The Contagious Christian

How does a fire spread? What makes the flame pass from one thing to the next? The simple answer: heat. If you get something hot enough, it will usually burst into flame. Once the fire is started, it will spread to virtually anything it touches.

Christianity is like a fire. As long as the Gospel of Jesus Christ touches unbelievers, it will continue to spread throughout the world. The fire started in Israel with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and it spread as His disciples took His story all over the world, telling everyone who would listen. This process has continued for 2000 years and it's still burning and spreading today.

So how can you spread the Gospel like a wildfire? Well, first of all, you need to be hot enough. How do you get hot? You need to be in the fire. The Bible describes God as a consuming fire (Exod. 24:17; Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). He burns bright and hot; He shows us the truth and consumes our impurities. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. If we do not stay close to God, any flame we have will go out.

As Jesus tells us in John 15:4, "Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." You cannot effectively share the truth, love, and power of Jesus Christ if you do not remain in Him. You don't have what it takes by yourself; His flame needs to be in you and it needs to be fed every day. So the first step to being a contagious Christian is to have a saving faith in Jesus Christ that is actively growing every day.

Secondly, once you have that flame burning within you, you need to take it to others. This may sound simple, but it means that you have to get close enough for those around you to see the light and feel the heat inside you. Just because you sit next to someone every day in school does not mean that you are "close." In order to be close to someone, you have to know each other on a personal level. Usually this means being friends.Yes, I am implying that you become friends with people who are not Christians. Otherwise, they likely won't see the depth of your faith in God. If you keep people at a distance, the flame that God has sparked in you will not pass to them. You may be wondering, "Won't non-Christians have a bad influence on me?" It's certainly possible, but if you remain in Jesus, He will keep your paths straight and the evil in the world will not lead you astray.

As the song says, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." If we are going to let our lights shine, we have to make sure they stay lit. We need to stay connected to God. And if we are going to pass our light on to others, we need to hold it close them. The world may not like our light, our flame may singe and burn, but they need it to be saved. Don't keep your light from them.

The Fight of Your Life

“[F]aith will fight anything that gets between it and Christ. The distinguishing mark of saving faith is not perfection. The mark of faith is not that I never sin . . . The mark of faith is that I fight. I fight anything that dims my sight of Jesus as my glorious Savior. I fight anything that diminishes the fullness of the lordship of Jesus in my life. I fight anything that threatens to replace Jesus as the supreme Treasure of my life. Anything that stands between me and receiving Jesus faith fights – not with fists or knives or guns or bombs, but with the truth of Christ.” - John Piper

Do you have a survivor's instinct? If you are like a lot of people, you probably don't know because you have never been tested. For the most part, we lead pretty safe lives. Some of us might live a little more dangerously than others, but we typically don't go through our days fearing for our lives.

Perhaps you wrestled or boxed or you have been in a fight with a bully. But consider trying to fight off something or someone that has every intention of killing you? If you have never faced something like that, it's difficult to imagine because we aren't used to our lives being threatened in this country.
Maybe you've been rock climbing and you know what it's like to hang off a cliff 40+ feet in the air. But what if you had no rope or harness? It's no longer just a sport, it's a do-or-die situation.

As long as there are rules, safety measures, referees, etc., it's just a challenge. But once your life is put on the line everything changes . . . you are in a fight to the death. There are no rules; there are no style points; there is no second place; there is no such thing as fighting fair or fighting dirty. Adrenaline and panic set in as you go into survival mode. Your Fight-or-Flight response is preparing you fight harder, run faster, or hold tighter than you ever thought you could . . . because if you don't, you're dead.

What if you didn't realize the danger? What if your Fight-or-Flight mechanism never got a chance to kick in? That's where the phrase, "Like a lamb to the slaughter," comes from. Everyday, your faith, your spiritual life, is threatened and you probably don't even know it!
If God is the air that your faith needs to breathe, then Satan is the assassin holding you under water to drown you. He will do anything he can to keep you cut off from your life support. As long as Satan can keep you separated from God, you are not a threat to him because your faith will be dead.

If you don't fight, if you don't resist, your faith will shrivel up and die. Are you going to just lie there and let Satan suffocate you? Or are you going to kick, bite, scratch, and scream out to God for help? I encourage you today to choose to fight! Fight against temptation, laziness, deception, and anything else that separates you from the love and grace of God. Read His Word everyday so that you will be equipped with His truth and pray for God's Holy Spirit to empower you to do what is right. And never give up! Never stop fighting!

Read, Pray, Grow!

Whether you call it Quiet Time or Daily Devotions, I'm sure many of you have heard about the importance of praying and reading your Bible everyday. Most Christians know that these two things are really important for growing in their faith and in their relationship with God. But if we know these things are such a big deal, why do so many of us find it difficult to pray and read our Bibles each day?

Usually we say we are too busy, but that has to be the lamest excuse in the world! I know because I have hidden behind it myself. The truth is that we all make time for what is important to us. Of course there are days when school or work gets so out of hand that we hardly have time to eat or sleep, but those are usually rare and can be prevented if we manage our time well. On an average day, we all have time to crack open a Bible and read a few verses. We also have time to talk to a God who is always with us. All you have to do is start talking wherever you are!

These are two very simple things! And that might be part of the problem. They're so simple that we don't believe it actually makes a difference whether we do them or not. I can relate to that. Perhaps you've tried to read a chapter of the Bible each day and yet you continue to struggle with the same sins over and over. Maybe you've prayed for God to heal someone and he or she never got better. But we need to understand that reading our Bibles and praying to God are not supposed to be the means to get what we want.

God has given us His Word so that we can know who He is and do what He has called us to do. Like James says, we shouldn't just read the word; we should also do what it says (James 1:22). And it's not like we have to read for an hour every day. Some times reading just a few verses is plenty of instruction for one day. But don't stop there! Read a few more the next day, and the day after that, etc. You don't have to master the whole Bible in a month or a year! Obeying the Lord is a lifetime commitment; it's ok to take things one step at a time.

The same thing is true for when you pray. Jesus told us not to worry about using a lot of words when we talk to God; (Matthew 6:7) we certainly aren't going to impress Him with any fancy words. Yes, He is the all-powerful God who created the universe and He deserves the utmost respect. But He is also your friend who loves you and wants to hear from you. Talk to Him throughout the day. Tell Him what you are worried about and ask Him for help; tell Him what you are happy about and thank Him for the many ways He has blessed you. As Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, "pray continually." That doesn't mean you have to stay on your knees all day with your hands folded and your eyes tightly shut. But know that God is always with you, wherever you go, and you can talk to Him throughout the day.

So I challenge you to make Scripture and Prayer part of your daily lifestyle. It won't work you just try it out for a little while. You need to make a commitment and actually live this way for the rest of your life. That kind of change isn't easy. But if you stick with it and continually ask God to work in you, I guarantee He will change your life in ways you never thought possible.

You can start now! Just pick a book of the Bible (like Genesis, Psalms, Proverbs, Matthew, John, Romans, etc.) and read the first few verses. Don't do it to check it off your to-do list. Find out how God wants you to live and do it! And start making a habit of talking to God throughout the day. He can be your closest friend if you let Him.

The Greatest Love Story

"As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.'" 2 Corinthians 6:16b

Do you know what the Bible is? Yeah, it's an old book, but how would you describe it? What is this book about? Do you think you know? Are you willing to take a guess?

Many different people will give many different answers to this question, some of them true and some of them false. Some think the Bible is just a book of rules; a simple list of Do's and Don'ts. Others think its just a historical artifact. And many Christians will give you the Sunday School answer and say, "It's the inerrant Word of God."

Now I'm certainly not going to argue with that last one. The Bible really is the true, inspired Word of God, written through people who walked closely with Him. But have you ever thought of the Bible as an epic love story? Try not to think of cheesy romance novels or romantic comedies. They barely have anything to do with actual love and they certainly are not epic. I'm talking about the greatest love the world has ever known. The love between God and His people. A love that spans thousands of years.
If you don't quite see it, just look at the key events in the Bible: God makes people to be in relationship with Him. They sin against Him, severing that relationship. And the rest of the Bible is about how God saves His people from their sin so that He can restore that deep relationship. This story is both tragic and epic. Over and over God tries to draw near to His people and over and over, for centuries, the people reject Him and turn away.

Just look at all the times in the Bible where God says, "I will be their God and they will be my people." It begins when God establishes His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17: “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” (v. 7).

Many years later, God refers to His covenant and uses similar words when He talks to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus 6: “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.’” (v. 5-7a).

Then God establishes the nation of Israel and dwells among them through the tabernacle/temple and the ministry of the priesthood: "So I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God." (Exodus 29:44-46).

But even after being delivered from Egypt as well as many other enemies afterward, the nation of Israel continually turns away from God in favor of false gods and wicked practices. God sent prophets like Jeremiah to remind His people of what He had done for them and what He had promised: “For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrificed, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:22-24).

And so the people suffered the consequences for turning away from God. Israel was divided and conquered by other civilizations. And the temple, God's dwelling among His people, was destroyed. But even then, God did not give up on them or stop loving them. Even when the people were captives in a foreign land, God sent prophets such as Ezekiel to tell them that a new covenant was coming: "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever." (Ezekiel 37:26-28).*

Then, after years of waiting, that new covenant was made through the sacrifice of God's own Son, sent in the form of a man to die for humanity: "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28).**

But the story does not end with Christ's death. He rose again after three days, ascended back up into heaven. (Matthew 28 and Acts 1) Now that Jesus has died for our sins, God has made is dwelling within His people; we are now the temple and God lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:21-22).

Today, the story still has not quite ended, but the book of Revelation tells us that it will be a very happy ending indeed: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'" (Revelation 21:3-4).

This goes far beyond those stories where we hope the guy gets the girl in the end. At the end of this story, the God of the universe finally "gets" His people back after thousands of years of separation by sin. Their relationship is fully healed and restored and will never be threatened again.

That (in a nutshell) is what the Bible is all about. And the best part is that it's a true story!

*See also Jeremiah 31:31-34
**See also John 3:16-17

Identity Crisis

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him." 1 John 3:1

These days we seem to hear a lot about Identity Theft. We see commercials about it all the time on TV: "Do you have Identity Theft protection?" "If your identity is stolen it can be difficult to get back." And on and on, but can anyone "steal" who you are?
You are not your Social Security number, credit card number, bank account number, driver's license number, etc. Identity theft is just a matter of information; it has absolutely nothing to do with identity.

Here are just a couple of definitions about identity: 1.) "the state or fact of remaining the same one, as under varying aspects or conditions" 2.) "the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another." I am who I am and nobody can change that. There are far worse things than having someone "steal my identity" like not knowing who I am in the first place.

That might sound ridiculous to some people, but when you really think about it, how do you really know WHO you are? We've already pointed out that things like Social Security numbers and other forms of documented identification can be stolen, forged, and whatnot so we can't rely on a piece of paper or plastic to tell us who we are.You have your name, but how many other people have the same name? If you have your name legally changed, does that mean you're a different person? No, your identity goes deeper than just your name.

"Well," you say, "there's my unique personality." Yes, there is that, but even our personality changes over time. As we get older we change the way we think, the way we act (some more than others), but just because my personality changes over time, does that mean I've become a different person?

Some people (especially girls) think their identity is connected to their body. But I can assure you that your identity is not skin-deep. No matter how good anyone looks now, everyone gets old, everyone's body changes and everyone's body eventually decomposes and fades away.

Other people try to answer the question of "Who am I?" with their social status or with what they do. "I'm a businessman," "I'm a doctor," "I'm a police officer," "I'm a baseball player," but what you do does not change who you are. What people say about you does not change who you are. What if an athlete has a career-ending injury? What if a world class singer loses her voice? What if you get fired from your job and end up doing something completely different for a living? Are they no longer the same person if they can't play football, sing an opera, or run the company? No, they remain the same person, they just do different things now.

If our identities are permanent, then in order to find out who we are, we have to look to the one thing in the universe that does not change: God. God made me. I am His child. The world can say whatever it wants about me (good or bad), but no one can change the fact that I am His. The world may not think much of me, but God finds me valuable because I AM HIS CHILD. I should never take that lightly because God certainly doesn't. He loves me because I am His, period. End of story. Nothing else matters.

You too can find your identity in Him. You are also His creation, His child. It's only a matter of whether you are willing to be identified with Him. Are you going to be the teenage daughter who is constantly embarrassed by the things her father does and says, "I'm not with him; that is so not my dad." Or will you be the young child who is so proud of his father that he goes up to everyone saying, "That's my daddy!"

No matter what you say or do, you will always be a child of God, uniquely created by Him for a special purpose. Whether you embrace that identity or reject it is up to you. But if you don't want to be considered among God's children, what alternative do you have left? Who ARE you?

Living Water

Many Christians are probably fairly comfortable with Jesus. We know much of the world rejects Him and His claim to be the Son of God, but we Christians believe in Him. We know about His story and His teaching and, for the most part, we have a pretty good understanding of Jesus . . . or at least we think we do.Read John 4:7-26 and you'll see that people (Christian or not) really don't know how to handle Jesus because they want Him to fit their own expectations. In the first two verses, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. Right away she's thrown for a loop because 1.) He's a Jew and 2.) He's a man. A Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman is already pushing it, but a Jew would never eat or drink from something a Samaritan had used. Jesus disregards the silly limitations humans put on themselves and each other.

When the woman asks Jesus how He could ask her for a drink, Jesus responds by telling her that if she knew who He was, she would be asking Him for "living water." Of course, He is using an illustration, but she takes Him literally. Noticing that He has no bucket or pitcher of any kind, she asks where He's going to get this water. Rather than pointing out her error directly, Jesus simply continues with the illustration saying that whoever drinks the "water" He gives will never thirst again and the "water" will become a spring "welling up to eternal life."The woman replies by telling Jesus to give her some of this water so she won't have to keep drawing water from the well for the rest of her life. She still doesn't get it. Now Jesus becomes very direct with her. He tells her to get her husband and come back. When she tells him she has no husband, Jesus says she's right and that in fact she's had five husbands and the man she is now with is not her husband. This woman would probably be considered "loose" in our culture today, but in that day and age, her lifestyle was beyond scandalous. One can only imagine the look on her face at this point or how long she stood there speechless before changing the subject.

And that's exactly what she does. She brings up and age-old disagreement between the Jews and Samaritans about the proper location to worship God. Jesus tells her that this dispute will soon be a mute point. Still not quite understanding Him, the woman says the Messiah is coming and he will explain everything. Again, it's up to our imagination to determine how she must have reacted when Jesus followed with "I who speak to you am he."Now some of us might make the mistake of looking at the Samaritan woman and thinking, "Boy, was she dense!" as if we're somehow better than she is. But how many of us continue to be limited by the ways of the world today. Jesus says love your neighbors and love your enemies, but in our hearts we say "He can't expect me to love so-and-so" and whether because of fear or pride or both we fail to obey Christ.

Thus, our sin blinds us to His teaching. Even pastors and scholars have argued and disputed for centuries about various theological issues that are essentially mute points and ignore the sin in their own lives. Jesus is willing the point it out to us, but we would rather change the subject because it isn't comfortable. The time to address it is not tomorrow. Jesus is here NOW! And He's speaking to you.

The Kingdom

Here's a question for you: What is THE most important thing going on in the world right now? If you think about it, there must be something going on right now that has more significance than everything else. But what might it be? The war in Iraq? The presidential election campaigns? Perhaps, somewhere in the world, an inventor is working on some new, revolutionary product that will drastically change some aspect of the world as we know it today.
While all of these things have significance, I don't believe any of them are even close to the most important thing going on in the world right now. No, the most important thing happening right now is something most people can't even see: it's the advancement of God's Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. I would challenge anyone to come up with something more significant than that.

Now I would guess that most people are kind of vague on the whole notion of "The Kingdom of Heaven" and I must admit that I am no expert myself. But we can look and see what Jesus said about it. One of the points that Jesus preached was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matt. 4:17 NIV). Other translations read, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Either way, there is great urgency in this statement.

The Jews had been waiting for the Messiah to usher in God's kingdom, but they thought it would be a physical one that would dethrone the Roman Empire. Instead, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. It starts out very small, but grows into this large plant (Matt. 13:31-32). The Kingdom isn't just coming sometime in the future at the end of the world, it's coming now and has been coming for the past 2000 years. Jesus started it with His ministry here on earth and has been continuing the process through the disciples and the Church.

Over the past two millennia, history has seen the rise and fall of many kingdoms, empires and nations. But God's Kingdom has steadily continued to grow and expand and it will never be overthrown. The message of the Gospel continues to travel throughout the world as it reaches the most remote peoples and, after 2000 years, still has the power to change hearts. Year after year more and more followers have put their faith in Jesus Christ and devoted themselves to advancing his Kingdom here on earth.

If Jesus' earthly ministry had taken Him to the Swiss Alps, He might have told this parable to the local residents: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like an avalanche. It begins with a small vibration, but builds to an unstoppable force."

The Kingdom is coming even now. Even though it is a process, eventually it will be complete. Where do you want to be standing when all is said and done? Do you want to be one of those who was advancing the Kingdom of Heaven? Or do you want to be known as one who was standing its way? Remember, in a spiritual battle there are no civilians.