Revolution part 7

Yo, yo, and hello from the Great Chickenfried nation! How is everyone doing today? I hope and pray all is well. It is really cold down here in the Dallas area. Sleet. No good. I bet that means we've got ice coming too. Ice is not good. Anyhow, I hope and pray the weather is good wherever you are today.
Anyhow, there are several things to talk about today. First off, I just finished reading chapter 11 of Revolution. In this chapter Barna talks about the marks of a Revolutionary. There are seven of them he lists and he gives each one great detail into each. These seven things are pivital (spelling error?) to the Revolutionary lifestyle. Paul talks about these things in Romans (where Barna talks a lot about in this chapter).
Secondly, I was reading in Matthew 4 today. Right after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist He was lead by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. There He fasted for 40 days and nights. After those days, it says, He was hungry. Then the devil tempts Jesus in several areas, one of them being turning stones into bread. I remember in a class I took at Harding. It was a Christian Counseling class. He was talking about this and he said that the devil plays dirty. But even when Jesus was at His physically lowest point He was (and still is) more powerful then Saten was at his best. Is that cool or what?! Even when He was physically weak from the fasting, He was spiritually stronger then Saten was. That amazes me.
Nextly, here is another favorite worship song of mine. Into Your Courts We Come.
Into Your courts we come!
Into Your courts we long to be!
Near to the thrown (spelling error?) of Your glory!
As we draw near to You,
Know that we're here to do Your will.
God, how we long to be near to You!
We all need to be in God's Holy presence everyday.
Singing. Praying. Humblying ourselves. That's what God wants from us. Is it not?
I guess that's all for now. God bless you all in Jesus' name! Thank you for reading.
Zack
ps. The Mavs won their 11th in a row last night! Next game we play Ron Artest and the Kings. Should be tough, but I am confident we will prevail. God bless you all.

The Master's Plan For Making Disciples part 5

Yo, yo, and hello from the great Chickenfried nation (as quoted from Randy Galloway of ESPN radio in Dallas)! I hope and pray everyone is having a great day today.
In the chapter I just read in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples Arn talks about how to reach out to the members of your extended family. We need to do things like establishing and strengthening relationships. We need to develop a way to talk to them about our faith in God. And so forth. This is a very practicle book. Excellent! As I know I've said before, this book is required reading for the class Evangelistic Methods at SIBI. I hope to develop my public speaking skills (if I have any skill there) to where I can teach these principles on the mission field wherever that may be.
On another note, I love devotional songs. I've written a couple of blogs on some before. Here's a song I learned during AIM called Arms Of Love:
I sing a simple song of love,
To my Jesus!
To my Savior!
I'm thankful for the things You've done!
My loving Savior!
My precious Jesus!
My heart is glad that You've called me Your own!
And there's no place I'd rather be!
Then in Your arms of love!
Then in Your arms of love!
Holding me still!
Holding me near!
In Your arms of love!
I love that song, don't you? It gives me chills just thinking about it.
What are some of your favorite devotional songs? Comments?
love,
Zack
pss. I've made a HUGE blunder this time. The Mavs have won 10 in a row. Not 3. Ten! Ya baby!
We'll have eleven by the end of the night. God bless!
And please say a prayer for the AIMers today. Those on the mission field right now and those preparing to do in Lubbock. And my friends Elijah and Kristan Peters who are preparing to be missionaries in Auckland, New Zealand and for Rob and Denyce Hindman who are preparing to be missionaries in Moscow, Russia. Thank you all! God bless!

Revolution part 6

Yo, yo, and hello from the great Chickenfried nation (a quote from one of my favorite sports radio talk show hosts). I hope all of you reading this today are having a blessed day today.
There are several things I need to say. First of all, I hope and pray all of you had a great Thanksgiving and great weekend. Secondly, I'm sorry I havn't written a blog in such a long time.
Thirdly, lets talk about chapter 10 of Revolution. In this chapter Barna shows how the revolution shapes the Revolutionary. Every one who has ever taken part in a revolution (what ever the cause) through out history has been forever changed by that revolution. So it must be with the Revolution that this book is about. This Revolution changes who we are as the people of God. It changes the way we live. How we act. How we talk and so forth. It changes us. And he lists four ways that the Revolution changes us. As I've said before, please buy this book and read it and practice it. This book will change the way we do church.
Going on with what I want to say, my dad preached a really good sermon this past Sunday. I even asked him for permission to write about it in a blog. He graciously gave it. He talked about The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving from Psalm 116. Firstly we see the Psalmist's reason for Thanksgiving: God's love. Because God heard him. Because God delivered and rescued him. And because God richly blessed him. Second thing, we see the Psalmist's response to God. He expresses his thanks. And he dedicates his life to God. Thanksgiving equals thanks-living. And lastly, we see three ways to develop thanksgiving in our own lives. We must remember everything we have belongs to God. We should avoid complaining. And we must develop a habit of giving thanks everyday. Thank you Dad for this inspiring lesson!
Which leads me to my last thing. I deeply desire to be a missionary here in the US (or elsewhere) and planting churches in the New England area. I hope to stay with those churches to help them develop an outreach program and a way to integrate the new disciples to continue making new disciples. Ultimatley, that's what God desires us to do no matter where we are.
Thank you all for reading. God bless you in Jesus' name!
Zack
pss. How about the Mavs! We've won three in a row baby! And lastly, it's come in my attention I made a type error in the blog before this. In my topic in The Master's Plan for Disciple Making, that was supposed to be part 4. Thanks and God bless.

The Master's Plan for Making Disciples part 3

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers! I hope and pray all is well with everyone of you today.
I'll get to the book in a minute. But first there's this really funny story my dad told me. Here it goes.
Two sisters, one blonde and one burnette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortionately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble. In order to keep the bank from re-possesing the ranch they need to purchase a bull from a stockyard in a far-away town so that they can breed their own stock. They only have $600 left.
Upon leaving, the burnette tells her sister, "When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I'll contact you to drive out after me and haul it home">
The burnette arrives at the stockyard, inspects the bull, and decides to buy it. The man tells her that he will sell it for $599, no less. After paying for him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news.
She walks into the telegraph office, and says, "I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I've bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home".
The telegraph operator explains that he'll be glad to help her, then adds, "It's just 99 cents a word". Well, after paying for the bull, the burnette only has $1 left. She realizes that she'll only be able to send her sister one word. after a few minutes of thinking, she nods and says, "I want you to send her the word 'comfortable'."
The operator shakes his head. "How is she ever going to know that you her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul the bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word 'comfortable'?"
The burnette explains, "My sister's blonde. The word's big. She'll read it very slowly... com-for-da-bull". (pretty funny don't you think?)
Alright. Now let's talk about the book. In the last chapter in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples Arn shows us the seven steps to disciple making. He shows us how identify people in our extended family and how to witness to them. We need to get involved in other people's lives and talk about things pretaining to them. He talks about a Christian man who has a friend who has a daughter that's having problems. The Christian then says that his daughter was having problems as well, but she got involved in the church youth group and is going great. And his non-Christian friends got involved in the church's counseling program and involved in the church.
I guess that is all for now. God bless you in Jesus' name! Have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow. Eat lot's of turkey, stuffiing, peacan pie, and so forth! Great stuff!
Zack
ps. On a side note, the Mavs are doing great now! I must be a prophet or something (now I know that's not true). GO MAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Revolution part 5

Yo yo and hello to all my reader! I hope and pray all who are reading this are having a great day.
There are three things I wanted to write about today.
First thing, I did some reading from Revolution. In chapter nine Barna encourages Christians to look at the life of Christ and His Revolutionary lifestyle and glean from Him about how we should live as Revolutionaries today.
Personally, I like the thought of having more of a house church concept in the the church today. I believe in having the whole church togther on Sundays and then the rest of the week be in house churches. Too much of one thing can be hazardous (spelling error?).
Secondly, I watched a video series by Jeff Walling on the Gospel of Matthew. It is a drama presentation. Jeff plays Matthew. The series is called My Messy Messiah (an absolutely brillant title!). In the videos Jeff talks about how Matthew had trived in his buisness ventures. Then Jesus calls him and says, "what do ya think? Are you ready for a new buiness opportunity?" Then he talked about Jesus' messy family leignage (spelling error?). There are four women. Tamar dresses like a hooker to seduce her father in law. Rahab was a hooker. Ruth is a Moabitise who came from a sinful relationship. And finally Bathsheba (who's name conjurgers up bad images already right there), Uriah's wife. If we want to come to the Messiah we have to identify our mess! He also talks about Jesus touching, healing, and befriending lepers, tax collectors, and others that the society back then would have nothing to do with. Jesus touched them in their messes and He can do the same with us. And lastly, he calls us to go tell the world "let me tell you about my mess so I can tell you about the Messiah". An absolutly brillant video!
Funny and thought provoking (if those two things can be together at the same time).
And lastly, I just want to ask for prayers for the SIBI students and especially the AIMers on the mission field and AIMers still in Lubbock. Those still in Lubbock will most likely hear where they're going and who with before Thanksgiving break or Christmas break. I was just looking at SIBI's website and there are a lot of mission fields out there who need lots of prayers. I'm really looking forward to attending SIBI in 2008 and getting involved in missions ministry again (Lord-willing of course). And, Lord-willing, going off to New England or elsewhere, to plant churches and helping them to mature in Christ.
Thank you all for reading today. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Please pray also, that the Lord of the harvest will prepare more harvesters for the harvest fields (including me)! Thank you! Blessings to you!

The Master's Plan For Making Disciples part 3

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers! I hope and pray everyone is doing well and that God is blessing you today.
I've also been reading The Master's Plan For Making Disciples here lately. This is also a great book! The last chapter I read out of this book talks about the nine key principles for making disciples. We all know the Great Commission, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo I am with you always to the very end of the ages". But the secret is how do we do that. Thus, we have these nine key principles of disciple-making. But the first thing we've got to know is that God loves everyone in the whole world (John 3 :16 "For God so loved the world, ...") and we've got to love them too, and express that love loud and clear to those we talk to.
Now, these nine principles are called "The Master's Plan"for making disciples. These principles will transform us into who God calls us to be to bring people to Him. And of course these go along with teaching those in our oikos (household, those in our realm of influence).
To get these principles please go and buy this book. If you can't find it in a Christian book store get it at Church Growth network's website (churchgrowth.net or google Church Growth Inc. on google.com). I guess it wouldn't be a good idea to give the book's content on here and thus break copywrite (most people frown on that).
I know this book is required reading for the Evangelistic Methods Bible class at SIBI. I'm very excited to be going to school there and getting involved in missions ministry with a mission team in the Northeast US.
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. There's a lot of great football today (Saterday) and tomorrow (Sunday). Have fun!

Revolution part 4

Yo yo and hello everyone who's reading this. I hope and pray each of you feel God's love and blessings today.
I've been reading George Barna's Revolution. It is a book suggesting we change the way we do "church" in our society. One of the chapters I read today calls for a new way for us to do "church". In this chapter Barna says our society is all about one-size-fits-all worship services, when in actuality it's one size fits no one. So many churches have a routine every Sunday and Wendsday. Bible class at 9am, llam worship, 6 pm worship on Sundays and 7pm worship on Wendsdays. Just about every church I've seen goes by that basic schedual. It's like those times are the only scriptural times to have Bible classes and worship on Sundays and Wendsdays. Then Barna discusses two variations on a theme. Lastly he talks about models in the future. The next chapter I read tonight is about Jesus the Revoltionary. Jesus' life and ministry transformed everyone one He came in contact with and transformed everywhere He went to. To see this, Barna suggests, we look at Jesus' perspective. Then we need to see how He followed through. Then we see His identity. Next we see His priorities in life. And lastly we see His character and demeanor.
This is a really good book. All who read it and want to put the book's principles into practice will be changed by it.

Sorry :)

Sorry to all of my readers for not blogging in a while. You know what? I'm going to take a break from the series I'm currently writing about to do something different.
At the moment my parents and I are dog-sitting my sister and brother in law's chocolate lab Hank. My mom and I took him on a walk around the neiborhood today. As my brother in law Jake has said on his blog (risefromyourslumber.blogspot.com), he is overly hyper. Thus he did most of the leading today. Which lead me to think, who is walking who?
So, in our spiritual lives, who is doing the leading? Us or God? When I go out to live my life everyday, who is doing the leading? Is God leading, or am I?
Hank is a very sweet dog. We love him dearly. He minds pretty well. He loves to play alot. Great dog!
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

The Master's Plan for Making Disciples part 2

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there! I hope and pray everyone reading this is having a blessed day today.
I've read the second chapter in The Master's Plan for Making Discples. This chapter is called How New Disciples Are Made: The Oikos Factor. Oikos is a Greek word meaning house. Now this doesn't just mean those who live in your house. It entails everyone in your realm of influence: your immediate family, extended family, neighbors, friends, co-workers, and so forth.
The auther talks about the household in the Old Testament and then the oikos (household) of the New Testament. Then he talks about the importance of oikos in the church today. He shows the percentages of his own church about how many people came to church and got baptized because of several reasons There were things like special needs 1-2%; visitations 1-2%; and so forth. But the overwhelming majority was Friends/Relatives at a shockping 75-90 %. If we took a pole like this in our own churches I would imagine we would have something similar to these. Then we find seven reasons that show why the oikos factor still works today.
This book is very practicle and very good. If you don't have it please get it, read it, and practice it! I don't know if Christian bookstores still carry it or not, so look up Charles Arn on google.com and find his books on line and look up The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. Great book!
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Revolution part 3

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there reading this. I hope and pray all of y'all are being blessed by our great God today.
Once again I'm sorry for not posting on Saterday. I have read chapters 5 and 6 of the book Revolution. Before we talk about it, let me put in a little plug for this book: if you don't have it, get it, read it, and practice it. Alrighty then. Chapter 5 is about Spiritual Transitions in The Making. Barna starts off by stating, "Change is a natural, positive, and irreplacable part of growth". He goes on that leaders know what got them to where they are now, but that things have to change for them to continue progressing in the buiness world. And psychologists say repeating the same behaviors only brings about the same results and we must change behaviors if we want to change. Barna says that the spiritual Revolution is gaining momentum and influence in the US and is giving substantial evidence of change taking place in this country today. There are big changes that are transforming the people involved in them. "These changes are effecting perceptions of worldview, lifestlyle, and expectations that characterize the two youngest generations: the Baby Busters (those born in 1965 through 1983) and the Mosatics (those born from 1984 through 2002)". Then he lists seven trends that are leading to the New Church that will effect the way the moral and spiritual revolution of millions of those who have been praying for for several decades. Then he discusses the new spiritual landscape that is changed by the seven trends. And lastly he talks about how Americans experience and express our faith.
In chapter 6 we look at how God is active in today's world. First of all he talks about true transformation. Secondly, he talks about the discovery of, what he calls, spiritual mini-movements. Then he talks about how local churches reponds to them. And lastly he talks about the secret of transformation.
As I've said before, those who read this book and put it to practice will change in many ways including the way they do "church".
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

The Master's Plan for Making Disciples

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there. I hope and pray the Lord is blessing each of you in wonderful ways today.
A friend of mine at church gave me a really good book called The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. I just started reading it yesterday. It's a book that is required reading for one of the classes I will take at SIBI. I wanted to get the book and read it before hand. In the introduction of the book the authors give a brief history of evangelism in the Early Church in the New Testament, impreticularly in Acts. And in chapter one they begin talking about the divine mandate that all Christians are in turn to teach and baptize more Christians. They use the terms "Christian" and "Disciple" inter-changebly (as I believe was intended in the New Testament as well).
The Great Commission in Matthew 28 says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; teaching them everything I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always to the end of the ages" or something like that.
The first part obviously means we are to teach people about God and His Son Jesus Christ and baptize them. The second part says we are to teach them the ways of the Lord, help them grow in the faith, and help them to express that faith to others. And the third part means Jesus will be with us all the way through this life.
I plan to write about Revolution and The Master's Plan for Making Disciples on alternating days (ie. today I wrote about the Disciples book, so tomorrow I'll write about Revolution and so forth). Thank you all for reading today. God bless you all in Jesus name!
Zack
ps. The Mavs won last night over the Suns! Yeah baby! If we can put together a long winning streak no one will remember the 0-4 start. Go Mavs! God bless!

Missions

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there who's reading this. There are three things I want to say.
First of all, sorry I didn't write anything yesterday. Long long day.
Second, I would like to ask for prayers for missionaries. I went through the AIM program a few years ago (if you don't know what AIM is email me please and I'll gladly tell you about it) and it was one of the best things I've ever done. I spent a year and a half in Scotland working with the church there. Anyhow, the current AIMers in Lubbock are about to find out where they are going for their mission fields and who they're going with. And please pray for the AIMers who are currently on the field. It's a great program. If you don't know about it email me and I'll gladly tell you. I'm hoping and praying to return to Lubbock in 2008 and go through the two year program at Sunset and get involved in missions again. I hope and pray to get a team together and go somewhere in the Northeast (probably in the New England area) and plant churches there.
And thirdly, what has happened to my Mavs? We lost four straight to the Miami Heat in the NBA finals and now we've lost four in a row to start the new season. It's panick time man. We've got to get on the ball hear real quick.
Thank you for reading this. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Revolution part 2

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there! I hope and pray everyone reading this out there is having a great day today. So, I've been reading a little bit more from Revolution today. Chapter 3 is about what God expects. He looks at several passages in the book of Acts which tell of some of the early church's activities (ie. all the new Christians devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, sharing everything they had with one another, praying together, and so forth). Then he talks about the 7 passions of a Revolutionary. In the next chapter he talks about the things that the early Christians did and what present day Christians are doing now. The differences are strikingly different. As I said yesterday, things are going to change big time for those who take the principles of this book to heart and apply it.
On another note, my parents and I voted today. If you haven't voted today, please do. I believe it is our right and therefore our duty to vote. What a great country we live in that allows it's citizines to right to vote.
God bless you all today in Jesus' name!
Zack

Revolution

Yo yo and hello to everyone reading this!
Some time ago my church's new Outreach Minister told me about a book about Cell Group based churches. We talked about it for a while and he said he was going to buy a bunch of them for the elders at church and said he would order one for me too. I started reading it today. The book is called Revolution authored by George Barna. Mr Barna is a big research kinda guy. Very practicle. The book is about not just going to church but really being the Church that the Bible talks about. Very profound. So thank you Ryan for telling about this great book! I'm really enjoying it! Great read!
I've read the first 2 chapters so far. The first one is about 2 gentlemen who are best friends. They are both Christians, both have great famililies (wife and children), and both work very hectic jobs, and both have grown weary of the church were they had been going. That is were the similarities end. One of them has almost stopped going to church all together and the other one is still holding on to his faith, attends church, and lives a life of evangelism. The former is what Barna calls "a Revolutionary", one who isn't going to stick with things as-is. He wants to stop just going to church and start being the Church. Barna calls little "c" church "the congregation-based faith experience which envolves formal structure, hierarchy of leadership, and a specific group of believers". He calls big "C" Church the universal Church , as in all the Christians around the world who's names are in the Lamb's book of life.
I'm really excited about reading this book! It is going to change all Christians and all Churches who want to put this books' principles into practice.
More on this later.
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Waking the Dead

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there. I hope and pray everyone is doing well out there today.
Have you ever read Waking the Dead by John Eldridge? I read it once and then got a journal to work with the book. I've read and worked a little through it again, but got sidetracked. It's a great book. It's about reaching our full potential in life with God. It's about reclaiming our hearts that have been hurt and broken by life, and by the devil. It is one of the best books I've ever read.
One quote I remember in the book is "The glory of God is man fully alive" (Saint Ireniaus) (spelling error?). Jesus tells us in John's gospel "The theif comes to steal, kill, and destroy; but I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly". "The theif comes to steal, kill, and destroy ..." Jesus said! We should never be surprised when the theif (the devil) comes to steal, kill, and destroy us. But Jesus came to give us life! And not just life, but life abundant! And that reminds me of what Paul said to the Corinthians. "If it's only for this life that we have hope in Christ, then we of all people are most to be pittied (spelling error?)". That, I believe is talking about them believing that there is no resurrection in Christ. Now in tying all this in together, Christ didn't just mean we would have "life abundantly" in heaven (though that's part of it, I believe), but that we can live our lives to the fullest here and now with our time on earth.
One of the Proverbs says we defere our hopes and dreams our hearts grow faint, but when we fulfill those hopes and dreams (and not just fantasies, but real God-given hopes and dreams) our hearts and faith grow fuller. I don't know if that makes any sense or not. I hope and pray this brightens someone's day. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Jesus our Great High Priest

Yo yo and hello to everyone reading this out there. I hope and pray everyone is doing well.
I was doing some more reading yesterday and today. The writer of Hebrews talks alot about Christology (the study of Christ). He talks a little bit about Old Testament sacrifices that only the high priest could do. But he always had to do one for himself too. Then he could offer a sacrifice for the people. And this cylcle had to be repeated year in and year out. But Jesus is our High Priest and the sacrifice He made for us never needs to be repeated. His dying on the cross for us totally and completely met God's demands for sins. There's no once every year stuff with this. Jesus' sacrifice was once for all. Is that great or what?
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

The Watchman Ez. 3:16-21

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there reading this. I hope and pray you are all having a great day today. I hope this post will be worth your while.
I was doing my daily Bible reading today and found the watchman text in Ezekiel 3 interesting.
"And at the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me. 'Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them worning from me. If I say to the wicked, 'you shall surely die', and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall surely die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a rightous person tourns from his rightousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his rightous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you warn the rightous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul'."
Wow! That is some heavy duty stuff there. As Christians, we are watchmen for God. How are we doing with this tremendous responsibility? How am I doing? How are you doing?
This also reminds of me of a story in one of Kings books about a trio of lepers who stumble on a deserted camp. There was all of this food and stuff laying around. So these three guys just helped themselves to all that was around them. Until one of them said, "we are not doing right. we have found this wonderful treasure and here we are keeping it to ourselves. let us go and share this before day break" (paraphrasing). It is our reponsibility to share the message. How are we doing?
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Ezekiel 3 thoughts

Yo yo and hello to everyone out there. I was doing my Bible reading today and read some very interesting words in Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel is most apociliptic (spelling error?). So it's a bit hard for me to understand. Any Old Testament scholars out there reading this?
Anyhow, here is some of what I read today. 3:1-7 "And he (God) said to me, 'Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Isreal'. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, 'Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it'. Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And he said to me, 'Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel- not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you can not understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me. Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stobborn heart."
These words are interesting to me, because I feel a tub in my heart to plant churches in the US (possibly in the New England area) long term. The text seems to say that God is sending His prophet Ezekiel to his home land, the house of Israel to set them straight. I have always had a hard time learning different languages. So that is why I want to stay here in the US. New England is an area that has few churches.
Thank you for reading this today. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack