AD's October Devotional

Nothing demands our focused contemplation on the value of life as the death of an innocent child. Philip and Darla (Eytzen) Brown laid their 17-month-old baby boy to rest. The memorial service was a powerful witness that hope trumps sorrow when believers choose to live their lives on purpose. The courage of the extended family and the compassionate koinonia of lifetime friends corporately declared victory over death, Jesus the victor over the grave. This is life… lived on purpose.

   On the way to the interment, I saw this vision statement on a local church: 

“Love God, love people… on purpose.” 

What a commanding counterbalance to the unexamined life of Proverbs 19:3 

“A person's own folly leads to their ruin, yet their heart rages against the Lord.” NIV

   As believers, let’s live our lives on purpose. Choose to take full responsibility 

for your decisions. Bring Glory to God in every phase of your lives. As 

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, 

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.

 The process never ends until we die.

 And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

   Living life on purpose. It’s a potent ideal. Our prayers and our love 

are with our missionary colleagues Dale and Delight Eytzen and the family, especially Philip and Darla. 

AD's September Devotional

Life is a journey not measured by landmarks of accomplishments as much as a deepening sense of who and whose we are and where we’re going. God has planted eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The sense that we’re not really home until we’re home with Jesus compels us to live as transients in this world in our journey of faith, traveling lightly, unencumbered. (Hebrews 11:8-16) It also gives us a sense of identity.
   In the 2001 movie, “A Knight’s Tale,” young William Thatcher sees a Knight riding through his medieval town and declares, “Someday, I’ll be a Knight.” A man locked up in the stocks, laughs and says, “A thatcher’s son becoming a Knight! You might as well try to change the stars!” William asks his father, “Can a man change the stars?” “Yes, William. If he believes enough, a man can do anything!”
   Young William gets a chance to be a Squire to a Knight. As he is leaving for his journey he says, “Father, I am afraid. I won’t know the way back home.” His father says, “Don’t be foolish, William, you just follow your feet home!”
   By a twist of fate, he gets a chance to prove that he is worthy of Knighthood. As a man, now back in his hometown, in the hearing audience of his father, he is declared to be “Sir William Thatcher."
   William would not settle for the status quo. He followed the destiny that was placed in his heart by his father. His journeys of faith led him in his quest for Knighthood and eventually back to his father. Our Heavenly Father puts eternity in our hearts and we must follow His sense of destiny for our lives as we follow our feet back home… to Him.

ADs August Devotional

The Day after Tomorrow 

the day after 

the Centennial Celebration

   One hundred years ago, a group of 300 delegates of a newly formed Spirit-empowered movement pledged themselves to do “the greatest work of evangelism the world has ever seen.”  

   In August, at the Centennial of that movement, the Assemblies of God will celebrate how God Sovereignly molded and shaped us with a clear and compelling mission to reach the lost. We’ll celebrate our miraculous growth from 300 members to 67 million members in 300,000 churches worldwide.  

   The day after that celebration, what will be our defining vision? Sure, times have changed. Methodologies have to adapt to those changes. But, in those changes, we must never forget that our reason for being must not change.  

   Humanity is still lost without Jesus. Our General Superintendent Dr. George Wood defines our ageless mission clothed in the contemporary vernacular as the “human right.” Former AGWM Executive Director Loren Triplett once said, 

“You don’t measure yourself by your success. 

You measure yourself against the unfinished task.”  

   The day after tomorrow’s celebration, I pray we will sense the urgency of the hour to thrust us into the next 100 years of evangelism should the Lord tarry. 

    John 4:35 (NASB)  

Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, 

and then comes the harvest’? 

Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes 

and look on the fields, 

that they are white for harvest.

ADs July Devotional

A well-dressed street musician stands statute-like holding his string bass instrument. It’s Saturday, May 19, 2012 at 6 pm in the middle of a prominent plaza in Sabadell, Spain. A little girl around 10 years old runs up and drops a coin in a hat lying upside down by his feet.  He begins to play a deep and beautiful tune, “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Soon, one by one an entire orchestra and two choirs join in the celebration of joy that mesmerizes and delights everyone within hearing distance of this captivating flash mob.
   Sure, this “spontaneous event” was orchestrated and sponsored by Banco Sabadell in celebration of its 130th anniversary. Sure, the 100 members of the orchestra and two choirs had spent their lives in disciplined training for occasions just like this one. Sure, someone had meticulously planned where and how this experience was going to take place, but don’t tell this little girl! As she stands transfixed by the impromptu crescendo of the members of this group, she knows! She started the music! It was her coin that began it all.
   At times in ministry, all we have to give is a small coin. Our talent, resources and time may seem insignificant (Matt 13:31-32). Let’s be honest. It has never been about our resources, but God’s. Take your little coin. Drop it at God’s feet. Then watch in wonderment. God has already prepared a joyous event. Soon His joy will be evident in all that hear His music.
http://www.Godtube.com/watch/?v=WKKZ6LNX