Who is someone you could go out and encourage today? What random stranger could you give an unexpected, unknown encouragement to? Your encouragement to them today will mean a lot coming from you. You could give a random friend a hug and tell them you’re happy that the two of you are friends. You could call up a random friend and tell them you miss them and are praying for them.
You see Christian, you and I are the watchmen. We must show the love and grace of Jesus. We must not pull the punches and fail to speak when there is truth that must be declared. We must be brutally honest. This world needs (though often does not want to hear) the truth and it needs to be bold in our proclamation of what is true. However, we must speak the truth in love.
We go days, weeks and months without purposely being still. When we are caught in a situation where we must wait we are bored out of our minds. We’re impatient as we wait and become crankier and more irritated the longer that waiting lasts. Some of us have ways of dealing with these times and they often involve either taking a nap or whipping out our smart phone to surf the internet, text, e-mail or something fun or work related to pass the time and feel productive.
If you find yourself admiring the One who made our souls to run on Himself, what else would you find that would be more satisfactory to your soul? If you find yourself delighting in the one who made laughter, joy and happiness, what else do you think would bring you joy in this life? Once you have delighted yourself in the Lord, I believe your heart will want nothing else besides Him.
We all know that God has a plan for our lives. I think often we’re afraid that plan will be boring or that His plan will lead us somewhere we don’t want to go. I think we often hope that God will bless our plans. That He will simply let us drive and just come along for the ride. But what if living like that wasn’t God’s plan for us? I think the concept of God’s will for our lives has left Christians divided and confused.
But make no mistake, when I talk about faith, I mean how you live your life–the whole thing–however you live it. We all have faith. The question more often than not is what are you putting that faith in? You trust your doctor. You trust your bank. You trust that chair you’re sitting in. You trust yourself. You trust that you won’t forget that password. You trust your parents. You trust that the chef of the dinner you’re eating won’t spit in your food. We all are living by faith in what we don’t know, can’t see and don’t even consciously think about.
He watches their face as they hear about who Jesus is and what He has done for them. Then just like on Christmas morning and you realize just all the nifty things your gift can actually do–God waits to see the smile on that person’s face when they realize their sins can be forgiven through Jesus. You know, the Bible is chalked full of stories about people who heard about God’s gift to them for the first time.
That doesn’t sound safe. That doesn’t sound like Abraham was in his comfort zone. That doesn’t sound like Abraham was trusting in himself and leaning on his own understanding. Further, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son–the one thing that was his dream and his great love and joy Abraham was willing to do this demonstrating that he loved God more than anything or anyone else (see Luke 14:26). Would you be willing to follow God to a foreign land or be willing to give up as a sacrifice to God the one thing/person you loved the most?
Think about the phrases we use. “Ask Jesus into your heart” “Become born again.” “Trust Jesus with your soul.” “Just believe.” These things become “Christianise” to the world. Here’s the thing. There’s not a specific terminology. There’s not a special wording you need when you pray. There’s no secret or magic based on what you say when you pray or exact wording to use when you ask for grace. God is more interested with what is in your heart then how many “hail Mary”s you can say and He cares more about what you do than whether or not you can recite the Lord’s Prayer.
I got in the car to drive home just like any other day. But on this particular day… it was different. My heart was still pounding in my chest as I got in the car. I turned on the air as I drove home hoping that would calm me down. I cranked up the music. Hot tears flooded my eyes–I blinked in an attempt to make them go away. I finally pulled my car into my driveway and let out a deep sigh hoping I could convince myself everything was going to be ok.