If Christianity were a football game, then going to church would be the huddle.

So after church is over, you’re supposed to go out on the field and make the plays.  If all you do as a Christian is go to church and sit on the bench, then you really aren’t helping your team out.  It’s time to get up and go for the win.  Leave it all on the field.  THEN, when you stand before the Judge on that great day, you can hear “well done…”

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God’s first commandment was to multiply and subdue the earth.

Christ’s last commandment was to go into all the earth and make disciples.

These to commandments go together like chocolate and peanut butter.  What better way to make disciples than to raise your own children to love and obey God, and to teach them to teach their children and their children’s children and everyone they come in contact with?  If Christian parents would model the perfect love of God for their friends AND families, that whole Great Commission thing would be a snap.

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Do you know what you believe in?  Can you explain it?  If someone has serious and complex questions about your faith, can you put it in terms that anyone can understand?  Can you answer deep questions about the Bible?

1st Peter 3:15 says if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.  Are you always ready to do that?  Or do you not know what you really believe?  Do you know what the Bible teaches?

Did you know that rat poison is mostly good food?  It’s made of 99.5% wheat, fillers, sweeteners, solvent, flavor enhancers, and coloring.  And it’s only 00.005% poison.  So it doesn’t take much of a toxic substance to make something really bad for you.  If you claim to believe in Jesus, you ought to be 100% informed on who he is, what he teaches, and what he requires of his followers.

Always be ready to give an answer!

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Hey Church!  I have a bone to pick with you.  Yeah you–the whole Church–all you people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.  Do you remember what Jesus prayed for you before he was crucified?  He prayed that we would all be ONE–just like he and the Father are one.  And do you remember why he prayed that?  So that the world would KNOW that God sent Jesus.  Well guess what?  You have fractured the church into so many opposing groups that the world looks at you and says, “Ok, so which one of these factions should I believe in?  They all seem to disagree.  So why should I believe in Jesus, if his prayer for his church didn’t even work?  How can I be any worse off by not believing in what any of these groups say?”

Real nice job church!  You’ve made quite a mess of Christ’s prayer.

So how about working on that problem?  Why don’t you start living like Jesus did…in PERFECT unity with God.  Don’t let there be even a hint of immorality and sin in you.  Let the world see a body of believers who live pure lives from pure hearts made pure and kept pure by cooperating with the power of the Holy Spirit.  Do you remember how upset Jesus was by those who claimed to be “religious” but were really just religious hypocrites?  Don’t be anything like that.  Let your life be lived the way your Lord commands it to be lived–RIGHTEOUSLY!

I guarantee if every person who claimed to follow Jesus actually lived like Jesus, that the world would have no choice but to understand exactly who Jesus is and that God sent him into the world.  And, if the church (the whole church) lived in perfect unity with Jesus and obeyed all of his commands, she would automatically live in perfect unity as the “body” of Christ.  The church would be ONE.

Read John 17 and think about it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:33 — 21.3MB)

How do you act in church?

How do you act everywhere else?

Why would you act any differently in church than you do in the rest of the world?

Do you think God can only see what happens inside the church building?

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Are you up for a challenge?  How about putting your faith into action.  Actually the truth is, if your faith doesn’t result in action, you probably don’t have faith.  It’s true that faith is an internal thing–a commitment of your heart, but unless you have been nailed to a cross and lack the ability to move, true faith will always be revealed in action.  How’s that for a challenge?

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If you knew on 9/1 about the 9/11 attacks that would kill thousands of people in the Twin Towers, how hard would you try to save those people?  How much work would you do to convince the government to stop those flights or keep people from going to work in those buildings or whatever you could do?  It probably wouldn’t be easy because until that day, nobody would believe something like that could happen in America.  Would you try anyway?  Would you make sacrifices to save all those lives?

Do you remember watching as people jumped from the building and fell to their death because the fire was so terrible?  It was a horrible sight.  Would you work to keep that from happening?  Now how about the millions of people who will die in their sins and face much more suffering in Hell than anybody felt in the Twin Towers?  Would you do anything to stop those people from dying in their rebellion against God?

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Have you ever run a marathon?  Have you ever thought that would be a cool thing to accomplish.  Did you know the guy who ran the first marathon died after running the distance?  Isn’t that crazy?!  And now it’s a race that thousands and thousands of people run it!

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Happy Mother’s Day!

Ok, so this is from awhile ago.  But it was fun.

Any day is a good day to hug your mom.  Why not do it today?

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I love how Jesus’ half-brother, James, described faith.  He basically said faith without works is dead faith.  A belief that doesn’t result in changed behavior is not really belief at all.  In fact your true belief is demonstrated by what you do.  That’s why it’s important to have an informed faith.  Faith in God is not a blind faith.  It’s an informed and grounded faith.  There is so much evidence for who Jesus is and what he did in history, that we can have a faith based on reality, and from there our faith helps us to do all the things that Jesus commanded us to do.

PS. I’m sorry about the sound quality on this one.  It’s pretty terrible.  You can hear it if you crank the volume, but it’s not recorded well at all.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:46 — 15.9MB)