Tag: preaching

The Next Mosquito in the Room

“The early church didn’t have a Graham, a Finney, or a Moody. It didn’t have Promise Keepers, a Great Awakening, or user-friendly churches. Furthermore, it had no concise spiritual laws to share, no explosive method for talking to the unconverted. What it had seems quite paltry: it had unspectacular people with a hodgepodge of methods, so hodgepodge that they can hardly be called methods, and rarely a gathering of more than a handful of people. The paltry seems to have been enough, however, to make an emperor or two stop and take notice…nameless Christians [who brought] the name of Jesus Christ to the attention of pagans—not a phenomenon that filled stadiums; just enough to begin converting the whole known world.” —Mark Galli

Paltry indeed, but like the mosquito in the room, impossible to ignore. And like this paltry who simply lived Christ so long before us, we live, too. They stood, and we now stand; they led; now we lead. To the world, they had no names, but we remember them,—and we can’t think of them without thinking of Him. And that’s the whole idea. We’re the next mosquito in the room.

The world will definitely notice.

—j

Really Loud Obedience

“Let God be responsible for the consequences of your obedience.”
—Charles Stanley

“One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Obedience is your sermon. Preach away.

Have a great Sunday!

—j

The Ruination of Man

Three apprentice devils were preparing to come to the earth to finish their apprenticeship. They first spent time talking to Satan about their plans to tempt and ruin men.
The first devil declared “I will tell men that there is no God”
Satan said to him, “That will not delude many, for they know there is a God”
The second devil boasted “I will tell men that there is no hell!”
Satan answered the second, “You will deceive no one that way. Men know even now that there is a hell for sin.”
The third devil thought for a moment, then said, “I will tell men that there is no hurry…”
Satan excitedly told the third “Go! and you will ruin men by the thousands!” (Adapted from William Barclay)

People are dying; Jesus is coming; Christians have eternity; the world doesn’t.

Give ’em heaven, while they still have time.

—j

A Thing about The End of the World

Jesus is coming back—His followers know it and most are thrilled at the immanent possibility. My friend Don Stewart, however, reminds us to be careful about one important detail…

“Do not make the mistake of replacing the Gospel with talk of the end times events—our main message isn’t the second coming of Christ, but the first.”

Preach it.

—j

Thank You, Mr. Kimball

In 1858, a Sunday School teacher named Mr. Kimball led a Boston shoe clerk to give his life to Jesus Christ. The Clerk, Dwight L. Moody, became an evangelist. In England of 1879, he awakened the evangelistic zeal in the heart of Fredrick B. Meyer, the pastor of a small church. F.B. Meyer, preaching at an American college campus, led to Christ a student named J. Wilbur Chapman. Chapman, engaged in YMCA work, employed a former baseball player named Billy Sunday to do evangelistic work. Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, NC. A group of local men became so enthusiastic afterward that they planned another evangelistic campaign, bringing Mordecai Hamm to town to preach. During Hamm’s revival, a young man named Billy Graham heard the Gospel and gave his life to Christ. Only eternity will reveal the tremendous impact of the one Sunday school teacher, Mr. Kimball, who invested his life in the lives of others… —Author Unknown

Serve Jesus in all you do—you just never know.

—j

Unleash It

Here I sit, recovering from a bad bout with food poisoning where the food won the first round. When your guts ache, news-watching seemed all the more painful, especially the blind and trendy attacks on the simple Good News that Jesus saves souls. But the message, simple as it is, is powerful beyond measure and in no danger of being silenced. My favorite old minister, C.H. Spurgeon, preached,

“As the sun is not blown out by the tempest, nor the moon quenched by the dew of night, so is not the gospel destroyed by the sophistries of perverse minds. Wherefore let us comfort one another with these words, ‘the word of God is not bound.’ It will be preached till doomsday.”

The Gospel isn’t going anywhere. Preach it, unleash it.

—j