Imitators of Those

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Hebrews 6:11-12

Tag: christianity

  • Fat and Forgetful

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    Dónal
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    Yesterday a friend back home in Ireland shared with me about the heaviness of heart that accompanies opportunities to share the Gospel. He described how friends, neighbours and co-workers could sit, happy to attend a Christian event, and yet remain completely unmoved by the Gospel call. He wondered if it was fair to compare the…

  • 3 Months In

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    Dónal
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    Yesterday marked the 3-month mark in our new land. On any given day, 3 months is just a few days, or a quarter of a year. While it has always felt incredibly, blessedly, normal to be here, occasionally it hits home that now we live here. After all the years of praying, dreaming, planning, praying,…

  • The Master of the Nets

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    Dónal
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    On a lakeshore in Northern Israel stood two men; two experts in their respective fields. One, a fisherman who could mend a net with his eyes shut, who could stand in his vessel on choppy waters without losing balance, who knew the feeding times of the many shoals hidden beneath the surface, whose calloused hands…

  • Bearing Our Father’s Name

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    Dónal
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    I remember my first visit to South Asia. Travelling around the various cities of the country, we visited church after church, house after house, conference after conference for a solid twelve days. Throughout those dusty days and humid evenings, I was introduced to many of my brothers and sisters whom I had never met. Some…

  • A Call for the Long, Hard & Slow Work

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    Dónal
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    I recently attended a conference for workers in our area of the world. There was some really wonderful teaching, encouraging reports, and thought-provoking break-out sessions. Overall, it was a blessing. However, one session in particular gave me a new way of framing my own story; and not in a positive way. In the early 1970s…

  • The Extraordinarily Ordinary Spirit

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    Dónal
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    I place a high value on the ordinary means of grace. The ordinary means of grace are those things that God has given as regular, often non-spectacular, rhythmic events that form and shape our spiritual lives. They are the slow dripping of water to erode a rock, the steady flywheel of an engine that keeps…

  • Caught Before Taught

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    Dónal
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    A sunny Friday afternoon in April 2011 found me sitting on the lawn at the back of someone’s house, quite bewildered. It was a youth weekend away, or at least, it was meant to be. I had arrived at the house of those organising it along with some friends. To be honest, at this point…

  • The World as Best it Could Be

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    Dónal
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    Dealing With Doubt – Part 2 When John Bunyan, writer of The Pilgrim’s Progress was facing an intense mental struggle, a verse came to his mind that comforted him immensely. For over a year he tried to find this obscure little verse, until at last he realised that it was not in fact from the…

  • The World as it Ought to Be

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    Dónal
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    Dealing With Doubt – Part 1 The three loads of ammunition that I will lay out in these next posts touch on three different aspects of doubt, for it is a multifaceted beast. We will look at “The World as it Ought to Be”, “The World as Best it Could Be“, and “The World as…