“But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
We need to set something straight in the beginning about the meaning of this text. Paul did not write: “But my God shall supply all your wants…” The Bible nowhere promises that God will give us all that we want. In Psalm 23:1, David wrote: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” This verse was misquoted by a young boy when he said: “The Lord is my shepherd, He’s all I want.” It was misquoted but I think that it was really understood by the boy. I think that it means, among other things, that God simplifies our wants. I know that He has simplified mine, and I know some fine Christians who know about this as well. We have a God who can supply our needs out of His great “riches in glory.” This is not written to make us selfish, but to make us humbly accept our dependence on God/Jesus to meet our greatest needs. We think that our greatest needs are physical, but they are not. I am not intimating that God does not meet physical needs, but that these are not all of the greatest needs that He meets. Let’s look at some of the needs that we have that come from God’s great “riches in glory.” One need that only Jesus can meet in our lives out of “God’s riches in glory” is spiritual. You have read this quote from me before, and you are about to read it again, because it tells a great truth: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in every person that only God can fill.” (This is loosely quoted from Martin Buber.) A person’s life is not complete until he or she has his or her spiritual needs met by Jesus Christ. This need is so great in human beings that they will attempt to fill that vacuum with all kinds of things that will not fill it. Drugs can’t fill that vacuum. Romanic love cannot fill that vacuum. I am certainly not against romantic love, but it can’t meet our innermost spiritual needs. A good job with good pay cannot meet that need. This is why Jesus told the rich young man who asked how he could have eternal life to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Him. He knew that the young man was trying to fill his God-shaped vacuum with his possessions. He couldn’t do it. Jesus knew that his greatest need was spiritual and that all of his physical possessions could not fill that need. Another need that only Jesus can meet in our lives out of “God’s riches in glory” is emotional. Our lives are filled with all sorts of emotional needs. Our emotional needs usually reflect our need for acceptance and love. One of the worst things that can happen to us in life is to feel that others have rejected us, or that we are not acceptable to other people. Jesus can fill that vacuum for us. It is Jesus who makes us aware that we can be acceptable to God. My main concern is that there are many people who do not believe that God will forgive them and accept them into His kingdom. Let me tell you that if you have no other friend, God wants to be your friend, and all He asks of you is allow Him into your life. I guess that we will always have emotional needs, but I know that Jesus has helped me emotionally all of these years that I have served Him. After all, it was Jesus who said: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest…” As always, I can’t cover everything on this topic in one post, but I can encourage you to accept the fact for your life that God is interested in your life and wants to meet all of your needs whatever they are. If this was not true, God would not have included it in scripture. You might be an unbeliever. I am simply asking you to throw all caution to the wind, confess your sins and ask Jesus into your life and let Him go to work in your life supplying your needs. You might be a troubled believer. There are many troubled believers out there and you need to reclaim that promise that God has made to “supply all your need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.” It’s all there for you – go for it. Bro. Joe
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“And (Jesus) arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
Jesus and His disciples were in the midst of the Sea of Galilee in Peter’s little fishing boat. A storm came up and the disciples feared for their lives. Jesus was asleep on the stern of the boat when the disciples woke Him up and asked: “Carest thou not that we perish.” Of course Jesus cared; He just knew that this was yet another test of their faith, for He said to them: “Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?” It’s interesting that Jesus made the statement about their fear and faith after He had stilled the storm. As we go through the storms of our lives, we need for Jesus to say “peace be still,” and He will give us peace when we call on Him. When does Jesus say “peace be still”? Jesus says “peace be still” when we are in seemingly helpless and hopeless situations. (I used the word “seemingly” here, because when Jesus is in our lives we are never hopeless or helpless.) I have been on a ship in the middle of the South China Sea in a typhoon, or hurricane. It was an exciting ride for several days, but it was certain that we were helpless to do anything about it, but ride it out until it was over. We come across times like this in our lives. It could be some kind of sickness, a divorce, a church problem, a family problem, or whatever, but in the middle of these storms, we can’t find a way out. When Jesus is involved, He will be with us while we ride it out, or He will say “peace be still.” Jesus is there with His peace no matter how He chooses to give us the calm that we need. We just need to understand that Jesus cares and that He is at work in our lives to help us. Our problem is that sometimes we don’t hear Jesus say “peace be still,” and we think that we are still in the storm. Call on Jesus today and listen for His “peace be still.” You are not helpless. Jesus says “peace be still” when we are in a sea of trouble. The first thing that we need to do when we are going through troubles is ask ourselves if we did something to get ourselves into this situation. If we did, the first thing that we need to do is to repent and ask for forgiveness. It is a step of faith to recognize our own responsibilities and call on Jesus for forgiveness before we ask Him to bring calm into our lives. Otherwise, we need to realize that Jesus is stronger than the strongest storms, and He is stronger than our largest troubles. I know that this is difficult to ascertain when we are in the middle of a storm of trouble, but it is Christian reality that Jesus is in the “boat” with us while we are riding out the storm. We just need to listen with our hearts and minds for His “peace be still.” I ministered to prisoners for several years from 1988 until I retired in 2010, and those prisoners who found peace in spite of their troubles were those who had repented of the sins that got them in prison and sought the peace that only Jesus could bring. Jesus says “peace be still” when the contrary winds of controversy blow about us. We are living in troubled times today. There is so much anger and vitriol in Washington. We are reminded every day of the desire for radical Muslims to kill us in the name of Allah. Sin is no longer recognized as sin, even in some mainline “Christian” denominations. We need to realize that this has always been the crisis of Christians throughout our history. We are “in the world but not of the world.” Jesus promised us that the world at large would oppose us, because the world at large, under Satan’s control, opposes Jesus and the Bible. The good news is that Jesus knows all about it and has said “peace be still.” It will all work out in the end. Bro. Joe “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.” HCSB
This verse is a culmination of a discussion on the rapidity of the days of our lives on this earth. The sense of it is, since life goes by so quickly let us live each day carefully so that God’s true wisdom may develop in our hearts. In other words, it is easy for us live each day and waste it on life’s frivolities and not gain wisdom from God. Or we can spend our time thinking about things that seem deep to us, but have nothing to do with God’s wisdom. These rapid lives of ours should be spent developing God’s wisdom in our hearts. Thinking of this, I began to wonder what route would we take in the development of this wisdom, and how would it affect our lives? First, we would realize the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That is we will spend part of our day meditating on the greatness of God, reading about His greatness in His word. When we realize that our God is indeed an awesome God, we develop a great respect for Him that can be described as fear, because if He is this great, how can I fight against Him? The problem with a lot of people is that their concept of God never goes beyond the primary level. They hear about, read about and maybe even think about God, but they do not really reflect on His greatness. Somehow, they miss that He can part the Red Sea, that He can turn water into wine, or that He can walk on water. We need to take a part of each day and meditate on the greatness of God so that we can hold Him in the great awe that He deserves. Then He will start to make a difference in our lives. Second, we should realize that the acceptance of God’s love for us is the acceptance of God’s wisdom. At the same time that we learn to fear the God who can turn water into wine, we learn to accept the Bible’s admonition that in spite of all of our failures, foibles and sins, He loves us anyway. From this fear comes a great realization of God’s eternal love. When we come to the conclusion that “Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so,” we have truly accepted God’s wisdom into our lives. A lot of people just never seem to grasp the profound love that God has for them. If they only fear God’s power, they can never learn to accept His love. Grasp this fact, the almighty God loves you. Third, we should realize that faith in God is the practice of His wisdom in our lives. Throughout the Bible, we are urged to believe in God and to have faith in His activity in our lives. When we learn to fear God, and accept His love for us, the next step is to put our faith in Him so that we can put God’s wisdom into action in our lives. When we put our faith in Him, we become His personal servants, sharing His wisdom in our lives day by day. We are not saved by works, but we are saved to work, and it is only when we entrust each day to Him that we can effectively work for Him. God’s wisdom is bound up in our fear and standing in awe of Him. We truly accept that wisdom when we realize that He loves us and we practice that wisdom when we embrace Him by faith. Does this sound about right to you? Bro. Joe “Who is the (person) who delights in life, loving a long life to enjoy what is good? 13. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. 14. Turn away from evil and do what is good; seek peace and pursue it.” (CSB)
I think that we would call a person who “delights in life” a happy person. These three verses tell us what can make us happy people. First, if we want to be happy people we should “keep (our) tongues from evil.” This could be a reference to evil in general, such as cursing, but I see it also as an admonition not to speak evil of other people. I have discovered that gossips are not happy people. They are not happy because they observe people only to criticize them or to tear them down. This kind of thinking comes from malice in the heart. Malice is anger that has settled into a person’s mind and heart and seeks to do evil. Those who speak evil of other people are malicious people. I have heard it said that: “small minds discuss people and great minds discuss ideas.” Malicious people are small-minded people. A lot of people have been destroyed by gossip, and a lot of churches have been torn apart by gossip. If you want to be a happy person, do not speak evil of other people. Second, if we want to be happy people, we should “Keep (our) tongues from deceitful speech.” This means that we should be truthful people.There is something intrinsically bred into the human heart that longs for truth. That which is untrue is not real, in fact, it is counterfeit. Just as a counterfeit twenty dollar bill is worthless, a counterfeit tale is worthless. We have probably all known people of whom it could be said that you never know whether they are telling the truth or not. Most of the time this deceitful speech comes in the form of exaggeration. Some people have a tendency to “stretch the truth” when they are talking about themselves. The problem with people who habitually lie, or deceive, is that we cannot trust them. A person who cannot be trusted cannot be a happy person. Third, if we want to be happy people, we should: “turn away from evil and do good.” We are faced with choices everyday as to whether or not we are going to do good or evil. You have seen cartoons where a person will have an angel on one shoulder telling the person to do what is right, and a demon on the other shoulder telling the person to do what is evil. We know that the angels and demons are not literally there, but the cartoon does represent a truth. The devil, whose very purpose is to deceive, continually goads us to do wrong. The Holy Spirit continually urges us to do right. We need to listen to the Holy Spirit and do what is right. This is especially true in our relationships with people. We should seek to always do, or say, what is good for the other person instead of what is evil. We should seek to do, or say, that which will build up another person instead of tear him or her down. Happy people do good instead of evil. Fourth, if we want to be happy people, we should: “seek peace and pursue it.” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed (happy) are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” If you want to be a happy person, seek to bring peace wherever you are instead of discord. You can’t be happy if you sow discord wherever you are. Based on this text, are you a happy person? Bro. Joe "I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. 4. For thy mercy is great above the heavens and thy truth reacheth to the clouds. (KJV) "I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, I will sing of you among the peoples. 4. For great is your love, higher than the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the skies." (NIV)
I drew the full meaning of this text from both the KJV and NIV translations. The text begins by offering praise to God; which reminds us that we must praise God. We must praise Him for our own good and for the benefit of others. Our praise of God feeds our souls and it sets an example for people who need to know God on a more intimate basis. Praise is important, but our reasons for praise are also important. The psalmist revealed to us why he would praise God "among the people" and "among the nations." He praised God because of His love and mercy. God's mercy reaches beyond the skies. That is to say that God's love and mercy is unlimited and eternal. Where would we be without the love and mercy of God? To say the least, we would be in deep trouble. Suppose that God was only a God of wrath. We have examples in the Bible of what God's wrath is like. If wrath was all that we had from Him, there would be no hope and life would be hell on earth - literally. We have experienced the love and mercy of God on a deeper level than the psalmist, because we have experienced His love through His Son. Jesus is the greatest evidence of God's love and mercy and He has offered Himself to us to save us from the wrath of God. Doesn't that make you want to praise Him at this moment? Another reason for praising God given here is because of the truth and faithfulness of God. We praise God because He always tells us the truth and He is always faithful to carry out the promises that He has made through His word. An example of this truth and faithfulness is given in 1John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins..." The truth is that when we confess our sins to God through Jesus, He will always be faithful to forgive us. Let's face it, even the people who are dearest to us can let us down at times, and we, in turn, can let them down, but God never lets us down. Even when He allows negative things in our lives, His truth and faithfulness are at work. That's why Paul wrote in Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Stop what you are doing right now and offer up praise to God. Remember that He loves you and has given you His eternal mercy. Remember that He will always be truthful and faithful in your life. Thank Him and praise Him! Bro, Joe “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple.”
We could have the mistaken idea that David’s one desire was to stay in church all of the time. Keep in mind that the tabernacle, and later the temple, was not a place where people gathered to worship like we do in our church buildings. They later had synagogues for that purpose, but in David’s time there were no synagogues. What, then, was the one thing that David desired of the Lord? David desired to stay close to the Lord. The tent that David set up as the tabernacle was where the Holy of Holies was. This was the part of the tabernacle that held the Ark of the Covenant where God was present among His people on the Mercy Seat. David simply meant that the one thing he desired was to stay close to the Lord. Each day of his life, David wanted to have fellowship with the Lord. When David, or other Jews, prayed they prayed toward the place where the Holy of Holies was. Shouldn’t we all desire to stay close to the Lord? We cannot live for the Lord if we do not seek to be close to Him. We get into spiritual trouble when we are not in close proximity to the Lord. Actually, we are not at our best when we are not close to the Lord. We must keep that in mind, because the Lord is always close to us, and if we are not close to Him it is because we have moved. He has promised to always stay close to us like a shepherd stays close to his sheep. Jesus said, “Lo I am with you alway….” The desire to be close to the Lord should be our desire too. David wanted to behold the beauty of the Lord. David desired to stay close to the Lord in order to constantly observe His beauty. Another translation of “beauty” is “delightfulness.” Being close to the Lord, David could delight in Him. Among other things, to observe the delightfulness of the Lord is to observe His grace. What would we do without God’s delightful grace at work in our lives? If we do not stay close to the Lord, we can’t really enjoy His grace. It also means to observe God’s great love for us. We should delight in His love everyday of our lives, and never take it for granted. I know that my life would be miserable if I did not know and serve the God who loves me and wants the best for me. Do we really stay close enough to God to observe His grace and love on a daily basis? David desired to “enquire in His temple.” As related earlier, the temple was not yet built but it was in the mind and heart of David. He did everything that needed to be done for Solomon to build it. What David wanted in his closeness to God was to pray every day. In Psalm 55:16-17 David wrote: “As for me, I will call upon God: and the Lord shall save me. 17. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud:and He shall hear my voice.” In his desire to stay close to the Lord, David felt the need to pray and communicate with God. Could it be that prayer is difficult for us sometimes because we are not as close to the Lord as we should be? The closer we get to Jesus, the more we should want to talk to Him and have Him speak to our hearts. We should always be aware of our need for prayer and closeness to our Lord. We need to ask ourselves if we desire to be close to God. Could it be that we do not see His delightfulness as we should, and that we do not pray as often as we should because we are not living close to Him? Let Psalm 27:4 remind you of the importance of staying close to God every day. Bro. Joe “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
I remember a childhood game called “follow the leader.” The idea was to do everything as best you could, that the person leading did. Life is similar to that game. No matter how independent we think we are, we are going to follow someone or something. We need to be sure that the one we follow is going in the right direction. If we must play “follow the leader” we need to follow the One who knows the way. Proverbs 3:6 tells us to acknowledge, or heed, the Lord. It also tells us how to follow Him. We should follow Him completely. “In all thy ways” means that if we want to follow the leadership of Jesus, we must follow Him every day and in every way. Jesus does not want to be the Lord of our “church lives,” yet be ignored in our everyday lives. Jesus actually wants to be our Lord, our leader, when we are at home. He wants to be the leader of our lives when we are at work. He wants to be the leader of our lives when we are on vacation. We cannot take vacations from the leadership of Jesus. We can trust His leadership in the use of our time and our talents. We should follow His leadership in every word, every thought and every action in our lives. I know that none of us will do this perfectly, but it is a good goal. (Don’t you agree?) We would surely stay out of a lot of trouble if we would closely follow Jesus. Frankly, I have not always found this easy to do in my life. The human will is strong and needs to be tamed by the Lord. You will not find it easy either, but you will find it rewarding. How can we do it? Proverbs 3:5 tells us how: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.” We should follow Him willingly. “In all your ways acknowledge Him" means to pay attention to Jesus and heed what He says. It means to pay attention to the Holy Spirit given to us by Jesus to give us proper leadership. Jesus alone is worthy of the leadership of our lives. When Paul addressed the philosophers on Mars Hill about their “Unknown god” in Acts 17, he told them, in effect, that he knew God. In verse 28 he told them: “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” That is the God that we know through our belief in Christ. We should be willing to follow the One who has this power. Someone has written: “We must hear (Jesus) as teacher, trust Him as Savior, love Him as Father, follow Him as master, obey Him as Lord, and honor Him as supreme in all things.” Good Point! This is what it means to follow Jesus willingly. We should follow His directions. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” As written earlier, we will follow someone or something. It amazes me what people will follow today. They need to know, if they will believe, that when Jesus directs the path it is the right path. There are a lot of “leaders” out there, as there was in New Testament days, seeking our attention and our loyalty. None of them deserve to direct our lives. None of them came from heaven, died on a cross, or rose from the dead for us. If you want to go in the right direction, trust Jesus for He will never lead you astray. I pray that you will meditate on this today. Bro. Joe “O Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise Him, all ye people. 2. For His merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endures forever. Praise ye the Lord."
There are times that the fewer the words, the better the statement. This is not true all of the time, but it is certainly true of Psalm 117. This short psalm says so much in so few words that it takes only a few seconds to read it. In fact, when I am reading through Psalms I always enjoy reading the short one, because the next two psalms are very long – particularly Psalm 119. Both of those psalms take a good while to read and to garner all of the truth in them. However, it takes more than a few seconds to meditate on the truth that is contained in the few words of Psalm 117. The first thing about this psalm is that it calls upon us to praise the Lord: “O praise ye the Lord.” Throughout the Bible we are reminded to praise the Lord. In Psalm 117, we are told who should praise the Lord: “O Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise Him, all ye people.” As many times as I have read this psalm, it occurred to me this time that the psalm is calling for the universal praise of God. As you probably know, the Old Testament is primarily about God’s work with the Israelites, but this psalm calls for all of the nations to praise the Lord. Perhaps, it is looking forward to the time when the Messiah would call the whole world to Himself, and to praise almighty God. Notice that the next call to praise is to “all ye people.” What I see here is that the call is for the nations in general to praise God, then for the people of God to praise Him. Today, we call this people groups. This psalm reminds us that God is God of all nations and all of the people groups that make up all nations. It is a call for everyone to praise God. What we need to do is to do our part in praising God on a daily basis. The second thing about this psalm is that it reminds us about the “merciful kindness” of God. Another translation of this line is “faithful love” of God. The wonderful thing is that the faithful love of God leads to His merciful kindness to His people. It really upsets me that God is getting such bad press from some corners today. Unbelievers talk about how terrible He is because of wrath and judgment. What they are missing in their lostness is that this is just part of the nature of God. He faithfully loves us and is always ready to show His merciful kindness to us. If these unbelievers would take a deep breath and believe they would see this aspect of God that calls us to Himself. It was God’s merciful kindness that led Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan. It was God’s merciful kindness that divided the Red Sea for the Israelites. It was God’s merciful kindness that led the Israelites by “a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night” in their journey from Egypt to Canaan. It was the merciful kindness of God that sent His Son into the world to offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins so that we could live with Him in heaven forever if we believe in Him. The third thing about this psalm is that it reminds us that “the truth of the Lord endures forever.” There are a lot of people in the world who think they know the real truth. The real truth is embedded in the person of God Himself. In fact Jesus said in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the Life.” Jesus was the culmination of the Bible’s drive toward the full revelation of the truth of God. The truth is that God loves the world and that it was in His great loving heart, and His great merciful kindness, to save us through His Son. The truth that we have in the God of the Bible reaches from one end of eternity to the other, or as the psalmist often wrote: “from everlasting to everlasting. We don’t know all of the truth about everything, but we know One who does and we join Him by faith in His great truth that endures forever. The psalm closes with a repeat of the call to praise: “Praise ye the Lord.” Bro. Joe Jesus said unto (Thomas) I am the way, the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father but by me.”
A=For the next three days, we will take a look at this text where Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life…” Today’s text is “I am the way.” The outline that I will use is not original with me, but all of the “meat on the bones” is mine. What does it mean that Jesus is “the way”? It means that Jesus is the way out. Jesus is the way out of what? For one thing, He is the way out of the wilderness of sin. We need to be aware that sin is the human problem. It began with Adam and Eve, continues until today and will continue until Jesus brings an end to all of it. No one could really overcome sin until Jesus offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin. By His blood we are forgiven and cleansed from sin. I have also discovered that Jesus is the way out of emptiness. Many people are living empty lives today, and they do not know how to live a full life. They try everything that the world offers that they know about and still come up empty. This reminds me of Solomon in Ecclesiastes. He tried everything under the sun to find fulfillment in life and still came up empty. Jesus said: “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” A full, abundant life is possible through faith in Jesus. It means that Jesus is the way through. Jesus is the way through the troubles of life. What do people who do not know Jesus as Savior when they confront the many troubles that life can bring on them? This is why many people try drugs, alcohol, sex and a number of other destructive things to at least forget their troubles. Many try to make it by being religious. Falling back on religion is like putting paint on a decaying building. There is a vast difference between practicing religion and putting faith in Jesus Christ. Christians can get through the troubles of life by trusting Jesus to get them through. Jesus gives us “Peace that passes understanding.” I have also found that Jesus is the way through grief. The loss of a loved one is one of the worst things that can happen to us. When my daddy died in 1969, the first thing I thought of when I had to confront the reality of his death was what Jesus said to Martha when her brother Lazarus died: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Jesus led me through it. What do people do at times like these if they do not have a relationship with Jesus? It means that Jesus is the way in. He is the way into salvation. Jesus said: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.” Jesus is the only door to salvation. Jesus said: “No one comes to the Father except through me…” This is a hard fact for people to grasp today. In fact, if you say this in some company, they will tell you that you are a narrow-minded bigot. But all we have to go by here is what Jesus said. Either what He said is true, or the whole thing is untrue. One cannot have it both ways. Jesus is also the way into eternal life. This is the ultimate meaning of salvation. John wrote in John 5:11-13: “And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life; and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of Go; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” Jesus’ message is clear: We receive eternal life by believing in Him.. A lot more could be written on this subject, but what has been written should suffice to show you that Jesus is, indeed, the way. I hope that you know Jesus as the way for your life. If you do, I hope that you tell others about what Jesus has done for you. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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