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God Never Gives Up!

God Never Gives Up!

God Never Gives Up!

Three quotes from the teaching on

The meaning of life is to have fellowship with God—without it, one loses the deepest purpose.

No matter how low you feel, how much dirt you’ve gotten on you—God never gives up on you.

When God doesn’t give up on you, you should be the last to give up on yourself.

Short description of the teaching

Andreas Slot-Henriksen explains God’s unwavering faithfulness, starting from creation and continuing despite human failings. The teaching shows how God repeatedly calls His people back into relationship, offering new chances and never losing patience, even amidst repeated failures. God keeps His promises, forgives undeservedly, and longs to restore fellowship, even when one strays far away. He encourages never giving up—neither on oneself nor others—but to trust and choose to live in the relationship God offers. The central question: If God doesn’t give up, why should we?

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This teaching is categorized within the following topics:
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Discipleship,God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit,Identity and Forgiveness,Spiritual Life & Prayer

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  • Scriptures from the teaching on 'God Never Gives Up!'

Luke 15:11-32
Matthew 18:21-22
Deuteronomy 7:9

NB! The summary below is an automatically AI-generated text from the teaching itself. Errors may occur to a greater or lesser degree!!
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  • Summary of the teaching on 'God Never Gives Up!'

Andreas Slot-Henriksen talks about God’s unyielding will to maintain a relationship with humanity and His faithfulness, which runs like a red thread throughout the Bible. It begins back in Genesis chapter 1, where God creates man in His image. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—everything was undisturbed, and God delighted in His creation. It is declared with great certainty that the meaning of life is to have fellowship with God. If lost, one loses the deepest purpose. But human curiosity and temptation lead them to break the one command they received, and with the entry of sin, Adam and Eve are driven from Paradise. God is just, He stands by His words and lets the consequences fall—but despite all this, He never lets go of His people. Even when humanity runs away, the depth of His longing for fellowship remains undiminished.

Throughout history, from Adam, Eve, and through patriarchs and prophets, God emerges as the one who always does everything to reestablish contact. The Old Testament is filled with repetitions where the people turn back and then fall away again—but for each round, God stretches far. In the story of Moses and the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, God’s care and miracles are manifested: ten plagues, the path through the Red Sea, the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day, manna from heaven daily. These are not small things the people experience—countless visible signs of God’s presence and provision. Yet, barely a month passes before the people forget everything and form a golden calf as an idol. As humans, it can be easy to become impatient, but God does not crush them because of their apostasy; He allows Moses to receive a new set of tablets with the commandments. God’s discipline never deviates from justice, but grace is always present as long as the heart turns back.

The story repeats many times: When the people repent, they live rightly with God for a number of years, but soon forget again. Yet God continues to reach out, send prophets, and give new chances. The teaching highlights how God’s forgiveness and patience are endless—He insists again and again on the relationship, and every sincere heart that returns finds the fellowship restored. It is not God’s wrath that transforms, but His faithful love—and the desire to be a father, protector, and provider.

A central point is the parable of the prodigal son, where God is described as the waiting father: The son demands his inheritance and squanders it all, ending in shame, poverty, and need. When he finally decides to go home, the father is already waiting for him. He runs to meet the son, embraces, and forgives immediately. It is the image of how God never gives up and stands ready no matter how far away one feels. The devil’s voice whispers that one is too unclean or useless, but God says: You are my child, and I run to meet you as soon as you come home with an honest heart. It is not because the father rushes after the son at any cost—the son must make the choice himself. But God stands with open arms, longing to receive, forgive, and celebrate the reunion.

The Bible is full of examples of this unceasing patience—even prophets and great figures fail and doubt. The story of Jonah is vivid: The call to Nineveh awakens resistance, Jonah runs away, but God still chooses to follow. Jonah gets another chance and becomes an instrument for repentance in the city. God does not abandon the task, even if His servant backs out. The same is seen later with Jesus’ disciples. Again and again, they misunderstand, make mistakes, doubt, but Jesus never gives up on them. There is a part in the teaching where it is described how God never places a yoke one cannot bear and will always provide an opportunity to grow and be equipped—even through challenges and trials, which are turned into something good. It is not the adversity, but the reaction and willingness to turn around that determines the future.

When one fails, the call becomes clear: Come back, never give up—for God does not either. No matter how many times it takes. In the Gospel of Matthew, Peter asks how often one should forgive a brother who sins against one—if seven times is enough. Jesus replies: “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Here, the boundlessness of forgiveness is given as an example. The same applies to God’s grace. The feeling of inadequacy and the temptation to give up on oneself is alleviated by the promise: If God does not give up on you, you should not give up on yourself. Helping the enemy by giving up one’s identity and relationship is pointless when God stands ready. The devil’s main weapon is self-condemnation, but God erases everything in the sea of forgetfulness and holds no grudge when the heart turns honestly.

The story also lifts personal experiences of failing, losing faith in one’s abilities, and losing direction, but constantly feeling how God, through repeated prayer and sincere repentance, brings grace, restores the relationship, and opens new opportunities. Ordinary everyday experiences and miracles confirm that God never gives up but works through both great prophetic experiences, life crises, journeys, and restoration of broken relationships. Standing firm on God’s promises, living in trust, and enduring challenges is a crucial part of the journey—so the storm does not topple but strengthens faith. If God promises something, He fulfills it—even if it requires supernatural intervention or waiting. The example of Abraham and Sarah: God fulfills the promise of a child against all odds.

The teaching points out that God often uses attacks or adversity precisely to train, develop, and build character, so one is equipped for future calls and trials. In the toughest moments, courage may falter, but it is then that the call sounds: Do not give up, God waits, receives, forgives, and equips you to move forward. Also, in relation to each other, this grace and patience must be passed on—not giving up on relationships but insisting on the fellowship God wants to create. Precisely because God does not give up on you or others, you never walk alone but can walk with Him, even when you doubt, fall, or feel inadequate.

A crucial point is that so many unnecessarily help the devil with self-abandonment. Instead, the focus should be on accepting God’s love, allowing oneself to be shaped by His grace, and growing in the identity and purpose He has laid down. Allowing God to form, strengthen, and encourage—instead of listening to the voices that say it’s over. God is static, unchanging, faithful, and good—anyone who turns back is received unconditionally; the past is erased, and the future is recreated. The quote from Deuteronomy 7:9 cements it: “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.” It is not a promise that can be shaken but a reality on which life must be built.

The teaching concludes with the encouragement not to be stuck in shame and self-reproach but to accept God’s restoration and boldly trust that He never gives up, and neither should you. Every step back is the beginning of a new chapter, where God is the first to receive, forgive, and rejoice that the relationship is restored.

Quote from the teaching: “If God never gives up on you—then you should be the last to give up on yourself or others.”

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God never gives up. I just want to start right from the beginning. That’s because I’ve learned that it’s actually a really good idea to start from the beginning. So, we’re going all the way back to Genesis, chapter 1. God creates man, and he creates man in his image, and he delights in it. It’s just wonderful. And he creates man with the purpose of having fellowship.

So that means bonus answer: the meaning of life is to have fellowship with God. Yes. So those people who simply don’t know what the meaning of life is, there you have it. Take it home. Write it on your heart. If you ever feel discouraged or frustrated one day, then you know that the meaning of life is to have fellowship with God. So if you don’t have fellowship with God, then you’re simply missing the meaning of life. And that’s actually pretty lousy. It’s actually quite lousy.

But Adam and Eve, they go their own way because they get tempted. They listen to a little voice that says, can it really be true that God said? Are you sure, and it’s probably not that serious. And just try to see if it’s true. But God has said, and when God has said, that’s how it is. When God had said not to eat from the tree of knowledge, then they shouldn’t eat from the tree of knowledge. So they did, and it had serious consequences.

Because God is just, because God’s word stands firm, he had to execute what he had said. And he cast them out, and that meant death. He wanted them to be with him for all eternity, with him, so he could be their father. So he could protect them, so he could take care of them, so he could give them what they needed. He didn’t even want them to find food themselves. He wanted to give them everything, but no, for can it really be true. And that’s where it all started.

Then Adam and Eve were cast out, and they multiplied the earth. And God so desired to have fellowship with man. For even though Adam and Eve were fools, as Birte would have called them, God never ever gives up. And he tried again. He chose his own people. He chose the Jews.

And it’s so wild when we read through the Old Testament, if you just read it, many say: “Wow, man, God is really harsh. Just look at all those who get killed.” And he just can’t at all. It’s simply not true. It’s not okay to do, but the fact is, if you read the Old Testament, God is truly a God who never ever gives up because he wants to have fellowship with his people.

God chooses one after another after another. He chooses prophets to go out and tell people, you need to turn back. Come on. You need to have fellowship with God. Where God really, where we really see God step in, is through Moses. We see the 10 plagues. We see how he gets the people out of Egypt. We see God’s greatness.

And why does God do this? Because he loves his people, because they shouldn’t live in slavery. He’s wild. These are the wildest plagues he sends over Egypt to free his people. And I seriously think, just try to put yourself in the place of being an Israelite, who has been in slavery for so many years. Really slavery. They started with 70 people, Joseph’s family, who came to Egypt. And over the years, as slavery increased, they grew to about two and a half million men besides women and children. All these men have been, and yes generally all these Israelites have been in slavery.

They have lived a terrible life. They have been tormented. They have been forced to build. They haven’t gotten what they needed in terms of food and so on. They have had harsh conditions. God hears their prayers. God wants to have fellowship. So he leads them out of Egypt.

That’s a lot of people we’re talking about here. It’s equivalent to the entire population of Denmark that needs to get out. That’s quite a lot at once. Like really, really a lot to organize. Wow. God sends them out. God finally sends them through the Red Sea. And he ensures that the enemy cannot pursue them. He sends a pillar of fire to guide them at night and a cloud to guide them during the day out into the desert. He wants to be their God. He wants to take on the father role again. The Jews are my chosen people. Wow.

Just try to imagine being there. Just try to imagine walking through the sea. Look at those walls of water, just – – the fish can see through. And at the same time hear the roar of this huge pillar of fire holding the Egyptians back. A deafening noise and a miracle. Wow. Oh, I would have loved to be there. Oh man. Just try to imagine it. Walking on that sandy ground. See those starfish lying there, but they come completely dry-shod across. And when the last one has crossed, the pillar of fire disappears. Wum! And the Egyptians rush forward, and God claps the water together.

The Israelites have seen the greatest miracles of the greatest. Wow. God sends Moses up the mountain and says no. He gives them the constitution, the 10 commandments. And meanwhile, what happens? He’s only gone for a few days. It’s probably equivalent to him being gone for about a month. Not because it’s such a long, long time. And they still have – what do you call it – the pillar of fire at night and the cloud by day. They have experienced how they thirsted. But this huge rock, which Moses strikes, begins to gush water. The rock follows them wherever they go. God sends manna from heaven every day. That means he provides them with food every day. They see one miracle after another, after another, after the tenth, after the. Wow, how many miracles.

And when Moses goes up the mountain, what happens? The fools start making an idol because they no longer believe in God, despite the fact that day in and day out they can see his greatness. I just think, come on man, get it together. How naive and stupid can you be. You have God’s greatness in front of you. Moses gets so angry when he comes down with the 10 commandments that he breaks the tablet. Then he goes up the mountain again. God never gives up. He gives him a new set of tablets.

If it had been me, I would have been furious. It’s simply not okay. They mock God with that, but God doesn’t give up. He gives them a new set of tablets, a new set of rules. Why? Because he wants to justify them through the law. He wants to give them a new chance.

And throughout the Old Testament, we see how the Israelites turn back to God, start following Him, and everything goes well for about 40 years. Then suddenly, someone turns away, doing the exact opposite of what God commanded. God, being a just God, punishes them, as He had already warned. Afterwards, they realize, “Oh God, we’re really sorry. We can see now that you were right because you’ve punished us. You did say you would. But we thought maybe you wouldn’t. So, sorry.” And what does God do? He forgives them again.

They live righteously with God until suddenly, about 40 years later, they don’t live righteously again. They turn away, sin, God punishes them, and then they turn back to God again. And the story continues over and over and over again. God forgives where the heart is sincere. God never gives up. It’s amazing.

When we read through the Bible, we see several examples of how God comes to us when we don’t deserve it. The story of the prodigal son is a fantastic example. We see the son who wants his father’s inheritance because he’s ready to go out, live life, and spend some money. He wants to experience the world. The son squanders all the money, living recklessly. He does everything that isn’t in God’s favor or his father’s favor in this parable.

The boy feels so much guilt and shame when he realizes his friends were only there for the money. They were fake, with different agendas. He’s out of money, has no food, and ends up lying with pigs, eating their food. So much shame. But when he returns to his father, swallowing his pride, it says, “He got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.”

The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate. Wow.

That’s our Father in heaven. That’s God. He never gives up. He’s waiting for you. The problem is, the devil stands in the other camp. The devil tries, just like he did with the prodigal son. If we fall, the devil is there. “Ha, you fell. What? You’re not worthy to come home to your Father in heaven. He will never acknowledge you. Do you think so? You might as well forget it from the start. Because you’re worth nothing. You’re nothing. God is disgusted when He sees you. God is holy. You’re not anymore.”

But if you truly turn your heart around, your heavenly Father is there. He runs to meet you and throws His arms around you. Yes, my child has come back. You might feel like giving up, but I promise you, God will never give up on you. Never. No matter how far you feel you’ve fallen in life. No matter how much you’ve been through. No matter how much the world has dragged you through. No matter how much dirt you’ve gotten on you. God never gives up on you.

I think it’s a fantastic image with the prodigal son. First of all, at this time, Jesus is speaking under the old covenant. And under the old covenant, where He teaches, pigs are unclean animals. So not only is he lying with the pigs, which are unclean, really unclean, but he’s eating their food just to survive. But Jesus is there. No matter what we’ve been through, impurity, dirt, and shame, He continues.

Even when we’ve surrendered to God, when we’ve come back, it’s often that we experience God sending us on a mission, or God saying, “Do this,” or “I have this task for you.”

Come on. And then we think, “Ah, I’m not that good at this. I think you should find someone else, God. They’re much better than me. I can’t speak very well, and my ability to articulate isn’t great. I’m actually in a bad mood because I didn’t feed the cat this morning. So I think you should find someone else.”

God, we have so many excuses, and I think most of us have experienced God calling us into something where we’ve failed or didn’t do it. Simply because we thought, “Ah, that can’t be right.” And we have the fantastic example of Jonah, who runs from God. Jonah, who is called to go to Nineveh and preach repentance to the city. He runs from God because it’s not pleasant.

Seriously, would you want to go down to a city the size of Vejleby and stand up and shout so everyone can hear? “Repent, Vejle. You’re full of trash and harlots. Repent.” I mean, I’ve tried once. I once tried posting something on Facebook Vejle. It’s a long story, but we got a lot of prophetic messages about someone about to jump off the Vejle Fjord Bridge. We were looking for him, and I posted on, what’s it called, Facebook Vejle, because we needed to find this man.

Wow, the people of Vejle were not very happy about that. I’m almost sure there were over 50,000 comments about how stupid it was, how ridiculous it was, and they started praising Satan and all sorts of other things. It was so intense that the administrator eventually took the post down. It was only up for an hour and a half. That was impressive.

But God was good and sent the man, and it turned out that God… yeah, it’s a longer story. We won’t get into that now. But more to say, Jonah knew very well that going to Nineveh wasn’t great. But God pursued him again and again and again. And Jonah ran away, thinking, “Ha, I’ll just hop on a ship, and God can’t catch me. Nah nah.” But God is bigger than a ship, and He’s bigger than the sea. So, whoop, overboard. Poor Jonah. Fish. Gulp. Three days. Up. Off you go, Jonah. Okay. God. I’ll do it, I’ll do it.

And that’s what’s so cool about God because He doesn’t give up. He doesn’t give up when we need to learn from Him. He doesn’t give up when we come into service with Him. He doesn’t give up when we can’t figure things out. The funny thing is, if we go through the New Testament and read, there are time and time and time again, really time and time again, where Jesus is frustrated with the disciples and thinks, “How long shall I stay with you? Get it together.”

He was frustrated with them and thought, honestly, just get it together, man. But he loved them, so he didn’t give up on them. And sometimes God can push us. Come on. Come on. Because He knows it’s best for you. Because you learn from it. Because He sends you into situations where He wants to lift you up. Because He has a purpose for you. He has a task for you. He has a mission for you, and if He can’t prepare you for that mission, and you’re not willing, then you won’t be ready to walk in the good works God has prepared for you.

So it’s okay that sometimes He says, come on, pull yourself together. Come on, come on. He’s cheering for you, but He never gives up on you. And His love goes on and on and on and on. And the amazing thing is, God doesn’t place a burden on us that we can’t bear.

God doesn’t place a burden that He Himself isn’t ready to bear for us. You know this from Peter. He comes to Jesus and asks Him, “Hey Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother? Like, what do you think? What’s fair? Maybe seven times, or can I get mad at him afterward and give him a kick?”

And it’s funny because in the Bible it says 77 times, and other places it says seven times seven times, that Jesus answers with a number. But if you go into the original text, the Textus Receptus, which the King James Version is based on, it actually says 70 times 7 times. That’s 490 times. There you go. How many times have you forgiven a brother 490 times without cutting him off? Yeah.

I think we can all be challenged by this, but that’s what God does with you because He doesn’t give up on you. His love keeps going and going and going because He is righteous. God is faithful. And that’s what’s so amazing. And that’s what grace is. Grace is that He comes to us where we don’t deserve it and forgives us even though we don’t deserve it.

And we need to pass that on to others. So when God doesn’t give up on us, we must also please not give up on each other. God has placed us in community. God has placed us in His family. God wants us to be there for each other. God doesn’t want us to give up on each other. God is a God who keeps going.

God has no beginning. God has no end. God will always be there. And God, He is unchanging. That means He never changes. You may have behaved badly and foolishly, but it’s so amazing with God that when you come to Him and say, “Father, forgive me. I’ve really messed up. I think I’ve been so foolish. I’ve been a jerk. Forgive me.” Then He forgives you.

And the best part is, it says it’s thrown into the sea of forgetfulness. It’s erased from your record of sins. It’s no longer there. He doesn’t hold a grudge against you. It’s not like when you come for the 320th time with the exact same issue: I can’t figure it out, God. Then He thinks, no, I can see that, you have 320 offenses in my book. That’s pretty bad. What? He doesn’t do that because He’s thrown it into forgetfulness, so when you come to Him, you come to Him as if it’s the first time you’ve made that mistake.

Because He never gives up on you. He’s ready to listen to you. He’s ready to receive you. And when you come, wow, thank you for coming to me, of course, I will forgive you if you turn your heart around. It obviously doesn’t work if we come to God thinking He’s a slot machine, so we can just get this forgiveness when we need it, but we don’t want to change. That’s not how God works because God is righteous.

And that means when He has said something, that’s how it is. But if you’re really struggling and come to God, I promise you, He doesn’t give up on you, so never give up on yourself. Never tell yourself, I’ll never be a good Christian. It’s everyone else next to me. They’re much better than me when I see everyone else. They do so many great things. I can’t. I can’t figure it out. Come on.

He loves you so much. Start speaking that love over yourself. Start receiving it. Start growing in it. Start flourishing in it. Start believing that when He doesn’t give up on you, you should be the last to give up on yourself.

There’s no reason for you to help the devil give up on everything. I mean, he can take care of himself. You don’t need to help him. It says in Deuteronomy, you should know that the Lord your God is God. The faithful God who keeps His covenant and loyalty to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

God is faithful all the way through. And it says if we go back a step to Exodus, it says: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.” When He has said something, He does it. When He has promised something, He lets it happen. Are you aware of that? When He has promised something, He lets it happen.

Often I’ve experienced people becoming discouraged in their faith or almost losing their faith. Well, I got started, and God said something once, and it never happened, and now I just don’t care. Okay, but where is your patience? How was it with Abraham and Sarah when they were told they would have a child? How did that go? They were so old, it seemed completely impossible. But God came at the right time. God did the impossible.

Sometimes our patience is zero. But when we start trusting that God never gives up on us, and God always keeps the promise He has given in your life, suddenly you also start having ammunition when the enemy begins to attack you. When the enemy starts, you can’t do anything, you might as well stop serving God. Ah. Wrong. My God has said, and I have received this promise, and I stand firm on that promise, and nothing can shake me from the promise God has made and said.

And when you have received a promise in your life in that way, and you stand firm on it, and you know that God never gives up on you, it may take some twists and turns. You might fall sometimes. It might be a bit tough at times. But it doesn’t matter because when God uses attacks, and when God, it’s not that God sends attacks against you, but He turns the attacks that come to equip you, to shape you, to form you, so you can stand firm when the storm comes, it doesn’t matter, because you have the rock to stand on.

This is God’s word, and these are the promises He has given specifically to you in your life. I remember so clearly when our son Laurens fell those 7.5 meters, landed on his head, and was in a coma and all those things. What did we hold onto during that time? It was a promise from God where Miriam had seen a vision of him holding a moving box and another vision of him holding a child. Two promises for the future. That can’t happen if you’re in a coma. It simply can’t happen. And certainly not if you’re dead.

So we spoke God’s promises into the situation. We proclaimed God’s promises. We thanked God for His promises. And wow, shortly after, he was standing with a moving box and a newborn baby in his arms because He never gives up on us. Never. In Psalm 36:5, it says, “Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.”

Satan is a trickster, a slacker, a manipulator, a liar, a thief, and a murderer, and all sorts of things. He wants to steal your joy. He wants to instill fear in your life. He wants to make you feel inferior. And he wants to tell you that you can’t do anything. And Satan wants to give you an unhealthy fear of your heavenly Father.

And if you start to grow in fear against God, you will never be able to receive Him as your devoted and loving Father. Never.

That’s why it’s important that when you look to Jesus, you see Him as the faithful Father and friend and creator and king. You see Him as the one who never gives up on your life. The one who keeps saying, “Come now, come to the waters of rest. Come now. Come and let me take your worries. Come and let me hold you.”

But if the devil can twist that, you end up in self-condemnation. And that’s one of the best weapons the devil has. It’s to make you feel condemned and not good enough. And he’s good at it. He’s really, really, really good at it.

But that’s why it’s so important to remember that even though we can sometimes be a bit slow on the uptake, even though sometimes we need things, are you sure, God? Come on. I need confirmation again. Come on. Maybe sometimes we’re a little slow to understand what God is saying. I think we’ve all experienced that at times. I certainly have, but God doesn’t give up, and God gently pushes.

I’ve been so frustrated, I think I’ve mentioned it before. At one point, early in my journey, I experienced how I got. The devil worked so much in my life. He wanted so much to stop everything I was doing. And at one point, I got so many visions that I simply couldn’t tell if they were from God or the devil. And I hadn’t realized that the devil was bombarding me with visions that seemed right but were lies.

And when I realized they were lies, I decided I would never bring a prophetic vision to anyone ever again. Because if I can’t even tell if it’s from God or the devil, then I’m not the one to bring it. And it was with sorrow, and I was sad, and it hurt, and I was deeply frustrated. It hurt so much.

But what happened? When I prayed for people, God came and gave me visions for their lives. And what did I do? I said nothing. And I could feel it pressing on me. I said nothing because maybe I would get it wrong, and I felt bad inside. And I felt so wrong, and I started beating myself up, and I couldn’t stand it.

And you know what happened then? The visions stopped. I didn’t get a single vision anymore because I wasn’t bringing them. And after some time, when we prayed for people, I just felt it wasn’t working. It simply wasn’t working. God, help me. What should I do? I can’t be a servant for you and pray for people and be a tool for you, and then I shut myself down. And I really wanted to.

And when I realized that it was basically about learning to recognize the shepherd’s voice. And I hadn’t learned that because I was new and green and inexperienced and proud and all sorts of other things you are at the beginning because everything is so wow, I had to use my knees and say, God. I’m sorry. Bear with me. I’ve been foolish, and I know it. Forgive me. I promise I’ll bring every single vision I get. Even if it’s inappropriate. Change. I promise I’ll bring it. What you come with. But teach me to discern between right and wrong.

And when I prayed that prayer and really meant it from the heart, let me just say, God never gives up on us. So He just came again, and He began to open up again. So when I prayed for people, I got prophetic visions for their lives.

And I’ve seen how crowds of people have been knocked over by one or two words from God. As recently as today, a guy came by. A non-believer, a service guy, as he called himself. I’ve had many conversations with him. He’s come several times before.

And he wasn’t even supposed to come today because he had been here earlier. But he just forgot our appointment, so he could come in for a cup of coffee, and we could talk, and we could talk about God. And we could talk about how he had fallen into cocaine addiction and all sorts of other things, and how he simply couldn’t stand it, and how he thought it was hard, and it was terrible, and all sorts of other things.

And we talked, and I tried to speak God into it, and he was a bit like, but he knows I’m a God guy, so he also thinks it’s a bit interesting, and he thinks it’s good because we can respect each other’s values, and I spoke Jesus into it, and he says thanks for today. And we go out to the courtyard, and he shakes my hand so nicely. Thanks for today. It was nice talking to you.

He gets into the car, and just as he sits down, bam, I get a word for him. And then he just starts taking his cigarettes and gets out of the car and stands there. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really, now, you don’t know me like that, but I have to say what you’re saying there, it’s really spot on. It’s just like, and I could just see that nervousness because God’s word hits. There’s so much power when God speaks. I don’t know where you, I don’t know where you just, you don’t know me, and that, where do you get it from?

I have communication with my heavenly Father. It’s a two-way communication. It’s pretty cool. Yeah. Well, he can see that. So now he’s promised to make a deal with himself and see if he can, in his own strength, get out of his cocaine addiction.

And so I said to him, as he was leaving, and if you can’t get out of your cocaine addiction by your own strength in the next six months, then what? I mean, this is an experiment you want to conduct, you say. You have to tell me what the experiment is about. You can’t just say you want to try to quit on your own. You’ve tried that before. What if you can’t? Yeah. I might have to ask for help. Yes.

So I told him, I hope you can’t get out of your addiction on your own, but I’ll see you in six months. Pretty harsh. But God, He is just so good. And God, He keeps going, and He keeps going, and He keeps going. And He keeps calling the non-believers. He keeps going. He sends faith their way. He meets people in dreams. He meets people here in their hearts. God never gives up. And He calls, and He calls, and He calls.

We see how in the Muslim world, where people aren’t allowed to come in and speak the gospel, He meets them with dreams at night. He gives them huge visions. There are massive conversions in Iran because God meets them, because He doesn’t give up on them. And when they have entered into God’s people, and when they have come to the point where they start being built up as His disciples, I promise you, Father, God doesn’t give up on you.

But He is also so good and so faithful that you choose for yourself if you want to stay with Him. We have the prodigal son. It’s the son who leaves his father. The father doesn’t run after him. The son knows very well in his heart where he belongs. You know very well where you belong. Always. God doesn’t run after you if you leave.

But He stands with open arms waiting for you. And He doesn’t give up. And He stands and waits for you day in and day out, day in and day out, because He wants you.

So if you just take away from today that God never gives up on you, and you should stop beating yourself up and condemning yourself, but ask God to shape you. Ask God to put holiness in your heart. Ask God to put righteousness in your heart. Ask God to let you see things from His perspective.

Wow, what a good God we have. What a faithful God we have. He is. He’s there every time. Every time we are doing well, He’s there. Every time we are doing poorly, He’s there. Every time we mess up and act like fools, He’s there.

Every time we step out of the boat thinking, now we have faith, now we can walk on water like Peter and then fall, He’s there every time to pull us up. And if we manage to look at Him and walk on the water, you’re not walking alone, but you’re walking with Him because He never gives up on you. He rejoices that you are walking.

Even if others might say, “Oh, he’s so proud. He thinks he can walk on water.” What? Look at him, he’s really going far now. He’s such a proud fool, right? But God delights in it if your heart is right. Yes. A faith he or she has received. Wow.

He wants you to walk on water with Him. He doesn’t want you to walk there alone to show people you can. But He wants you to step out of the boat and walk with Him because He is your Father. Because you depend on Him. Because He never gives up on you.

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