. This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and from our brother Timothy.

I am writing to God's church in Corinth and to all of his holy people throughout Greece. May God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighted down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation. For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.

What I love that Paul is saying here, just in these first few moments of 2 Corinthians, is that there's rejoicing to have in suffering because when we suffer, that is when the Lord can come in and comfort us. And when we've experienced that comfort from God, we actually are able to extend that same comfort to others.

It also takes an open heart because there are times where we don't let God, like we're not stronger than God. When I say we don't let him, there are times where I do believe that God wants to give us things like comfort or grace or forgiveness and we don't allow ourselves to receive it.

So it's more so like we don't let ourselves receive that gift that God is trying to extend to us. And so as long as we are open to it and we open our hearts to the comfort of God, that could be through grief, that could be through condemnation or like people who are coming against you. Hard times, whether that's, yeah, just like anything that we truly need to be comforted in.

if we resist the comfort of God in that, well, one, we're robbing ourselves from a gift that the Lord so freely and it is like so eager to give his children, which is comfort. But then also we're robbing others from being able to experience that through you, like through you as a vessel of the Lord. So anything that we are actually able to receive from the Lord, where he gives it and we're like, yes, I humble myself and I need your comfort, God. Like,

I humble myself and I need your love, even though I don't feel deserving of it. Like I let you pour these gifts into my heart. When you let the father do that, you actually are able to then extend those same fruits of his love and his spirit to other people. Put us in a box.

go ahead. That just gives us something to break out of. Because the next generation 2025 GMC Terrain Elevation is raising the standard of what comes standard. As far as expectations go, why meet them when you can shatter them?

So if you're not allowing the Lord to comfort your heart in things or in sufferings or whatever you could be going through, you're also robbing others of experiencing that through you because we can only give the things that we also have received from God, right? We've talked about that concept before here on the podcast. Like

even when it comes to forgiveness. Like we talked about forgiveness a few weeks ago and it's like, is it hard for us to forgive other people because we also have not allowed ourselves to receive the forgiveness from the Father? Can we not give people grace? Are we critical of others because we haven't been able to open our hearts to grace from God and we've been very critical of ourselves? We haven't extended grace to ourselves or others because we don't allow grace to be extended to our hearts by Abba.

That is like my interpretation. I know that there's probably so much more in this, but just surface level interpretation of this first part of the scripture that Paul is saying is that we are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort that God gives us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ, even when we are weighted down with troubles.

It is for your comfort and salvation. For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. Wow. And like you really could replace that with any other word of what the Lord does. Like he comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. He forgives us in all our trespassing or our sins so that we can forgive others.

others he first loved us so that we could love others you know what i mean like anything that the father gives us is not only for us but also so we can extend those same things to other people and reflect his character because when we allow the lord to fill our hearts with the fruit of his character we can then go out into the world and be a mirror of that same man who is god who is jesus

We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely on ourselves.

I want to break this down a little bit, okay? It says, Wow. Wow.

never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. Those are heavy words. Those aren't light words. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure. And we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God.

Sometimes, a lot of times, I think most the time, God allows us to endure such suffering for this very statement. Because as a result of that overwhelming, beyond their ability to endure type of suffering, suffering that they never thought they'd live through and in fact thought they would die, expected to die. As a result of that, they stopped relying on themselves and learned to rely on God. Only on God.

That can be a hard pill to swallow as you're in the midst of being crushed and overwhelmed beyond your ability to endure. So much so that you never thought you would live through it. That you could be thinking about a circumstance that has already happened in your life or you could be living through that right now. I believe that that is such a relatable statement for a lot of people that could be listening right now. In fact, you expect to die.

The suffering is so bad that you're like, "I don't even know how I'm gonna live through this, God. I don't know how I'm gonna live through this season." That doesn't have to be so literal, but sometimes things can feel so hard where you're like, "I don't know how I'm gonna get through this." But what's crazy is that that type of suffering was the very thing that made them stop relying on themselves and learned how to rely only on God.

Like it really is like sometimes when we go through those times that are so hard. I think that's like honestly why a lot of us come to Christ. When I think about my life before I met the Lord, I remember how rock bottom, how desperate, how on E, below E, out of gas, empty shell of myself. I think back to that version of me and I'm like that is the only reason I...

If everything was going great for me in my life, I would have never turned to the Lord. I would have no reason to rely only on God and not on myself anymore. So like I think back to the trauma and just the, I wanted to say garbage, but just the things that happened in my life that were either my own fault or like other people. But like I think back to those things and I'm like, God, why? Like why did you let me?

Like, why would you let me do that? Why would you let those things happen to me? But the reality is that like, I think a lot of times we are so stubborn. And it's human nature. It's just our sinful nature of who we are as people. But like, we are so stubborn and we are so prideful that sometimes God really needs to humble us. Humbling us not by like wanting to, this isn't God torturing us. I just mean humbling us by like letting really humble,

rock bottom moments happen to us, allowing suffering. And I'm not saying this is always why he allows suffering, but it just makes me think about like salvation in general. I believe that this, that's what happened to me. Like if you were once in the world and then you turned to Jesus, why did you do it? Because it was so hard.

Because I was desperate. Because I didn't think I was going to live. Because I was so crushed and overwhelmed beyond my ability to endure that I thought I would never live through it. In fact, I thought I was going to die. That very feeling is the very thing that points us back to the truth, which is Jesus. Which is God. In fact...

We expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God. That's what happened to me. And so it's like, it sucks. But God really allows it because I think sometimes like it's in those times where we remember that there is nothing, nothing. When it comes to the big stuff, there is nothing that we can actually do in our own power. Like it's only God. It's only God. That's why we turn to him in disaster. Like that's why we treat him as our last resort.

and not our first. And I'm speaking to like the beat, like BC or lukewarm or whatever, but it's like at the end of the day, when we boil it all down, it's like only God actually. God is the only one who can get us through these things and redeem it and make it good.

We can't. Maybe we can for a little bit, but it doesn't last, right? So the only thing that lasts is relying on God and God alone who raises the dead. And so because of that, right, the result of them no longer relying on themselves and learning that they needed to rely only on God who raises the dead, he did rescue us from mortal danger and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him and he will continue to rescue us.

So, it's also just so cool that like once we really put our trust in God, like fully, only in God, and we allow him, right, here we are opening our hearts again, but like we allow him to do those very things in our life, it becomes easier to continue to rely on him.

I'm not saying that there still won't be moments. Like even with me two years in, I'm like, there are still moments where it's hard for me to be like, okay, God, you're going to come through, right? Like you're going to provide, you're going to rescue me in this, right? Like there's definitely still always going to be a temptation of like,

but God, can you do it? But I will say it gets easier the more that you put your faith in God and your full trust in God, relying only on him, the easier it gets in like that confidence and knowing who he is, knowing that he will do it because he's done it before. And so opening your heart to that and being like, okay, God, I am putting all of my trust in you. I believe in you. I'm not going to trust in myself anymore. I believe in who you say you are. And I'm going to step out in faith

And I'm only going to rely on you. Then he comes through for you, right? Just like here. They're like, yeah. And because of that, he actually did rescue us from mortal danger and he will rescue us again. Why can they say he will rescue us again? Because they put all of their trust in God. And because of that, God did rescue them from mortal danger. And they know he'll do it again because they've seen that he's done it before.

And God is the God of, I am your redeemer. I am your protector. I am your provider. And I just think once you see that one time, it helps you kind of step out in faith again. And you're like, okay, I know he can do this because I've seen him do it before. Like now the proof is in the pudding where you've given that trust and you're like,

All right, God, you did come through. You did actually. And sometimes it's not always in the ways that we think. Sometimes it's not always in the ways that maybe we wanted, but he does because he's a promise keeper and he will always provide for his children and he will always protect us and come through and he will rescue us. So...

It gets easier and you get more confidence in who God is from experience of surrendering it and being like, you know, the circumstances, the hard times, whatever, like the things that you're going through that look really, really impossible. Surrendering that and being like, God, you're in control. I have my trust in you and nothing else.

And after doing that so many times, it will get easier. And you will be able to stand there and say the same things that Paul and Timothy are saying here. And they'll say, and he will continue to rescue us. And they speak that in confidence because they have surrendered. Okay, moving on. 2 Corinthians 1.

12 we're at now we can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we have lived with a god-given holiness and sincerity in all our dealings we have depended on god's grace not on our own human wisdom that is how we have conducted ourselves before the world

and especially toward you. Our letters have been straightforward and there is nothing written between the lines and nothing you can't understand. I hope someday you will fully understand us even if you don't understand us now. Then on the day when the Lord Jesus returns, you will be proud of us in the same way we are proud of you. Since I was so sure of your understanding and trust, I wanted to give you a double blessing by visiting you twice.

First, on my way to Macedonia, and again when I returned from Macedonia. Then you could send me on my way to Judea. You may be asking why I changed my plan. Do you think I make my plans carelessly? Do you think I am like people of the world who say yes when they really mean no? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you does not waver between yes and no. For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, does not waver between yes and no. He is the one whom Silas...

Timothy and I preach to you and as God's ultimate yes he always does what he says for all of God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding yes and through Christ our amen which means yes ascends to God for his glory it is God who enables us along with you to stand firm for Christ he has commissioned us and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts and

as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us. Now I call upon God as my witness that I am telling the truth. The reason I didn't return to Corinth was to spare you from a severe rebuke, but that does not mean we want to dominate you by telling you how to put your faith into practice. We want to work together with you so you will be full of joy, for it is by your own faith

that you stand firm. So I decided that I would not bring you grief with another painful visit. For if I cause you grief, who will make me glad? Certainly not someone I have grieved. That is why I wrote to you as I did, so that when I do come, I won't be grieved by the very ones who ought to give me the greatest joy. Surely you all know that my joy comes from your being joyful.

i wrote that letter in great anguish with a troubled heart and many tears i didn't want to grieve you but i wanted to let you know how much love i have for you i am not overstating it when i say that the man who caused all the trouble hurt all of you more than he hurt me most of you opposed him and that was punishment enough now however it is time to forgive and comfort him otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement so i urge you now to reaffirm your love for him

I wrote to you as I did to test you and see if you would fully comply with my instructions. When you forgive this man, I forgive him too. And when I forgive whatever needs to be forgiven, I do so with Christ's authority for your benefit, so that Satan will not outsmart us, for we are familiar with his evil schemes. When I came to the city of Troad to preach the good news of Christ...

Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm obsessed with that. No, no, I'm obsessed with that. Can we read that again? That was so cute. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere like a sweet perfume. Oh.

Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God, but this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this? You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit.

We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority, knowing that God is watching us. I'm sorry, that rocks. I'm sorry, I'm obsessed with that. I'm gonna read it one more time. Guys, listen to that. That's so good. Oof. You see, we are not like the many hucksters. I don't know what hucksters mean, but I feel like Paul is saying phonies. Ones who try to profit, who preach for personal profit. Oof. Oof.

We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority, knowing that God is watching us. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, Paul. I'm obsessed with that because there are people in the world who preach for personal profit. And this is the thing is like, we're not going to look at people like that, like they're below us, because honestly, we could be just like them.

we are all sinful in another world like i i probably could be doing that but it's because i choose to be humble and it's because i choose to have fear of the lord right and i think that's that's what paul is saying here is he's like and knowing that god is watching us which is another way of being like i am aware that everything i do here on earth even my heart posture of why i do things is seen by god and i believe that that is an awareness that you can only have if you have fear of the lord

Because sometimes like we could see people operating in, you know, self-profit and like wanting to just do things to profit themselves rather than for the kingdom of God. And say, how? How? How? And I think that there's just seriously a lack of fear of God in their life.

And so that's the difference. That's the only reason why we, here we are, I'm assuming all of us are humble here, but like that's the only reason why we can preach the word of God with sincerity is because there is a knowing that God is watching us because there's a fear of the Lord over us. And so let that be like such a prayer of your life. I will say from my own experience and my own journey, this is something that I always pray for and I strive for and I try to stay aware of is like

God, never let fear of the Lord, fear of you, leave my shoulders. And fear just means like, just respect and honor to the Lord, you know, as I do all things. That's so good. I think you're on mute. Workday starting to sound the same. I think you're on mute. Find something that sounds better for your career on LinkedIn. With LinkedIn Job Collections, you can browse curated collections by relevant industries and benefits.

We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority.

Knowing that God is watching us, are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others who need to bring you letters of recommendation or who ask you to write such letters on their behalf? Surely not. The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts.

Everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This letter, in air quotes, is written not with a pen and ink, but with the spirit of the living God.

It is carved not on tables of stone, but on human hearts. We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.

He has enabled us. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the spirit. The old written covenant ends in death, but under the new covenant, the spirit gives life.

I'm sorry, that was crazy. I'm obsessed with that. Okay, guys, this is 2 Corinthians 3, 4. I'm just reading that again. I need to read it again. Are you ready? We are confident of all of this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. This is Paul saying, listen, we, Paul and Timothy, we are not arrogant here, okay? We don't...

We are not confident in all of this because of ourselves. It's because we trust in God through Christ. And it is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own, but our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. Jesus, the son coming, dying for our sins, resurrecting, giving us freedom, overcoming death and sin and shame and all things evil.

Okay, new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the spirit, spirit of God. The old written covenant ends in death, but under the new covenant, the spirit gives life.

Yes, it does. Okay. The old way with laws etched in stone led to death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses's face for his face shown with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn't we expect far greater glory under the new way now that the Holy Spirit is giving life? If the

So if the old way, which has been replaced, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new, which remains forever?

Since this new way gives us such confidence, we can be very bold. We are not like Moses who put a veil over his face so that people of Israel would not see the glory even though it was destined to fade away. But the people's minds were hardened.

And to this day, whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ. Yes, even today, when they read Moses' writings, their hearts are covered with that veil and they do not understand. But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had the veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit, makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. That's full. That's full. Oh my gosh.

I'm just looking up some commentary here. I want to share some. The ministry of death. Was it wrong to call the old covenant the ministry of death? No, because this is what the law does to us. It slays us as guilty sinners before God so that we can be resurrected by the new covenant.

I think I've said this before on the podcast, but somebody had explained the old covenant as like a mirror. The Old Testament, the covenant before the new covenant.

like before Jesus, was the only way that we could really know that we were living in sin. You know, like the law slays us as guilty sinners before God so that we can be resurrected by the new covenant. So the new covenant could only come because the old covenant first exposed how sinful we really were. It was a mirror. It like literally was like, hey,

This is what you're living in, by the way. Since our hope is in a more glorious covenant and we can have a more glorious hope because of this hope, Paul can use great boldness of speech. The old covenant restricted and separated men from God. The new covenant brings us to God and enables us to come boldly to him. Even Moses did not have real boldness under the old covenant. A veil is not a quote,

bold thing to wear. It is a barrier and something to hide behind. Moses lacked boldness compared to Paul because the covenant that he administered under was fading away and fading in glory. From reading the account in Exodus 34, 29 through 35, one might first get the impression that Moses wore a veil over his meetings with God so that the people wouldn't be afraid to come near him. The

Here, Paul explains the real purpose of the veil, not to hide the shining face of Moses, but to hide the diminishing glory of his face because the glory was fading. The passing glory of the old covenant contrasts with the enduring glory of the new covenant.

I like this too. It says, Paul could say of his fellow Jews that a veil lies on their heart, but he could also say that the veil can be taken away in Jesus. Paul knew this well because he was once veiled to the glory and superiority of Jesus, meaning he was once blind.

to who Jesus was, but the veil was torn. So Paul can testify to that and he can have confidence in saying that because Paul knew this because he was once veiled. Many Christians with a heart to preach to the Jewish friends wonder why it is really so simple as just showing them that Jesus is the Messiah.

This is because a veil lies on their heart unless God does a work in them. So they turn to the Lord and have the veil taken away. They will never see the fading glory of Moses' covenant and the surpassing glory of Jesus, the new covenant. Of course, it could be said that the Jews are not the only ones with a veil on their hearts. Gentiles also have veils that separate them from seeing Jesus and his work

for us clearly, and Jesus is more than able to take those veils away. This points to the essential need of prayer in evangelism. It has been rightly said that it is more important to talk to God about men than it is to talk to men about God. But we can do both of these important works. Okay. All right. Well, there... Okay. Okay.

Funny joke on me thinking that we were actually going to finish 2 Corinthians. Like I was like, oh, we can read all this today. Ellie, are you okay? There's no way I'm going to do that. So I think what we can do is next week, if you want, if you want, we can pick back up on 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians. We stopped...

at 2 Corinthians 3, 18. Yeah, the end of chapter three. So we will pick back up 2 Corinthians chapter four. Does that sound good? Is that what you guys wanna do? I wanna do that. Let's do it. I love you guys. Hey, guys, can we do something cool today? Can we show somebody how cool Jesus is? Can we walk more like him, talk more like him, be more like him, reflect his characteristics, be comforted by him in times where we need it so we can also comfort others? Let's show his comfort.

as well. I love y'all. I'm proud of you. So excited to be spending more time with you guys. Thank the Lord. Have a beautiful rest of your few days until we see each other again, and I will see you guys next time.

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