For the last seven years I have co-hosted The Kingdom Summit with my friend, Ben Akabueze and this year it was all virtual. One of our speakers, Dr. Tom Dooley, commented that the incidence of Covid-19 in Africa, which is much lower than predicted, is due partly to the fact that Africa does not shovel its elderly into old age homes. Many of Africa’s senior citizens live in multi-generational units. Now, I have often said “God is a multi-____ god” but have not fully thought through the implications on our health. The God of the Bible is inclusive: Multi-Nation, -Ethnic, -Gender, -Tongue, -Profession, -Tribe, -Generation. There are exceptions: God is adamant that He is the One True God (three-in-one, actually) and that there is only one way to God, Jesus Christ. 

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12

That said, broad swaths of scripture have multigenerational...

For seven days they celebrated with joy the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the Lord had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria, so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel.    Ezra 6:22

A seven-day party—that ought to get our attention! For Israel it had been a stop-start effort to get the temple rebuilt. Finances had been a factor on and off. Overall, however, they had favor from many rulers. Nehemiah said, “And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.” This was king Artaxerxes. Ezra had enjoyed similar favor from Cyrus, king of Persia—“the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia.” Later Darius said, “The expenses of these men are to be fully paid out of the royal treasury…so that the work will not stop.”

This support from what some today would call “high net worth donors” was only part of the...

May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.” Psalm 35:27

When God delays in answering prayer (such as healing Lazarus), it is so that He might answer it in a different way (such as raising him from the dead) in order that He might receive more glory.

When God vindicates His servant leaders, He does so in order that those who support the leader may shout for joy and gladness and always say, “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of His servant.”  

The great aligning objective of man, the one thing that they can look to outside of themselves that will cause them to rise above themselves, the polar magnet that will cause the metal shards of our scrappy existence to pull together, is the in order that increased praise of and attributing worth to (i.e., worship of) God’s name and character.  

When working with...

Fires are raging on the West Coast of the US. Family and friends are posting images of eerily lit orange streets. In recent years there have been fires in Australia, Europe and Africa. Some of this is nature’s way of clearing out years of underbrush or propagating a species that needs fire to explode into new life. Some of it is of human making, like the fire set off at a party. Some say climate change is the cause—too much human intervention—and others claim there was not enough management of the environment. (For the record, I do not attribute God’s judgement to acts of nature.)

There are many perspectives… and the fires burn. Weeds and brush are burning, debris is turning into ash. Your heart stops, however, when you see old growth redwoods, hundreds of years old, going up in flames and family homes gutted by the blaze. In some cases a large percentage of towns has been decimated. 

As I was reflecting this morning on where we are in the world I...

When I came to the USA from South Africa in 1986 I had to get used to new colloquial expressions. I remember asking a senior executive how much tailored executive information he received: “A goose egg,” was his reply. I was wondering, “Is that a round zero, is that a golden egg…?” Another expression was “we eat our own dog food” and I remembered when my dad was sworn off meat because of his high blood pressure. My mom went out and dad attacked the remains of a meatloaf that was in the fridge, frying it in copious amounts of butter. When my mom returned she asked, “What happened to the rest of the dog food… it was in the fridge?” Eating your own dog food can be a wonderful thing, and I have been thinking a lot about this during the pandemic.

According to Investopedia, “Eat your own dog food is a colloquial expression that describes a company using its own products or services for its internal operations. The term is...