One step at a time

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."

- Mother Teresa

Many times we get overwhelmed by the amount of injustice and wrong in the world.  We are constantly bombarded by 24-hour news channels, fundraising letters, plights of friends and family broadcast through e-mail and on Facebook.  We perhaps begin to think that the little bit that I could do wouldn't really make much difference at all, so why bother?

It is true we cannot do everything to solve the problems of the world.  We may not even be able to do much to fix the problems that our closest friends and family experience.  Despite the fact we cannot do it all, that does not excuse us from doing what we can.  Hunger will be solved by feeding one person at a time.  Destroying poverty will be accomplished by offering one person a job to better his or her family.  Reaching the world for Christ will occur when every Christian talks to just one other person about Jesus.

Friend, don't become overwhelmed that you can't do it all.  Just do what you can, where you are, and allow God to work through you.  The people you influence will go on to influence others and so will begin a chain reaction that can indeed change the world.

Speak up for Christ

"The Gospel is only good news if it gets there in time." 

— Carl F. H. Henry

Last night at worship, we sang as an invitation hymn "There's a Great Day Coming."  If you are not familiar with the song it progresses along the verses by placing adjectives in front of the word "day" to describe the day of Christ's return.  The day is described as "great" and "bright" and finally as a "sad" day.

Judgment will be a sad day for many who will hear the Lord say, "Depart, I never knew you."  How terrible it would be to hear those words on the Day of Judgment.  The knowledge of what was or what might have been will haunt many people throughout eternity.

Perhaps sadder still will be when those condemned perhaps turn to the Christians they knew in this life and say, "You never mentioned Him to me.  In all the times we went to dinner, at all the ballgames we attended, on all our coffee breaks at work you knew this truth and did not share it."  How will Christians respond?  How would you respond?  We won't be 5 minutes into eternity before every Christian that ever lived will wish they had prayed more for the lost, spoken more about Jesus, given more of their time, money and resources to the cause of Christ.

One day everyone will hear the Gospel, but for the majority of people it will be too late.  Let us make the most of our opportunities to speak up for Christ so that others may enjoy the great day that is soon approaching.  If we fail to speak, it maybe that Christ will have a hard time remembering knowing us as well.

“When you pray, move your feet.” 

-An African proverb

"Sympathy is no substitute for action."

-David Livingstone

"The challenge is not merely to pursue righteousness, but to prefer righteousness."

-John Piper

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

-Jim Elliot

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages."

To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

"'Not called!' Did you say?"

'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.'

"Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world."

 — William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

"God never hurries.  There are no deadlines against which He must work.  To know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves."

-A.W. Tozer

Thanks, Keith Green, for a little perspective...

Keith Green took the words of an Old Testament prophet (Samuel) to a king and spoke them to his generation. We need more Christian artists and ministers doing the same.  Taking a Biblical concept and applying it (correctly) to our times.  Keith has gone on, just has another old soul in Rich Mullins, but their ministry of hymns lives on.  To God be the glory in the church now and forevermore.

"To obey is better than sacrifice

I don't need your money

I want your life

And I hear you say that I'm coming back soon

But you act like I'll never return

Well you speak of grace and my love so sweet

How you thrive on milk, but reject My meat

And I can't help weeping of how it will be

If you keep on ignoring My words

Well you pray to prosper and succeed

But your flesh is something I just can't feed

To obey is better than sacrifice

I want more than Sunday and Wednesday nights

Cause if you can't come to Me every day

Then don't bother coming at all

To obey is better than sacrifice

I want hearts of fire

Not your prayers of ice

And I'm coming quickly

To give back to you

According to what you have done

According to what you have done

According to what you have done"