Spirit – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

August 10, 2023

Super Model

Our role model, Jesus, was intentional at the start of his mornings, carving out space and time to personally give himself to the direct presence of the Father. We in our day might label this as his quiet time. Regardless, the action was predictable. Conversing with God is a thing he looked forward to, this life rhythm of communion.

Inhaling and exhaling air is an activity we (as did Jesus) practice a lot while seldom ever consciously thinking about it. Breathing comes automatically. In his repeated ‘practice’ of meeting with God upon his daily risings, Jesus had grown to ‘automatically’ pray. Not robotically, as in responding to external commands, but meeting with his Abba Father as a much-beloved offspring. He (unlike me whose mind far too easily might get hijacked by distraction) purposely – eagerly? – pushed aside the many lesser attractions vying for attention.

Nothing going on around Jesus on any given occasion commanded his attention more than nearness to Abba. Communing with the father trumped all.

The Spirit of Jesus invites us, his beloved apprenticing friends, to this same lifestyle he enjoyed while navigating the many winding, hilly terrains of earth’s pilgrimage. He really does.

Christlike living, simply put, involves prayer-centered living.

Jesus’s predictable beginning-of-day habit of prayer was no less familiar to him than his other common practices – breakfasting, teeth-cleaning, sandal-strap latching.

Doesn’t it seem reasonable that apprentices of Jesus are those persons who regularly apply themselves in patterning their lives after him? In dependence on him, routinely employing those practices that clearly marked his own life rhythms.

Summing up. It is not complicated. The call of the disciple is to,

(1) Engage the common practices that he, the son of man, routinely undertook

(2) Often ask Jesus for his help in putting in place a practice (such as prayer in its varied forms)

(3) Mark out a space where, upon waking each new day, the practice gets underway.

Remember. The disciple is not one who faultlessly follows, but one who follows the faultless One. Receiving from his table generous servings of grace at every step.

February 9, 2023February 4, 2023

Wanting

Apprenticing to Jesus bears fruit of the finest variety – kingdom fruit. God’s kingdom is that place where his will is done, “Thy kingdom come”.

Once a clear “Yes, I’m in I will be a Jesus-apprentice” is resolved, a new kind of season gets underway. And, hopefully, goes forward into a lifetime.

This is the season of habits, but habits leading to something far richer than the mere exercise of repeated practices. The season of habits, employed under the guidance and power of the Spirit offers promise of immense gratification.

This is the joy of inside-out transformation. Think of it. You and I humbly growing/changing through clearly laid out movements, into a vivid likeness of the one who invites, “Learn of me”.

We need to ask ourselves a question. Is the average, everyday Jesus-follower called to this radical kind of thing? Incorporating specific practices into routine life that would lead the believer to full-on Christlikeness? What about you?

Over and over the New Testament makes clear that every Christian is granted salvation with an assumption that life-long growth and change lie ahead,

“. . speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ”*

Men and women through history affirm the high aspiration, A spiritually mature Christian is “one whose whole character—dispositions, words, and actions—emulates the character of Jesus Christ himself.”**

Want.

Training for a life as a bull rider when you are, at your core, wired to work with spread sheets in the accounting field is a path that might well lead to despair (if not an injured spine).

Being a Jesus’ apprentice happens only in the life of the person who wants it. A genuine inner desire will mark the man or woman, youth or senior, who chooses discipleship to Jesus as their core life aim. Without a hungering for life in the company of Jesus, any ‘choice’ of apprenticeship can take the person to one of two places. Neither, a really fun place to be.

November 20, 2017

World of Spirits

Spirits. Good. Evil.

What is this thing, this world of spirits? How real is the unseen world? Do invisible personalities carry influence, power with people – sometimes over them?

I pondered the questions off-and-on. Growing up in the Pentecostal tradition, I had heard things about the spirit-world referenced plenty of times. Demon-oppression – Spiritual warfare – Deliverance ministry, and the like. My understanding was limited but the idea seemed reasonably simple.

Those good, powerfully strong beings of the angel variety represented God’s good presence at work in the world. By contrast, dark, evil, destructive forces issued from the kingdom of Satan, God’s biggest adversary. These dark beings were real and to be taken as seriously as angels. Teachers of scripture and the bible itself had shined light on the subject. That, though God himself is supreme, having no rival, no equal, much of humanity suffers in some measure under the deceiver, the accuser. This view, with plenty of Bible to commend, had informed much of my belief on the issue of spirit beings.

For me, it was also personal. I had sometimes sensed a a thing that felt like a dark, eerie presence. Not often but enough to trouble me, leaving me unsettled and sometimes fearful.

Living now in deep Africa, I discovered something I had long heard. The world at large – outside North American, European and other Western cultures – needed no persuading whether the spirit world existed. They required no convincing if spirit beings might play a role in living, breathing human beings.

First-hand encounters with witchcraft jarred me out of any guesswork about the matter.

I was enjoying lunch at the home of a missionary friend – another Jerry – in Southwestern Kenya. Jerry taught in a vocational school. The tribal people of the region had generations-long histories featuring spirit powers they knew to be evil. Placing curses on people was as common in some areas as the presence of moisture was common to a rainy season. Divination, witchcraft and the like, saw powerful spirit influences, fueled by fear.

A youth on a bicycle sped toward the house where we were. He came from the school’s direction a mile away.

“Mr. Jerry, Mr. Jerry!”

My friend set his tea cup down and moved outside.

After a brief visit with the boy, my host called up, “A student at the school is in trouble. Want to come with me?”

We set off on the ragged road – hardly more than a foot path. Less than five minutes the car jostled to a stop.

A tall, robust-looking youth sat on an outcropping of rock – one common to the area, rising about four feet out of the ground. In every way the student looked like, from a distance, a fine specimen of health. Except, that is, for his demeanor. And the trembling hands. His eyes shifted repeatedly away from direct contact. They seemed dark, fearful. He held his head as in a vice – sandwiched in a tight grip between the palms of his two large hands.

Missionary Jerry gently questioned the boy and one or two friends. He summarized the problem as best he could. The boy suffered an overpowering head-throb. It pulsed with searing pain. Indeed, he looked tortured.

But the pain’s source was not biological. Not really.