///Tuesday Briefing///

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Before Shebaa

The Holy Spirit has been reminding me of what happened in my spiritual life before I met Shebaa.

I invested years researching, planning and preparing Four Bridges http://fourbridges.org/ There were many parts to it. But at the core was a growing online Sunday school class. The emphasis was on using the communication technologies of PDF files and audio files to allow seminary student and graduates to teach the Bible online.

Many of the blogs that are on the left side of Hub of Hubs http://hubofhubs.org/ came from organizing the way for users to easily access lessons and external links. Many of those blogs with the name hub have dozens of questions that would serve as a site map to navigate the lessons.

Also before that I had invested hundreds of hours into preparing Ears to Hear http://ears2hear.homestead.com/ that emphasized three minute audio messages.

I had spent years amidst these plans. They were mostly related to bringing milk and meat teaching to believers. Some related to evangelism and most to discipleship. But there was a big part missing.

I knew that according to the Bible that God was interested in much more than just having the right thoughts. I had known too many people that had excelled at the knowledge of the Bible but their daily life was not Christ honoring. I had known that application was the key. The Bible teaches us to be doers and not just hear the Word.

I prayed and journaled for years.

Then what started to stand out to me were the many verses in the Bible related to benevolence. At first there were a few verses and then more seemed to be spot lighted by the Holy Spirit.

I talked with various people at church and the seminary where I work. I asked if these verses are relevant for believers today. Mostly they agreed. I asked why they were not being implemented and I got sloppy excuses..

I prayed and journaled more.

Then in March 2005 Lisa moved in with her sister Shebaa. And that began God using me to meet their needs. As that continued I also enroled the prayers and funds of my friends


I had looked into an organization named Love INC http://www.loveinc.org/ where INC stands for In the Name of Christ. I admire their system of matching one screened family with an entire Sunday school class or small church for a year. That is a good ratio. It distributes the load and brings many view points. Long ago I almost joined them to become a trained to be a leader in their organization. But then I noticed how liberal and ecumenical they are. If I am going to be used to give temporal aid then I need the freedom to clearly share the gospel.

Along came Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. For months afterward I observed and assisted many Christians in providing benevolence. I heart was warmed at the wonderful ways that people gave. But I knew from what happened a year before after the major tsunami of Southeast Asia. The attention of the public was in response to the media coverage. After a while in both cases the major media outlets went back to what they had been covering. Yet the needs continued. That gave rise to the shift from just education of Four Bridges to the weaving together of benevolence, evangelism and discipleship. Many major missions agencies use this combination.

On Sunday afternoons I take a nap and do in depth Bible studies. Recently I have been collecting and organizing the verses related to benevolence. To help me better understand what the text is saying and how it is instructing me to apply it I have been using a color system for years. I have published many previous studies on the Internet and shared them with others. About one time a month I point some person to the one page list of the Bible verses related to spiritual warfare http://colorfulverses.org/Verses.html The Bible translation that I use is public domain so that I do not need to pay royalties

My next step with this set of verses is to make an audio recording with a brief comments for each group of verses. Then this summer I will develop some interactive teaching materials for these verses and the subject of benevolence.

I have been a Christian for thirty years. I have listened to thousands of hours of Christian radio and been a member of various churches. But these verses are rarely mentioned. They are not presented as having personal application for a believer these days.

You can help me out. Look over these verses and tell me which ones do not apply. And besides reviewing these for me you can pray asking God how they might apply to your life.



Read the attached.

John 6:46 PM

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Going to Fort Worth


My brother attended an intensive training recently. It has helped him enormously and he is sponsoring me to attend one like it in Fort Worth this weekend as an early birthday present. This is three jammed days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for about 12 hours each day.

My first reaction was that I could not afford the time or money. But as I have prayed God prompted me to go and has been opening doors. There is a way to sign up to match for room share and ride share. There were only three registered for this online when I signed up a few days ago. Then the forth person is also a travel agent that gets deep discounts on the room. I will only pay 40 dollars for two nights. Plus he is in McKinney. He offered to take me there and back for just 25 dollars.

Please pray for God to use this time in a mighty way. May the many materials presented and group activates they have be anointed by God to grant me the education, understanding and changes that I need. May I quickly put these lessons and insights into practice when I return.

And may God put me into contact with the right people during these three days as well as the graduates afterward.

Here is an online brochure.
http://www.millionairemind.com/MMIbrochure.pdf

John 4:55 PM

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Bought Shorter Name

I wanted to have an easy way to share the link to the blog with the links about the Lost Tomb of Jesus. So I bought a shorter name that I can tell a person or write down.

As I was praying this morning I realized that you could too.

Some people you know will be very interested in gaining a biblical perspective on this complex subject. So you can suggest that they go to www.TombResponses.org That will redirect them to the longer address for the blog http://losttombresponseshub.blogspot.com/

Please pray for God to use this blog to better connect the body of Christ. I have shared this information with professors, pastors and lay people. The purpose is to equip them to become better ambassadors for Christ amidst the many new opportunities that will suddenly happen very soon.

John 1:05 PM