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People today are desperate to connect in some meaningful way to others, yet modern life makes a deep sense of connection and personal integration terribly difficult.

Before tracts and techniques, before programs and pamphlets, we need to open our arms wide and let seekers know that they bless us just by being in our midst.
–Rebecca Pippert

One of the mysteries of God is His nature of being One God in relationship with Himself in Three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a nature that is beyond our full comprehension, but it is clear from the Bible that He is the God who has always existed and who will always exist. Therefore, He has always been in relationship – it is one of His eternal characteristics.

And because we were created “in His image,” we find that we have within us a deep need to be in relationship. We have a longing to connect with others. We desire to be close to others, to have intimate relationships with them, to know others and be known by them at a deep, personal level. And yet, so many people hurt because finding these meaningful relationships can be so difficult and elusive in this busy, modern high-tech world.

That is where you come in. If you know Jesus Christ, then you know the abundant life that He has brought into your life through establishing a relationship with you. Now it is your job to be His hands and feet to others to touch them with the love of Christ. As someone who knows how important relationships are, you need to open your arms wide and bless others with your friendship today. A smile, a word of encouragement, a pat on the back – finding little ways to let others know that you enjoy being in relationship with them and their friendship is significant to you. Your openness to beginning a new relationship with someone who needs a friend could change their life, and who knows, you may even find your next best friend!

Be the voice of Christ in someone’s life today as you invite them into a relationship with you.

Here is a great quote from C. S. Lewis about why God hasn’t revealed Himself more fully yet – it has to do with us choosing our side today, while the choice can still be made:

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying: He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely….

Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”
–C. S. Lewis

What side have you chosen?
If He comes back today will it strike irresistible love or overwhelming horror into the core of your being?

Is my wealth being used to honor God?
One of the most convicting quotes in recent time that I have run across:

The evidence that many…are not rich toward God is how little they give and how much they own…. We can only justify the exorbitance of our lifestyle by ignoring the lostness of the unreached and the misery of the poor.
–John Piper

Ouch.
Why has God given me so much? To bless me? or to use it to share Him with the rest of the lost and unreached world? Perhaps to help alleviate the misery of those in need and in poverty? And yet, too often I only use it to continue to gain more stuff and luxury and comfort for myself.

Father, help me to know how to properly use the material blessings that you have blessed me with to bless you by using it to share you with the world. May I not consider the finances you have blessed me with my own, but rather realize that you have loaned it to me to be used for your purposes.

Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within.
   …That Mr. Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within.
   Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.
–G. K. Chesterton

May you not fall into the trap of Jones and worship yourself!

G. K. Chesterton had a way with words. Sometimes he can be a little hard to follow or decipher, but he is right on target here, and his writings are perhaps even more descriptive of us today than when he first wrote them, as we are worshiping self more and more. Our culture tells us that “anything goes” as long as it brings you personal happiness. But what we find out by looking at those who pursue personal happiness through wealth, fame, and status… is that there is a lot of emptiness they try to fill with those things. And even once they achieve their goals, they are left without personal happiness. There must be something other than chasing the “inner light” that brings us fulfillment.

And Chesterton found it – the outer light of Jesus Christ. May you spend today and the rest of your life chasing Jesus (the One who has been chasing you) and discovering the ultimate happiness of finding a relationship with Him.

In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel than to hear his word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure…. But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.
–Richard Foster

Are you willing to endure the many little deaths of service for the cause of Christ? Today, if you will answer the call to service, you will have to endure the death of your words in order to use his words, the death of your attitude in order to have his attitude, and the death of your thoughts in order to think of the things of God after him.

And so when someone lashes out at you with a verbal jab, you will have to guard your tongue. Death to self.
And when someone does something else that makes you angry, you will have to guard your attitude. Death to self.
And when your mind wants to take you down a road of thought of negativity or impurity, you will have to guard your mind. Death to self.

It is many little deaths all day long.
God, help us to choose these little self-deaths over our own desires and to endure them well in order to build others up for the sake of better establishing your Kingdom here on earth.