Good morning,
10,000 pastors and leaders is a powerful sight! The conference started on Thursday but I couldn’t come until Saturday. Katie, our international coordinator, had written to them to say that I could only attend the final session on the final day, and they really helped me out with a good seat! There is great respect here for the work you and I are doing.
I know from experience that TD Jakes’ final seminar is always something special; he’s able to tie all the teaching together. It was an amazing meeting.
If you are a preacher, it is important that you get preached to. Everyone has to eat; where do you eat? Who gives you food? “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God,” and even preachers need to be preached to. Also, our lives are like storehouses. When you preach and keep giving out, your storehouse needs to be filled up again with prayer, quiet time, Bible study and the sermons of others. What you fill your life with is what comes out when you preach! If you are filling your life with TV shows, then you will start sounding like a TV show.
I try to listen to at least one sermon a week, sometimes two. I like to listen when I am jogging, because then I get hooked on a part of the sermon I am listening to, then I start preaching, and then I forget that I am running! I have also learned to write down things as I listen. It really helps me stay concentrated and fills my storehouse.
The following day the Sunday service started at 9 a.m. and it is a bit complicated to get to The Potter’s House in Dallas. The meeting lasts for 3 hours, but when you know that “faith comes by hearing”, then you get yourself to a sermon! That’s what I do on Sundays when I am home. I always listen to a sermon in the afternoons. You never know what might happen! Maybe God has a word just for you today, and he had one for me! The sermon spoke right into my situation. The title was: “Are you all in?” Are you ready to give everything you have? Good question. Are you? If God has given you a vision, then you can’t go in halfheartedly or give up when things are going against you. It’s about going “all in.”
I will turn 57 this summer and God has given us – you and me, because we are in this together – a new vision. It will take several years to see it through, and when it is over, we will have reached more people who never heard about Jesus, saved more orphaned street children and trafficking victims, and helped more Jews home. But it won’t happen if you and I play it safe!
The boy with two fish and five loaves gave everything he had to Jesus. He didn’t keep one fish and one loaf just in case it didn’t work. He went “all in.”
Going “all in” is daring to take the final step and give everything! Either you break through or you get broken.
If you do your part, I’ll do mine. We aren’t supposed to do it all, we aren’t all supposed to do the same thing. Each of us does according to his or her own ability, but all of us are called to go “all in” with the talent Jesus has given each of us. Come on! Let’s do this together! Let’s love everyone and be humble. I also believe that if you and I go “all in,” it will even light a fire under the ones who have lost their spark, because deep inside, all believers want to go “all in” for Jesus.
Good morning!
-Tommy
