"But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18, KJV).
I had just finished giving a message, challenging students and young executives to commit their lives to helping to fulfill the Great Commission when Steve approached me with words that shocked me. I had known him for a long time and believed his life to be totally committed to Christ.
"If I were to respond to your challenge to take what I have to the rest of the world," he said, "I'm afraid not much would be accomplished, because my brand of Christianity -quite frankly - is not that attractive, exciting or fruitful."
He went on to share how he was not experiencing the joy of the resurrection in his life. The study of the Word of God had no appeal, his prayer life was nil and it had been a long time since he had introduced anyone to Christ. His outward evidence of being a man of God was just a facade, by his own admission.
What about you? Is your brand of Christianity truly the revolutionary, first-century kind that helped turn the world upside down and that changed the course of history? If not, it can be - and that is what this daily devotional guide is all about.
Every Christian needs to echo daily the sentiments of an unknown poet:
My life shall touch a dozen lives
Before this day is done,
Leave countless marks of good or ill,
Ere sets the evening sun.
This, the wish I always wish,
The prayer I always pray;
Lord, may my life help other lives
It touches by the way.
That goal should reign supreme during my waking hours - to touch lives for eternity. For if the all-powerful God, in the Person of His Holy Spirit, truly lives and reigns and triumphs, surely I can tap into that supernatural power and give evidence of it in my life.
Today's Action Point
Knowing that this dark world desperately needs light, I will trust God to let His light shine through me today. I pray that my life will be so radiant, joyful, attractive and fruitful for Christ that it will demonstrate the kind of Christianity that can be exported to others, to members of my family, neighbors and friends, as well as to people in other countries.