The danger of being a great guy,

is that pre-believers just think, “Dave’s a great guy.”  They are not wowed by Jesus, but by me.  They will only be wowed by the Jesus in me, if they know the real me.  They will only know the real me if I invite them into the closet of my soul, to discover the real me.  I will not invite them into the closet of my soul, unless Dave knows the real Dave — the extent of my independence/dysfunction/sin.  Self-awareness and self-acceptance are crucial to being fruitful with pre-believers, and in my not-so-humble opinion, after having spent many years mentoring Christian leaders, we believers have no clue who we really are, why we do what we do, how independent we really are.  But we think we know ourselves.  Self-deception is the biggest hindrance to believers being fruitful with pre-believers, in my view.  And we believers live in denial of how unfruitful the Church is with pre-believers, especially the turned-off, including the antagonistic.

But I’m thankful for the Church being as sick as we are, because if the Spirit of Jesus is ever poured out in a widespread awakening, transforming us believers so much that the pre-believers around us are wowed, so there is contagion in our society, transforming everything in its path, Jesus will get all the credit, all the glory, and we will get none, and the mainstream media will be wowed and have something to report that is positive, about the Church in our day.  And the mainstream reporters will also want what we have.  “Surely God is with you and there is no other; there is no other god.”  Isa 45:14

–DumbSheepDave, happiest when he’s been freshly convicted of trying to be ShepherdDave, IndependentDave, WinnerDave

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