While much could be said about belivers on the job, I thought I would just put down a few from my own experiences.  Below are some things the Lord has had to deal with me about over the years.  They weren’t easy, and I have by no means mastered them, but not only have they made me a better employee to my boss, they have allowed me to be a better witness to my bosses and fellow employees; which further glorifies the Lord.

Christians are slaves to the Lord.  Period.  Not downtrodden slaves, but joyously, gladly submitting to His Authority.  Everything the Lord allows at our jobs (that is not an outright violation of His commands, of course) can be used of Him to teach us.  Loud cubicle neighbors; course language in the office; grumpy, misanthropic coworkers; inefficient, bureaucratic procedures, etc. are all like different size chisels.  Some bother us more than others but each one can be used by the Lord to fashion us into His image.  Best to pray for an attitude of submission to Him and those things.  Besides, in His time each one will eventually move or change.

How we handle interruptions from others speaks much to commitment to this God we say we serve.  Do we get visibly annoyed or short with people?  Our Lord never did when He was interrupted (which was how most of the stories in the gospels begins–while Jesus was doing something else someone comes by).

What is your conversation like?  Do coworkers know not to bother trying to tell you a dirty joke?  Do you use profanity?  What about “only when I get really frustrated”?

How much do you know what’s going on around the job?  I don’t mean business, but personal things?  If you know everyone’s business, that’s a good indicator that you probably aren’t paying enough attention to your own.

How about grumbling or complaining to coworkers about bad policies, “stupid” coworkers or customers?  Phillipians 2:14 may be the hardest verse in the Bible, “Do all things without grumbling or complaining.” (Check out 2:15,16 for the rest of the sentence: to be witnesses for Jesus.)    Do you think , for instance, the Lord ever complained to Thomas about Peter? or to James the Less about the Sons of Thunder?  Then what right have we to complain about others?  It is a bad witness and a poison to others’ morale.

We’ll talk about time use, attention to details, leadership, self-goverenance, stewardship, customer service, etc. in a future post.

Hey, if I haven’t said it lately, THANK YOU for coming by!  I hope you are blessed and the Lord is glorified!

Posted: January 22nd, 2009 under Learning & Growing, Testimony.
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94 cents.  That’s all it costs to mail a standard single-page letter envelope from the United States to many parts of the world.  That may not seem like much at all, but what if a stranger on the other side of the planet thought enough to write, print, and mail you a letter of encouragement while you were alone in jail for being a Christian?

Would you be that stranger to someone today?

PrisonerAlert.com, a ministry of Voice of the Martyrs, is a website that enables you to create letters to imprisoned believers around the world.  After first reading the process and precautions, you pick the person, then select the sentences you would like to include in your note, print it, and mail it.  In less than 10 minutes you can offer a cup of cold water, as it were, to a brother or sister in jail on the other side of the world.

One way you can make your letter “your own” is to use as your paper’s background an encouraging, inspiring landscape photo you have taken. I figure they may not get to see much, so pasting the letter text into a Microsoft Word document with a neutral, serene image background is a quick way to enhance the letter to make it personal and special.

Imagine if you received not just one letter–but literally almost 10,000 such letters from Christians all around the world! You can bless someone else like that by taking time to send an encouraging word to them.  I can’t think of a better use of a postage stamp…can you?

Posted: January 21st, 2009 under Challenge, Persecuted Church, The Church.
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Underneath following the day’s inaugural events I have been challenged by recent comments by Paul Washer and, separately, Ingrid Schlueter on her SliceofLaodicea blog about the up-tick potential for real persecution coming to Christians in America.

Let me pose to you some of the same questions I have been trying to ask myself:

• Did you ever think you might one day get handcuffed, fingerprinted, and jailed for sharing the Gospel?
• Your plans for the future…what if they are all dashed because you lost your job because of your commitment to Jesus?
• If you ever did get arrested and convicted, have you thought how that would impact your current job and severely impact your prospects for finding other work?

These are scary questions, aren’t they? They would make the blood of any sane person run icy cold at the thought.  By the way, there are thousands of brothers and sisters in Christ who TODAY experience these things–and worse. Have you prayed for them lately?

While by no means trying to minimize (or sensationalize) what may lie ahead, it seemed to me most appropriate to take courage and comfort in Luther’s (translated) words.  Steve Green does a masterful job giving them voice:

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Posted: January 21st, 2009 under Challenge, Current Events, Evangelism, Hope, State of the Church, The Church, World Events, World Missions.
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39And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:
40Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly;
41Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.
42And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.
43To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
- Acts 10:39-43

In verses 39-41 Peter continues his summary of the Life and ministry of Jesus.  We Christians, at least in America it seems, often overlook sharing about Jesus’ life with those who are lost, tending to focus exclusively on the Cross and His resurrection.  (See Part I for details)

Verse 42 – When we provide a whole picture of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we can then easily, logically build on to show that He has taken His rightful place as the Ultimate Judge each of us will stand before.

Verse 43 – Here too, we tend to neglect referring to the prophets’ testimony of a coming Christ (remember, most unsaved people don’t know what “Christ” means, so “de-code” it for them).  Then Peter, in a crescendo of testimony, explains how it is men can be saved by this One He has described.

It would seem, then, to apply this to our sharing the Gospel, we would do well to model Peter’s approach (which is the Bible’s approach) of, at least summarily, not neglecting to tell people the entirety of the Gospel story:

I. Jesus’ earthly good deeds, healings, grace, truth, kindness, message, etc.
II. His death on the Cross
III. His resurrection to Glory (and appearances to many)
IV. His now being seated in the place of our final Judge
V. How the prophets, and all of Scripture, center on Jesus
VI. How, then we can be saved/our right response to Who God Is, and what He has done

Even if a person does not get saved at that moment, God may be using you to clear up some misconceptions or flat-out errors they picked up sometime in the past about the Lord.  So pray the Lord waters the seed!!

Posted: January 20th, 2009 under Evangelism, Getting Started, Scripture, Witness Encounters.
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34Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
35But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
36The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)
37That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached;
38How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
- Acts 10:34-38 (KJV)

Only after his blanket “Kill and eat” object lesson could Peter fully grasp the open door of salvation that was swung wide open for everyone. (v34-35)

Verse 36 is the preface to Peter’s next statements, “[This is] the word which God sent…” Then he tells them.

In verse 37, Peter says Cornelius knows what has been published throughout Judea; the details of which report follow in the next verses. Obviously, all Judea has been made aware too.

In verse 38, Peter summarizes the earthly ministry of the Lord, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him”

What Peter is saying here is that people in that region knew about Jesus. They had heard of His life, His good deeds, His healings. But Peter didn’t then assume it was OK to skip over those facts of our Lord’s ministry. He (and others) continued to inform the lost about them, even if they already were familiar with the stories.

In America, by contrast, we Christians tend to neglect to include what Jesus did while He was alive on the earth when we witness. We either take it for granted in our own knowledge and/or assume that everyone else knows as well. So, like explaining a movie at the climax of the plot, we tend to evangelize from the Cross, forward. I know I have been guilty of this and I haven’t heard many evangelism programs emphasize Jesus’ life and works in their presentations either.

Next time you witness (and I’ll promise to do this too) remember to go back over what you may think the person has already heard about Jesus as you point them to the Cross. They may have gotten inaccuracies or jumbled details or other errors, so take some of the time to talk about His life on earth–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did.

More about verses 39-43 soon.

Posted: January 19th, 2009 under Evangelism, Getting Started, Scripture, Witness Encounters.
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Did you know that previously unknown species of animals, insects, reptiles, and plants are discovered all the time? Did you know that this has been happening in the Mekong Delta region for the past TEN years at a rate of two species a week? These aren’t “new” species, by the way (Creation ended on Day 6), they are simply “new” to us.

When the media reports 1,000 newly discovered species should we be surprised?  Not really, but the hearts of believers should skip a beat with excitement and awe at the ongoing pagent of Creation that is compliments of our God. “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” – 1 Cor. 10:26

Here’s a clip from the World Wildlife Fund showing just a small fraction of all the species that we have never known before. Watch out for that hot pink centipede…it produces cyanide!

Posted: January 18th, 2009 under Apologetics, Creation/Evolution.
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