Lately I’ve written a lot about my friend Dick Foth. That’s okay—Dick’s a good guy to write about.
Due to a scheduling coincidence, Becky and I heard Dick preach in Fort Collins and then three weeks later in Washington, DC. Can I let you in on a bit of a secret? Preachers who speak in different cities apparently use the same material more than once.
Dick was talking about the time in Matthew 14 when the disciples see Jesus walking on the water. It’s late and they’ve been rowing all night and they’re tired and they think they’re seeing a ghost. They’re scared.
And Jesus says, “Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Dick pointed out that the middle sentence, “It is I,” is the Greek construction ego eimi. It’s the same phrase Jesus uses when He says, “I am,” as in “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light …”
So we might hear Him making a stronger statement.
“Take courage. I am. Don’t be afraid.”
As the storyteller he is, Dick somehow morphed into talking about a Jewish friend who grew up hearing three commands from his mother: “Grow up. Get a job. Marry a nice Jewish girl.”
The man said he heard that advice so often he thought they were a single word: GrowupgetajobmarryaniceJewishgirl.
And as he always does, Dick brought us back to Jesus and suggested that we consider a new word:
TAKECOURAGEIAMDON’TBEAFRAID
Out team adopted it as an informal slogan at the end of our tour.
It’s a pretty good thought for a lot of situations. I invite you to say it out loud.
TAKECOURAGEIAMDON’TBEAFRAID
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