Dangerous Men

"But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus." Acts 20:24

Via TJC

Tomorrow the world will wear green and raise a glass to a man most of them cannot describe. Here is who Patrick actually was.

The Boy on the Mountain

Around 385 AD, a boy was born in Roman Britain to a deacon's family. At sixteen, Irish raiders hit his village, dragged him across the sea in chains, and sold him into slavery. For six years he worked as a shepherd on Slemish Mountain. Cold. Starving. Alone. He later wrote that he prayed a hundred times by day and a hundred by night. That mountain became his prayer closet.

Then God spoke: "See, your ship is ready." He walked two hundred miles to the coast, found a ship, and escaped home.

He could have stayed. He was free. Instead, he became a bishop, and then he did the unthinkable. He went back. He had a vision of the Irish calling to him, begging him to return. So he sailed back into the land that enslaved him to preach the gospel to his captors.

He went back for their souls.

They Were All Dangerous

Patrick was the pattern. The men who built the early church walked toward death. Peter was crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die like his Lord. Polycarp was burned at the stake at eighty-six years old. When they asked him to deny Christ, he answered: "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"

You cannot stop a man who is not afraid to die. Total surrender made them dangerous to the enemy. A man fully given to God is the most threatening thing in the spiritual realm.

Battle Order:

• Go back to the hard place. Patrick returned to Ireland. What territory have you abandoned? A relationship, a calling, a conversation you keep avoiding. Walk back in.

• Pray like a man on a mountain. Patrick prayed two hundred times a day as a slave with nothing. What is your excuse?

• Stop protecting your comfort. The apostles did not account their lives as precious. Neither should you, not when there is a mission in front of you.

Father, make us dangerous men. Men the enemy notices. Men who walk back into hard places because You walked into ours first. In Jesus' name. Amen.