dumb sheep dave

Promoting Jesus Dependency

  • Answered prayer for one of my heroes.

    When this pastor began asking folks outside his church to pray for Jesus to change him, and the church he had months earlier begun to pastor, and to open doors to friendships with pre-believers, he had no pre-believing friends, the church was going downhill and unresponsive to his preaching, and he battled daily discouragement, freely…

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  • How does Jesus retrain me,

    in a better way to live — more Jesus-dependent?   By thwarting my agenda. My agenda for sleep, optimal health, controlling my circumstances, reaching goals, fixing things, getting places rapidly and efficiently.  Independence/self-reliance.  Lovingly thwarting my agenda.  ShepherdDave thinks a loving God should bless his agenda.  Just the opposite, oftentimes.   Jesus made me for dependency, and…

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  • Jesus offers to join me in every opportunity,

    challenge, problem, I face.   My typical response?  I don’t even consider Him.   Why?  World, flesh, devil want me to believe I can find happiness through human achievement.  Independence, not dependence.  Dependence is repulsive to a grown man.   So instead of the peace that passes understanding, and joy unspeakable, as DumbSheepDave, asking and thanking my ShepherdJesus about everything,…

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  • Y director has a Gospel buddy.

    Excerpts from the former-pastor-now-Y-director’s recent prayer update.  He loves his Y job, hanging out with so many pre-believers. “The convert from last year I wrote about has become a sorta tag-team Gospel buddy with me.  He befriends people and starts the conversations toward God things, then directs them to me to answer harder questions about…

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  • Independence is just as contagious as dependence/faith.

    If I am surrounded by independents — pre-believers or believers, their independence subtly undermines my Jesus-dependence, and I begin to see independence as normal, natural.   News, movies, books, periodicals, all whisper, “Independence is normal: humans are supposed to be in charge of their own lives.”  Then prayer becomes an after-thought for me, something I…

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  • I love feeling superior to Penn State,

    and Jerry Sandusky, love seeing others as evil/wicked, love feeling outraged at the failings/weaknesses/sins of others, so I feel superior, so I feel good about myself.   At least my flesh loves it.   ShepherdDave loves it.   CompetitiveDave loves it.   JudgeDave loves it. But when the Spirit freshly opens my eyes to the ways I’m just like…

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  • I’m never wowed by Jesus,

    when I’m JudgeDave, clear-sighted about the weaknesses/failings of others — especially the opponents of my favorite sports teams.  JudgeDave is always blind to his own sin, always leaning on his own understanding, always wise in his own eyes.   Only when the Spirit of Jesus freshly convicts me of my sin of judgeship/independence/orphanhood, am I freshly…

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  • Am I hopeful that Jesus will surprise me,

    by making a bigger, deeper difference in my life, that wows those around me, and wows me?  Or have I believed the lie of the devil that what is, will always be; or worse?  Is there way more unbelief in me than I’ve realized?  Do I need to confess my unbelief in the possibility of Jesus…

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  • Satan’s most damaging strategy,

    is to get me to believe that my life is mine to live, and that all humans have our own lives to live.   But I’m no longer a free man.  Freedom is a lie and an illusion, to keep believers in the prison of human accomplishment, the prison of feel-good-about-self-based-on-my-performance. I’ve been bought with…

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  • Pastor recruiting prayer for his own heart.

    The paragraph below was written in September by one of the pastors I mentor, doing a great job of recruiting prayer, weekly, from outside his congregation, for revival in his own heart, and in the dwindling, revival-resistant congregation he began pastoring 18 months ago, with little progress to report.  And below that, an October report.…

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