I am starting to think that I have missed it. That my entire life, all that I was sure of, is not. That all the things that mattered, don’t. That maybe just maybe its possible to live your entire life and never live. To walk with eyes, and never see, and ears that don’t hear.
We have this running joke between Dusty Dills and I. Its John Piper, “I don’t know what you feel about the prosperity gospel, but I will tell you what I feel…HATRED. …that craps coming out of AMERICA!” So, Dusty and I will say things like, “I don’t know how you feel about McDonald’s, but I will tell you what I feel…HUNGER! That crap is coming out of AMERICA!”
Today we attended a church of Homeless people in Muizenberg. The pastor is CRAZY. Here are the notes I jotted down
“get totally out of your mind. Only then will you get the mind of Christ. Its time to get committed. a quiet christian is a dead christian. Why does the church bore the world, it should be the other way around. abundant life testifies to deliverance. Even though you die, yet you shall live! Lukc 14:16 Go quickly and get the ones that nobody wants. Are you too busy for the gospel? The world is looking for life! Show them. You only get there when you realize the gospel is worth suffering for, and ultimately worth dying for. Mark 5. Possessed man ran. Desperate. Compel them to come in. If Jesus was more than a man, and christ is in you, you are more than a man. Be more. Read the Bible it will drive you completely sane. Church has a way of taking life/excitement from the believer. How are they going to hear unless you tell them?”
Some stories he told…
“I was in England. I was down where the street performers are. I got up on a latter and began to preach. I had the biggest crowd. The police came and said do you have a permit? To which I said, of course I do. Go and preach to all the world. This is part of the world, so I will preach. They said stop or we will arrest you. I said, well I am not going to stop. So they drug me down and arrested me. 7 times. Every time I went to the police station I preached and prayed for people in the cells. The final time I was arrested I was in the car and I told the police officer, they don’t want me down at the station anymore. They said they are tired of me. So he called in and they told him, don’t’ bring him here. So the police officer just kicked me out of his car. After that I became the pastor of those street performers. They saw that I had something worth suffering for. They wanted to know what it was.”
“I was to preach in Malaysia. They told me not to make a big fuss because it was mostly muslim communities. But right next door they were having a soccer match. And I could hear the people shouting and screaming for people kicking a ball around. So I said, I am going to where the energy is. I stepped out of the church and ran into the stadium. I had, “Jesus is Lord” written really big on my pants. I began to run around the track around the field with both hands in the air saying hallelujah. And the people got more excited about me than the game. I get too excited and ran right across mid-field. All the players stopped and started laughing. So I ran right out the stairs and out of the stadium and back into the church. But some of the people saw where I had gone, and soon people were pouring into that church to see. I was never invited back to that church. But many were saved, the muslims have a right to know Jesus too. And if they are more willing to get excited then the gospel will go to them.”
At no point in his wildly entertaining sermons did he ever mention money, or riches. He was consumed with people meeting Jesus. NO MATTER WHAT.
Abandon everything. I know there is something very spiritually differnet about a homeless man with nothing shouting “Jesus thank you for saving me!”
Read less books, and read more Bible.
