What Makes You Different?

Beloved that's a question for us to face, those of us that are Christians. What makes us different in the world? Are we different on the job because our ethics are different, our conversation is different, our attitude is different, our love is different? Are we different in our homes, are we different in our communities? Because if we're not different, we have nothing to say to this society that they're going to believe.

Oswald Sanders said, "The Master expects from His disciples such conduct as can be explained only in terms of the supernatural." And if your conduct can only be explained in terms of the supernatural,then you've got something to say to the society, they're going to take note. But if you're like everybody else, what is the difference? What do you have that they don't have? If we're to speak to this age and call this godless age to Jesus Christ and let them know that there's something real about Christ, it'll be when our lives are unique have no other explanation than that God is there.(John MacArthur, "Love Your Enemies")

Jesus calls us to love our enemies....take home the following:

1. Think of someone you really don't like and begin today to pray for them.

2. Make an effort this week to speak to someone you normally would not speak to.

3. Perform at least one act of kindness this week for someone who does not deserve it.

Pastor Bill

The Call To An Authentic Life

If a Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority marketing campaign is successful, the city's nightclubs and casinos will be inundated with card-carrying astronauts, neurosurgeons, and bounty hunters. The city encourages tourists to deceive their parents, children, and spouses with the "What happens here..." slogan is inviting visitors to create a false identity-then come to Las Vegas and live it. The "Be Anyone" campaign includes an Internet-based contest in which participants who concoct the most creative fictional personae can win an all-expenses-paid Las vacation to carry out the hoax in style.

Contestants will be aided and abetted by "printable business cards, a real Web site and 800 number for their faux business, plus printable certificates of achievement in their field, suitable for framing," the ad agency says (Las Vegas Sun, February 14, 2006).

But the call of Christ is to live authentically. We are to bright lights in a dark world...walking the talk and talking the walk. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glory your Father which is heaven."