The biggest hindrance for a lot of us in sharing Christ is that we don’t see a natural and gracious opportunity to do that. I do a lot of evangelism at Einstein’s Bagels, where I hang out for coffee.

I met a woman there, whom I’ll call Barb, who told me that, though she was Jewish by birth, she was very interested in Christianity. “I guess you could say I’m a seeker,” she said, to my surprise. I prayed for her regularly, and one day we started talking about the gospel. She was fascinated and curious. I discovered that the friend she was eating with was a strong Christian, and Barb had heard the gospel several times. She agreed with things that I said but was noncommittal. I said: “You know, Barb, someday you’re going to have to make a choice. You can’t be neutral about Christ forever.” To my shock, she suddenly became very agitated and teary, even angry. She grabbed her things and ran out. After playing that tape back in my mind a few times to see if I had been out of line, I decided I had just seen the “offense of the gospel” at work.

Another morning I struck up a conversation with a young man who always wore black pants and a white shirt and carried a backpack full of self-help books, some in a foreign language. One day I said to him, “I see you like to read.” I found he was eager to talk. His name, I eventually learned, was Dimitrij, and he was a waiter at a nearby restaurant. The second time we talked, he asked me if he could visit my church. The very next Sunday, he and his girlfriend were in church, and a guest speaker shared the gospel. Dimitrij raised his hand when I gave an invitation to accept Christ. We met several times over coffee until that interest in Jesus blossomed into faith.

Every now and then I’d see a fellow I’ll call Jim — a dentist. I learned that he has a son who is an evangelical missionary. Jim is a sweet and generous guy, and I enjoyed talking with him. I invited him to church a few times, but nothing happened. Then one morning while we were getting coffee, he told me he had made a New Year’s promise to his son to go to church. “I’m preaching this Sunday about the Good Shepherd and lost sheep,” I told him casually. He froze, coffee cup half filled, and just looked at me. “Are you kidding?” he asked. When I assured him I wasn’t kidding, he said “I’ll be there” — and he was.

— Lee Eclov, “Christ in a Coffee Shop,”
Trinity Magazine (Spring 2006)

I will be headed to our mission in Myanmar early Wednesday, so I will not be updating my blog for a while.  I will have no access to the web.  Please keep me in your prayers.  It is a wonderful opportunity to share the Good News.  Prayer that I find natural and gracious opportunities to share Christ.

Michael

One Friday, in a break from work, the teacher asked her students to write the nicest thing they could about each other and hand it in. She compiled the results for each student and, on Monday, gave out the lists.

Several years later, Mark was killed in Vietnam. After the funeral, many classmates gathered with Mark’s parents and the teacher for lunch. Mark’s father took a wallet out of his pocket. “They found this on Mark when he was killed,” he said. He carefully removed a folded, refolded, and taped paper — on which the teacher had listed the good things Mark’s classmates had said about him.

Other students responded. Charlie smiled sheepishly and said, “I keep my list in my desk drawer.”

Chuck’s wife said, “Chuck put his in our wedding album.”

“I have mine, too, in my diary,” Marilyn said.

Vicky reached into her pocketbook and brought out her frazzled list.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (GW)
¹¹ Therefore, encourage each other and strengthen one another as you are doing.

Your words of encouragement and kindness do more than you ever know.  Speak kindly to another this weekend.  It will be remembered.

Michael

Matthew 12:35 (GW)
³⁵ Good people do the good things that are in them. But evil people do the evil things that are in them.

Luke 6:45 (GW)
⁴⁵ Good people do the good that is in them. But evil people do the evil that is in them. The things people say come from inside them.

Set against Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Erik Larson’s best selling book The Devil in the White City tells the true story of two men, each serving as an extreme example of the good and evil in humans.

Daniel Burnham, one of the greatest architects of his day, was the driving force behind the Chicago World’s Fair, transforming it into a phenomenon that forever changed his country. In less than two years, Burnham supervised the construction of more than two hundred buildings along the coast of Lake Michigan. The largest exhibition, called the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, had enough interior volume to have housed the U.S. Capitol, the Great Pyramid, Winchester Cathedral, Madison Square Garden, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, all at the same time.

The fair attracted more than 27.5 million visitors at a time when the nation’s total population was 65 million.

Dr. H. H. Holmes also achieved notoriety during this era, but not for creating beauty. The year before the fair, Holmes constructed a block-long, three-story building that included a soundproof vault, several gas chambers, and a specially crafted furnace designed to eliminate odors. Holmes called it “The World’s Fair Hotel.” In it he murdered at least twenty-seven men, women, and children. At least that’s what he confessed to. Investigators believed the number was much higher, since fifty young women alone were traced to Holmes’s hotel and were never seen or heard from again.

Burnham was quoted as saying, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Holmes, by contrast, stated, “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.”

We tend to think that things cannot get any worse but the truth is that evil and sorrow have lurked on this earth since Eden.  What you must decide if how you will impact this world.  There is no such things as neutrality.  You seek the good or you permit the wicked.  Take a stand today.

Michael

You have heard the story.

In 1867, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel awoke one morning to read his own obituary in the local paper: “Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be killed in a war than ever before. He died a very rich man.”

Actually, it was Alfred’s older brother who had died. A newspaper reporter had made a mistake. But the account had a profound effect on Alfred. He decided he wanted to be known for something other than developing a means to kill people efficiently and amassing a fortune in the process.

So Nobel initiated the Nobel Prize — an award for scientists and writers who foster peace. “Every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in midstream and write a new one,” Nobel said.

What do you want to be remembered for today?  How do think people will remember you?  The choice is yours.  The time is now.  Choose well.

Michael

Congratulations to Cliff and Michelle Brock.  Proud parents of twins: Chase Wyatt and Claire Isabella

In light of all the economic events, I thought this recollection of Dallas Willard insightful.

As a child I lived in an area of southern Missouri where electricity was available only in the form of lightning. We had more of that than we could use. But in my senior year of high school, the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) extended its lines into the area where we lived, and electrical power became available to households and farms.

When those lines came by our farm, a very different way of living presented itself. Our relationships to fundamental aspects of life — daylight and dark, hot and cold, clean and dirty, work and leisure, preparing food and preserving it — could then be vastly changed for the better. But we still had to believe in the electricity — and take the practical steps involved in relying on it.

You may think the comparison rather crude, and in some respects it is. But it will help us to understand Jesus’ basic message about the kingdom of heaven if we pause to reflect on those farmers who, in effect, heard the message “Repent, for electricity is at hand.” Repent, or turn from their kerosene lamps and lanterns, their iceboxes and cellars, their scrub-boards and rug beaters, their woman-powered sewing machines and their radios with dry-cell batteries.

The power that could make their lives far better was right there near them where, by making relatively simple arrangements, they could utilize it. Strangely, a few did not accept it. They did not enter the kingdom of electricity. Some just didn’t want to change. Others could not afford it, or so they thought.

To be sure, that kingdom has been here as long as we humans have been here, and longer. But it has been available to us through simple confidence in Jesus, the Anointed, only from the time he became a public figure.

Mark 1:15 (GW)
¹⁵ He said, “The time has come, and the kingdom of God is near. Change the way you think and act, and believe the Good News.”
John 3:3-5 (GW)
³ Jesus replied to Nicodemus, “I can guarantee this truth: No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
⁴ Nicodemus asked him, “How can anyone be born when he's an old man? He can't go back inside his mother a second time to be born, can he?”
⁵ Jesus answered Nicodemus, “I can guarantee this truth: No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

Those resources that we assumed would always be there will soon be in short supply.  The resource we truly need is as close as ever.  Lean on Jesus.

Michael

A significant increase can be seen in five of the seven core religious behaviors that the Barna Group has studied over the past decade.

• In 1995, 31 percent of Americans read their Bibles at least once a week outside of a church setting; in 2006, that number jumped to 47 percent.

• In 1996, 37 percent of Americans attended church in a typical week; that number jumped to 47 percent in 2006.

• In 1996, 17 percent of Americans attended a small group outside of Sunday school or Christian education classes; in 2006, 23 percent attended.

• Church volunteerism hit a low of 20 percent in the mid-nineties; in 2006, 27 percent of Americans volunteered in a church setting.

• Sunday school attendance hit a low of 17 percent in 1995 and 1996; it climbed back to 24 percent in 2006.

Somewhat surprisingly, the only two religious behaviors that did not reflect significant change were prayer and evangelism. The number of Americans claiming to have prayed within the last week remained steady — around 84 percent in the period between 1993 and 2006. Similarly, the percentage of born-again Christians who claim to have shared their faith with a nonbeliever remained at about 60 percent in the decade between 1996 and 2006.

1 Timothy 4:7-16 (GW)
⁷ Don't have anything to do with godless myths that old women like to tell. Rather, train yourself to live a godly life.
⁸ Training the body helps a little, but godly living helps in every way. Godly living has the promise of life now and in the world to come.
⁹ This is a statement that can be trusted and deserves complete acceptance.
¹⁰ Certainly, we work hard and struggle to live a godly life, because we place our confidence in the living God. He is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
¹¹ Insist on these things and teach them.

¹⁵ Practice these things. Devote your life to them so that everyone can see your progress.
¹⁶ Focus on your life and your teaching. Continue to do what I've told you. If you do this, you will save yourself and those who hear you.

Try a little godly living today.  It seems to be coming back in style.

Michael

I once asked a deeply religious man if he considered himself a truly pious person. He responded that while he aspired to be one, he felt that he fell short in two areas. One was his not being happy enough.

He said unhappy Christians reflect poorly on their religion and on their Creator. He was right — unhappy religious people do pose a real challenge to faith. If their faith is so impressive, why aren’t they happy?

There are only two possible reasons: either they are not practicing their faith correctly, or they are practicing their faith correctly and the religion itself is not conducive to happiness. Most outsiders assume the latter reason.

Unhappy religious people should therefore think about how important being happy is — if not for themselves, then for the sake of their religion. Unhappy religious people provide more persuasive arguments for atheism and secularism than do all the arguments of atheists.

Psalm 9:1-2 (NIV)
¹ Iwill praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.
² I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
²³ Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Matthew 5:13-16 (NIV)
¹³ "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
¹⁴ "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Show a little happiness today.  Michael

Beethoven may have poisoned himself. That’s what William Walsh, a scientist from Illinois, suggested after studying strands of hair from the body of famous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Walsh discovered that Beethoven’s body had one hundred times the normal amount of lead. He concluded that Beethoven’s untimely death at the age of fifty-seven was due to lead poisoning.

Beethoven’s lead poisoning may have been due to the mineral spa he went to for relaxation. The very thing he thought was bringing him relief was slowly poisoning him to death.

Spiritual poison is like that. As people engage in practices and embrace ideas that are spiritually poisonous, they think they’re becoming more spiritual. But in reality, they’re gradually being poisoned to eternal death.

Proverbs 14:12 (GW)
¹² There is a way that seems right to a person, but eventually it ends in death.


Romans 6:12 (GW)
¹² Therefore, never let sin rule your physical body so that you obey its desires.

Galatians 6:7-8 (GW)
⁷ Make no mistake about this: You can never make a fool out of God. Whatever you plant is what you'll harvest.
⁸ If you plant in {the soil of} your corrupt nature, you will harvest destruction. But if you plant in {the soil of} your spiritual nature, you will harvest everlasting life.

Watch what you watch.  It changes you.  Michael

“What age would you want to stay eternally?” asked a Kelton survey of 1,019 adult women. Their response:

• under 18: 2 percent

• 18 to 20: 4 percent

• 21 to 30: 35 percent

• 31 to 40: 29 percent

• 41 to 50: 14 percent

• 51 to 60: 6 percent

• over 61: 3 percent

• don’t know: 7 percent

Three sisters, ages ninety-two, ninety-four, and ninety-six, lived together. One night the ninety-six-year-old drew a bath. She put one foot in and then paused. “Was I getting in the tub or out?” she yelled.

The ninety-four-year-old hollered back, “I don’t know; I’ll come and see.” She started up the stairs but stopped on the first step, shouting, “Was I going up or coming down?”

The ninety-two-year-old was sitting at the kitchen table having tea, listening to her sisters. She shook her head and said, “I sure hope I never get that forgetful,” and knocked on wood for good measure. Then she yelled, “I’ll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who’s at the door.”

Deuteronomy 4:9; 6:10 – 12; Psalm 71:9; Proverbs 16:31; 20:29; Isaiah 46:4; Jeremiah 3:21

Psalm 71:9 (GW)
⁹ Do not reject me when I am old or abandon me when I lose my strength.

Proverbs 16:31 (GW)
³¹ Silver hair is a beautiful crown found in a righteous life.

Proverbs 20:29 (GW)
²⁹ While the glory of young men is their strength, the splendor of older people is their silver hair.

Enjoy your age!  Michael

I believe that the real difference in the American church is not between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and charismatics, or Republicans and Democrats. The real difference is between the aware and the unaware.

When somebody is aware of the love that the Father has for Jesus, that person is spontaneously grateful. Cries of thankfulness become the dominant characteristic of the interior life, and the byproduct of gratitude is joy. We’re not joyful and then become grateful — we’re grateful, and that makes us joyful.

More than ever, we need each other.  Whatever the decision on our economic engines, we must remember what the Lord has given us versus what man has taken away.  We have joy if we remember what He has given.

Pray for our leaders and give thanks.

Michael