Yessirree, Bob...20,819 days ago I shuffled onto this mortal coil...supposedly after ONE incredible labor pain and shouting from the start, not needing my little tushy slapped!! (Those of you who know my reputation for noise here at Camp Cornelius will have NO problem swallowing this piece of oral history passed on electronically.) ;pWell, back in 1917 Oswald Chambers died on this day from complications of an emergency appendectomy performed several days earlier. His stenographer wife, Gertrude, was responsible for turning her notes on his talks into the 34 books that eventually were published in his name. Today's entry in My Utmost for His Highest has an excellent thought:
"When you do have to give advice to another, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit; your part is to be so rightly related to God that His discernment comes through you all the time for the blessing of another soul."
Danggit, as Elfson would say, I wish I would have said that! I guess the closest I get to it is when I try to encourage folks with the thought that, if God can speak to Balaam through a donkey, He can certainly use any one of us!!
Speaking of that, last week Archangel and I were discussing her one term paper on Deuteronomy 6:4-7, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." Well, it dawned on me for the first time in the 28 years I've been discussing Scripture that The Shema (as this passage is known) is The Great Commission of the Old Testament!!
Lookit this: Matthew 28:18-20, "And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'" If you check out the Greek, you find that the "go" is NOT the primary verb, but should be translated "while you're going"...making it parallel to the "when you..." part of The Shema. And, obviously, then, making disciples IS the primary verb (calling) for ALL Chrisitians wherever we are on the continuum from Mom-booting-us-out to Grim Reaper-collecting-us!!
Well, I'm getting choked up by the music from Lord of the Rings where they've just left Moria without Gandalf. He did have a piece of good advice to Frodo while they were inside, however. Regardless of the times, "all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Got someone in mind to disciple?
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