dumb sheep dave

Promoting Jesus Dependency

  • I love to judge everything,

    and everyone, including myself.  Excellent, poor, mediocre.  I love having and articulating opinions on many issues.  Makes me feel strong.  ShepherdDave.  Winner. I do not love being a dumb sheep, feeling weak, clueless, helpless, powerless.  Always needing to be rescued.  Loser.  I continue to be surprised at the strength of my hungry, needy flesh, and…

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  • If you want to be blessed,

    happy, Jesus said you need to hear the word of God and keep it.  How can a human do that?  Only the self-deceived believer thinks he obeys God.   In my experience, the happiest believers — most joy-filled and peace-filled, regardless of their circumstances, have recently been convicted of their sin by the Spirit of Jesus. …

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  • Impossible for me to love enemies.

    I don’t have that kind of power.  I need Jesus working in my life, to do the impossible — love/enjoy/cherish those whose values are so opposite.   So what can I do?  CONFESS my sin of unlove/contempt/ superiority/self-righteousness.  Jack Miller said the starting place for faith, is conviction of sin.  True for me.  The more the…

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  • The right-side-up kingdom of this world,

    and my flesh, and the devil, treasure the winner/strong/confident/proud/somebody/adultlike/shepherd, but the Upside-down Kingdom of Jesus treasures the loser/weak/meek/humble/nobody/childlike/sheep. Shepherds are not promised carefree peace and happiness, but sheep are.  Shepherds live with tension, stress, misery.  The fruit of worldiness. For the Church to be the Church, for us to have favor with the watching, skeptical…

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  • Wife of young missionary doctor with cancer,

    team leader in rural Uganda, pointed me to Jesus today, through her story. –DumbSheepDave, always needing to be reminded he’s a dumb sheep needing his ShepherdJesus On Wednesday, we headed back to the Infusion Center for Round Three of chemotherapy. School is out so the kids went to the lake with my mother for a…

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  • When I feel alone,

    pressured, with a problem to solve, like it’s up to me, or when I feel confident-but-intense in attacking the problem before me, I need the Spirit to freshly convict me of my sin of independence/self-confidence, so I’m returned to Jesus-dependency, curious and expectant to see what my ShepherdJesus does next, in me, others, circumstances.  And…

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  • Feeling helpless seems wrong,

    to us Christians.  Whyzat?  Because we’ve not understood the leaven of the Pharisees that Jesus mentioned to His disciples, which is independence, which is concern for one’s own worthiness/performance/righteousness.  Self-effort.  Human power.  God-bless-my-agenda praying, presumptuously advising the Creator about what’s best for self and others.  I know how to pray. God opposes the proud/strong/confident/independent, but…

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  • “When I strive for excellence,

    accomplishment, performance, worthiness, righteousness, I will receive love from others and from self.”  This is the unconscious lie I have believed since high school, perpetrated on me by the world we live in, outside the Church and inside too.  I never understood why I have been such an over-achiever.  I always thought it was a…

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  • The chief torturer of my soul,

    is not the devil, not my deceased dad, not others.  The chief torturer is me.  And what this tortured soul wants in this life, in my less sane moments, more than anything else in the whole wide world, is to be accepted and enjoyed by TheGreatestJerkOnThePlanetToDaveMcCarty.  Dave McCarty is a cruel taskmaster to me, and…

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  • LIFE is never experienced,

    from human-powered obedience, but rather from confession of sin.  And when LIFE doesn’t flow from confession, there is more that needs to be confessed, that I don’t yet see.  LIFE is a fruit of the Spirit’s work.  I cannot convict myself of sin, cannot make myself repent.  Faith/dependency/LIFE is a gift from Jesus, so I…

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