I have a special place in my heart for Isaiah. When Greg Stier, president and founder of Dare2Share ministries told me and three thousand other people about Isaiah’s radical encounter with God in chapter 6, it won me to Christ. So I come back to this narrative all the time to remind myself “I’m ruined for Christ.”
But as I was reading it today something else occurred to me. Before now, I have always read Isaiah 6 as the prophet’s FIRST encounter with the living Spirit of God but that can’t be true. In ancient Israel, a prophet did not speak, he did not get up and address the crowd saying “thus saith the LORD thy God” without being anointed and already having an encounter. You see, according to the Law, a prophet MUST be tested and every prophecy weighed. If it is found lacking then the person who claims to have heard from the Lord is in all kinds of trouble. Which means no prophet would speak out unless he or she actually heard from the Lord and had at least some kind of encounter with him. Read more…
So after many many years of following the broken road, Joseph (in Genesis 44-46) is reunited with and reconciled to his brothers. (Is that right? I’m never sure what preposition is supposed to go with “reconciled”.) This is the part of the story where we see how God used what the brothers meant to be evil and turned it to good. We see all the trials have paid off, that it was all worth it, that God’s hand was there in secret the whole time, and now, finally, Joseph is powerful, influential, and able to give a great blessing to his family.
This makes me think that the road to blessing is made of broken glass.
Backtrack for a moment here. Joseph was perfectly ready to step up to the awesome dream that God had given him, one of power and influence. He was ready to have a large family, inherit his father’s fortune and rule over his brothers with a benevolent (we assume) hand. Well that vision was shattered when he was sold into slavery. Read more…
So I know I’m a little behind on this one, NINE came out back in 2009 (haha, Nine, 2009) but I just saw it last night, and it spoke to me very clearly. Now I’m reasonably certain that a great many Christians probably looked down on this movie….very very far down. The main character played by Daniel Day Lewis (who put on a stunning performance in my opinion) is plagued by an addictive personality. I mean this guy smokes, drinks, and sleeps around like it’s his job. Nevermind that he’s supposed to be a film director this guy is in all kinds of trouble and completely unrepentant. What really got me personally about him was the casual acceptance of extra-martial affairs. Read more…
A while back I wrote a post on some simple reminders, principles to keep in mind when things get tough. One of those reminders was “The key to writing is to write.” This came to me in the form of DC playwright when I asked her what the best advice she had for someone just starting out could do. (I was interested in playwrighting back then) She said “Write and don’t stop.” Her second piece of advice was equally stimulating saying “write what you know, but understand that you can know anything.” But it’s the first one I want to share because it doesn’t just apply to writing but to life.
Read more…
I know a man who was taking a course in evangelism. They were going around the room asking each person to say how many people they wanted to win to Christ. Now this was a small-ish community church and the class was designed to help ordinary people who may not have had a Billy Graham power anointing for Evangelism so people are saying things like “just 1. I want to win just 1.” I think the highest number was five until this guy spoke up and he just blurted out “A MILLION!”
Of course everyone laughed a little bit and told him to calm down. They patted him on the head like a good little boy with big dreams but with no real expectation that he would do anything at all like that.
Today, Doug Addison is training people coast to cast in the United States on Power Evangelism. He has witnessed and won people to Christ and taught others to do the same and then teach others to do it through his ministry, InLight Connections. If he doesn’t directly and/or indirectly reach a million people by the time our Lord calls him home I’ll be surprised.
There are two things I’m throwing out there today and both are from Mark 4:30-32.
“What shall we say the Kingdom of God is like?…It is like a mustard seed which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when it is planted it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”
- Don’t despise the days of small beginnings.
- Dream big.
