REVDANS

1 John 2:3-6 ESV  And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.  (4)  Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,  (5)  but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:  (6)  whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

“Forty-two times 1 John uses two Greek verbs normally translated ‘know’.” (NIV Study Bible note on 1 John 2:3) Obviously, knowledge was a very important theme for this author. An early form of Gnosticism was active during John’s day. It’s name taken from the Greek word for knowledge was appropriate, because they claimed to have a special knowledge of God. They were branded heretics by the early church because they held several unbiblical doctrines. The Apostle John had to deal with the influence of these heretics and knew that he had to handle the word “know” very carefully.

The Gnostics of John’s day claimed superior knowledge and that knowledge was what they used to bolster their claim to a relationship with God. Some today mistakenly believe that because they possess a certain knowledge of the Bible or theology or doctrine, they must have a relationship with God. Now, as then, the assumption is erroneous. So, how can we know that we know God?

The test that John posits is this: we know that we know him, if we obey his commands. Obedience is a key test. Where did John come up with this test? Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15 ESV) Obeying is the evidence that we have a relationship with Christ. Because we love him, we listen and obey. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27 ESV) We show we love him by obeying him. But don’t reverse this. Obedience can’t buy or earn this relationship.

If you fear this test, it is probably because you already suspect a failing grade. Rather than maligning the test, finding fault with the test, rejecting or ignoring the test, we should embrace it and out of love learn the joy of obedience. Passing the obedience test is easy when we trust and love the one we obey.

1 John 2:1-6 ESV  My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.  (2)  He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

I am sure you have heard that “only a fool would represent himself in a court of law.” Many of us remember that, as the Apostle Paul stated, we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Proper representation is necessary. We should not be representing ourselves, and fortunately, legal counsel has been appointed for us. We have the best defense possible, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is our advocate, our representative, our legal defense. He can speak for us and his presence is a reminder that our sentence has been paid. All he has to do is hold out his hands and show his scars.

Now, I think it is important that we acknowledge the purpose that the Apostle John has for sharing these thoughts. He is writing so that we may not sin. We are too quick to justify our sins, hide our sins, avoid dealing with our sins, make excuses for our sins, ignore our sins. We need to acknowledge that there is victory over sin, that we don’t have to be controlled or dominated by sin, that provision has been made for freedom from sin.

Please follow me here. I am not saying that we ever reach a point in our Christian lives where we need not be concerned about sin, not be aware of temptation, or not have to exert effort to avoid falling. If we aren’t careful, we become overconfident and fall because we weren’t looking or prepared. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

But when we believe that victory over sin is impossible, we won’t look for or depend on the resources God has made available to help us gain the victory. “I can’t” has already conceded victory to the enemy. “I can’t” is another way of saying “I won’t”. Because we “can’t”, we “won’t” try.

If we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father. We have a continual resource to call on when dealing with sin. Rather than providing an excuse for sin, it ought to offer strong encouragement to pursue the course of righteousness, knowing that failure is not final. We ought to be encouraged by our counsel as well. Not only will the court see his scarred hands, but we will also, remembering that those scars were received purchasing our pardon and cleansing from sin.

He is the “propitiation” for our sins. This word means “satisfaction” or “appeasement”. It has close associations with the theological concepts of atonement and reconciliation. The word in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) is translated as “mercy-seat.” Because the sacrifice of Christ has satisfied the wrath of God and provides mercy to the sinner, we can expect mercy to triumph over judgment. Our advocate has provided everything necessary for our pardon and release. Such sacrifice is so awesome that it should inspire eternal gratitude from those of us who have experienced the extreme grace of God. What a wonderful Savior. This mercy is available to the world as well, though they may not be aware of it and may have rejected it. Oh the depth of the love of God and the width of his mercy. As far as the east is from the west…

1 John 1:9 ESV  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

Confess is the word used to describe what we need to do about our sin. The word in the Greek language is homologeo, a word that literally means: to say the same thing (homo – the same and logeo – to speak). We must agree (to say the same thing) with God about sin, if we are going to be able to successfully deal with it.

So, what does it mean to agree with God about sin? I’m glad you asked. I have a list of things I’d like to share. We must agree with God:

1. That what God says is sin is sin—He is the one who defines sin for us
2. That it is a bad as God says it is
3. That it has disastrous consequences, both in the present and in the future
4. That we deserve to be disciplined because of it
5. That our excuses to cover it up or explain it away won’t remove the guilt and shame of it
6. That others have been affected and harmed by it
7. That we have been affected and harmed by it
8. That it is something we need to deal with immediately and decisively
9. That we can’t blame others for our sin
10. That it is still sin, whether others find out or not

Now, these are important points of agreement. If we don’t let God, who is the Creator and knows best how we are supposed to function and relate, define sin, then we are left to ourselves to define it, and we will most likely define sin as whatever doesn’t affect us or isn’t our problem. Sin will be someone else’s problem.

If we don’t agree that it is as bad as God says it is, we won’t seek to avoid it or to renounce it. We will be content with it and allow it to continue to control our lives. Sin doesn’t just infect us; like spreading cancer, it takes over and consumes.

If we don’t accept the disastrous consequences of sin, both in the present and in the future, we won’t be motivated to deal with it in our lives.

If we don’t accept that sin brings discipline, we will resent that discipline, not realizing that the chastening of the Lord brings correction and shows his love for us, just as the discipline of parents show their concern and love.

If we don’t let go of our excuses and deal with sin, it will continue to cause us to experience shame and guilt. Trying to excuse it, to explain it away, to ignore it will not help us deal with it. We only prolong the pain and agony by using such tactics.

By refusing to see the terrible effects of sin in our lives and the lives of others, by disregarding the consequences of sin, we allow those effects to multiply and go unchecked.

By failing to deal with sin immediately and decisively, we allow it to continue exerting destructive force in our lives.

By blaming others and ignoring it until it’s found out, we continue to allow it to reek havoc in our lives.

By agreeing with God and admitting our sin, we take the first step to seeking, finding, and accepting his forgiveness.

It is obvious that THE BARRIER that separates us from God is our sin.

Isaiah 59:2 ESV  but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Jeremiah 5:25 ESV  Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have kept good from you.

God is faithful, both to his law and to his promise, by providing a way for true forgiveness to be offered and experienced through the death of his Son. He is just, because he hasn’t ignored the terrible consequences of sin and the demands of his law.

Romans 8:3-4 ESV  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,  (4)  in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 3:26 ESV  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

God has not ignored his law, nor its requirements. God has not ignored our sin, nor its destructiveness. God has not looked the other way, treated sin lightly, or pronounced us forgiven. He has fully dealt with sin by allowing the just punishment we deserve to be borne by our Savior. We are now able to experience full pardon and full release from sin.

Romans 6:14 ESV  For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Now, let’s agree with God about our sin and remove this dreadful barrier that separates us from the fellowship that he desires and that we desperately need!

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth .… If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. …. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
(1 John 1:6, 8, 10 ESV)

We talk all the time. When we are not praying (talking to God), we are talking to each other or, more often, talking to ourselves. The problem is not THAT we talk, but WHAT we say. Note the thrice mentioned “If we say.” The situation the Apostle addresses is that some proclaim one thing and live another.

If we say we have fellowship with Christ, but live the kind of thoughtless, uncaring, unloving, unholy life that says otherwise, we LIE. We are attempting to lie to others, although they often see through our façade. We are lying to God, telling him that we want to have a relationship with him, but live like we don’t. But note that we also lie to ourselves. Jesus said that in the judgment some would even point out to God how much they did for him, even calling him “Lord,” only to be told to depart from him because they were workers of iniquity. Self-deception at its height.

I happen to believe that self-deception (lying to ourselves) is the most common and pervasive form of deception we face. We may not believe what others tell us, but we are very likely to trust ourselves and what we tell ourselves. The Word often points out how self-deception undermines our faith and witness. We are constantly telling ourselves that we are okay with God, when we know that we aren’t and that something is wrong, even though we don’t want to know what is wrong. We tell ourselves that our sin is small and insignificant, that it doesn’t really matter to God. We tell ourselves that we aren’t really in danger or harmed by the sin in our lives. We tell ourselves that it might not really be considered sin at all, just a problem or mistake. We tell ourselves that God doesn’t care, or even that he doesn’t care about us. We tell ourselves that God is vindictive, trying to punish us or prevent us from enjoying life, that his rules are too restrictive, that his Word is too narrow, old-fashioned, or out of touch. We tell ourselves that this sin is too powerful, too addictive, too challenging to overcome. We tell ourselves that we are basically good people with this little problem. I could go on, because we talk to ourselves a lot and what we tell ourselves is often lies. Speaking the truth begins with telling ourselves the truth and talking back when we try to lie to ourselves.

If we say we have NO SIN (sin as a governing principle) is a reminder of the problem we have with the flesh. We may have a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17), but we live in a body, deal with a mind, emotions and will, and face a tempter that have left their mark. We dare not become overly confident about our ability to deal with our sin, or underestimate the power of sin, the world and the devil to oppose and tempt us. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. We dare not trust our own. The power of sin has been broken, and a life of victory over sin is possible, but it is not automatic and it is not without effort and active trust in God’s cleansing and empowering grace. When we deny or ignore our problem with sin, we only deceive ourselves, and show that the truth is not ruling in our lives.

If we say that we have no sin – This is tantamount to 1 John 1:10 : If we say that we have not sinned. Adam Clarke, Methodist commentator

Now I have great respect for Adam Clarke, but I disagree that these two statements are identical or that they convey essentially the same message. Not only do the differences deal with the word SIN, but the action and the result differ as well.

If we say we have NOT SINNED (individual acts of sin) is a reminder that we have an unbelievable capacity to justify ourselves, to redefine sin, to blame others, and to deny we are at fault. Children, even my almost perfect children, would often do these things. It’s amazing how many things happened in our home that NOBODY was responsible for doing. I have witnessed children (but not just children) vehemently deny any wrongdoing, holding clear evidence to the contrary. Although the Bible is clear about specific sins, we seek to make its demands seem vague, obsolete, and misunderstood. When we refuse to accept God’s definition of sin, when we refuse to admit that we have sinned against him, or when we attempt to redefine or explain away sin, we are essentially calling God a liar. His Word is not in us: either we aren’t aware of what it says, we misunderstand what it says, or we refuse to accept what it says.

To remove the barrier, we need to understand HOW BIG THE BARRIER IS, and WHAT RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE to deal with it.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
(Jeremiah 17:9 ESV)

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. … But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
(1 John 1:5, 7 ESV)

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

When the children were small and I would get up at night to get a drink or check on strange sounds, I would often grope in the dark to find my way, thinking that I knew where I was going and was familiar with the way. As you can guess, the children would often leave a barrier or obstacle in my way in the form of a toy or other object. I would painfully discover that I would have benefited greatly by the light.

“God is light.” The one who created the light “in the beginning” is the source of that light. Some wonder about how light could have existed before the light bearers—sun, moon, and stars—were created, but the Light existed before those objects were spoken into existence. Light here reminds us of the holiness of God, “who dwells in unapproachable light.” It also reminds us of truth and reality, which bring things “to light.”

The dark can be dangerous. Not only have I tripped over toys in a dark hallway, but crime increases during the dark, travel becomes more precarious at night, and people seek to “steal away into the night” to do things they would not want to “be brought to light.” I have never felt more vulnerable and dependent than the two weeks my eyes were bandaged and I could not see anything.

So, if the dark creates precarious and dangerous situations, why don’t we welcome the light? Jesus reminded his disciples that “people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” We don’t want the light to expose our “deeds of darkness.” But Christians are “children of the light” and our lives should not only reflect the light by our good deeds, but should expose the darkness in others around us. It’s not that we are seeking to “put people on the spot” but we can’t hide our light under a bowl. How we live WILL call attention to the lives and deeds of those with opposing values.

Walking in the light enables us to have fellowship with each other and with God. In the light we can easily see barriers or dangers each time they appear and we can thus avoid them. Each time a sin “comes to light,” we can confess and forsake it. “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” is a wonderful truth reminding us of the continual effect of Christ’s death (“is cleansing us”). Having “renounced the hidden things of darkness,” we have put away from us the shameful, disgraceful, and underhanded ways that used to mark our lives. We no longer seek to deceive, but live out in the open in the light.

Now, speaking of barriers, I want the light, I need the light, to avoid them. I have a smart phone (no comments about it being smarter than I am) and I have found the flashlight app especially helpful. No longer do I have to clamber around in the dark looking for my old flashlight. I just pull out my phone and turn on the app and viola—instant light. The best way to avoid sin is to walk in the light. The best way to live aright is to walk in the light. The best way to keep out of danger is to walk in the light.

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
(John 8:12 ESV)

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. (1 John 1:3-4 NIV)

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

Koinonia – fellowship – is the wonderful privilege of every believer. We have fellowship with each other and fellowship with God. This is not just about communication, nor is it just about sharing a meal. This fellowship is an active sharing in the life that John has just mentioned in the previous verses. Its breadth and depth of meaning can be seen in the ways it is translated in various contexts. Besides fellowship, it is translated communion (1 Corinthians 10:16 twice and 2 Corinthians 13:14 twice), communicate (Hebrews 13:16), communication (Philemon 1:6), contribution (Romans 15:26), and distribution (2 Corinthians 9:13). It simply means “to have in common,” and at the heart of the word is the concept of “sharing.”

God has brought us together into a real communion or fellowship (often called the body of Christ) for a reason. We need the active participation (koinonia) of Christ in our lives, if we are to live in victory over sin. But we also need the encouragement and help of fellow Christians, if we are to continue in victory over sin. What I have noticed in my observations of the human condition is that we often withdraw from others at precisely the very moment we need them the most. What is it that drives us away from people or compels us to drive them away when we need their encouragement and help the most. Of course, I have been guilty of this very thing myself, even forcing away from me the people closest to me and the ones who care for me the most. This can be a disastrous reaction.

Where did we get the idea that the Christian life and our Christian faith is a personal matter that does not involve or relate to others. The Bible makes it clear that we are to live in and enjoy fellowship with other believers and with God. I was taught when I first entered the ministry that I, as pastor, needed to keep my distance from my congregation. I could not afford to be too familiar with them. I have taken an about-face on this particular advice, realizing that I, as a Christian, need fellowship as much as any other member of the body of Christ. Joy cannot be complete without this sharing in the Christian life.

Now, since I have opened the door here, I want to share what happened Sunday as I was preaching to others. I first must confess that I have been struggling with the challenge that God has laid on my heart concerning my future level of involvement in ministry. I have been vacillating between leaving pastoral ministry/finding secular employment and recommitting to/pursuing fulltime ministry again. As I was preaching from 1 Kings 18 about Ahab the Corrupted, Obadiah the Conflicted and Elijah the Committed, I realized that God was speaking to me about my conflict within. I was not exercising complete faith and was not acting with complete commitment. It is the challenge of ministry that the preacher who addresses others with a message has to allow that message to speak to him as well. And if you must know about that sermon, you’ll just have to check the website later this week. Weeping like a baby (or Theresa ), I responded to that message Sunday morning with a new commitment to serve Christ and a calm assurance that, as he provided for Elijah, he would provide for me.

I’m sharing this, so that those who know me can hold me accountable should I revert to vacillating again.

I have recently experienced a renewed sense of the holiness, majesty, and power of our awesome God. It has challenged me along the same lines experienced by Isaiah the prophet. It has given me a renewed sense of purpose and a revitalized supply of spiritual energy. I have entered this third phase of ministry determined to make it my best, most focused, and fruitful time in ministry. What is this third phase and how does it differ from the first two phases?

Phase One: The first formational stage (years 5-8) is defined by issues of entry into the pastoral role. Expectations meet reality, strengths and weaknesses come into sharper clarity through experience, and pastors begin to know what they do not know. In this period, pastors re-examine their sense of call, and they feel an urgent need to “catch-up” in their learning.

Phase Two: The second formational stage (years 13-15) is basically a mid-life transition for ministers. In shooting the first set of rapids, the pastor has gained self-awareness. This leads, in turn, to a journey of personal re-discovery. These years between the first and second set of rapids are marked with deep transformational rumblings.

Phase Three: The third formational stage, which takes place in years 20-25, is marked by the realization that the end of the vocational journey lies up ahead, in the not too distant future. Pastors at this stage have now already spent more time in the pastoral role than they will in the future. The key word that rises up in these final stretches of the river is “legacy.” Here, the questions become, “How do I finish well? What will I leave behind of value?”

Taken from http://www.faithandleadership.com/content/shooting-the-rapids-the-cycles-pastoral-ministry

Having spent 38 years in ministry, I am now ready to begin my Phase Three in ministry. I have spent most of these years in a bi-vocational setting, working at more than one job to support my family while serving the church. Most of the time, I served in a second ministry position, which allowed more flexibility in ministry. These last 7 years have been spent serving the church and working in various secular jobs. This has given me a greater understanding of what my church members face on a day to day basis. It has also given me an opportunity to get a view of the cultural changes taking place on a more intimate basis. I have also had opportunities for ministry in these secular settings that remind me of the need and ability to minister each day. However, this is taking its toll on my body and mind and stealing away time from primary ministry needs and opportunities.

I have honestly shared with my church that I want to spend the next ten years of ministry focusing on the issues of leadership development and leaving a legacy. This will require time and effort, and as I age, I find I have less of both to give. I have asked the church to develop a plan that will move toward full-time ministry. I honestly don’t know what their plan will be or what their vision is. I only know that I have asked God to open the door for me to serve fulltime in ministry or to release me from ministry altogether so that I can pursue secular work and do what I can to be involved in ministry as any layperson would. I am not leaving the church, nor do I intend to be uninvolved in ministry, but if I can’t pursue this level of ministry fulltime, I need to step back and be less involved.

Some may think I am being hardnosed or demanding. I am neither. I have not demanded that the church make me their fulltime pastor. I have not demanded that God release me from pastoral ministry. I am grateful for the years of ministry he has given me to serve his church and I have always sought to give my best to his church. But I sense that something must change. God is working on me and he is giving me a strong feeling that something is going to have to change for me to face these remaining years and make them fruitful and fulfilling.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I am ready to follow God into this final phase of ministry. How he wants me to serve, where he wants me to serve, whom he wants me to serve, and for how long he wants me to serve are all questions that must be answered. I am looking to him for the answers. The following song expresses my desire…

LIVE WITH ABANDON LYRICS – NEWSBOYS
I wanna live with abandon
Give You all that I am
Every part of my heart Jesus
I place in Your hands
I wanna live with abandon
Give You all that I am
Every part of my heart Jesus
I place in Your hands
I wanna live with abondon

An old hymn also expresses it a little differently but just as powerfully…

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conqu’rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Isaiah 6:11-13 ESV  Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste,  (12)  and the LORD removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.  (13)  And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.

MEMO: You won’t always like the answers you get when you ask God for a vision of your ministry.

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

I have already mentioned that God has prepared and forewarned Isaiah to help him face a very difficult ministry. No one wants to hear that their ministry will continue until the country is conquered, the people are carried away captive, and land is laid waste. We want to be involved in “successful” ministry. But God has chosen great people for difficult tasks that seem to be less than fruitful. Consider the following…

David Brainerd: He was born on April 20, 1718 in Haddam, Connecticut, the son of Hezekiah, a Connecticut legislator, and Dorothy. He had nine siblings, one of whom was Dorothy’s from a previous marriage. He was orphaned at the age of fourteen, as his father died in 1727 at the age of forty-six and his mother died five years later.

On July 12, 1739, he recorded having an experience of ‘unspeakable glory’ that prompted in him a ‘hearty desire to exalt [God], to set him on the throne and to “seek first his Kingdom”‘. Two months later, he enrolled at Yale. In his second year at Yale, he was sent home because he was suffering from a serious illness that caused him to spit blood. It is now believed that he was suffering from tuberculosis, the disease which would lead to his death seven years later. Later, after returning to Yale, he was expelled for comments he made criticizing a professor for what he considered was the persecution of the excessive spiritual enthusiasm of some students.

On April 1, 1743, after a brief period serving a church on Long Island, Brainerd began working as a missionary to Native Americans, which he would continue until late 1746 when worsening illness prevented him from working. This illness, generally considered to be tuberculosis, had begun to affect him at Yale, but worsened when he entered the mission field. In his final years, he also suffered from a form of depression that was sometimes immobilizing and which, on at least twenty-two occasions, led him to wish for death. He was also affected by difficulties faced by other missionaries of the period, such as loneliness and lack of food.

In these years, he refused several offers of leaving the mission field to become a church minister, including one from the church at East Hampton on Long Island. He remained determined, however, to continue the work among Native Americans despite the difficulties, writing in his diary:

‘[I] could have no freedom in the thought of any other circumstances or business in life: All my desire was the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God: God does not suffer me to please or comfort myself with hopes of seeing friends, returning to my dear acquaintance, and enjoying worldly comforts’.

In November 1746, he became too ill to continue ministering, and so moved to Jonathan Dickinson’s house in Elizabethtown. After a few months of rest, he travelled to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he stayed at the house of Jonathan Edwards, of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God fame. Apart from a trip to Boston in the summer of that year, he remained at Edwards’s house until his death the following year. In May 1747, he was diagnosed with incurable consumption; in these final months, he suffered greatly. In his diary entry for September 24, Brainerd wrote:

‘In the greatest distress that ever I endured having an uncommon kind of hiccough; which either strangled me or threw me into a straining to vomit’.

During this time, he was nursed by Jerusha Edwards, Jonathan’s seventeen-year-old daughter. The friendship that grew between them was of a kind that has led some to suggest they were romantically attached. He died from tuberculosis on October 9, 1747, at the age of 29. He is buried at Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton, next to Jerusha, who died in February 1748 as a result of contracting tuberculosis from nursing Brainerd.

Jonathan Edwards compiled and published a biography of David Brainerd using Brainerd’s diary. That biography has been very influential, even moving John Wesley to comment: ‘Let every preacher read carefully over the Life of David Brainerd‘. Other missionaries who have asserted the influence of Jonathan Edwards’s biography of Brainerd on their lives include Henry Martyn, William Carey, Jim Elliot, and Adoniram Judson.

[Information taken from Wikipedia article on David Brainerd, much of which comes from John Piper’s biography of David Brainerd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brainerd]

Isaiah spent over 40 years in ministry watching two nations, Israel to the north and Judah in the south, deteriorate into spiritual, moral and political chaos. He was forceful, intelligent, direct, and truthful. He spoke for God, and was a powerful force for God in the courts of several kings, though he wasn’t always successful in getting his message across. He knew what God had told him concerning the eventual outcome of his ministry, but he refused to give up. We are not called to assure results; we are called to remain faithful.

Galatians 6:9 ESV  And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.