Bob Caldwell was introduced as a hippie, cowboy, mystic by the conference's host and organizer, Pastor Wayne Taylor. That's a great introduction. I heard about this dude from Idaho that spoke at the 2006 Senior Pastor's Conference; he brought the house down is what has been told. But none of this came to mind until he was about five or ten minutes into his message and I realized that this is not yo' momma's pastor. One of the tings about Caldwell that, to me, was kind of weird is that he reminds me of Ted
Nugent. That's not an insult. Coming from me, being likened to the Motor City Mad Man is a good thing.
The text use by Caldwell was 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24. The link will take you to the whole chapter. The interesting thing for me is that I've not heard these verses taught or read them as they stand alone. Those two short sentences are a powerful statement about God's relationship to a man who follows Him.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
Read those verses again and think about them for a second before you click away.
What follows are the points I wrote down. Just a warning, I don't always write down the points as they're given; I write them the way they hit me. Sometimes they even hit me the way the speaker intended them to be delivered.
Here's the note I wrote after Bob read the above verses: "...turned over - sanctified by the Holy Spirit in order to be used..." That's what I want; to be used by God. Now you gots my attention, Bob.
I made a note about unbelief and pride; we have to be teachable... unbelief will kill anything... without faith it is impossible...
God has to be believed...
faith + humble heart = cool things happening... this is an equal opportunity...
Bob said that God is both willing and faithful to cause change in us. He's done all the work. He's made us new; regenerated us. Now we need to get the rest of our body under the control of the Spirit. I thought it was funny when Caldwell said that life can look a lot like "eternal Romans chapter 7 instead of eternal life."
He nailed me there.
"I need you, God, because I can't change." -Bob Caldwell
1 comment:
Powerfull verses thanks for sharing, This has been my prayer for the past 2 weeks for God to use me and to take anything that He needs from me so I can reach his plan and not mine.
I found that it takes a lot of Faith and Trust in our Father to pray for this and that only when he puts this in our heart we know we have to be obedient since without Him I would not even try this prayer I know I could not make it. With changes come great challanges and to be able to focus on Him and not on the road obstacles can only be done with Him since it gets really bumpy.
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