Walking With Jesus

Trust Born from Surrender

“O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the Lord, or My anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins.” (Jeremiah 4:4 NLT)

Surrendering is a very hard concept for most of us.

War is costly and there are always casualties, but implicit in battle is a cause. As a rule, we don’t fight unless we have something for which to fight, and while not all of us have fought literal battles in the military, we all face daily battles with the enemy of our soul.

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, He has instilled in us values for which we’re willing to die, certainly for which we should be willing to do battle with Satan to maintain. Values like integrity, respect, compassion, purity, decency, faithfulness, genuineness and others that set us apart as children of God. Satan daily battles us to compromise our values as a believer and the only way to not surrender to Satan is to surrender first to the Lord.

What might that look like? Every day I sit before the Lord with open hands, and I say to Him some version of: “Lord, this is my life, take whatever is unlike you, anything that I don’t need, or anything that prevents me from being everything you died to enable me to be. And give me whatever I need to stand strong in my battle against Satan and that will allow me to grow in my likeness of You. In Jesus’ Name.”

Defeat and/or surrender IS the outcome of every battle. It will be determined by us or our enemy, so, why not be proactive and surrender to the Lord before we’re forced to surrender to Satan. And I can anticipate the pushback: “Satan can’t force me to do anything!” And technically that’s true, but when his evil thoughts become uncontrollable in our own strength and we yield to temptation, he wins.

Surrendering to the Lord is the logical step for anyone who longs to be more like Jesus and live pleasingly before Him. I love how Ray Majoran expresses it in his beautiful prayer: “Teach us what trust looks like in the real world — not the kind built on certainty, but the kind born from surrender. Help us to rest in You when our plans fall apart, and to believe that Your strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). When we are weary of standing, may we lean into Your promises, and when we can no longer move forward, help us to know that You are enough.”(See Trust at the Edge – 11-10-25)

Surrender to the Lord is born out of love and devotion, not fear. We surrender because we learn to trust His judgment more than we trust our own. We know that no good thing comes from continually being defeated by the enemy of our soul, it only leads to frustration, guilt, shame and a desire to quit trying. That all comes from Satan, never from the Lord.

He’s the One rooting for us, walking with us, shouting our name, urging us on to victory. The Lord doesn’t shame us or cause us guilt; we do that to ourselves. He lifts, restores, encourages, forgives, fills, empowers, and equips us to live victoriously when we surrender to His will and ways.

The greatest strength we’ll ever possess will come as a result of our full surrender to the Lover of our soul, the Lord Jesus Christ. He had the power to surrender His life on our behalf in order that we might have the strength to stand strong for Him. Surrender is born out of trust and results in victory for us.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

God’s Covenant With You

*As I do each 15^th of the month, I’m devoting today to a devotional by Sylvia Gunter. Sylvia is woman after God’s own heart, so listen carefully to God’s heart as you read. Blessings, Ed 😊

Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it: “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people” Isaiah. 42:5-6 (NKJV)

Be blessed with the profound truth that the mighty Creator, who holds the cosmos in His hands, is intimately involved in your life. He knows you by name and has called you in righteousness. His call is not a distant command but a tender invitation to walk closely with Him. The Lord Himself has promised to hold your hand. He will never let you go. May this truth bring you deep peace and a sense of security, knowing that you are not alone. The One who created the stars and set them in place is the same One who walks with you each day, holding you in His protective embrace.

Be blessed as He keeps you in perfect care, surrounded by His unfailing love and faithfulness. The Lord has given you as a covenant to the people. Your life is a testimony to His promises, a living reflection of His grace and mercy. As you walk in the path He has set before you, be blessed to be a beacon of His light to others, carrying the hope and truth of His covenant wherever you go.

The Holy Spirit breathes life into your spirit and empowers you to live out the righteousness to which you are called. Let the Spirit guide your steps, filling you with wisdom, courage, and compassion. As you embrace this divine calling, may you grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord, becoming ever more like Him in character and action.

Rest in the assurance that God’s covenant with you is unbreakable. His promises are steadfast, and His love for you is eternal. May your life overflow with the grace and peace that come from knowing the One who created all things, has chosen you, called you, and will never leave you. Be blessed to walk in this truth, and may it fill your heart with joy, your spirit with strength, and your life with purpose.

An archive of our devotionals is available at on our website.

Why We Drift from God

“’O Israel,’ Says the Lord, ‘if you wanted to return to Me, you could. You could throw away your detestable idols and stray away no more. Then when you swear by My name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives,” you could do so with truth, justice, and righteousness. Then you would be a blessing to the nations of the world, and all people would come and praise My name.’’” (Jeremiah 4:1-2 NLT)

As James outlines in James 1, sin begins in our mind. We rarely, if ever, engage in an activity about which we’ve given no thought. Typically, our senses are alerted – we see or hear something that gets our attention, entices us to investigate further, then hooks our mind and heart and we’re dragged away by our lustful desires to sin in ways we never imagined we would.

Though God will never tempt us, He understands fully the process and stands ready to help, heal, and forgive, but He will not force us to repent and be forgiven, that choice is ours alone. We drift from God because we decide to allow it to happen. But then guilt and shame do their part, and we begin to doubt our ability to accept God’s forgiveness.

It’s one thing to believe God is able and willing to forgive us, it’s a whole new level of faith to believe we can ever forgive ourselves. There have been ways I’ve violated God’s commands and hurt people I loved in ways I still wrestle to believe I’m forgiven, not by God, but by myself. The incessant question: “How could I EVER have done that?” echoes in my heart and mind and haunts me in inescapable ways.

Perhaps you can relate as you relive moments or seasons in your life that you disappointed yourself in unbelievable ways. You’ve sought the Lord for forgiveness, but your hesitancy to forgive yourself has created a distance, a space between you and the Lord. You’ve allowed yourself to drift from the Lord, not because He’s moved, but because you have.

Having wrestled with these relentless hauntings, I’ve discovered the only way to bridge that gap is worship. A. W. Tozer wrote: “Without worship we go about miserable.” There’s no greater misery than being separated from the Lord, but that’s what sin does, it separates. It divides our allegiance to the Lord and shares them with fantasies, dreams, and lustful considerations, that draw us away from the Lord and into a world of make believe where we think we can eat of the forbidden fruit and not pay a price.

Worship opens to us an avenue of opportunity to lay our burdens at the Lord’s feet, acknowledge our disobedience and sin, and find forgiveness, healing, and wholeness we can’t find anyplace else. But worship isn’t simply what we do at church on Sundays, it’s a moment-by-moment privilege we have as God’s children.

To me worship is like breathing because when I think of God, He’s like the air, He’s everywhere, ever-present. As a rule, I don’t think about taking a breath, it just happens. I’ve grown so accustomed to breathing I do it without conscious thought. In some ways, that’s how I view worship of the Lord. I want Him to be on my mind every second regardless of what else I may be doing. Why is that so important?

Because our mind can only focus on one thing at time, but it can be consciously aware of other things even as we focus on something else. I want that “something else” to be Jesus. I desire His presence to so captivate my mind that regardless of what else I’m doing, He’s right at the edge of my thoughts. It will be something, why not discipline ourselves to let it be Him. When we do it will prevent us from drifting from Him.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Unforgiven

“But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants – even though he had no children yet. God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.” (Acts 7:5-6 NLT)

On many levels we’re products of our environment. Our primary sources of education and indoctrination into the system of this life into which we’ve entered is our family. Whether we grow up Princes or paupers our orientation will always be grounded in, not only what we learned, but what we experienced in those circumstances.

Think of the children of Israel who for 400 years knew nothing but slavery. Major W. Ian Thomas describes it this way: “Over four hundred years the children of Israel had been enslaved by the Egyptians, suffering bitterly beneath burdens inflicted by their taskmasters, helpless to save themselves, hopeless but for the fact that four hundred years before, God had promised Abraham that He would act to redeem them. This is the picture God gives us of the unforgiven sinner.”

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Right or wrong we tend to uphold the beliefs we learn in our growing up years. Imagine, if you can, for generations your family has known nothing but slavery. Being told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and being severely punished if you didn’t do as you were told.

Think of Adam after the fall, after his sin and estrangement from God. He had been with God, walked with God, talked with God, but now he was empty of God’s presence, God’s power, God’s protection.

How do you explain freedom to a slave? How do you explain God to someone who has no concept of who He is or what it means to know Him? That’s who I was before I met Jesus, and believe it or not, that’s who you still are if you are without Him. It’s interesting to think about the enslaved Jews transition from slavery to freedom.

As powerful a man of God as Moses was, he was still, at his core, just a man. Yes, of course, on many levels he was an exceptional man of God, but still only a man. What’s my point? He wasn’t Jesus! The enslavement we experience as unredeemed mankind, while it may look a lot less like slavery than what the children of Israel experienced, is nonetheless, full blown, enslavement to the powers of darkness.

The term used in the verse above that is translated “slaves” is a word that means “to reduce to bondage,” which metaphorically can look like giving ourselves “wholly to one’s needs and service, make myself a bondsman to” whatever we’re in bondage to. What might that look like? A person can have position, power, prestige, great personal success, but without Jesus they’re still in bondage to the sin that enslaves them.

A person doesn’t have to be destitute in order to be enslaved, as the rich young man in Matthew 19 illustrates. Many in our spheres of influence today remain unforgiven because, like this young man, they love their “riches” more than they value forgiveness and eternal life. And here’s the irony, in many cases their “riches” aren’t literal wealth, but a heritage in which they’ve been raised that doesn’t recognize, value, or understand forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

Whatever keeps a person from knowing, loving, and finding forgiveness in Jesus is the reason they’re unforgiven. Whatever THAT is, is what keeps them in slavery!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Faith

“So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.” (Romans 10:17 NLT)

How would you describe your faith? How is your life different since you’ve placed your trust in Jesus? What does having faith in Christ mean to you in practical terms? Is it a creed or conviction upon which your life is built? A set of spiritual guidelines to be followed? A system of belief? An interesting philosophy?

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate Dr. David Jeremiah for many reasons, but in a recent Turning Point devotion he inspired me when he wrote: “Many people have a mistaken view of faith, thinking that faith is believing in something or someone despite the evidence and we have to take a ‘leap of faith.’ That is nonsense. It doesn’t work in any area of life. You don’t step onto a rickety swinging bridge with rotten ropes and missing planks, just assuming the bridge will support you. To place your faith in the bridge, it would need to be anchored on both sides, sturdy, reliable, and trustworthy. Faith is believing because of the evidence. It’s not a leap into uncertainty but a step that is reasonable, logical, and sensible.”

Is that how you would describe your faith? Are you following Jesus because of your firm conviction in the trustworthiness of who He is? What He taught? The truth of God’s Word as it describes who Jesus is and why He died? Or do you still struggle with the whole concept of faith in God?

Faith is a many dimensional process. The tiny faith I possessed as I began my journey with Jesus more than 60 years ago has grown exponentially as I’ve found insurmountable evidence that He is exactly who He claimed to be, does exactly what He promised to do, and my expectation that I will one day soon meet Him face to face continues to grow.

To me faith isn’t an idea or conviction, it’s a daily, moment by moment basis of my life and how I order my daily living. Knowing the Lord is with me every second and realizing He’s invested in helping me in every detail of my existence steadies and undergirds me as surely as the strength of a well-constructed bridge. I don’t have to worry or fret about anything; I simply ask for His help and thank Him in the process for His strength and guidance.

Forgiveness of sin and eternal life are certainly critical pieces of why faith in Christ is so vital, but, at least in my humble opinion, not the greatest “draw” to following Christ. Those issues place the emphasis on us as individual believers, highlighting what seem to be the greatest “attractions” to the Faith. But to me the greatest draw to Christianity is Christ.

Knowing Him, loving Him, walking moment by moment with Him are all the reasons I need to have strong faith. Perhaps that’s the reason many struggle with their faith, they never develop intimacy with Jesus. His closeness sustains, strengthens, informs, protects, undergirds, teaches, and enables me to walk in faith without wavering. On some levels it’s like a child holding the strong hand of their father.

Hudson Taylor builds on that idea when he writes: “You do not need a great faith, but faith in a great God.” Faith grows with experience in trusting the God of the Bible who loves us without limit, never fails, never lies, and never leaves or forsakes us. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

What God’s Up to

“And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. For everyone here, including the whole palace guard, knows that I am in chains because of Christ. And because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God’s message without fear.” (Philippians 1:12-14 NLT)

Everything that happens in our life has purpose. There is no such thing as an “accident” in God’s scheme of things. If it happens, it has purpose. Our job is to let the Lord unveil that purpose day by day as He works in and through our life.

To worry, fret, and try to figure out “what’s going on!” is to work against the Spirit’s leading in our lives. Our goal in everything is to listen to the Spirit’s leading so as to determine what our role is in God’s activity. We’re never the issue, God is, so what’s going on in our lives is always secondary to what God’s intentions are.

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Elisabeth Elliot gives us insight when she writes: “We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.” What is it that we must do now? So often our initial response to God’s activity in our life is to question, fear, worry, or ponder, not to act, but that’s the issue! God’s activity always invites a response on our part and therein lies our greatest potential to grow in Him.

“What you have to do now” is, or should be, our standard response to the Lord’s invitation: “Yes, Lord!” Rather than whining, crying, fretting, and worrying about ME – “What’s this going to mean to ME?” We lay our lives before the Lord in humble surrender and say: “How can I most meaningfully submit my life to You and allow You, O Lord, to gain glory in and through my life in this new circumstance?”

He’s not asking us to be happy about something tragic that’s happened in our life, He’s asking us to submit it to Him and to trust Him in and through its outcome. Was Paul happy about being in prison? Of course not, but he knew he was there by the Spirit’s leading. It was the natural outcome of a life devoted to the glory of the Savior, so he continued to minister to Christ’s glory in spite of his circumstances.

Paul knew the risks he was taking by continuing to share his faith. After beatings, being stoned, shipwrecked, and other means of torment for his faith, the Lord had made it clear to him that He had appointed Paul to stand before influential people, including kings, for His holy Name’s sake.

With whom will our current circumstances give us audience that we might never have met were it not for the accident, illness, or other “negative” circumstance we’re now experiencing? The Lord has given me an audience with doctors, nurses, support staff, technicians, and other patients I would likely never have met were it not for my Alzheimer’s. The Lord never puts anyone in our path except to give us opportunity to share His life and love with them.

What God’s up to is filling, empowering, and enabling you and me to honor and exalt Him in every circumstance of our lives! We must be intentional in every opportunity to give His Spirit free rein to work in and through us to the Lord’s glory and honor.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Upon What Is Your Faith Built?

“But the officer said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have You come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed…When Jesus heard this, He was amazed. Turning to those who were following Him, He said, ‘I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!’” (Matthew 8:8, 10 NLT)

Waiting often gives rise to doubting. We ask the Lord to do something specific: “Lord, heal my cancer!” “Lord, I need a job!” “Lord, save my marriage!” “Lord, deliver me from this incessant urge to sin!” In innumerable ways the enemy attacks and we, ideally, turn to the Lord expecting Him to help us in our times of need. Which is exactly as it should be.

Our faith is confident that the Lord CAN do whatever we ask, but it waivers when what we ask doesn’t happen on our timeline. It’s hard to understand, especially as a new believer, that faith is built in the waiting. It takes time to learn that the Lord isn’t our errand boy, He’s Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of the Universe. Does that mean He doesn’t hear our prayers? That He’s not willing to meet our needs? That He doesn’t care when we’re suffering?

He loved us so much He suffered and died in our place before we were born. Of course He hears our prayers! Of course He’s willing to meet our needs! Of course He cares when we’re suffering! To not believe that is blasphemous! That’s why our faith can’t be built on emotion, but must be built on a solid, Biblical understanding of not only who Jesus is, but why He died in our place in the first place.

Ray Majoran helps us when he prays: “Please teach us to wait without fear, and to remember that faith is not built on what we understand but on who You are.” (from Home Beneath the Light – 11-03-25) Our understanding can be skewed, distorted, and wrongly conceived. Any understanding that lessens who Jesus is or shifts the basis from our faith in Him to anyone or anything else is misguided and misinformed.

Edward Mote had it right when he penned the words of the old hymn: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.”

In this season of my life, when each day is a new adventure, I must have faith that is centered and focused on a certain, unchanging Rock, not on the fickle ebb and flow of my emotions. Will God heal me? He may heal me in this moment if I asked Him, but I haven’t asked, because His presence is enough. One day when I leave this life I’ll be perfect and forever whole, so, in the meantime, my faith is strong that He has me here for a reason.

He has you where you are for a reason also. And while I may not know your specific circumstance, I do know that if your faith is fixed on Jesus, He’ll be enough for you as well.

Though the soldier in the verses above got exactly what he asked Jesus to give him, faith isn’t always about getting the things for which we pray, it’s about growing in love for and dependence upon the One to whom we pray. Sometimes growing in our intimacy with Jesus means more than receiving the answers we seek.

Our faith can’t be built on answers; it must be built on the One who is the eternal Answerer!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Strange?

“Then they took him to the high council of the city. ‘Come and tell us about this new teaching,’ they said. You are saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it’s all about.” (Acts 17:19-20 NLT)

Do you know any strange people? The more I progress in my Alzheimer’s journey, the more strange people seem to me. Hmmmm! Could it be I’m the one becoming more strange? Nah, can’t be! Of course, there are those who think I’ve always been strange (yeh, I can hear you giggling! 😊) I’ve digressed!

What constitutes something that’s strange to you? Typically, as with the time Paul was visiting Athens, strange is anything with which we’re not familiar. Think of when you first came to know Jesus. Many of the disciplines and habits we form as believers were very strange to us. Attending church, praying, giving money, sharing our faith, giving up habits that we’re hurting us physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually, or otherwise.

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A.W. Tozer caught my attention when he wrote: “Go to church once a week and nobody pays attention. Worship God seven days a week and you become strange!” What is it about my life or yours that seems strange to those in our families or other spheres of influence? Could it be it should be strange if others don’t see things in us that seem strange to them in a good way?

Remember “strange” can equal “unfamiliar,” so, if there are those who aren’t saved viewing our life and finding nothing that’s different than how they conduct their lives, perhaps it should be a red flag to us. If we have the same habits, use the same language, frequent the same bars, share the same views on life, love, and what’s right and wrong, where is our “witness” for Christ?

Yes, of course, we’re going to have things in common with those who don’t yet know the Lord, but there should be distinctives that set us apart and likely seem strange to those outside the faith. When I go to restaurants with someone who doesn’t know the Lord, I let them know that I always offer thanks to the Lord for my food and ask their permission to pray for our meal. If they object in any way, I simply bow my head and pray silently.

Christ followers have distinctives that set them apart from others, some of which may seem very strange, but they can also be avenues of opportunity for us to introduce others to the Lord. It may seem strange to those with whom we work that we go from work to a Men’s or Women’s meeting that focuses on our growth in the Lord. Or it may seem strange that we use our break to do a prayer walk or spend time reading God’s Word.

In the book of Acts there were many distinctives that seemed very strange, but very attractive to their non-believing friends. On the Day of Pentecost believers were given the gift of speaking in languages they’d never learned, which was a very strange phenomenon, yet, was God’s tool for bringing thousands to Himself. In Acts 2 Paul outlines what the new Christian community looked like and closed the chapter by writing: “And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”

The early Christian believers didn’t wait for the Pastor to preach and give an invitation, their strange, Christian behavior was so inviting they had their family members, friends, and neighbors coming to them to learn about their new faith. Would to God that would be the case with us today.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Worship and Feelings

“These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.” (Matthew 15:8-9 NLT)

The words above, quoted by Jesus from Isaiah 29, challenge me as I ponder exactly what worship IS and why it is so vitally important? As I understand it, worship is a posture of the heart that enables us to voluntarily position ourselves before a holy God as needy and unworthy.

The word used in the verse above translated “worship” is derived from a word that means to kiss, and the picture painted is a dog licking his master’s hand. It’s an involuntary response to a love and devotion that flows from the heart of one who loves and is devoted to their master.

It’s an act of reverence often accompanied by “falling to our knees and bowing with our forehead on the ground, in an effort to do homage or to make obeisance, whether in order to express respect or to make supplication.” (Strong’s) Even so, worship isn’t as much about the position of our body as it is the attitude of our heart and mind.

We’re so prone to think of worship as an activity, something we attend or in which we participate, rarely stopping to consider worship isn’t something we experience, rather it’s a deliberate act of positioning our heart, mind, soul, and body into submission to the One who owns us and has every right to do with us as He wishes.

Elisabeth Elliot, wrote: “Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship in spirit and in truth. Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.” We tend to attribute certain emotions to worship, believing the more we get worked up emotionally, the better “worship” we experience.

And yes, of course, we can have an emotional response to the presence of God, but to believe we ONLY experience true worship when we have an emotional response is to miss the point of worship. Worship isn’t about us, how we feel or what we experience, it’s a decision we make regarding an appropriate expression of devotion to, our adoration of, and dependence upon our Savior.

A true, Biblical view and understanding of worship positions us to see God as He is and ourselves as we are – empty, lost, void of meaning, identity, worth, or value apart from the revelation of ourselves in and through the Person of Jesus. Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross accomplished far more than our forgiveness of sin, it allowed for a repositioning of our personhood.

We have no identity except as children of God. Worship enables us to recognize that apart from Jesus we are nothing and can accomplish nothing of eternal value. Yes, of course, we celebrate who we’re becoming as children of God, but we can never lose focus of to Whom the glory belongs. Had Jesus not died in our place we would be hopelessly lost for all eternity, without purpose, value, or identity.

Jesus gives us all those things and many more, so, worship becomes our means of offering to Him our thanksgiving, yes, of course, but it also gives us opportunity to express our undying dependence upon Him for every dimension of our being. And while realizing those things may have an emotional dimension, it’s our heart, mind, soul, and body that must collaborate to give full expression to our worship.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Who Will Be in Heaven Because of You and Me?

“Jesus called out to them, ‘Come, follow Me, and I will show you how to fish for people!’” (Matthew 4:19 NLT)

Multiplication has always been the heartbeat of the Church. If you ask why so many people are being tortured and murdered for their faith in our world today, it’s because the Lord is using them to draw millions of people to His eternal Kingdom.

In relative terms, there’s very little persecution of Christians in America because there are very few individual believers doing anything to challenge the kingdom of darkness. We’re satisfied with being nice people, saying and doing nice things that rarely, if ever, cause anyone to get upset with us.

Jesus’ boldness cost Him His life and how He trained His disciples got them killed as well. Why do we think we should get to skate into heaven on our good intentions? If we’re not regularly witnessing to the power of God to change lives through a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, why aren’t we? We’re not saved to become museum exhibits; we’re saved to reproduce the life Jesus gave us by His Holy Spirit living in us.

The Spirit of God indwells us, not simply to make us holy, but to make us useful in Christ’s eternal Kingdom. The Lord speaks, not that we can become a reservoir of all the good things we read in the Bible, hear in a message, or read in a book, but to be a channel through whom the Spirit can flow. We honor the Lord as we share with those in our spheres of influence what the Lord is sharing with us.

However, a word of caution! Shoving a verse of Scripture down someone’s throat doesn’t constitute effective sharing. Sometimes it’s much more effective to “LIVE” the Scripture than to quote it “AT” someone. Life is contextual, which means we take what the Lord gives us and allow Him to shape it into something meaningful we can share with someone who needs encouragement.

Rather than quoting John 3:16, perhaps a more effective approach would be to put His love into shoe leather and go see someone in the hospital or who is recovering at home and needs someone to bring them a few meals. Perhaps a single mom could use someone to watch her child(ren) so she could go out for a relaxing meal with a gift card we have given her.

Presenting the Gospel doesn’t always have to look like the proverbial “Roman Road,” quoting Scripture that leads to a profession of faith in Christ. The most effective evangelism is built on friendship. Make friends with lost people who, yes, of course, need Jesus, but they may first need to see Jesus through you or me. Kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, and love are very effective evangelistic “tools” when we allow the Holy Spirit to use us in kind and loving ways.

Yes, of course, we expect that there will come a point when explaining the Gospel is the most logical thing to do, but most people today want to “see” the Gospel before they want someone to explain it. People are much more open to hearing the good news of Christ’s love from someone they know and trust than from a stranger.

The Lord puts people in our spheres of influence for a reason. How many of them will be in heaven because of us – because of me and you?

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊