Banana Peels and Brokenness: Hope in a Hollow Culture

Hey, do you know a caregiver in your life who is struggling with something and you don't really know what to say?

Well, guess what? I do. So get them this book. It's called A Minute for Caregivers. When every day feels like Monday.

They're one minute chapters. And I'd love for you to put that in the hands of somebody who is struggling as they care for a chronically impaired loved one. And it could be somebody dealing with an aging parent or special needs child. Somebody that has an alcoholic or an addict in their family. Somebody who has a loved one who has had a traumatic experience, mental illness.

There's so many different kinds of impairments. There's always a caregiver. How do you help a caregiver?

How do you help somebody who helps somebody? That's where I come in. That's where this book comes in. And that's what I think you're going to find will be incredibly meaningful to them. And if you're going through that right now, they get a copy for you.

Friends don't let friends care give alone. I speak fluent caregiver for decades of this. This will help. I promise you it'll pull you back away from the cliff a little bit, point you to safety, give you something solid to stand on so that you or that caregiver you know can be a little healthier as they take care of somebody who is not healthy. Caregivers make better caregivers. It's called a minute for caregivers when every day feels like Monday wherever books are sold.

And for more information, go to PeterRosenberger.com. I am your host for all things caregiver related in the often tumultuous and challenging world of being a family caregiver. More than 65 million Americans right now are doing this.

And so my question is very simple. How are you doing? How are you holding up? What's going on with you? I'm bringing four decades of experience to offer a lifeline to my fellow caregivers to say, hey, this is solid ground. Stand here for a minute and catch your breath.

Okay? That's what this program is all about. That is what hope for the caregiver is.

The conviction that we as caregivers can live a calmer, healthier, and dare I say it, a more joyful life while serving as a caregiver. PeterRosenberger.com. I flew to Montana on Sunday, on Easter Sunday. I took the day to go up there and get my vehicle, which friends of mine dropped at the airport in Montana. And I left Denver to go do that and then drove back to Denver where we're still in the hospital with my wife week number 13.

And we're not sure exactly when this is going to be over. But here we are and I needed to get my own vehicle. They don't want her to fly back home. So I'm going to drive her home slowly.

We'll take a couple of days to get there when it does happen. But I on Easter Sunday, I flew back. I got up in the morning, went over there to the hospital to see her early. And I read through the Easter story and just had a moment with her and then caught an Uber to the airport. I had to spend a little extra time at the airport because I've lost my driver's license. You have to use your driver's license to check into the hospital every day. And somewhere along the line, it fell out and I'm getting a new one.

It's supposed to be shipped to me, but hasn't gotten there yet. So I had to call the TSA and work that out. And you're able to do it, but you got to go through a process. They were very gracious in the past. I've struggled a bit with the TSA at times, but these people on Easter Sunday morning were incredibly gracious and got it worked out. But you have to get there pretty early.

Three hours to be specific. And I'm in the airport. It's Easter Sunday.

It is the high point of the church calendar. I've never spent Easter Sunday in the airport. I have spent it in the hospital, but I never spent it in the airport.

And Denver is a very big airport. And I saw two different people wearing bunny ears. And that was it for Easter. That's all the accouterments of Easter that I saw. And I thought, wow, this is sad, isn't it?

This is really sad. My family FaceTimed me from South Carolina and they were gathering just before I got on the plane. They're gathering for Easter lunches after church.

They're a couple hours ahead of me. And they invited me to join in with the prayer before the meal. I got to see mom and brothers and sisters. My son was there.

And it was great to be able to have that connection there in the airport. Easter Sunday was it was kind of hard to describe, but it wasn't being celebrated in any way, fashion or form. And I thought, the fields are white with harvest, aren't they? People are going about their lives not stopping to commemorate the day that Christ was risen from the grave.

Romans 1 talks about He was risen for us. And nobody knew or seemed to care. And I thought, this is sad. We're slowly morphing into a very secular society, aren't we? I thought, what can we do about this? What do we do about it?

What do you think about that? I got on the plane. I will tell you this. We got on the plane.

Everybody got seated. And the pilot came on and said, all right, one special passenger is going to find this, reach into the back of the seat in front of you in that pocket. And there's a, you know, basically they'd hidden an egg. I reached into the back of the seat in front of me and I pulled out a plastic wrapper that somebody put an old banana peel in.

And it was not quite what I expected to pull out for Easter Sunday morning. And I showed it to the flight attendant. I said, do I get something special for this? The flight attendant was incredibly apologetic and embarrassed and went and got gloves to pick up what I just handed to him. And I'm just like, you know, what about me? They brought me a little wet nap kind of thing to wipe my hands with because I didn't touch the banana peel, but there was the plastic around it. So I feel a little bit better about that. But, you know, that was that was my Easter egg hunt.

I found an old banana peel. Anyway, I got up to Montana, walked out of the airport, got the truck and started driving back. And I stayed along the night in Wyoming. Beautiful drive down to Casper and got up the next day and came on back to the hospital to see Gracie be with her as we kind of figure out what's our next step. We're not sure. Surgeon says we're not out of the woods yet. So we persist on.

There is no plan B. And now, you know, 13 weeks starting into this journey, it's been quite an ordeal. But here we are. So what do we do? Well, for me, I go back to Easter.

What does it mean? The beautiful thing about being believers is that we don't celebrate Easter just once. We don't celebrate it just once a year. We recognize that because of the resurrection. And let me read what Paul wrote about this.

First Corinthians 15, 20 through 23. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, that's the first imputation, by man has also come the resurrection of the dead. If Adam's sin was imputed to us, our sin imputed to Christ, Christ's righteousness imputed to us.

Three imputations. And then Paul says here, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to God. In Romans 8, 11, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. And look at this, Colossians 1, 18. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

The firstborn, again that phrase in Romans 1, 5, and Jesus Christ from the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of earth. So it goes all the way through. It's not that this was a one-time event. It set in motion everything. He didn't just blaze the trail.

He is the trail. He didn't escape the grave to prove a point. He crushed it underfoot and secure the resurrection of his people. That's why Paul calls him the first fruits because there's more harvest coming and guess what? We're in it.

R.C. Sproul said, we are not resurrected because of our own power. We are resurrected because we are united to Christ.

It's union with Christ and I was able to have that even though I found a banana peel in the back pocket of my airplane seat. On Easter Sunday morning, I had still a time to be able to reflect on what God has done for me and it was poignant. Yes, there was sadness at seeing so many that didn't seem to notice it or care, but you know what?

We notice it in care, don't we? Spending any holiday is difficult when you're away from family and friends and particularly Easter and Christmas when you're away from church. In 2023, we were in the hospital for Christmas and then New Year's for 2024 and then Gracie's birthday and Valentine's Day and quite a few days after that.

And here we are in 2025 with again Valentine's Day and now Easter. And those are difficult things and they're lonely and challenging when you don't have the church community around you. These hospital stays have imprinted on me the importance of us celebrating those things to the best of our abilities no matter what's going on. Sitting in an airport on Easter Sunday when I was used to hearing music and the people of God worshiping and I can recall so many Easter services. Reading the Easter story to Gracie that morning in the hospital before I went to the airport was tough. I was grateful to be able to do it but at the same time it was kind of challenging, you know what I'm saying? Because you feel lonely, you feel out of sorts, you feel like what's going on? But maybe that's kind of the whole point is to recognize that first Easter those guys felt a little bit out of sorts too, don't you think?

And they didn't know what was going on but Christ was still risen and that's the point. And that is hope for this caregiver and I hope it's your hope today as well. This is Peter Rosenberger, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver, this is Peter Rosenberger and I am so glad to be with you.

Can you give me a minute on this? This hymn, Christ the Lord is risen today, I mean I didn't get to have this for Easter Sunday. If I may be so bold, I bet there's a lot of folks in this audience who didn't get to have this either on Easter Sunday. This hymn was a particular favorite of my father's. I remember him singing it. I remember singing this with choirs, orchestras, listening to it, participating in it. I have played it and when I play this I play it with all my might. It's been a bit of a challenging week.

Can you give me a minute with this? Because I think this is how I do it as a caregiver. This is what anchors me, this is what strengthens me, this is what equips me to be able to endure. This is what gives me hope as a caregiver.

Listen to this text. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Where we think our faith is right, Hallelujah! Christ has opened their eyes, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Christ has opened paradise. Do you hear it? Do you feel it down in your bones?

This is my earliest memories of my father as a minister were him raising himself up at the pulpit to sing this hymn and so many others like it, but particularly this one every Easter. And he felt it in his bones. You could just tell.

It was just hard-wired into him. And I would have that for me. And I would have that for you. This is how we endure. It's been a hard week. You know, Wednesday morning, I didn't tell you this in the first block, but I get over there and I bring Gracie coffee every morning because she doesn't like the coffee that comes up from the cafeteria. And who can blame her? It's pretty rough coffee.

I don't like it either. But I bring her some good coffee. There's a little coffee shop there. And after three months, they know me down there. And the guy looked at me. I was in line and he looked over the line to me, one of the guys working with there, and held up the cup.

I mean, I get the same thing for Gracie every day. I know how many sugars, how many creams. I drink mine black, but she likes sugar and cream.

So I got that. Go up to the room, talk with her a little bit, just having a moment with her. And then her breakfast came. I helped her sit up. The plastic surgeon had been there that morning and taken out most of the sutures on her left leg. Left the staples in, but left most of the sutures all the way down, pretty much down her entire thigh. I helped Gracie sit up in bed to be able to have breakfast.

And that entire seam just opened about 10 inches and about 4 inches wide. I immediately got the nurses in there. They all rushed. It was pretty rough. And, you know, I'm not going to get into details with it.

It just was not pleasant. And they called the surgical team. The chief resident had taken the sutures out, and they got in there, and the nurses, they got it packed. They put a vacuum pump on it, and, you know, scheduled the surgery for Friday. This was on Wednesday, and the surgery was Friday.

And her 95th. And it's a subcutaneous thing. I mean, it's just a matter of sewing it back up, and they're going to leave the sutures in for some time. And we're supposed to be able to go home next week, even with the sutures in.

They'll leave them in probably for a couple of months this time. And I did tell the chief resident who had been coming in. She's been a little bit brusque with Gracie. Gracie wasn't a real big fan, and she always likes to deal with the head surgeon, but here we are. And I said, you know, I would appreciate a call from here on out of anything that you do when I'm not here. I don't provide a diagnosis, but I do provide the narrative.

I know Gracie. And as I've said from day one, if it can go wrong with her, it usually will. And I had recommended to the ortho team to have plastic surgeon come in and close. It was declined at first, and then they saw the wisdom. And they brought it in, and I reminded her of this. And she tried to reassert a little bit of authority and say, you know, we've been doing this a long time. And I looked at her, and I said, I've been doing it longer. And it got real quiet in that room. I don't mind wielding caregiver authority when it's necessary, because the stakes are just that high. But let me tell you something that happened while this was going on.

The nurses were rushing into the pack. I mean, guys, it was a big deal, okay? And I'm holding Gracie's hand, and I'm telling you, I said, look at my eyes. Look here.

And she's trying to keep it together, and she is really trying to keep it together. And the only song that came to my mind was, in my life, Lord, be glorified, be glorified. I wish I had the caregiver keyboard.

I'm sorry I don't. In my life, Lord, be glorified today. And Gracie sang with me. And then she sang, in my leg, Lord, be glorified, be glorified in my leg, Lord. And she's doing this while the nurses are all packing this very large wound, gaping wound on her left leg. And then when the surgical team got there, they redid it with a vacuum seal and so forth. So it's all taken care of. And then, of course, they went into surgery and did this, got it cleaned up. So how do you handle such a thing?

How do you deal with these things? And I think that's the point of me playing this hymn. Christ the Lord is risen today.

Christ is open paradise. Martin Luther penned, the body they may kill, God's truth abideth still. This is why my father stood on tiptoes to sing those hymns.

He stood as tall as he possibly could to raise his voice. He could get it out strong enough to proclaim Christ the Lord is risen today, lives again our glorious king. Where, O death, is now thy sting? Once he died, our souls to save. Where's thy victory? Boasting grave. Where's thy victory? Boasting grave. Soar we now where Christ hath led, following our exalted head. Made like him, like him we rise. Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Charles Wesley, by the way, wrote this.

And it's an exceptional text and should be sung not just on Easter, even though that's when you do it. But I didn't get to hear that in the airport. I didn't get to hear that when Gracie's wound split open. I didn't get to hear that when taking her down to surgery.

But I heard her singing, In my life, in my leg, Lord, be glorified. It was quite a moment. We as caregivers have a lot of those kinds of moments, don't we? Where we don't have the big orchestra, we don't have the big choir. Sometimes it's just us.

Struggling to get a song out in the midst of a crisis. While there is a frenetic medical team working around us, many of you have had that experience. Sometimes it's just us singing. If I may, I would like to posit that it's not just us singing. The book of Hebrews says that we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Do you think that heaven missed Gracie singing, In my leg, Lord, be glorified? Do you think that God was unaware of that? Do you not suppose for one moment that the host of heaven hears the praises of the people of God, particularly in their distress? I see ample evidence in scripture to support that.

For our God inhabits praises, the praises of his people. This is how I do it. This is how Gracie does it. I don't know, if you're a first time listener to this program, I don't know what you expected on the show for family caregivers. I've listened to people that do stuff like this. There are other people that have programs for caregivers.

They give a lot of tips on how to deal with dementia or deal with this or whatever. But there's nobody that has a program that's been doing this for four decades. There's nobody that has a program that's dealt with the level that Gracie and I have. And there are few people that have in general, whether they have a program or not. And if somebody does more than I have, or at least does what I've done, they can write a book about it and I'll read their book.

But nobody has. I'm blazing this trail and I'm telling you how I do it. And how I do it is anchoring myself in scripture, anchoring myself in the things of God, anchoring myself in the hymns, the great hymns of the church. Where, O death, is now thy snake? Once he died, our souls to save.

Where is thy victory, boasting grave? Christ the Lord is risen today. He was in the airport. He was in that hospital room when I was reading the story to Gracie.

He was, when her wound opened up, he was in her 95th surgery. And he is today. Sons of men and angels say, raise your joys and triumphs high. Sing ye heavens, and earth reply.

The heavens were singing, the earth replied. And that is hope for this caregiver. This is Peter Rosaburger. We'll be right back. We'll switch gears when we come back. I just had to take a moment. Thank you for that. . Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger, PeterRosenberger.com R-O-S-E-N-B-E-R-G-E-R, Rosenberger.com If you want to see more about what we do, why we do it, how we do it, who we're doing it for. You know we have a prosthetic limb outreach that Gracie envisioned many years ago, 30 years ago this summer when she gave up her remaining leg. She had already given up her right leg and she gave up her left leg which is clearly still being a bit problematic for us but even though she gave up the lower part of it. But she wanted to put prosthetics on her fellow amputees and tell them about Jesus. So we've been doing this for 20 years and we would love for you to join us on this.

25 and 25. If you want to be a part of this and help us continue doing this more, we still have some caregiver calendars left. I know it's into the spring now but we have them if you want one. Let us know and you can be a part of what we do every month.

We'd welcome it. Do you know, by the way we have caregiver tumblers too. It says healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

That's the only thing I've ever trademarked was that phrase because I coined that phrase when I started doing this radio program for caregivers. Gracie envisioned the prosthetic limb outreach. I envisioned the caregiver outreach. It's for the wounded and those who care for them. That is the whole point of what we do and you can find all that and more at the website. It will take you to Standing with Hope which is the ministry that we founded.

Nonprofit 501c3 and if you want to be a part of that, today is a great day. Do you know what the number one cause of amputation is worldwide? It's diabetes. Or as Wilford Brimley would say, diabetes. But it's diabetes.

And do you know what the main cause of diabetes is in this world? Diet. What people eat. The type of food that we put into our bodies. In many cultures in this world, people eat a lot of starchy foods.

Sugar, yes, but starchy foods that turn into sugar. And it may seem to fill you up and seem like you got a good meal but you're not eating something that's healthy. That's why you'll see people who are very obese but they're nutritionally starved. And then eventually the circulation breaks down and diabetes kicks in and limb loss is inevitable. As Gracie's prosthetist told me years ago, we live in a culture where we're killing ourselves with our knife and fork and what we put into our bodies. And ultimately this results in so many people getting diabetes and losing a limb.

Well why am I telling you? Yes, we have a prosthetic limb outreach and we certainly understand amputation and Gracie lost hers because of trauma. And that certainly is a major factor, particularly with kids that we put legs on. It's due to trauma. But the vast majority of adults, it's diabetes.

Now, I've been thinking about this a lot and the parallel that has to our spiritual lives. And I see that we are eating a big diet of food that is not good for us. There's a dish they have over in Ghana called fufu in Bunku and it's made out of corn basically. It's kind of like grits with us. And let me tell you something, as a child of the South, I love grits. But you can't have a steady diet of grits. Corn just turns to sugar. You can't have any kind of meaningful life, any kind of healthy life of eating just starchy food.

You have to eat a balanced diet. But I've got to look at the way we're consuming in our houses of worship. What is being preached from the pulpit?

Are people preaching the very word of God and helping people understand the things of God that it doesn't necessarily feel good? As a kid, you all want sugar. We all did. Mom didn't let us eat sugary cereals. We weren't allowed to have that. Every year on my birthday, I would ask for a box of Captain Crunch.

That was a real treat. But desserts and things like that, we didn't have. Because it's just not healthy. And yet look at the obesity problem in our culture today with children. Look at the disease and so forth that's going on in our culture with our children because of what they're eating, the processed food and the sugar and just the things that are just not healthy. And I think about, look at our pews. Do we have churches filled with people who are not eating healthy food? That we're having this pablum being presented and it's not healthy?

Ask somebody you know. Tell me what is the plan of salvation? Tell me what is God's redemptive work in Christ?

What does that mean? And see how many know this. How many can articulate what Scripture says about this? Why do we need a Savior? If you'll notice, there are a lot of churches out there that preach on grace.

And that's good. Grace is, I love grace. Grace is the most beautiful word in the English language. I married a woman named Grace. I love the word grace. But why do we need grace? What is grace? Why are we so dependent upon it? This is the problem.

I think it was Spurgeon. And don't hold me to this. If you take me to task, I'll have to look it up. But it said that it is unconscionable to preach grace without first preaching the need for it. How can there be good news if there's not bad news?

But we're out there preaching good news. God just loves you and He loves you unconditionally. No, He doesn't. No, He doesn't.

There is a strong condition. And there are many people who are going to say, Lord, Lord, I prophesied your name. I did this in your name.

I did this for you. And He said, I don't know who you are. Don't you think that there were plenty of people in the days of Noah that were clawing at the ark saying, God, save me? Have you ever thought about that?

But He didn't. And we need to understand the things of God. We need to be able to dig deep into this thing and ask for wisdom and clarity. And our pulpits need to echo that sin is a bigger problem than we think it is.

And the cross is a bigger deal than we could ever imagine. Are we preaching the whole counsel of God? Or are we just cherry picking the things that people like to hear and we're giving them the equivalent of sugar cereal, of Frosted Flakes, of Captain Crunch, however much I love Captain Crunch with crunch berries. I can't eat that stuff. And it doesn't sustain. It doesn't strengthen me. It doesn't equip me to do anything other than to have a sugar rush and then a sugar coma. And you eat enough of that stuff and you'll get diabetes.

If you get diabetes, you may lose a limb or two. Do we have a bunch of spiritual diabetics and spiritual amputees in today's culture, in many of our churches? Are we giving them unhealthy food?

And what does it look like to give healthy food? When Jesus pushed back on Satan in the wilderness temptation, man shall not live by bread alone. And he was quoting Deuteronomy. But every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, are we teaching this? Or are we just extending this sloppy agape, my dad used to call it? Cheap grace is really not a right word because there's no such thing as cheap grace.

It cost him greatly. Can we tell somebody else, articulate the gospel, the redemptive work of God through Christ? What does it mean? What does imputation of sin mean? Imputation of his righteousness mean?

Why do we, a lot of people think he forgave me of my sins. To what end? To what end? So we just, okay, go about your business now.

God just forgives you. Is that how it works? Is that what we're teaching people?

Because that's the fastest way to spiritual diabetes and amputations. Death and destruction. We are to bear witness to this. But we've got to learn it first. We've got to spend time there.

We've got to think about this. And this is what, on this program, I do. And I process out these things that I've learned that have sustained me because I will tell you, the pablum that so many pulpits are preaching in this country does not sustain in what Gracie and I deal with. It just doesn't. If somebody comes up to me and says, well, just trust your heart.

No. No, I'm not going to trust my heart. Scripture says the heart of man is exceedingly wicked. Jesus didn't trust himself to anybody's heart because he knew their hearts. We don't trust our hearts.

If somebody tells you that, run. The only heart you trust is his. And he will give us a new heart in his righteousness, but we do not cling to anything of our own. Somehow we think we choose Christ.

We go to God willing. People are seekers. We're going to have a seeker friendly church.

What does that even look like? Scripture says that no one seeks after God. And I think we get confused because we see people seeking the benefits of God. And we project onto them, well, we found it in Christ, so therefore they must be seeking Christ.

No. They're seeking the benefits of God. The only people that seek God are people that have been regenerated by God, raised from the dead, and have been saved by him.

That's it. Anybody else, they're seeking benefits of God, but not God. They want what Jesus offers. They want the peace that he offers, but they don't want Jesus. That's one of the quickest telltale signs of when you're getting bad teaching, when you're getting sugar cereal, is they don't want to talk about Jesus. They don't want to talk about Jesus as Lord, as the second member of the Trinity, the redemptive work that he did. They just want to talk about God loves everybody. When's the last time your pastor preached on taking up your cross? And if you have a pastor that is preaching on that, God bless you.

If you don't, ask why. Because that's what Jesus said, do, take up your cross and follow him. A lot of churches want to preach about a throne. We're going to get this, we're going to get that, we're going to get this, we're going to get this breakthrough. We've already got a breakthrough. It was accomplished. That's what we just finished celebrating with Easter. That's what that hymn just meant. Christ the Lord has risen today. That breakthrough was already there.

Even with Gracie's 95th surgery. And that is hope for this caregiver. And I want it to be your hope as well. This is Peter Rosenberg of We'll Be Right Back.

Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg and that is the incomparable Keith Green. I remember when that song came out 40 plus years ago. And it's just such a call to action to the church to rise to the work. He said there's a line in that song that says the world is dying in the dark and the church can't help because it's asleep in the light.

And Jesus rose from the dead and you just can't get out of bed. He blistered a lot of people. But there was no doubt that Keith Green had quite an intense focus. It's amazing what he accomplished before 30 years old.

He died when I think he was 28 in a plane crash with several members of his family or at least one or two. And just an astonishing life. I don't understand why God took him home at such a young age. But let me just say right off the bat, I don't understand why God does a lot of things. And that's okay.

He didn't ask me to be a consultant. He asked me to trust Him and to be obedient to Him. And so even when things looked bleak, but Jesus rose from the dead, what does that mean to us as caregivers? Well, it means everything. It changes everything to realize that this world is filled with travails. We cannot escape it.

And anybody that tells you differently and tries to have some kind of bubble wrap around them so that they don't have to deal with the harshness of this world is not living in reality. You cannot escape it. That's one of the things I've seen here at the hospital.

It's the great equalizer. Everybody walks through the same doors. And I've seen surgeons all the way down to housekeepers. And they're all dealing with something. You sit in a hospital for three months, you're going to see a different dynamic than if you're here just for three days. And I've had nurses struggling with things that have come into Gracie's room and talked to Gracie. Gracie's dealing with all these surgeries.

But they see something on her. I've had doctors and name it, physical therapists, name it. Every staff member, security guards, all of them. I've talked to all walks of life here.

The guy at the coffee shop. Everybody's dealing with something. People I'm seeing just as I'm walking across the street to the hospital.

People at the hotel where I'm staying. It's everywhere. The question is, are we going to speak with clarity into that? Or are we going to keep promulgating the terrible food that our culture wants to have?

The sugary cereals, the chemical additives, all those things. Are we going to keep promulgating that spiritually to people? Or are we going to give them the very word of God to help them understand, to teach them? Jesus said, preach the gospel and make disciples. Teach them. People need to be taught. It's not osmosis. I didn't learn the things I learned by sleeping with the Bible under my pillow at night.

You have to crack it open. You have to listen to the word of God being preached. If you're not in a church like that, keep looking harder. They're out there. The organization of the church is in real trouble.

But the organism of the body of Christ is vibrant and alive. You may have to work for it a little bit to find it. I wrote an article about this.

You can see it on my website. It's called, Even If It Cost Us, Because It Cost Him More. It was first published in the Aquila Report, which is an online magazine for a lot of pastors and clergy and so forth, and professors and different folks in reform circles. But here's a quote from that, Christ didn't rise from the grave to give his church a quiet corner of cultural irrelevance. He didn't purchase us to sit silently while lies parade as truth. We are not guests in this world. We are ambassadors of his kingdom. And it's time for us to step off of the reservation we've been assigned to with repentance in our hearts and fire in our bones. Are we preaching this? Do we have churches?

Here's a good litmus test. Look and see if your pastor is preaching to himself. I think it's a very healthy thing for pastors to preach to themselves, and I would support it scripturally. David, when he was so dismayed that the Amalekites had taken away all of his possessions and his men's possessions, their wives, their children, all their flocks and everything else, and his own men were going to stone him. They all picked up rocks to stone him, and David did what? Right there.

This is Ziklak. He encouraged himself and the Lord. He preached to himself. And I think that is a very healthy thing for us to do, is to preach the word of God to ourselves.

I've had to do this a lot here during this time. And I know a lot of pastors who do that. Every sermon they're preaching from the pulpit.

They're preaching to themselves so they can hear the word of God being preached to them. This is what you want to look for. This is what you want to grasp a hold of. I'm telling you this as somebody who has dealt with something that is so beyond the pale since the Reagan administration. Nothing else will sustain. I'm waving my hands so high on this one and so gesturing so wildly. Nothing else will sustain.

And the learning curve is very steep. Do you want to try to go down the same paths that I have? Do you want to fail as I have?

Do you want the scars that I have? Or will you listen to somebody who is doing this? Not has done it, is still doing it.

This is how I'm able to do this. Edward Mote wrote, When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace. When I was in that room with Gracie and that leg split wide open and she is just panicking and I'm grabbing her hand. When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace.

In every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil. I'm going to do something different this show. And I want to end with Gracie singing a Keith Green tune. I love this song and I love when she sings it. And I think you will find it meaningful too, to understand that this woman is now recovering from her 95th operation. Her 9th in the last 13 weeks alone. And this is how she does it. This is what she clings to.

This is what her message is. Thank you for letting me share. This is Peter Rosenberger. PeterRosenberger.com We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.

We'll see you next time. And when I think of it, taking on the whole world in sin, I take one look at me compared to what I'm called to be. I want to, when I need to, be more like Jesus.

I want to, and I've got to, be more like Him. There's no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend. The end of all my prayers is to care like my Lord cares. My one and only God, His image in my soul.

Yes, my weakness is revealed, but by His stripes I'm healed. He's faithful and He's true. To complete the work He begins in me and you. I want to, and I need to, be like Jesus. I want to, I need to, be like Him. I want to, and I need to, be more like Jesus. I want to, and I need to, be more like Him. There's no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.