Remove the Barriers

In a recent post, I wrote about encouraging each other by sharing our faith, I made the following remark:

The powerful thing that I have found is that, once one person will make that initial move, to reach across that barrier and open up and reveal something personal and meaningful, the other person will no longer be held back by that barrier either, allowing for the free and profitable exchange of the righteousness of the gospel revealed in our lives - from faith to faith.

I had the opportunity to hear a series of lectures a few weeks ago on leadership, and one of them focused on the qualities of a servant. Naturally, the example set by Jesus came up, and one remarkable conclusion about His life is the incredible level of openness that He had with people.

Be Zealous! And Other Admonitions

I just read Eaten Me Up by Jacob Mammen, and I was so glad to see one of my friends being zealous that I just had to write about it! If you look at my record as a blogger in terms of the number of articles I've written over time, you can very clearly trace my own spiritual rises and falls. At times I was focusing my efforts on other outlets, but that record more or less tells the story - to my shame in some instances and to my credit at other times.

Revelation 2:4-5
Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works.

Many will recognize this as being part of Christ's message to one of the 7 churches - Ephesus in particular. This is actually a topic that I've been studying very heavily recently, and I find it to be no coincidence that I've seen several others writing about this very same subject in the last couple of weeks - Jacob even quotes part of one of those messages in his post about zeal!