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Daniel of Doulogos Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
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Friday, May 05, 2006
Legerdemain
You might not be familiar with the word, it is falling out of common use, but it is an older synonym for prestidigitation (sleight of hand).

The word legerdemain however has a more deceitful sound than prestidigitate or sleight of hand, more... a more cloak-and-dagger appeal if you will.

There is just something about the word that seems less like a card trick and more like something sinster - I think it is just the way it rolls off the tongue, I sort of like to say it with a parisian accent "Lay-jare-de-Magnne." It isn't pronounced like that, but I am willing to overlook the mispronounciation since most people arn't familiar with the word in the first place - and if they are, well, I don't mind looking like I don't know how to pronounce it, seeings as it sounds indie-cool the way I say it. I don't think of it as a mispronunciation, so much as a trend that hasn't been set yet.

I mention it because some preachers practice legerdemain. They may be great orators, motivational speakers, and even considered profound expositors of the word - but they do not live out what they preach - that is, they know the truth, and tell others to obey it, when they themselves are not doing the same.

Authenticity is difficult to approximate - though some have done well at it. Yet I have noticed that ears seem to be more open to a genuine doer than to an genuine poser. They might say the same thing, and even live the same public life - but the one whose life has integrity - he is able to preach clean - and your soul knows the difference.

A man may bend a blade of grass or shake a small tree; a great man might be able to bend much grass, and shake more than a few trees - but to move a forest, or cause an open and endless field to bow down in waves - only the wind can do that. A preacher who isn't living clean - is like the noise of the wind, without the wind itself. He has no power even if he sounds like the real deal.

Let not many of you be teachers.
posted by Daniel @ 12:00 PM  
1 Comments:
  • At 9:08 PM, May 08, 2006, Blogger Gordon said…

    Thanks for this challenging post, Daniel. I have often preached that if we can be a Christian at home, we can be a Christian anywhere. Now, if I can only live up to that so as not to be a legerdemainiac.

     
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