Lord, we thank you so much for the, the gospel that we have just sung about your goodness, your grace toward us in Christ. We open our hearts to you, Lord, this morning and ask that you would just have your way. With us, just as we open up your word and In a few moments, and even as our sister, Claire Stroll shares with us her testimony of faith in you, in the coming moments, just bless her and give us open hearts to receive all that you have for us through all that is said and done in the coming moments, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
This morning we're going to be looking at Philippians 3 and we're going to be hearing the apostle Paul's testimony of of total devotion, which includes his testimony of conversion. before we do that, there's another testimony that we would love for you to be able to hear, this morning. God has been doing a very sweet work in so many lives here in the Cornerstone family, and he's been doing a wonderful work. of salvation in Claire's life.
And she's been coming to Cornerstone over the last few months and we've asked her if she would come this morning and share with us what God has been doing in her life. Let's give our sister a warm Cornerstone welcome. Good morning. this morning I woke up and told Pastor Milton there was no chance I was gonna cry.
I've told this story so many times that no way, I'm not gonna cry, but I have a tissue and I may cry, so. All right, despite growing up in a Christian household and accepting Christ as my savior at a young age, I never saw God as a loving father or Jesus as my friend. God was a disappointed authoritarian figure who I imagined as an old man with his head in his hands, sighing over my shortcomings. Jesus was a man who I just negotiated with for what I wanted....