Ninja.
I met Tyler "Ninja" Blevins last week through an article. He plays a video game called "fortnite" for a living. He visits with his wife for a half hour in the morning and then he streams fortnite for six hours or so. He pauses around 4 in the afternoon and then gets back on the stream around 8pm for another six hours or so, wrapping up around 2am. Forgive the novice here. What is actually happening is that while he plays this video game for 12 hours a day, people have subscribed through paying money to be able to watch him play this video game called fortnite against other people. Through those that pay to watch him play and the advertisement levels that he has reached with, for example 3.29 million followers on Twitter, his income is estimated at being around $1 million dollars a month.
A million bucks a month for streaming. This is what the official definition for streaming is from whomever it is that has the authority to say that this is the definition! STREAMING: a method of transmitting or receiving data (especially video and audio material) over a computer network as a steady, continuous flow, allowing playback to proceed while subsequent data is being received.
Streaming is a thing.
Streaming is a thing.
You and I are thirsty. Ninja is thirsty. I think we're more thirsty than we care to admit or believe. It's desperate, raw thirst. I just don't look like it or live like it all the time, out loud. But inside, somehow in the guts of Damon, there is raw, desperate thirst for the ravaging beauty of Jesus.....or something. The "or something" is just simply the reality that people don't always know or acknowledge that it's the beautiful, flowing, consuming Jesus that we're thirsty for. Ninja AND me.
Streaming is old. Bible book of John, chapter 7, verses 37 and 38. It's at the end of this special week called the Feast of Tabernacles. Each day the people and Jesus have walked together to a water spring called the spring of Gihon. They have sung each time they went to the spring of Gihon the words found in the bible book of Isaiah, chapter 12 and verse 3. "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." Later that day, Jesus stands up, with the daily memory of the visit to the spring and says...."If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever (Damon, Ninja, you) believes in Me...streams of living water will flow from within him."
Streaming is a thing.
God pours into you and me and Ninja. Godly torrents of pouring the real stream, blood bought, pulsing life of Jesus Himself in a human life. What happens? A cyclical quenching. Our thirst is quenched....and we keep wanting more and more of Him. Addictive. Thanks be to God. Addictive. And then we pour out, following Jesus. Streams of Jesus-drenched, living water flow out of us. And in this addictive cycle begins a holy repetition for the glory of God and the sanctification and the salvation of the peoples.
Steady. Continuous. Flow.
You? Me? Ninja?
There's more.