2 Great Illustrations

I listen to as many podcasts from other pastors every time I get a chance and every time I do I walk away a better person--challenged, encouraged and motivated. In the past few weeks, I listened to two of my favorite guys and they each shared a illustration that really stuck with me, so now I'm going to pass them onto you.

1. This came from Matt Chandler from the Village Church in Texas (He is my favorite guy to listen to right now)...He began talking about how he has had a small dog for the past several years. And like anyone who has a dog, he has loved it, cared for it, given it everything that a dog could ever hope for. A few weeks ago ,his wife gave birth to a son and just a few days ago while changing his sons diaper on the floor of his house, their dog came over and peed on the boys face! His point was that is exactly how we treat God--and Jesus His Son. God has given us everything that we could ever wanted, He has lavished His love upon us and even given up His only Son for us and what do we do in return--we pee in His face--We pee in Jesus' face. Hopefully we don't really pee in His face or even have a desire to do so, but with our actions and our half-hearted (at best) devotion to Him, it's like we could care less about Him...May that never be the case with us.

(Please pray for me as I will be using the illustration above this weekend as I preach for "Big Church" at our church. This is my first time speaking in this environment at this church...)

2. This illustration came from Steven Furtick as he was speaking about the goodness of God. He was recalling a time in school when a bully attempted to beat him up. He says he remembers being lifted up above the bullies head when he spotted his best friend. He thought that his best friend would help him, but he was wrong--his best friend point blank told him that he wanted to help him but he would just get killed if he tried. His heart sank until the moment when he heard a teacher approach and break the almost fight up. As he reflected upon the close encounter, he examined the characters related to the event. On one hand, you had the best friend who had a great motive in wanting to help him but was powerless to do so. And in the other corner, you had the bully who had all the power but a bad motive. The teacher who stopped the fight, however, had both the power and pure motive--He then said that God is like the teacher--His motives are always pure in what He does and He has the power to do anything!

I hope that you were encouraged by these illustrations that have been stuck in my head-or at least I hope they made you think. I also wanted to share with you who I like to listen to so maybe you will subscribe to their podcasts.

Matt Chandler--The Village Church
Andy Stanley--Northpoint Church
Craig Groeschel--LIfeChurch.tv
Erwin McManus--Mosaic
Mark Driscoll--Mars Hill
Rob Bell--Mars Hill
Steven Furtick--Elevation Church
Perry Noble--Newspring
Francis Chan--Cornestone Church
John Piper--Bethlehem Baptist