Daily Devotion Monday July 19

I was teaching a Bible study when I posed a question to the group - If someone donated $10k to put up billboards of the 10 commandments next to every school in our city, should our church accept the donation? The group was perplexed by the question for a bit. Finally someone asked a great question: 

Why wouldn't we? 

We then talked about :

• what we were trying to accomplish as a church, 
  
• how we believed we could best accomplish our goals, and 
  
• whether or not spending thousands of dollars to inform people of the 10 commandments had any chance of being successful at meeting those goals. 
  
  
  Telling someone to eat less doesn't stuff the chip dip back in the frig. Telling someone they need to stop smoking has no power to help them do that. Informing someone of the 10 commandments has no power to keep them from stealing, lying or cheating. About the only thing it accomplishes is making the 'teller' feel better (read: self-righteous). 
  
  If our goal is to see people transformed, then our priority has to be on building relationships, because relationships are the key to life-change. 
  
  

If we are not in relationship with someone, we have no business trying to speak into their lives. 

Why wouldn't we?

We haven't earned the right. We can actually do more hard than good. If we truly care about standing for Christ, let's do it the way he did, by investing in those around us. If we don't care to learn a person's name, we don't care enough to share our personal convictions about, well, anything.

The flip side of this is also true...sharing our lives with others gives us a tremendous opportunity to see lives transformed by Christ. Investing in those around us provides tremendous leverage for life-change. So...

Why wouldn't we?

Originally published 2015 

Pastor Vicky