love – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

January 15, 2026January 21, 2026

To The Full

In a pilgrimage that is shared among people who are marked by a growing love for one another, words like boredom and drudgery fall by the wayside. And, introduced now in their place, are terms like invigorating and adventurous.

Receiving heaven’s grace that transports a Christ-follower more fully into “life in the kingdom”, means that partnering practices are called for. These are not burdensome. But they are necessary.

“Whither Thou Goest” is a lyric my brother sang at my wedding. The years that followed saw my bride trekking with me from her Montana home to Texas, to New York, to Africa and many places beyond. Our wedding vows held concrete meaning for Ann and me. New (and renewed) union in Christ will bear similar features. Unrelenting love marked by a choice. To orient one’s life to walking in step with the beloved.

Growth in grace (God acting in our life) “is something we must plan for by regular engagement in activities that enable us to receive God’s grace in all areas (of our lives)”. Professor Willard’s statement brings clarity to what is actually called for in the life of a Christian convert. For the remainder of life.

In truth, a lifelong journey of deepening companionship with Jesus is the thing a disciple longs for. It is what they are made for. Nothing less will usher a person along a path of flourishing in the faith pilgrimage.

Much different from the case of a dreamy-eyed bride taking her place alongside her flawed and maverick-minded groom. The disciple’s union is a forever-journey of unfolding goodness in the companioning company of the all-wise Christ Jesus (bridegroom of heaven).

The Jesus-follower carries an increasing conviction that nothing must be allowed to compete with their single-hearted aim. Of journeying in the close company of Christ himself, up and into, all of eternity.

“Our intention as apprentices of Jesus”, Willard states, “is to become the kind of person who lives in the character and power of Christ. We must, then, do those things that will enable us to become that kind of person from the inside out—through appropriate actions and practices. Such actions and practices are ‘disciplines for the spiritual life.’”

Could it be, that coming into God’s salvation means something far more (far richer) than simply getting one’s sins forgiven in order to escape the bad place and get into the good place?

While the good news (gospel) most certainly includes securing forgiveness of sins (how wonderful), the Gospel which Jesus himself repeatedly preached is not merely defined by the word “forgiveness”.

Christ came bringing a new kind of life, a radically transformative kind of life into all aspects of the believers being. What could be clearer about the message Jesus conveyed, through both his life modeled before others, and by his spoken words?

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”*

December 11, 2025December 16, 2025

Learning Curve

Christ-followers hold that our amazing “sweet-society God” is the only Divine Being in all the cosmos. He’s the God who through the centuries – indeed, through eternity – has joyfully collaborated within his own triune being. This is a thing that challenges, if not defies, our imagination. Self-existent and self-sustaining, nothing of good is absent. Nothing lacks.

Perfect completeness, it can be attested, finds its definition in God. The triune Father and Son and Spirit relish one another’s presence. Each takes extravagant delight in the others. God requires nothing beyond himself to be. Within himself is utter perfection and completeness.

Yet, astonishing as it may be, God has chosen to insist on bringing along others (we, his own image-bearers who’ve been brought into existence by the Lord himself) into this mysterious, glorious mix. He ever works to mingle and play and collaborate with us in bringing about our inner and outer transformation for the good. (and, what higher good for a family of humans could there be than to come to embody and reflect the pure likeness of the Father’s distinctively beloved Son?)

Partnering with God, of course, involves more than merely being together in the same room. The road to spiritual transformation is one of training. What is one of the father’s primary aims? His goal is our joyous, flourishing growth in becoming the best version of ourselves – just as we were created to be. Easily recognizable as a people continuously brimming to overflowing with the qualities and nature and the very life of our Lord. Jesus – the undiluted, non-pretentious embodiment of love. Such a lofty aim may at times feel impossibly out of reach. Until one gladly recalls they are on a With-God pilgrimage.

October 16, 2025October 15, 2025

The Chase

“Practice makes perfect”, so goes the saying.

Aiming for Christlikeness, in the sense of fully mirroring Jesus’ faultless nature, is likely a reach too far. Still. Every believer can go, and is welcomed to go, a meaningful distance in narrowing that gap.

The late Brennan Manning stated with refreshing candor: “When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. . .”

A Franciscan priest, and author of *The Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning noted that God’s gift of grace brings to us: “Power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift”.

The priest further lays his heart bare in characteristic self-disclosure, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”

In A.W. Tozer’s list of qualities he found reliably present in the nature of God, noted that one of them is God’s Immutability. God’s nature is reliable. He doesn’t change. God loves, and he loves without deviation. His love is immutable, always in “on” mode. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases” (Lamentations 3:22)

So, we ask the question. Do I wish to grow to be more like Jesus. . . that is, to love as he loved and called us to love? Or, short of this, could I bring myself to sincerely whisper, “I want to want to love in this way”?

Either position can be a perfect place to begin and to proceed forward from.

October 2, 2025

Starting Point

My friend Mark is a poster boy to the power of love. Abused, then abandoned by his drug-dependent parents, Mark was found years later, languishing on city streets and in alleyways – dysfunctional and angry. A kind-hearted gentleman named Paul discovered him. Paul – just the father-figure Mark needed – took him under his wing. The journey had its setbacks, but authentic father love comes as a tenacious force.

Fast forward. Fifteen years in Mark himself routinely comes alongside men that are barely surviving at the fringes – every bit as broken as he had once been. Mark, like the rest of us, is far from perfect. A yielded Christ-follower, he’s a work in progress. Bearing God’s love.

The beckoning of Jesus to live the great commandment (love God fully, love others as myself) is not only called for, it is doable in a fuller measure than one might imagine.

It can be argued (and often is) that loving fully – i.e. for the most part with all of one’s being – is the mark of a person becoming fully human. God wishes this for us and, since his hopes are for our betterment, he himself enters the fray, lends aid. What aid it is!

But if a person would align himself with this venture (becoming one wholly given to love) they must want it and want it strongly. The hard truth is, few of us start out with that kind of “want to”. The process of being formed to Christlikeness starts (thank God), not with ourselves, but with him, with God.

God is Love.

Who among us would not want to be a loving human being? What person would look at authentic love and react with a ho-hum, “I’m not interested, thank you.”?

So, even though we do not start out all fueled and fired with an appetite to love God in the great commandment way, Christ himself tenderly invites us. He knows that we must begin where we are, not where we aren’t.

I want to want.

Some of us reach a place of saying, “I want to want what I presently do not want, and I want to not want what I presently do want”*.

This kind of simple honesty brings us to the needed “readiness of soul”. Since we cannot experience life transformation by ‘willing’ ourselves into readiness for it.

We begin where we are, not where we aren’t.

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.”

July 17, 2025

Say What?

Serving up his African cuisine in his modest Washington apartment, Naphtali launched into questions. Ann and I responded, returning the volley.

“Reconnecting with old friends is like opening a time capsule filled with laughter and love.”*

As we rehearsed memories from our East Africa days of the 1980s, one episode evoked a sudden burst of merriment.

Ann and I had, those years ago, invited the young college student (Naphtali) to our Nyeri home for a meal. After a time of dining, I noticed Naphtali’s plate was ready for a refill.

“Let me bring you another serving”, I offered, moving my chair to rise.

When a person is working to master a second language, the occasional slip is bound to surface,

“Oh, no thank you”, Naphatli offered in a most courteous tone. “I am very fine. . . I am fed up.”

Revisiting the fun memory, the special “glow of friendship” common in happy relationships settled over the simple dining area of the Seattle apartment.

I had gently set right our young visitor’s misapplied phrase. And, chuckling in mild embarrassment, Naphtali had taken the correction in gracious stride.

The evening now with our good friend drew to a close. How sweet had been the visit! After prayers, Ann and I moved toward the door. Naphtali beamed his wide smile. And offered up a parting call,

“I do hope this evening you both got very fed up!”

March 27, 2025March 26, 2025

Fresh Lens

“Take Perspectives – it will ruin you for the ordinary!”

By the time Floyd McClung, author of ‘The Father Heart of God’, heralded the Perspectives challenge he and his wife Sally had for years lived an ‘Indiana Jones’ kind of existence. Their ground-breaking disciple-making ventures in Youth With A Mission in Kabul, Afghanistan and in the heart of Amsterdam’s red-light district yielded abundant fruit in radically changed lives.

My first learning of the fifteen-week ‘Perspectives on the World Christian Movement’ course came at the corner of our city’s Third and Zunis avenues. Outreach Pastor John McVay of Tulsa Christian Fellowship – a flagship church for missions in Tulsa – “accosted me” outside my office door.

“Hey Jerry, you might be interested in doing this course – three hours on Monday nights for the Spring months. You and fellow students will take in top-notch presentations on insights featuring cross-cultural outreach. And, you’re likely to get a deeper-than-ever picture of Biblical, historical, cultural and strategic Perspectives on reaching out to the world and making disciples.”

I showed up for my first class, and was soon “ruined for the ordinary”.

Perspectives struck such a chord that I afterward offered a confession to my friend, John. “Although I served in Africa missions for twenty years, a part of me feels like I have never been a missionary!” While the stark comment wasn’t far from the truth, rather than it leaving me bummed, the course fired me up more than ever for the ‘Great Commission’ enterprise.

Over time the Perspective’s series – compelling in both spirit and substance – has stretched its boundaries to regions across the world. A number of our ministry staff and volunteer teams gave themselves to the rigorous and rewarding task of plowing through those fifteen weeks.

Indeed, one of our busy student leaders ended up facilitating the full program himself in the heart of our campus. He and his wife afterward relocated their young family, at no small expense, to the heart of a major American metropolis far from their neighborhood roots. Immersing themselves in the language and culture of this “foreign ethnicity” has since been yielding spiritual and relational dividends. This young family, “ruined” by the seeking-and-saving nature of God’s lovingkindness, go about their daily lives fueled by a substance referenced by a writer long ago.

The love of Christ compels us.*

December 26, 2024December 25, 2024

Merry Memory

Savoring the yuletide season still, we thank a dear campus ministry friend for the following,

One day leading up to Christmas a few years ago my husband and I invited some internationals to help us decorate our Christmas tree. Included in the group was an older couple – visiting scholars at a nearby university.

While the two men busied themselves stringing lights on the tree and about our door and windows, I welcomed the wife to help me set up our nativity scene.

“What is a nativity?”, Molly asked.

“It’s a scene made up of carved figures, symbolic of Jesus’ birth.”

My new friend followed with another question, her expression communicating sincere curiosity, “Who is Jesus and why is this so important?”

While Molly’s question gave me momentary pause, I immediately sensed the wonderful gift God was offering me in this moment. That I might share something of the greatest story ever. How exciting! What followed was remarkable.

Into those coming minutes, I felt my whole being somehow charged with supernatural energy. The near-tangible presence of Christ continuing strong. And, with the placing of each nativity piece – Mary, Infant Jesus, Joseph, the domestic animals of the stall and the rest – this supernatural “energy” did not diminish.

What inexpressible joy, sharing with this dear lady from a far away land the reason we celebrate Christmas. Why we believe Jesus is who he says he is, why he came to earth. And that Jesus not only gives us Christmas but gifts to us an everlasting, personal & intimate relationship with God. Fulll of joy, peace and love.

My friend Molly was so enthralled, listening intently, asking questions to make sure she was understanding.

As we finished the decorating she said, “I want to know more about this Jesus.”

My husband and I made sure she had a Bible and from that day forward she has been reading the Bible and has, for some time now, been participating in a Bible study with someone who speaks her own language.

Although my friend has not yet confessed faith in Christ, her heart is so soft and her questions give evidence that the Holy Spirit is still working to draw her further and further into his wonderful Light. And, even though this couple has returned to their own “restricted-access” country, we still communicate. Continuing to see God working!

A true Christmas miracle!

While our yearly calendars mark the arrival and the passing of Christmas Day, the present reality of “God with us” continues on and on and on. Until the long awaited day of the final Maranatha. . . “Come, Lord Jesus!”

October 3, 2024October 2, 2024

Outrageous

“In your religion, do you believe God could forgive him?”

The questioner’s face betrayed an intense curiosity. She wanted my answer. The surname of the person in question was bin Laden.

Shortly after the September 11 attack, American intelligence agencies identified lead players responsible for the terrorist carnage. The assault here on American soil – the most brazen and vicious since Pearl Harbor (1941) – guaranteed the enshrinement of another date to “live in infamy”. The principal schemer and mastermind was revealed to the public and in a matter of hours the name Osama Bin Laden became synonymous among many with unspeakable evil.

The young woman from the Far East, whose husband was pursuing an engineering degree at our campus, had directed the question my way amidst an informal visit on life and faith. Her knowledge of Biblical Christianity – its foremost tenet being sacrificial love – was foreign to her mind and she drove the question home.

Can God forgive the bin Ladens of the world?

I responded in a quiet tone. ‘Yes’. God’s mercy was somehow big enough to cover even an evil such as this. “If he were to confess and turn from his sin, yes he would find pardon”, I responded, hoping my voice carried a conviction I did not deeply feel.

The student spouse wouldn’t buy it, “No”, she replied, “such a wrong like this done by someone cannot be forgiven!” She was not to be persuaded otherwise. Not today, perhaps not at all.

For my own part, I frankly entertained a subtle wish in the moment that it might not be true, that even divine pardon had its limitations. As with the Prophet Jonah in the Old Testament with his condemning heart posture toward the barbaric city of Nineveh and its inhabitants, I could, at least momentarily, want God’s wrath directed toward particular elements of evildoers.

But then, where would that leave me and the rest of humanity. I knew, at least in my mind, the answer. Forgiveness, indeed full pardon, extends to any and all presenting themselves in contrite repentance. Some label such mercy as outrageous. And so it likely is.

“The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. . . Christ suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”*

June 20, 2024

Steps Forward

Sensing that another of life’s thresholds lay ahead for me – one of greater bearing than others – I texted my pastor, requesting a visit.

Not long after his ‘dumpster dive’ narrative (the lone part of the sermon I recall from that Sunday morning), Roger had begun laying the groundwork for a twelve-step venture fitting a specific niche of persons. Men serving in Christian ministry.

A Step program had already been serving our faith community for some time, yielding some beautiful fruit along the way. Through Bible-centered curricula facilitated by a compassionate, Christ-loving husband/wife team, Jim and Pam, a number of souls had – for their first time ever – drunk from springs of undiluted hope. The program, by now widely available and spreading, carried the label Celebrate Recovery (‘CR’).

Enter Roger, a “man the cloth”, who inserted a third letter, sandwiched between the C and the R. The result – a kind of hybrid version nicknamed ‘C.P.R.’ – the ‘P’ loosely representing the term ‘Pastor’.

Imagine. A recovery program concerned with hurts, habits and hangups of preachers, pastors, missionaries, youth ministers and the like. Remarkably (or not so remarkably), Roger’s CPR groups – the first followed by another, then another – never lacked for signups.

In a study spanning a recent calendar year Barna Research noted that 42 percent of pastors had considered leaving full-time ministry. While a combination of factors can give rise to such troubling data, a common theme has surfaced. A high number of leaders in the Lord’s work suffer from a sense of isolation.

Yet, men (vocational churchmen included) connecting routinely with other men in honest, redemptive dialogue are finding themselves ushered into a place of oxygen. A doorway of hope starts opening. Wounds get disclosed. Fears and hiddenness get unveiled. Healing enters. Recovery comes.

Jesus occupies such settings. Men know the empowering presence, in the company of friends. This became my story and remains so today.

By the time of my first interactive session with a CPR band of brothers, much water had passed beneath the proverbial bridge. Some with murky currents indeed. Here, in time, I would muster adequate courage to bring to light the account of a sexual assault, of unsavory influences, and a history of associated brokenness.

I was a child when *Lawrence took advantage. Hiddenness – my behavior default – had kept the incident sealed for beyond six decades.

I would learn afresh that from God there issues love that, as the hymn writer worded it, will not let me go.