News alert:
“The one who dies with the most toys loses!”²

It All Comes to an End

Sometimes when we approach a subject, it’s best to launch into it in a state of heart reflection. Often an insightful poem, either secular or sacred, can set the tone. As an epigraph for this chapter, we’ll start with one work which is famous, and end our topic with a poem which should be famous:

First the Messenger,
Now the Message!

There’s another way to think
about Messiah’s way-preparing herald —
as the field-preparing plowman
for the Seed Planter!²

In The Exceptional Messenger, the first book in this The John the Baptist Experience series, we focused on the remarkable anticipation God created concerning the role, the mission, and the results of His prophesied Forerunner, John the Baptist. In Exceptional, we came to understand something about how unique, how pivotal John was in God’s prophetic plans and timetable, as in Spirit-filled power he prepared the hearts for Jesus’ earthly ministry.

But now it’s time to turn our attention to what John proclaimed during his mighty, meteoric [continue reading…]

The Downsides of Democracy

Can we forget what we never learned?
How can the phrase “Kingdom of God”
mean anything if we don’t really know
what a king is?

If the message of John the Baptist was a plow to prepare heart-soil, then the sharp, sod-busting point of his plow’s blade was summed up in this simple phrase: Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!

Yet how little impact those nine words have on us, because we understand neither the word “King” nor the word “repent” as we should. Although “repent” is the first word, let’s first focus on the why of, the motivation for, repentance — the King and His Kingdom. Then we’ll follow up with that most important subject of repentance.

As wonderful as it is to live with the freedoms guaranteed in a democratic republic,² democracy has a decided downside for Bible readers. Living as we do under a government in which we can [continue reading…]

It’s important not to confuse the two teachings!

Please let me add this “deeper dive” side note to the discussion in Chapter 2, “Coming to Grips with Kingship and Collective Amnesia.” I’m concerned because I continue to encounter certain cadres of believers who tend to misconstrue the phrase “Gospel of the Kingdom of God” and translate it mentally into that modern message which might be labeled “the Gospel of the ‘King’s Kids’.”

They have been taught something that goes along these lines: Since they’re born into God’s family, and He is the King, believers are, by association, “royalty,” that is, “King’s kids.” As proper princes and princesses, they have special privileges and “kingdom authority.” What analogy can I use? It’s as though sugar-craving children, armed with such “royal authority” and possessed of their Father’s carte blanche, are turned loose in a proverbial [continue reading…]

My 55th spiritual birthday, 31 July 2023

God’s “New Thing” Is Coming Clear

Dear Friend,

Please. Spare us the “move of God” jokes…¹

Denise and I have never had a desire (or funds!) to shuffle-board into some easy retirement in a “senior-living” resort. We love Jesus, He has kept us healthy in spirit, mind, and body, and in many ways we feel like we’re just beginning to come into some maturity of usefulness to the Body, especially with the rising “new generation.”

We have been praying about and anticipating a change of venue for some time now, and have been waiting on the Lord for His direction and timing, offering up much prayer over the matter. Given the various open doors we have had in northeastern Florida, we understood this region could be the most likely, but certainly not inevitable. Until now.

Now serious health [continue reading…]

Frustrated Curiosity

Where is the verse Jesus quoted? That depends on where John meant to put his “period”!²

Idon’t understand what grace God worked in my heart to make me so, but once I came to Jesus I sought to be a Bible reader — someone who reads The Book through cover to cover at least every year.³ As I continued reading through, I discovered the truth of St. Augustine’s words:

The Old Testament is the New concealed;
the New Testament is the Old revealed.

And I became more and more convinced of what the Apostle Paul taught about what we call the “Old Testament”—

• For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
• Romans 15:4

It was (and still is!) a delight to [continue reading…]

30 June 2023

When they read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.
Acts 15:31
…they have proved to be an encouragement to me.
Colossians 4:11

Dear Friend,

Last year (as I mentioned last newsletter), the Guatemalan pastors threatened to throw me in the pool. This year they merely kindly invited me in. But these pastors left me swimming in encouragement!¹

“How was Guatemala?” you ask. Well, never mind the 21-hour marathon to get from reveille to my first overnight location. Don’t count the fact that I had a head cold from the second day right through to the end of the trip. Ignore the experience of being smitten with… how do I put this delicately?… an “intestinal ‘souvenir’” from the early morning of my return-flight day right through my first full week back home. This Guatemala trip was very encouraging, maybe the best trip yet! (And that’s saying something, because I’ve been blessed with visits there almost every year since 2008.)

Yes, despite being “out of it” physically, teaching five to six hours on conference days in “feels like” 107° F. temperatures, and a daily regimen of cold showers, I’d return under the same conditions in a heartbeat!

Trip Diary

Never been on a teaching trip like this? Then climb [continue reading…]

8 May 2023

A Misstep and a Watery Threat

Dear Friend,

I’m glad they didn’t. I’m “negatively buoyant.”¹

Even though the Guatemalan pastors threatened to throw me into the pool during my visit last year, I’m returning to them in ten days to be the Bible teacher at their three-day conference / retreat (May 25-27). In their defense, I should note that their threat was made in good humor, that it arose in part from their hunger for the Word, and… well, perhaps I deserved it by inadvertently teasing them.

Let me rewind this story to last May 2022. Honestly, I don’t remember how the subject of John 7:38 came up briefly during last year’s teaching on Soul and Spirit. For some reason I touched it in passing, noting that when Jesus said, “As the scripture has said,” that there was no verse in the Old Testament from which He was quoting. As I [continue reading…]

derechos de autor © 2023

por
Jim Kerwin
texto traducido por
Pastores Fermín y Lilian Chávez
con
Inés María González Valdés

Preparando el Escenario

Mientras escribo estas palabras, no está lejos el centenario del Avivamiento de la Calle Azusa. Considerando el derramamiento del Espíritu Santo que cambió al mundo en 1906, muchos académicos y escritores, maestros y predicadores estarán pensando “¡Lo que Dios ha hecho!” El mover de Dios en aquella humilde iglesia convertida en almacén, convertida en establo, convertida en misión en la Calle Azusa 321 en Los Ángeles, puso en marcha una imparable ola de crecimiento de los pentecostales y carismáticos que en el año 2000 (94 años después de la Calle Azusa) sumaban casi 524 millones en todo el mundo.¹

Tan cierto como el hecho de que somos humanos, [continue reading…]

31 March 2023

“Devote Yourselves to Prayer” (But…)

Dear Friend,

This is Edvard Munch’s painting of me not dealing well with life in the midst of trials.¹

The Holy Spirit has been challenging me of late to be “devoted to prayer” (e.g., Colossians 4:2-4; Acts 6:4). Given what’s unfolding in our lives, that’s a critical and helpful leading, a necessary discipline. But such prayerful devotion needs the Spirit’s direction as well, because…

…it’s possible to be devoted to praying for the wrong thing! Back in 1987 we faced a serious crisis of faith. Little more than a year earlier we had moved from suburban Southern California to rural Georgia by the Lord’s leading, in order to work with a small missions organization based in a small town. All went amazingly well for the first year. In addition to the missions work (developing teaching material for third-world pastors), the Lord opened [continue reading…]

28 February 2023

Dear Friend,

Asbury, Tarrying, Shepherds, and Nets

Hearts prepared by God, working together…¹
Like almost all our Bible-teaching articles,
this is available for free on our website.
Or for a whopping 99¢ you can download it
to your Kindle reader.

Ah, timeliness! Weeks ago when I wrote the first draft of this newsletter, the “Asbury awakening” (awakening is what the wise school leaders there are calling it) had not yet begun. Whether Asbury is the start of an actual, nation-sweeping revival, or merely a foreshock of something to come remains to be seen. But…

On January 1st I heard a message from a dear pastor friend, Mark Sellers, which impelled me to transcribe, edit, and publish a Percy Gutteridge audio message. It took Denise and me six weeks of work, but that message — Why Revival Tarries — is now posted on our website. In it, Percy, my father in the Lord, proposed a challenging concept: Full revival tarries because there aren’t enough believers in the Church who are prepared by God to be used as His shepherds for all the newborn “sheep” who will enter the Kingdom — and the Church.

When the Holy Spirit moves in sweeping revival, multitudes come to Jesus. The relatively few pastors and spiritual leaders would be overwhelmed by the many souls who will come to Jesus in such a move of God. Without many individual, surrendered men and women disciplined and heart-prepared by the Lord to care for and disciple the converts, many of these new “sheep” could be lost.

I’d like to come at Pastor Gutteridge’s subject in a slightly different way. (In fact, [continue reading…]

A Personal Story

Things could still go wrong if… and unless…²

As we launch into this final book in the series, let me share a very personal experience, something from my early days as a Christian. This cautionary tale contains a dollop of wisdom that I believe applies to us as we prepare to implement the full-orbed Gospel in our sharing with those around us. At first, this anecdote may seem to have nothing to do with our subject of John the Baptist or his heart-preparing message; but please humor me — there is an important point to make.

I found — and was found by — the Lord Jesus in 1968. Once I had a glimpse of Him, and all He offered to me and required of me, my heart’s cry was and has been, “My utmost for His highest!”³ Among other things, that has meant seeking to [continue reading…]

“What did you go out into the wilderness
to see?”²

We need to answer an important question we haven’t asked yet. Why were the crowds attracted to John? What was his appeal? Who in their right mind would voluntarily, willingly go great distances — on foot! — to hear his hard message about their sinfulness, about God’s demand for repentance, and about a Messiah for whom John was but “the opening act”? To answer that, we need to respond to the question Jesus put to the people, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” (Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24)

I have considered Jesus’ question for over four years as I have “lived” with John in the Scriptures. Why did the people go in droves to hear him? Why did they respond so readily? What did they go “out into the wilderness to see?” I believe they went out to see a man who was Spirit filled and Spirit fruited, a man who lived close to God, and (surprise!) a man whose soul and spirit were keynoted by [continue reading…]