Speaking of putting the word into practice, my friend Aaron Dorman, pastor of The Christian Church of Estes Park, is teaching his folks to do precisely that. He told me during a recent visit that they are logging community service hours: 6,000 hours two years ago, 7,500 hours last year, and he’s shooting for over 10,000. (This is a church of fewer than 200 members.)

Our conversation reminded me of what I read recently:

And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” (Mark 4.30 – 32, ESV)

“…the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” The Kingdom grows, and is beneficial. The Kingdom is not just a conclave for the faithful; it should spread and benefit society. I recommended to him (and to you) Church of Irresistible Influence by Robert Lewis. I’ve heard Robert say:

Jesus said, “Let your light so shine…that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” He said, “See your good works,” NOT “Hear your good words!”

PS You can access an AI-generated summary of the book here.

Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing. (Ezekiel 47.12, NIV)

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22.2, NIV)

To continue yesterday’s theme that growth and maturity are expected, look at what Jesus said just before the parable of the growing seed:

Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. (Mark 4.23 – 25, ESV)

Pay attention to what you hear. It’s not enough for us to go to church and listen to sermons. We actually have to pay attention and put what we hear into practice.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1.22 – 25, NIV)

“Blessed in what they do,” not “Blessed in what they hear.”

Job 25 is short and full of nonsense from Bildad:

“Dominion and fear are with God; he makes peace in his high heaven. Is there any number to his armies? Upon whom does his light not arise? How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes; how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!” (Job 25.2 – 6, NKJV)

“How can he who is born of woman be pure?…man, who is a maggot…” In other words, “Job, you can’t be pure. No one is pure.” HOWEVER, remember what God himself said about Job:

And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1.8, NKJV)

Evangelicals get this wrong sometimes, also. We overemphasize Romans 3.10, “There is none righteous…”, for example, while forgetting that God wants us to live righteously. “Be perfect,” Jesus said.

Growth occurs. That’s the whole point of this parable:

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. (Mark 4.26 – 28, ESV)

Growth takes time, but growth occurs over time. It’s a cop-out to say, “Well, I can’t be perfect. That’s why Jesus died for my sins.” I was watching my friend Jim teach an adult Sunday School class once, and when he challenged them to do something (I don’t remember what), someone said, “Oh, Jim. You know we can’t do this stuff! Leave us alone.” Wrong. Jim was only following the Apostle Paul’s example:

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1.28, ESV)

Everyone mature.

Yesterday we looked at Pleading Our Case from Job 23. There’s another gem in Job 23, one I would not have associated with Job:

But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food. (Job 23.10 – 12, NKJV)

“I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” Compare Matthew 4.4:

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (NIV)

Also Jeremiah 15.16:

Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts. (Jeremiah 15.16, NKJV)

That’s the attitude we should all have. I don’t miss meals! I ought not to miss time with God in the Word either.

My friend and Navigator colleague Bill Mowry has just posted a wonderful essay on God’s wonderful Word: WOW! Happens As We Hold the Bible. It’s worth the read in its entirety. Here’s a sample. After opening with the awe people feel at a total eclipse, he writes:

Wonder is the WOW factor. When we look up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling, savor a meal at a five-star restaurant, or sit enraptured at a Mozart symphony, our mouths form a wordless WOW. We stand in wonder at that which is beautiful and magnificent…

He continues:

The Bible brings God’s wonder, a sense of awe, into our lives. How is the Bible a wonder-full  and awe-full book? Here are some examples:

• Wonder is when, after years of life in the Bible, you still find new things when you read, hear, study, memorize or meditate on it. The wonder of discovery keeps drawing you back.
• Wonder is when you reflect on how you have changed over the years and how the Bible has been the impetus for change.
• Wonder is when you see new believers “hold” the Bible and change long-held values and behaviors as they read it. What a miracle!

The things that bring wonder to our lives also bring delight. – Bill Mowry, March 27, 2025

When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.” (Deuteronomy 32.45 – 47, NIV)

My friend and Navigator colleague Henry Clay is one of the best pray-ers I know. I remember when he was called on at a conference to lead us in prayer for one of our leaders who had cancer. Henry paced back and forth across the front of the room saying something like:

Lord, we ask that you would heal our brother. We don’t know what you want, but this is what we want: Sam is a leader, and he’s making a great contribution to advancing the Kingdom. He has many years of service left in him. Please heal him. – Henry Clay, praying for Sam Hershey

That was more than 10 years ago, and Sam is doing fine.

I asked Henry in private what his prayer secret was. He quoted Job:

Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come to His seat! I would present my case before Him, And fill my mouth with arguments. (Job 23.3, 4, NKJV)

My first response was, “We don’t often get good instruction from the book of Job!” Henry said, “Maybe, but every time in the Bible that someone makes a case, argues with God, God seems to appreciate it.” Abraham bargained with God in Genesis 18. Moses interceded for the Israelites in Numbers 14, making a case based on God’s reputation among the nations.

Then I read a familiar text in a new way:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4.6, NIV)

“Present your requests to God.” I read that as making a case. And I’ve been known to write long letters making a case for some action. So I can do this!

This is not to say that every time we make a case to God or some other authority, we get what we want. I was lobbying for a particular decision in the Air Force once, and after about the third letter, the colonel said, “Bob. NO. Give it a rest.” I tried it during my prostate siege. “Lord, I have people I’ve had to cancel, people who want to meet with me. Here are their names. Shouldn’t I get well faster so I can do what you’ve called me to do?”

Instead, it dragged on, and I got this text from a friend:

I really appreciated how you consistently related your prostate issue to the Psalms. It was all faith all the way and never a lack of confidence. It really inspired me as a model for things I’m anxious about. I often think of a phrase I heard in church “Let go and let God” and it was useful for me to see you do this over months.

So maybe that’s one reason for the delay.

That said, I’m trying to remind myself to “make my case,” “present my requests.”

But I would speak to the Almighty, And I desire to reason with God. (Job 13.3, NKJV)

We need to do one more follow-up to Relational Evangelism from last week. I reported four practices from The 2:7 Series, Book 2:

1. Initiate relationships
2. Show love and acceptance
3. Boldly identify with Christ early
4. Pray

What’s the primary lesson from the Parable of the Sower?

Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times…

Then Jesus said to them, “…The farmer sows the word.” (Mark 4.3 – 8, 13, NIV)

There are a lot of potential applications in this parable: be the right kind of soil, don’t let wealth and other distractions choke the word, etc. But the main and obvious lesson is: sow seed. Go after birds? Or sow more seed? Try to find that guy who allegedly professed faith but couldn’t be found the next day? Or sow more seed?

When we’re trying to practice “Initiate Relationships,” whom do we initiate relationships with? Those we think will eventually respond? Or the ones God puts in front of us?

We don’t know what kind of soil the seed will land on, but, as hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1.28, ESV, emphasis mine)

As we move through this Lenten season, knowing that it culminates in the death and resurrection of Jesus, it’s useful to remember that his execution didn’t occur as a spur of the moment decision. It was an objective of the Jewish leaders from the beginning:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (Mark 3.1 – 6, ESV)

Why would you want to be part of such a religion or follow leaders like that? A religion where no good deed goes unpunished.

But the point of this blog is that the Pharisees didn’t even like the Herodians, but Jesus was their common enemy, and their plotting to destroy him begins early.

So Passion Week, which is approaching as we move through Lent, culminates a long period of plotting. But everything in God’s time.

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Matthew 16.21, ESV)

Yesterday’s blog on Relational Evangelism reminded us of simple actions any of us can take. But there’s always the temptation to try to go bigger and faster. In a Christianity Today article about the difficulty of doing ministry in Japan, Growth Is Good. Survival Is Too, I was shocked by this story of an ambitious Japanese pastor, Mizuno Akiko:

The congregation increased to about 40 members and became self-supporting in five years. It outgrew the little house and moved into a new church building (which also served as Mizuno’s home).

Mizuno got ambitious. It was the 1980s, when American televangelist Robert Schuller was pioneering church growth strategies that transformed the imaginations of evangelicals in the United States—and hers as well. Schuller’s model, epitomized by his polished, wide-reaching broadcasts and his shining Crystal Cathedral, dazzled Mizuno. She brainstormed evangelism tactics for her own church to draw crowds and win souls. “I was very energetic,” she said. “With my ideas and energy, I would drive the church to do programs.”

Event followed event, and 10 years later, “my church got physically tired and spiritually thirsty,” Mizuno said. “And I didn’t notice their thirst. I had lost sight of loving my members because I was focused on programs and church growth.” By the time Mizuno realized her error, the church had shrunk by half.

Same old story. Big events don’t get it done, as I’ve written about before.

The solution?

Mizuno almost gave up. “I was so down emotionally, spiritually, and mentally that I didn’t have the confidence to continue serving or even to continue living as a human being,” she recalled. “I was so engrossed with doing something that I forgot to be a person who loves God and people.” She prayed: “Lord, help me be that person.”

Mizuno downsized and reset. Instead of focusing on growth, she focused on helping each person in the church meet God. She did start one new project: She encouraged everyone to read a chapter of the Bible with her every day. Most did. It changed their conversations, she said. People talked about what they read. Together, she and the church have read the entire Bible 10 times over two decades, and they’re still going. The congregation has grown to about 120 members.

“I forgot to be a person who loves God and people.” AND, why not encourage people to read a chapter of the Bible every day? How about that? Simple. Relational.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3.13, NIV)

June and I recently led a discussion of The 2:7 Series, Book 2, Session 3, which contains an excellent article on “Relational Evangelism,” drawing largely from the work of Navigator Jim Peterson: Living Proof and The Insider, both excellent reads.

I was struck by four simple practices:

Initiate relationships

Jesus was clear:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Matthew 5.43 – 47, ESV)

Look for rapport. Find common ground.

Show acceptance and love

The lesson reminds us, “Jesus was the friend of publicans and sinners. We must accept people as they are. Be realistic about unbelievers and don’t expect too much. They are not Christians, and they will probably act accordingly. Don’t come across as a reformer.”

Responding to last week’s blog on Encouragement, my friend and blog-reader Laura wrote:

Preach it!! I hope to disciple a young gal who has three children by three different husbands. She no longer has custody of her oldest child. She ended up at our church because she was always put it on the spot at the other churches she visited. “Where is your husband?” And questions like that! She has stayed at our church because she heard truth, but it was always in the context of grace and forgiveness and acceptance!

Boldly identify with Christ early

We can be open about the fact that we are Christians without being aggressive. Maybe we share part of our story when the opportunity presents itself.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world… (Philippians 2.14 – 15, ESV)

Pray

It is a spiritual battle, after all, and no one comes to faith because of my superior evangelism techniques.

…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel… (Ephesians 6.18, 19, ESV)

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4.2 – 6, ESV)

These are things any of us can do:

1. Initiate relationships
2. Show love and acceptance
3. Boldly identify with Christ early
4. Pray

I write to myself. Tomorrow I’ll share a story of a pastor who for a time lost the “relational” part…and then recovered. Stay tuned.

Back to Job, we have an interesting exchange between Job and Zophar in chapters 20 and 21. Zophar’s view (with a big dose of Santa Claus Theology) is that the wicked always get what they deserve:

Do you not know this of old, Since man was placed on earth, That the triumphing of the wicked is short, And the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment? Though his haughtiness mounts up to the heavens, And his head reaches to the clouds, Yet he will perish forever like his own refuse; Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’ He will fly away like a dream, and not be found; Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. (Job 20.4 – 8, NKJV)

We’d all like to think so, but sometimes the wicked hang around for a long time. Putin is still here, for example, living in luxury, murdering his political opponents, etc.

Job gets this: the wicked always get what they deserve? Um, no. They don’t. Sometimes the wicked do just fine:

Why do the wicked live and become old, Yes, become mighty in power? Their descendants are established with them in their sight, And their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, Neither is the rod of God upon them. Their bull breeds without failure; Their cow calves without miscarriage. They send forth their little ones like a flock, And their children dance. They sing to the tambourine and harp, And rejoice to the sound of the flute. They spend their days in wealth, And in a moment go down to the grave. (Job 21.7 – 13, NKJV)

Job’s observation is that death comes to all. And if the sins of the wicked are visited on their offspring, what does he care? Job’s conclusion?

How then can you comfort me with empty words, Since falsehood remains in your answers? (Job 21.34, NKJV)

Solomon observed the same thing:

There is a vanity which occurs on earth, that there are just men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity...I returned and saw under the sun that— The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all. (Ecclesiastes 8.14, 9.11, NKJV)

What Solomon calls “time and chance” we might attribute to the sovereignty of God and this principle:

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55.8, 9, NKJV)