Archives by: Gary Hoag

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. Galatians 5:22-23

“If a man worth a billion dollars, if that man exists, if he’s worth a billion dollars and he gives away a million, he’s that much the poorer. If he gains a million, he’s that much the richer. But God can give away grace and still not be any less rich in grace. You can refuse His grace and still God won’t have any more grace because God can’t have any more grace than He has now because He has an infinite grace, which is boundless and limitless. And there isn’t any way possible for God to have any more kindness than he has now. But somebody says, didn’t Jesus, when He died on the tree, didn’t that make God gracious and kind to us? No, it’s exactly the other way. Christ died on the tree because God was gracious and kind, not to make God gracious and kind.”

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) in his sermon entitled “Thou Art Good and Doest Good” delivered on 18 November 1956.

I love this sermon. Tozer taps into the implications of God’s abundant economy.

To explain this to stewards that I disciple around the world, I often use an illustration. I say, if I am kind to a person at the train station on the way to work, and kind to a barista that makes me a coffee in the morning, do I run out of kindness by lunchtime. Of course, I do not.

Why? Because the abundant nature of the fruit of the Spirit in God’s economy.

When God works in us and produces fruit, we don’t end up empty when we share it, but rather enriched for every good work. We have more love, more peace, more patience, more kindness, and more generosity. We can continue to thrive with more faithfulness, more gentleness, and more self-control. It never runs out.

So whether you have a billion dollars, a million dollars, or just a few dollars, give generously. Why?

The world tells you not to do this because you will end up empty. Or it says that you will find yourself in need. I say that you don’t figure it out until you live it out that His grace will abound toward you and you will have all that you need. Try it. Tozer put his finger on it!

And notice, one more thing about God’s abundant economy.

God cannot have any more grace or kindness toward us because it never diminishes. And if you flip that back on us. We cannot ever accumulate enough money because it always diminishes. What does that prove? It proves that accumulation represents a foolish relationship to money. Generosity comes into view as only wise pattern that brings life.

Read this sermon to get the full picture. It’s time well spent.

You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees. Psalm 119:68

“God is full of kindness and favor and mercy, that God is good-hearted and of good will. Now I looked up the word “good” here as it’s used about God to find out what the Bible did say, what this word does mean. And you know it is one of those words that is so full of meaning that it makes our English language stagger. It means that God is bountiful, that he is cheerful, it means that he is merry and glad and gracious and joyful and kind and sweet and ready.

Now all of those meanings are in the word “good” in Hebrew so that it takes all of those meanings to put it into our English. Thou art good and doest good. Thou art bountiful and doest bountifully. Thou art cheerful and doest cheerfully. Thou art merry and doest merrily. Thou art glad and dost labor in thy gladness. Thou art gracious and doest graciously. Thou art joyful and doest joyfully. Thou art kind and doest kindly. Now it means all that and I suppose it means a good deal more, but it means that God is kind and favorful and merciful, that God has a good heart toward us, that he is a person or a being of good will…

So, you’re not dealing with a sulky, heavy-browed God. You’re dealing with a God who is kind, and then the word ready is in there. I don’t know what the word ready is in there for unless it means that God is there ready to be kind and ready to be gracious and ready to be bountiful. So, He’s a ready, God, and He’s benevolent and cordial and gracious.”

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) in his sermon entitled “Thou Art Good and Doest Good” delivered on 18 November 1956.

Two days ago, I pulled a gem of a quote from this sermon and decided to spend a few more days with it. Today I feel encouraged by the goodness of God, and specifically his “ready” posture toward us.

So related to generosity, God stands ready to give us what we need, whether we need mercy or provision, or gladness or deliverance. He stands ready to come to our aid. Why celebrate this today?

I am at home catching up on emails from taking last week off work. I need divine assistance in so many ways. I can’t serve without it. And guess what? He stands ready to pour out grace, help, and wisdom I need.

The commands of God find roots in the limitless goodness of God. Lest we let anything sway our generous living, giving, serving, and loving, we must root our obediences in His matchless goodness.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Mark 1:35

“It was a long, shameful walk back to the hunting cabin. For well over an hour, I had sat in the deer stand, happily reading and enjoying the quiet morning. Then I felt the loose bullets rattle in my pocket. I turned and looked. Oh no. I had forgotten my rifle.

No choice now but to go back for it. The rest of the men in our extended family were tucked away in their own stands. They wouldn’t see me go back for my gun. But they would hear about it. Oh, would they. The cabin, teeming with our wives and children, would all too gladly report on my “hunt.” I could see pairs of eyes gawking through the window as I came up the dirt road. They gathered around and met me with barbs and laughter at the door.

Years later, I’m yet to live it down (and rightfully so). Now every fall we hear, “Remember the time Uncle David . . .” I’m a terribly amateur hunter. I easily smile and chuckle about once forgetting my rifle. For me, the real joy in that quiet deer stand is unhurried Bible meditation and prayer. Getting the big buck is a distant second.”

David Mathis in his 4 October 2023 blog post entitled “The Use and Abuse of Scripture: How Christian Preachers Wield the Word.”

I have never hunted deer before but this is a funny and insightful little story.

Only this year, on the property of my friend John Stanley in Wisconsin, did I get the chance to go up into a deer stand. It was not spacious but it was comfortable.

How does this connect to generosity?

Imagine the things you could do in a deer stand. You can pray and use it as a time of spiritual growth, or you can use it to focus on nothing or senseless things as well.

I learned a lot on this week vacation while hunting.

Through reflection on Scripture, life, work, and more, I discerned new things and feel excited to apply them. Sometimes we can only learn these lessons in solitary places.

Imagine that such places serve as fuel filling stations for generous living. I think so!

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:6

“Deliverance, what kind of deliverance? Well, deliverance for whatever kind of deliverance you need. Deliverance won’t come because you’re nice, it won’t come because you memorize Scripture, though I want you to memorize Scripture. It won’t come because you love great hymns, though I want you to love great hymns. It won’t come because you go to prayer meeting. Well, I want you to go to prayer meeting. Deliverance will come because God is eager to deliver you. It burns in God’s presence. God’s hunting you up. God’s following you. Surely, goodness shall follow you all the days of your life. Amen.”

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) in his sermon entitled “Thou Art Good and Doest Good” delivered on 18 November 1956.

While pheasant hunting I often say this to my German Shorthaired Pointer, “hunt it up, Grace, find a bird.” And we spend our day walking about 20,000 steps and hunting up birds.

I chose to look for the hunting motif in A.W. Tozer as Jenni and I got to hunt pheasant one year in North Dakota with dear friends, Randy and Debbie Discher, and Randy just loves Tozer who did not disappoint.

Enjoy his sermon if you love Tozer. And soak in how much God loves you. Even as I walked 20,000 steps yesterday looking for birds, God never stops looking for ways to bless me.

I like how Tozer draws out that this deliverance or blessing comes not because of what I do but because of how good God is. Seriously, read the sermon and be blessed.

Today, I praise God for the privilege of hunting with my friend, John Roswech, who has experience a similar transition as my founder shift. I learned much in talks with him.

Today I drive 600 miles or 1,000 kilometers home. I praise God to have 12 birds in the cooler. Meat for the winter. God supplies, but Grace and I had to work to harvest it. Walked 80,000 steps in 4 days.

While I was hunting birds up, I love the word picture that God is hunting me up. He’s giving all his effort and resources to look after me. What an amazing God we serve.

For nothing will be impossible with God. Luke 1:37

The Hunting of the Dragon

When we went hunting the Dragon
In the days when we were young,
We tossed the bright world over our shoulder
As bugle and baldrick slung;
Never was world so wild and fair
As what went by on the wind,
Never such fields of paradise
As the fields we left behind:

For this is the best of a rest for men
That men should rise and ride
Making a flying fairyland
Of market and country-side,
Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,
Wings upon pot and pan,
For the hunting of the Dragon
That is the life of a man.

For men grow weary of fairyland
When the Dragon is a dream,
And tire of the talking bird in the tree,
The singing fish in the stream;
And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,
And the wonder is stiff with scorn;
For this is the honour of fairyland
And the following of the horn;

Beauty on beauty called us back
When we could rise and ride,
And a woman looked out of every window
As wonderful as a bride:
And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,
And the children cheered and ran,
For the love of the hate of the Dragon
That is the pride of a man.

The sages called him a shadow
And the light went out of the sun:
And the wise men told us that all was well
And all was weary and one:
And then, and then, in the quiet garden,
With never a weed to kill,
We knew that his shining tail had shone
In the white road over the hill:
We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,
We knew that the sunset fire
Was red with the blood of the Dragon
Whose death is the world’s desire.

For the horn was blown in the heart of the night
That men should rise and ride,
Keeping the tryst of a terrible jest
Never for long untried;
Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,
Never in cup or can,
The death of a deathless Dragon,
That is the life of a man.

C.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) in his poem, “The Hunting of the Dragon.”

G.K. Chesterton’s poem explores a mix of of youthful idealism and adult disillusionment in pursuit of meaning. The dragon seems to point to big challenges that gives us a sense of purpose and adventure.

The poem celebrates the youthful imaginative spirit. The world is a “flying fairyland” and the call to action (“rise and ride”) inspires us.

However, as the hunters get older, the “dragon” becomes a mere “dream,” representing the loss of wonder and the confrontation with the mundane aspects of life.

The deeper meaning suggests that while actual dragon hunting may be an elusive, almost impossible goal, the act of standing against evil and embracing adventure is what gives meaning to a person’s life.

It ultimately emphasizes that facing challenges and believing in the possibility of defeating “dragons” is essential to a meaningful human existence.

Related to generosity, we must not stop pursuing big dreams with God. We must not stop deploying the resources we have with radical faith. And we must not stop trusting Him to give us victory.

Don’t go stale. Go rise and ride. Now! Go slay some dragons, or put pointedly, go accomplish some impossible tasks with God by focusing on what you can do with what you have.

[The rich] are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. 1 Timothy 6:18-19

“Get all you can without hunting your soul, your body, or your neighbor. Save all you can, cutting off every needless expense. Give all you can. Be glad to give, and ready to distribute; laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may attain eternal life.”

John Wesley (1703-1791) in widespread attribution.

In this context, “hunting your soul” seems to imply pursuing wealth or any worldly gain in a way that harms or your spiritual wellness and sacrifices your moral integrity.

To hunt your body and your neighbor adds to the meaning that God does not want our pursuit of getting to harm ourselves physically or bring harm to others.

This brings socially responsible stewardship into view. Many generous people have wealth in portfolios doing not so good things to their soul, body, and neighbor and many do the damage unknowingly.

I’ve learned from GTP board treasurer and world expert in impact investing, Tim Macready, of Brightlight, that you don’t have to hunt your soul, your body, or your neighbor to make a great return.

It’s also why the GTP Trust Fund is invested with MB Foundation. They produce a great return and use the funds to generate kingdom work.

“Get all you can without hunting your soul, your body, or your neighbor.”

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:6

Remember that C.S. Lewis was a young Atheist who was surprised by joy when God hunted for him. In plain terms, notice how he articulates that he did not find God but God found him. The mouse does not find the cat but the other way around.

“Really, a young Atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully. Dangers lie in wait for him on every side. You must not do, you must not even try to do, the will of the Father unless you are prepared to “know of the doctrine.”

All my acts, desires, and thoughts were to be brought into harmony with universal Spirit.For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a
bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a hareem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion.

Of course I could do nothing—I could not last out one hour—without continual conscious recourse to what I called Spirit. But the fine, philosophical distinction between this and what ordinary people call “prayer to God” breaks down as soon as you start doing it in earnest.

Idealism can be talked, and even felt; it cannot be lived. It became patently absurd to go on thinking of “Spirit” as either ignorant of, or passive to, my approaches. Even if my own philosophy were true, how could the initiative lie on my side?

My own analogy, as I now first perceived, suggested the opposite: if Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare’s doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing. Perhaps, even now, my Absolute
Spirit still differed in some way from the God of religion. The real issue was not, or not yet, there. The real terror was that if you seriously believed in even such a “God” or “Spirit” as I admitted, a wholly new situation developed.

As the dry bones shook and came together in that dreadful valley of Ezekiel’s, so now a philosophical theorem, cerebrally entertained, began to stir and heave and throw off its gravecloths, and stood upright
and became a living presence. I was to be allowed to play at philosophy no longer.

It might, as I say, still be true that my “Spirit” differed in some way from “the God of popular religion.” My Adversary waived the point. It sank into utter unimportance. He would not argue about it. He only said,
“I am the Lord”; “I am that I am”; “I am.”

People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about “man’s search for God.” To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse’s search for the cat.”

C.S. Lewis in Surprised By Joy (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1955) 213-214.

Though you can’t see the pheasant sitting on the ground, I had an epic late afternoon. Imagine driving 600 miles or 1,000 Km and then hunting for about 90 minutes and shooting 3 wild pheasant on a gorgeous day.

The phrase “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me” came to my mind. God’s goodness shined on me on my first of five vacation days. Best of all, Grace quartered and pointed like a veteran hunter.

Then I got to my room and found this gem from my favorite professor, C.S. Lewis. He was an atheist and describes how the absolute Spirit hunted him down. Think about it. God does that for us.

His goodness (undeserved blessings) and His mercy (not giving us what we deserve) follow, or literally chase after us, all the days of our lives.

How does it make you feel that God generously hunts and chases you all the days of your life?

“But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. Jeremiah 16:16

“The apostles were fishers of men; we have to be hunters of men.

Let us toil away, brothers and sisters, without ceasing, doing all we can, whatever the sweat, with loving sentiments toward God, toward them, among ourselves. It would never do, after all, for us to create new rifts among ourselves, while wishing to allay their old quarrel.

And above all let us be very careful to hold on to the most steadfast love among ourselves. They are frozen stiff in their iniquities; how will you thaw the ice of iniquity in them, if you are not on fire with the flame of charity?

Nor should we worry about appearing to be troublesome to them by driving and prodding them.” Let us consider where we are driving them to; that should reassure us. Is it to death, after all, and not rather away from death? Altogether, in whatever ways we can, let us treat these old wounds, but discreetly.

And let us take care that the person being treated doesn’t pass away in the hands of the doctor. So why should we care that the boy is crying when taken to school? Do we have to bother about the person who’s being lanced pushing away the surgeon’s hand?

The apostles were fishermen, and the Lord said to them, I will make you fishers of men (Mark 1:17). It was said by the prophet [Jeremiah], however, that God was first going to send fishers, later on hunters.”

First he sent fishers, later on he sends hunters. Why fishers, why hunters? Believers were fished with the nets of faith from the bottomless depths of the sea of superstition and idolatry. But where were the hunters sent to? When believers were wandering through mountains and hills, that is through the proud elevations of men, through the swollen elements of different countries.

Donatus was one mountain, and Arius another; another mountain was Photinus, another mountain Novatus. These were the mountains they were straying through; their straying, their errors, called for hunters.

And that’s why the offices of fishers and hunters were distributed to different times; in case perhaps these people should say to us, “Why did the apostles not apply force or compulsion to anybody?”

Because he’s a fisherman, he casts his nets into the sea, hauls in whatever has got caught in it. But the hunter surrounds the woods, beats the thickets, drives animals into the nets by multiplying terror on every side: “Don’t let it go this way, don’t let it go that way; confront it on this side, beat it on that, frighten it on the other; don’t let it get out, don’t let it escape.”

But our nets mean life; only let love be maintained. And don’t consider how irksome you are to him, but how lovable he is to you. What sort of loving care are you showing, if you spare him, and he dies?”

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in Sermon 400.11.

I took the new header photo on a beautiful autumn morning while walking my son’s dogs in Colorado. It was a crisp, cool, and peaceful morning.

Today, I am driving from Colorado to North Dakota to hunt pheasant with my German Shorthaired Pointer, Grace, and meet up with my friend John Roswech and his dogs. It’s a long drive so Grace and I will enjoy some solitude.

Yesterday, while packing and getting ready to go, I asked myself this question: “I wonder if one of my favorite preachers in Church history, Augustine of Hippo, ever preached on hunting?”

Sure enough, I located this excerpt from Sermon 400. The theme comes from Jeremiah 16. God declares that the wickedness of his people had exceeded their ancestors.

As a result he would search and hunt for them. So what does hunting for men really mean and what does it have to do with generosity?

Perhaps the best word picture I can think of comes from Jesus when he references the 99 sheep and the 1 that wandered away. See Luke 15:3-7. He goes and hunts for the sheep.

We can easily think of people who make poor choices as stupid and deserving of their demise. When we pause and think honestly, we realize, that speaks of all of us.

Today, I give thanks for how I saw my parents do this with their siblings. The last surviving one, Uncle Jim Gregg, went home to be with the Lord over the weekend.

Like all of us at times, Uncle Jim did not always follow Jesus. But I have many memories how my parents hunted for him. Eventually, he made his way back into the fold by the grace of God.

Each of us needs to discover the importance of hunting for people. Generosity comes into view as hunting for wayward folks and bringing them into the proverbial fold.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Ephesians 6:13

“Do you see what it means to “stand”? We do not try to gain ground; we merely stand on the ground which the Lord Jesus has gained for us, and resolutely refuse to be moved from it. When our eyes are really opened to see Christ as our victorious Lord, then our praise flows forth freely and without restraint. Singing with melody in our hearts to the Lord, we give thanks for all things in His name (Ephesians 5:19–20).

Praise that is the outcome of effort has a labored and discordant note, but praise that wells up spontaneously from hearts at rest in Him has always a pure, sweet tone. The Christian life consists of sitting with Christ, walking by Him and standing in Him. We begin our spiritual life by resting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus. That rest is the source of our strength for a consistent and unfaltering walk in the world. And at the end of a grueling warfare with the hosts of darkness, we are found standing with Him at last in triumphant possession of the field. “Unto him . . . be the glory . . . for ever” (Ephesians 3:21).”

Watchman Nee or Ni Tuosheng (1903-1972) in Sit, Walk, Stand (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 1977) 49-50.

Today marks the last post from this Watchman Nee classic. Thanks again for sharing it Jud Savelle.

Why learn to sit and walk?

We do it so we can learn to stand. This marks the reason before every GTP trip we state our aims. And why, we arrive and pray Joshua 1:3 and Psalm 2:8 in every nation.

And why, at the completion of our trip we send a report. To show the ground we have claimed for Jesus that He has already won. We claim it by standing firm.

Pray for Trevor Lui (GTP President & CEO) and Paula Mendoza (GTP Chief Administration and Mobilization Officer), as they do work in USA with the Chinese and Spanish teams over the next two weeks.

Pray with me for them, having learned to sit, and walk, that they stand firm.

Imagine Chinese- and Spanish- speaking churches and ministries across USA following standards and getting ECFA-accredited to position them for flourishing.

My week will shift to time of solitude with God and Grace, our German Shorthair Pointer.

I am packing today for a week of pheasant hunting in North Dakota with my friend, John Roswech. Pray for a safe drive tomorrow and a good week of rest from work and an ice chest filled with birds.

I am not sure where I will turn the attention of my reading next. Will pray about that today and discern that direction tomorrow. With you.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

“In the work of God today, things are often so constituted that we have no need to rely upon God. But the Lord’s verdict upon all such work is uncompromising: “Apart from me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Such work as man can do apart from God is wood, hay, stubble—and the test of fire will prove it so. For divine work can only be done with divine power, and that power is to be found in the Lord Jesus alone. It is made available to us in Him on the resurrection side of the cross.

That is to say, it is when we have reached the point where in all honesty we cry, “I cannot speak,” that we discover God is speaking. When we come to an end of our works, His work begins. Thus, the fire in the days to come and the cross today effect the same thing. What cannot stand the cross today will not survive the fire later. If my work, which is done in my power, is brought to death, how much comes out of the grave? Nothing! Nothing ever survives the cross but what is wholly of God in Christ.

God never asks us to do anything we can do. He asks us to live a life which we can never live and to do a work which we can never do. Yet, by His grace, we are living it and doing it. The life we live is the life of Christ lived in the power of God, and the work we do is the work of Christ carried on through us by His Spirit whom we obey. Self is the only obstruction to that life and to that work. May we each one pray from our hearts, “O Lord, deal with me!”

Watchman Nee or Ni Tuosheng (1903-1972) in Sit, Walk, Stand (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 1977) 44.

Someone asked me about the focus of our time at the GTP Global Gathering earlier this month.

I told them that we had spiritual time and strategic time. For the spiritual time I made everyone read Frank Laubach’s book Letters by a Modern Mystic so they learn to hear God’s voice. And that I taught them the Surrender Novena to teach them to get self out of the way and practice surrender daily.

For the strategic time, we discussed five points related to GTP 2.0 and collaborating to form PAGs worldwide.

But please notice closely the investment and emphasis. I wanted everyone to learn to hear God’s voice and to practice surrender. If they take that posture of listening and surrender, then God can do His best work through us together. If we do not, then all our work, sadly, is a waste of time and God’s money.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have lots of patience but it runs thin when we waste time and God’s money.

I will not stand for it. You shouldn’t either. Think about the people you support. Do they exhibit this posture of surrender? Or are they just focused on doing things they can do. Do you see God’s power at work in them? Perhaps the best way to end today’s post is how Watchman did?

“O Lord, deal with me!” Show me the pathway to my most generous service. As self is the only obstruction, teach me to die to self. Try the surrender novena daily to get there.

Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.