Topic(s): Christian Life, Church

If you are not working in the church because no one has given you a job, wait no longer. Christ has a job for you.

• Feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, help strangers, clothe the naked, visit the sick (Matthew 25:34–40).
• Bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).
• Comfort one in trouble (2 Corinthians 1:4).
• Do good, communicate (Hebrews 13:16).
• Warn the unruly (1 Thessalonians 5:14).
• Restore one overtaken (Galatians 6:1).
• Study the Scriptures (John 5:39).
• Teach (2 Timothy 4:2–4).
• Give (Matthew 5:42; 10:42).
• Sing (Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 5:19).
• Pray (Matthew 6:9–15).
• Bear fruit (Philippians 1:11; 4:15–17).
• Increase your faith in God (John 6:29).
• Exhort one another daily (Hebrews 3:13).

Christ has already handed out the assignments. Let us strengthen our hands to the task that is before us.

Baptizing the Wallet

Topic(s): Priorities

A big man came forward to be baptized. The country church building has no baptistery, so they took him out to a creek. He emptied his pockets to get into the water, but one noticed a lump in his back pocket. “Sir, you forgot to take out your wallet.” The man responded, “I didn’t forget. I figured that if I baptize that part of me, then everything will be okay.”

That expresses a great truth. If we are willing to give our possessions to God, then God will most likely have us with them. Too many are possessed by their possessions and are unwilling to part with them for any reason. God owns us, and all that we have is His. We are simply stewards, with the obligations to be found faithful.

“Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”—1 Corinthians 4:2

Navigating the School Years Do’s

Topic(s): Children, Family

Click here for Don'ts

• Do know your children’s teachers and textbooks. Volunteer as a room mother.
• Do have a daily (every day—no exceptions) family Bible time.
• Do converse with your children each day about the school day.
• Do your homework, so that you can successfully refute evolutionary concepts and humanistic teachings.
• Do be a presence in your children’s schools, even on the high school level.
• Do examine, without bias, other education options such as homeschooling. Too much is at stake to keep your children in a situation where souls are at risk.
• Do be involved in the homework process. This will help you know when you need to counteract humanistic material being presented.
• Do put a Bible in your kids’ backpacks and encourage them from early ages to take it out and read it through the day. This won’t work if you wait until high school to begin.
• Do go to bat for your children if they face persecution for speaking their convictions. Let them own their beliefs, but when the going gets tough, help them find ways to avoid compromise.
• Do be at home when they get home in the afternoons. Make that time a pleasant and warm homecoming every day.
• Do use school travel time to communicate calmly. Listen to Bible reading or uplifting spiritual singing.
• Do make decisions when your children are young, about activities in middle and high school in which they will plan not to participate. In our house, they knew from their preschool years that they would NOT attend proms or parties where alcohol was served. Standards of modest dress and decorum were required way before peer pressure set in. This does not magically dissolve all of the temptations the devil hurls their way, but it goes a long way in giving them resisting power. —Cindy Colley, Think Magazine, September 07

“Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”—Ephesians 6:4

The Bird Whistler

There’s a story about an MIT student who spent an entire summer going to the Harvard football field every day wearing a black and white striped shirt, walking up and down the field for ten or fifteen minutes throwing birdseed, blowing a whistle, and then walking off the field.

At the end of the summer, it came time for the first Harvard home football game, the referee walked onto the field and blew the whistle, and the game had to be delayed for a half hour to wait for the birds to get off of the field.

The guy wrote his thesis on this, and graduated.