September 2025 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

September 25, 2025September 24, 2025

One Driving Force

I imagine myself trying to distill to a single phrase the one driving force meant to mark the life of every Christian believer. While surveying this, I picture a gathering of people. I am present and Jesus is speaking to us all. He is giving his own answer to the very question (what most marks the disciples’ motivation, his drive, in living life?).

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. . . .and you shall love your neighbor as yourself”

Love.

God Is Love, the sacred text reads.

The earliest followers of Jesus were utterly taken by the love of God, witnessed nonstop through the sheer volume of words and actions issuing from his Son. They saw it in him. . . saw it demonstrated through him. . . love, at every turn.

When he pardoned and blessed the woman that was dragged into the public square, shamed and condemned by her accusers. And the other instances.

Stretching out a hand, bringing healing to a leper (the untouchables, the shunned of their day). Conferring dignity and high worth on little kids (the unsophisticated and marginally noticed). Assigning honor, even friendship, to a diminutive, tree-scaling government scoundrel.

Small wonder that the Westminster Shorter Catechism answers as it does the question, “What is the chief end of man?”

Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

I quiz myself. Have I ever met such a person who carries out that pair of assignments well – consistently, virtuously? Other than the itinerant Nazarene preacher, human embodiment of the divine?

As with Jesus, so with us. Agape alone supplies fuel for knowing God and for extolling him as beautiful and transcendent Being of the cosmos and beyond. Day in and glorious day out.

Little surprise the tentmaking apostle’s analysis. . . the greatest of all that remains is love. Surely, indeed – given the savior’s gasping prayer over his executioners,

“Father, forgive.”

September 18, 2025

Best Thing Ever

The artificial intelligence gurus are the first to confess in these early stages that A.I. is not always the ideal source of garnering accurate information. That said, in curiosity we floated a phrase to the Web, wondering if A.I. had it in her to crank out an “intelligent” response. The phrase submitted is:

Life in Jesus, the great treasure.

A.I. shot back:

“The idea is that a life centered on Jesus brings a deeper sense of joy, purpose, and fulfillment than any temporary earthly pleasure.” (how does one high-five a mechanism that mimics the human brain!?)

In one publication John Piper asks, “What is Christ to us if he is not our all-satisfying treasure?” His article continues,

“The primary point (in Jesus’ parable) is that Christ, in his kingly greatness, is supremely valuable. The secondary point is that the way to have Christ as our treasure is to experience such a joy in his value that he is more to be desired than all our other possessions put together. Receiving Jesus as our treasure really does imply joyfully treasuring him.”

The statement rings true. Yet, as we know, coming to joyfully treasure another person does not usually happen overnight. Typically, we grow to value the special person more and more as we give time getting to know them. We learn who they are, their character, their personality and values.

Ann and I will, by year’s end celebrate the 58^th time circling the sun together as husband and wife. While it was certainly love that found us pledging our vows before the minister those years ago, we have, along the way grown deeper in our relationship. We treasure more fully this marital union, and this spouse (continuing to stand alongside) “for better or for worse”.

In a similar but even richer way, the disciple of Jesus comes to know their Lord more intimately over time. The apprentice comes to joyfully value and treasure the person of Jesus.

The follower of Christ happily echoes a line made famous by gospel singer James Cleveland,

“Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me”.

September 11, 2025September 9, 2025

Assured Gains

When twenty-seven-year-old Jim Elliott and his friends set out to reach a remote people group of the Amazon Basin, none of the missionaries envisioned the cost that lay before them.

It was a few months after my tenth birthday when Life Magazine broke the news story. The five young men had died at the hands of Waorani tribesmen as they tried making contact with them deep in the rain forest. The men’s hope had been to, over time, share the love of God and message of Christ among the Waorani. I still recall learning the heart-rending news of their deaths.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.

The spread of the statement that Jim Elliott had penned in his personal journal served to awaken missionary passions across a fresh generation of young men and women. A new wave of ‘Great Commission Jesus-followers’ to serve in cross-cultural mission work was born.

Jim Elliott’s “he is no fool” phrase came to challenge prevailing worldviews of many across the landscape of conventional Christianity. His statement leaving a question to ponder at a deeper level. . . What sort of things in life do matter most?

Indeed, what did Jim and his four friends (Nate, Pete, Ed, Roger) actually ‘gain’ in the yielding up of their hearts, talents, treasures, and very lives?

And, when the fellows in Jesus’ provocative parables opts without hesitation to let go of all they have in order to obtain the “gain”, just what is that gain?

The New Testament pharisee-turned-apostle sings, The treasure is Jesus! With an ever-growing nearness and loving obedience to him.

“For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”*

September 4, 2025September 4, 2025

Value Assessment

For most of us the thought of dying every day does not generate fond images. At least, at first.

I was young when the term “fool’s gold” entered my vocabulary. While playing outside one day I came upon a chunk of rock that grabbed my attention. It was the glitter that beamed from it as I turned it in my hand under direct sunlight. Learning that the alluring item had an unflattering nickname brought disappointment. Insult was added to injury. . . who likes being labeled “fool”?

Addressing a crowd of people one day Jesus launched into a parable The short story, given to provide some instructive insight, was followed by another. Then yet another. The rabi was on a roll.

Two of his stories – paired closely as if to emphasize his point – carried a single theme. Both stories – Parable # 5 and Parable # 6 – must have struck a chord with his listeners. Each narrative focused direct attention on the unexpected discovery of some extraordinary treasure – (no “fool’s gold” here.) Either one of these stumbled-upon prizes would have qualified as any treasure hunter’s dream find.

Seeing the items – one a rare treasure, the other an exquisite pearl – the discoverers went breathless with excitement. Each knew that acquiring such riches would require a trade-off. Of some kind. In order to gain the treasure, something of their own current possession would be let go. Yet, whatever the price, nothing they would offer could match the worth of this! Neither man balked.

Making such a discovery, each man – likely at breakneck speed – darted off to gather up whatever belongings he called his own. And liquidated all of it without a blink. You could say he was “dead” to everything except his new find. The single thing that mattered was the thing of priceless value – the treasure, the pearl.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” **