Mission of God – Page 2

Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Five)

Chapter Four of Talent For A Mission ends with the final verses of Luke 15: 25-32 of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the brother of the prodigal son, who has always been faithful to his father and has always done the work his father required, becomes angry with the father because his “lost” and “riotous living” younger brother, upon returning to his father, is feted with a fatted calf—while this always faithful son was NEVER treated with such a reward! So this older brother gets on his dad’s case for this “royalty” treatment to a wayward brother who wasted his inheritance when he could have not wasted it.

Below are the verses from Luke 15:25-32—

{15:25} Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.

{15:26} And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant.

{15:27} And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.

{15:28} And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.

{15:29} And he answering said to [his] father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:

{15:30} But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

{15:31} And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.

{15:32} It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

To sum up, the elder son is angry because the younger ‘prodigal’ son is getting a hefty “fatted calf” reward just because he gave up the “riotous” lifestyle and returned to his father, a hefty reward father never had given to him. One would think the elder son would be thrilled his younger brother gave up that wasteful lifestyle and returned to his father after learning the negative consequences of that wasteful lifestyle.

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission: Chapter Four (Part Five)”

Talent For A Mission, Chapter Two (Part Three)—My Personal ‘Why’ Continued—Why Fiction?

In this continuation of Chapter Two of Talent For A Mission (© 2023 Deborah Lagarde), I explain why I have used fiction to carry out my own ‘mission of God’ instead of non-fiction…with this non-fiction ‘guide’ being an exception, so far. Below is Part Three of the ‘why’ scenario in Chapter Two:

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Talent For A Mission, Chapter One (Part One)…The Why

I am only providing, in this post, “the why” for this “guide” or “manual” as to why I think it might be a good idea for authors who claim to believe on Jesus Christ to use their writing “talent” to try to convince others of their own free will to repent of whatever sins and accept Christ as Lord and Savior–to be “born again.” That is, having been born of water (in the flesh), to be born “again” in the Spirit. And now is the time for me to present this “guide,” for it seems more and more as if the world has gone crazy, especially now with wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East. To the point where many preachers are now claiming we are either in “the end times” or fast approaching “the end times.”

Maybe. Maybe not. But whether we are coming close to “the end times” or not, it is still a good idea to follow what Christ told His Apostles upon His resurrection return (before going up to Heaven): to make Disciples of all nations (as said in Matthew 28:19–“Go ye therefore and teach all nations…”). A “mission of God” so-to-speak. From Chapter One of Talent For A Mission, copyright © 2023 by Deborah Lagarde:

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission, Chapter One (Part One)…The Why”

Coming Next: Talent For A Mission

I am still working on completing Talent For A Mission, which is a manual or guide or encouragement…call it what you will…for Christian authors of (mostly) fiction novels or stories or short novels to use the “talent” God gave them to get the Word out about why one should consider or choose or ‘re-choose’ accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. To do what Christ (after His resurrection) told His apostles to do–make disciples of all nations (at the end of the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 28, for one).

The Prodigal Band Trilogy is based on the Luke 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son. Talent for a Mission is based on another parable, the Parable of the Talents, from the Gospel of Matthew 25: 14-30 (from the King James Bible PDF version):

{25:14} For [the kingdom of heaven is] as a man
travelling into a far country, [who] called his own servants,
and delivered unto them his goods. {25:15} And unto one
he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to
every man according to his several ability; and straightway
took his journey. {25:16} Then he that had received the five
talents went and traded with the same, and made [them]
other five talents. {25:17} And likewise he that [had
received] two, he also gained other two. {25:18} But he that
had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his
lord’s money. {25:19} After a long time the lord of those
servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. {25:20} And so
he that had received five talents came and brought other five
talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents:
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
{25:21} His lord said unto him, Well done, [thou] good and
faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I
will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the
joy of thy lord. {25:22} He also that had received two
talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two
talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
{25:23} His lord said unto him, Well done, good and
faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I
will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the
joy of thy lord. {25:24} Then he which had received the one
talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard
man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering
where thou hast not strawed: {25:25} And I was afraid, and
went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, [there] thou hast
[that is] thine. {25:26} His lord answered and said unto
him, [Thou] wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that
I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not
strawed: {25:27} Thou oughtest therefore to have put my
money to the exchangers, and [then] at my coming I should
have received mine own with usury. {25:28} Take therefore
the talent from him, and give [it] unto him which hath ten
talents. {25:29} For unto every one that hath shall be given,
and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he hath. {25:30} And
cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness

In other words, if God gave an author the talent to author for His purpose, then that author ought to use that talent in writing, to “make disciples of all nations,” and for other purposes promoting good as opposed to evil, or for the purpose of exposing evil (using fiction or non-fiction). That is the purpose of my writing a ‘manual’ so-to-speak, to promote the idea that if an author believes on Christ, then that author should perform that ‘mission’ that God gave him or her.

The next post will be the first chapter of Talent For A Mission, which tells why a Christian author should take that ‘mission,’ and why I was inspired to write this ‘manual’ in the first place. Cheers!

Merry Christmas! And Some ‘Prophetic’ Warnings ‘Predicted’ Within The Prodigal Band Trilogy

First off, a Merry Christmas to all readers and followers, and to those who have websites and blogs I follow as well. On top of that, have a blessed New Year.

Christmas of course is the celebration of the birth of Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, regardless of whether one thinks He was born on December 25 or not. Many claim He was born more likely in fall or autumn due to the fact within the Gospels that harvest time was near, and others claim that the date of December 25 was chosen by early religious authorities to appeal to the pagans who worshiped Mithras and other false gods who supposedly were born on December 25. The fact that He was born is good enough for me!

Further, the Biblical Book of Isaiah, Chapter 53, prophesies His birth and purpose, using passages such as—verse 4: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; verse 5: But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.; verse 7: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,; verse 12: he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. And other verses. In Isaiah Chapter 7 is this key prophetic verse 14: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. The Gospel of Matthew Chapter 1 verse 23 verifies this prophecy: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Speaking of ‘prophecy,’ just as my The Prodigal Band Trilogy is called what it is called because the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son was a key inspiration for the trilogy, the second novel of the trilogy is called The Prophesied Band for a reason: it contains ‘prophesies’ or, really, predictions, about the future, including some ‘end-times’-like scenarios—when the novel was published in 1998.

Here are some examples, or should I say, snippets indicating predictions which seem to be happening in these days, all from The Prophesied Band.

Continue reading “Merry Christmas! And Some ‘Prophetic’ Warnings ‘Predicted’ Within The Prodigal Band Trilogy”

An Introduction to “Talent for a Mission—A Guide for Christian Authors”

Back in early January 2022, I put up a post here, mentioning a ‘New Years Resolution’ Christian authors might consider, especially authors of fiction, about using the writing talent God gave them to help ‘make disciples of all nations,’ a task Christ Himself assigned to His disciples upon their witnessing that He had risen from the dead (Matthew 28:19). The ‘guide’ is pretty much completed and will likely be uploaded to this site later this year as a FREE PDF for download. Hopefully, it will inspire Christian authors to follow that task! Below is a snippet of the first couple of pages, though I left out a few paragraphs relating to peoples who likely have not ‘heard the Word’ yet, but will at some point, as prophesy claims that before ‘the end’ comes, all peoples will be given the opportunity to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. Below is the snippet:

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Random Trilogy Snippets of Random Events That Lead to Climactic Events, Part Two (from The Prophesied Band)

In terms of what most would call a “climactic event” within a novel, this snippet scenario in this post might not classify as a climactic event in strict terms, but for the band members that witness this event, it should be, seeing as how they react when they find out a secret they had no knowledge about.

Note: I removed the “spoiler alerts” in these snippets.

The climactic event to finish Battle of the Band, where singer Erik and bassist Keith are in comas at a local private hospital in their home city of Walltown and encounter good vs. evil in their spiritual voids as their fellows watch over them and as the evil Swami Negran attempts to capture their souls for the satanic Corion (thwarted by God’s angels, the Tooters, and their agent, the ‘witch’ of the Hovels), gets recounted within Chapters Four and Five of The Prophesied Band.

In this snippet, it turns out that Swami couldn’t capture their souls, as hard as he tried. So Corion, the devil character, punished Negran by causing him to disappear from the hospital. Negran was in fact taken by Corion into Corion’s abyss where the Creator had placed him in Chapter One of Battle of the Band as punishment for Corion’s rebellion against God. But Negran wouldn’t be the only one Corion takes into the abyss. In 50 AD, Crynnwagg, high priest of the cannibal Crag-Dweller cult, was also done that way. Why? And then he escaped the abyss. Why? Hmmmm…. From Chapter Five of The Prophesied Band:

Continue reading “Random Trilogy Snippets of Random Events That Lead to Climactic Events, Part Two (from The Prophesied Band)”

Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Four: The Biggest Battle is Spiritual (Part Four)

Welcome to the fourth The Prodigal Band Trilogy snippet post dealing with spiritual battles between the forces of good vs. evil, and between good or evil forces and the characters, notably the band members. This post isn’t really a spiritual ‘battle,’ though this action, where the Tooters, angels of ‘the Almighty,’ speak directly to each member of the prodigal band Sound Unltd—simultaneously—brings about a battle of sorts later! And what these angels speak is each band member’s ‘mission of God’ that the ‘witch’ of the Hovels, at the behest of the Tooters, informed the band about at a recent meeting, which took place across from the Tooters statue in Victoria Park in the band’s home city of Walltown, early June, 2000.

For she had already instructed the band leader Jack as well as drummer Tom that the band must perform at the upcoming Walltown Music and Trade Festival that would take place July 15-16, as headliners. In other words, the band had roughly six weeks to get the festival set-ups ready for hundreds of thousands of festival goers, including setting up bleachers on either side of the park as well as large video screens and television and recording crews—and the band would pay the entire costs of the festival, and would perform for free!

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How I Wrote The Prodigal Band Trilogy, Part Three

At the end of Part Two, I said that an actual spiritual incident I witnessed, which caused me to commit to Christ as Lord and Savior, inspired me to figure out a way to complete the ‘prodigal band’ story (using the Parable of the Prodigal Son as a guide) so as to create a novel trilogy that could spread ‘the message’ of redemption and salvation that anyone could accept freely, of their own free will. This incident certainly helped me to write The Prophesied Band, which ends with the prodigal band Sound Unltd being given ‘mission of God’ by the spiritual forces of Good. But would the prodigal band, having no idea about how to complete these missions, as well as being either atheist or agnostic toward Christianity and religion in general, be able to truly accept the missions and complete them?

In 1998, The Prophesied Band was published and printed (by a different outfit from the one that printed Battle of the Band), but this time I had far fewer copies printed—a wise decision! During that summer I sold roughly one-third of the number of printed copies at local festivals and writer conferences and made enough money to actually cover the cost of printing. By the following summer, I had sold about half of the book copies, and more than half by the fall of 2000. By then I had another Mac desktop and Corel WordPerfect software knowing that likely the next desktop computer would be using a Windows operating system (for one thing, a new Mac computer is almost double the cost of a Windows computer, and hubby and my kids wanted me to get one with Windows, likely with Windows 98).

Continue reading “How I Wrote The Prodigal Band Trilogy, Part Three”

Parable from Luke 15: Prodigal Son Meets Prodigal Band (Part 3)

In Part One of this Prodigal Son meets Prodigal Band sub-series using Biblical References is recounted the ‘riotous living’ of the band using the talent ‘inheritance’ given to the six band members using their fame and fortunes. In Part Two is recounted their spiritual wastelands and empty lives of alcoholism, drug abuse and personal emptiness. In this Part Three, the prodigal band is coming to grips with the fact that they must turn their lives around and at the same time, spiritual forces of Good are aiding their efforts by giving them ‘missions of God’ beginning in Chapter Nine of The Prophesied Band. The spirit being known as the ‘witch of the Hovels,’ aka Morwenna in The Prodigal Band, tells them that The Tooters, God’s angels, will ‘reveal’ their missions ‘of God’ to them as they perform at the local trade and music festival in the middle of July, 2000. In Chapter Ten, their missions are given to them by The Tooters simultaneously as singer Erik holds the final note of a song for over one minute to end the festival.

Here are the verses that are being considered in this post from Luke 15: 18-20:

15:18: “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee”

15:19: “And am no more worthy to be called they son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”

Verse 20 begins by saying ‘And he arose, and came to his father.’

But while they are willing to carry out their ‘missions,’ they would prefer not to ‘do missions on themselves’ so to speak. While their missions involve spreading the Good News about accepting Christ as Savior, they are not necessarily willing to accept Christ themselves. They believe they’ve been ‘too sinful’ and doubt they could even consider accepting Christ. But that nagging feeling haunts them, knowing that not doing so while being “missionaries” makes them hypocrites. It is the commitment to ‘being hired’ by Christ that is standing in the way. Such that it will take a special nudge by spiritual Good to get them to choose to be ‘hired.’ This happens in the spiritual void they find themselves in Chapter Eleven of The Prodigal Band.

Continue reading “Parable from Luke 15: Prodigal Son Meets Prodigal Band (Part 3)”