Matthew 5:14 – “You are the light of the world.”
Every Wednesday morning while in elementary school, I prayed to become a Christian. I was the type of person that prayed the prayer every time it was offered. I liked what they said and I wanted to follow who they were talking about. However, my true day of salvation that I marked it down as was at children’s camp when I was 7 years old. I don’t remember the exact day but I do remember vividly praying the prayer, walking down the aisle and being escorted into the back rooms. What a great day.
At the age of 7, you can’t really get into too much trouble. I know everyone is born into sin but what can you really do at 7?
Steal a crayon.
Write on the walls.
Then lie about it and blame it on your sister.
It’s not like your going to be involved in drinking, drugs and sex at such a young age like so many people in our world today. This brings me to my question…
What would it be like to live in the life of an unbeliever for one day and how would they view Christians??
My struggle is how much impact do I have on the world.
Does a simple handshake and how are you doing mean anything?
Does a smile really brighten up a total stranger’s day?
Is praying over my food noticed?
Does my attitude reflect Jesus Christ and is it visible?
What kind of impact does carrying your Bible into work really have?
Do non-Christians really see these things and what do they think? If I were to pray for my food, do they look at me differently? Will they watch me the next time to make sure I do it again? Will they watch my actions; listen to my conversation as I eat dinner? What do they really think?
Being saved at 7 has its ups and downs. I don’t really have that ugly past sin life like others have. You know the ones that can tell you how bad their life was and then God’s grace was poured into their life and completely turned them around. Parts of me wish I could have a testimony like that but we are all the same. We were all sinners, lost in this darkened world and had a choice to make. No matter what our past, we had a choice that very moment. Do we follow God or the ways of this world? If you chose God, it doesn’t matter what our past is like – God wipes it all away in His forgiveness. His doing on the cross freed us from our pasts.
Getting back to the main question – what impact do these “little things” have on the world? A friend of mine the other day said that in her days as an unbeliever, those things really did add up. The smiles and hello how are you, really do mean things in the lives of unbelievers. Back in my UCF days, I went to listen to a speaker named Mark Cahill. If you haven’t read his book, One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven, you need to. It’s great. Anyways, Mark was talking about planting seeds. A smile, a hello, a prayer – these are all things that can plant seeds. It gets the person thinking. They begin to wonder what is so different about him than the rest of the world. As Pastor Ray put it on Sunday, we need to be the light of the world. We need to attract people to us and shed some light on the darkness.
I wish I could spend a day as an unbeliever. Be able to walk around and see the world in view of their eyes. See how the Christians treat them. See how much love is truly given to them. Feel the loneliness of this world. Feel what it is like to have no hope and no joy.
You know the old saying, I wish you could walk in my shoes for a day – well I wish I could….
Every Wednesday morning while in elementary school, I prayed to become a Christian. I was the type of person that prayed the prayer every time it was offered. I liked what they said and I wanted to follow who they were talking about. However, my true day of salvation that I marked it down as was at children’s camp when I was 7 years old. I don’t remember the exact day but I do remember vividly praying the prayer, walking down the aisle and being escorted into the back rooms. What a great day.
At the age of 7, you can’t really get into too much trouble. I know everyone is born into sin but what can you really do at 7?
Steal a crayon.
Write on the walls.
Then lie about it and blame it on your sister.
It’s not like your going to be involved in drinking, drugs and sex at such a young age like so many people in our world today. This brings me to my question…
What would it be like to live in the life of an unbeliever for one day and how would they view Christians??
My struggle is how much impact do I have on the world.
Does a simple handshake and how are you doing mean anything?
Does a smile really brighten up a total stranger’s day?
Is praying over my food noticed?
Does my attitude reflect Jesus Christ and is it visible?
What kind of impact does carrying your Bible into work really have?
Do non-Christians really see these things and what do they think? If I were to pray for my food, do they look at me differently? Will they watch me the next time to make sure I do it again? Will they watch my actions; listen to my conversation as I eat dinner? What do they really think?
Being saved at 7 has its ups and downs. I don’t really have that ugly past sin life like others have. You know the ones that can tell you how bad their life was and then God’s grace was poured into their life and completely turned them around. Parts of me wish I could have a testimony like that but we are all the same. We were all sinners, lost in this darkened world and had a choice to make. No matter what our past, we had a choice that very moment. Do we follow God or the ways of this world? If you chose God, it doesn’t matter what our past is like – God wipes it all away in His forgiveness. His doing on the cross freed us from our pasts.
Getting back to the main question – what impact do these “little things” have on the world? A friend of mine the other day said that in her days as an unbeliever, those things really did add up. The smiles and hello how are you, really do mean things in the lives of unbelievers. Back in my UCF days, I went to listen to a speaker named Mark Cahill. If you haven’t read his book, One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven, you need to. It’s great. Anyways, Mark was talking about planting seeds. A smile, a hello, a prayer – these are all things that can plant seeds. It gets the person thinking. They begin to wonder what is so different about him than the rest of the world. As Pastor Ray put it on Sunday, we need to be the light of the world. We need to attract people to us and shed some light on the darkness.
I wish I could spend a day as an unbeliever. Be able to walk around and see the world in view of their eyes. See how the Christians treat them. See how much love is truly given to them. Feel the loneliness of this world. Feel what it is like to have no hope and no joy.
You know the old saying, I wish you could walk in my shoes for a day – well I wish I could….
1 comment:
Interesting Mitch. It makes me think of something that's become a little bit of an epidemic in todays church. I think a lot of Christians are under the wrong impression that when they give their lives to Christ that they are supposed to "act", "behave", and have the "personality" of a Christian. I've been that Christian and , now, realize how obnoxious it must have appeared from the world outside. That type of personality is very dull , boring and unattractive to put it bluntly. God created us so uniquely and with such great personalities that He fearfully and wonderfully designed. If we all stove to act "Christian" we would have a body of Christ with all feet, all eyes, or all ears. I think we start to take on the nature of Christ when we develop a deeper more intimate relationship with Him and all of these other things come secondarily without realizing that they are happening. You shouldn't have to act like a Christian.
I became a little self conscious at my residency this past week. Two times I had comments made related to my being a Christian. One lady in the office brought in a bunch of Christian books she saw for free and said, "you're all Holy, I got these for you to read." I'd talked to another person I'd worked with in reference to my life before I knew Christ (i.e. partying, no direction, ect.) and she was stunned and said, "Oh my gosh, your supposed to be church boy." I couldn't help but laugh. So, I suppose I do have a life changing story. I kinda became a little self-conscious this past week because of those couple episodes and began to realize that people notice things and see how you react in circumstances. I think we can't really worry about it though. If our relationship with Him is healthy we don't have to force being a Christian, it just comes naturally and the love of Christ flows out like a fountain.
Anyhow, a random mix of thoughts I know but what you said stirred me up a bit - in a good way of course.
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