Let Your Acts Be Your Tracts

­­Okay so this is a little bit different from what I normally do.  I was having a conversations with someone, and the subject of soul winning came up, ad how we go crazy on passing out tracts and blitzing areas.  I thought to myself, hey, what’s the good in a tract?  I mean yes it does tell people where your church is and how to get saved, but that’s it.  Now that’s better than nothing, but that is the extent of it’s use.  That’s when I thought hey, you know, letting your acts (lifestyle, dress, talk, etc.) be your tracts would be much more powerful than a tract.  I don’t think that passing out tracts is a bad thing AT ALL, but if that’s the extent or the MAJOR part of your soul winning and outreach where you are directly trying to get people saved (not just get them to your church) then…well….sorry if this hurts your feelings…but it’s pretty lame in my point of view.  Let me put it this way.  You can be totally un-saved and still go out and pass out tracts and look the look, but your ‘acts’ show that ‘your just a show’, whereas you can be an amazing Christian but passing out tracts and door knocking doesn’t prove or show anyone that you’re a Christian and different from them in a good way.  Your lifestyle and ‘acts’ are WAY more powerful than ANY tract.  Like, okay…you can pass out a tract to someone, then later that someone sees you doing something wrong and you totally ruin the chance of them ever being a Christian because you were a nice looking person who told him or her about something that could make their life better and then they see you living just like them…it’s blows your reputation as well as the reputation of other Christians.  Now if you never pass out a tract but people see the way you live is different and the right way to live and get saved as a result, then that’s how we should roll! People will be more appt to become a Christian if they SEE through you’re a Christian than if you go up to their door and nervously ask them a few questions, leave them and tract, and leave.  Let your acts be your tracts.  If I need to clarify something (which I’m sure I probably will have to) just ask in the comments!:)

-Levi

There WILL Be Consequences For THAT!!

Proverbs 6:28 "Can one go upon coals, and his feet not be burned?"

So basically what I saw in this verse, is the lesson of consequences.  What I saw it translated as, was that you can't 'push the red button and not expect and explosion.'  So I know that we normally think that consequences always have to do with bad things, because all the sermons (and lessons) that we've heard have always been 'THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR SIN.'  Now that IS true…I'm not disputing that AT ALL!  But also I don't think that most people of it in the opposite sense.  If you do a good thing, there will be a consequence for that!  I think that we've been 'trained' to think that consequences is only a word the gets used when we do something bad, or screw up something in our lives.  Like okay, you always hear "I know that you stole that and there WILL be consequences for your sin"…I've NEVER heard anyone say "there will be consequences for you giving that missionary $100"  Know what I mean?  I goes what I'm saying is that it'd be cool if we could change the way we've been programed to think about consequences.  Start thinking "HEY…If I do this or that, what are the awesome consequences going to be"…I'll bet when you read that it sounded weird…it's the way we've been 'programmed…consequences have ALWAYS carried a bad connotation.  You know, as long as you're aren't JUST trying to further your own gain, there is NOTHING wrong with wanting to get rewarded by God for doing good things!  It's not a sin to expect God to reward you for doing something good…shoot…we EXPECT God to do something bad to us when we do something bad, so why not switch it up.  Do good and EXPECT something good to 'happen back.'  Maybe you don't always get physical and material things…maybe God rewards you with a AWESOME grade on a test, or keeps you from being in a car crash, or even makes the policeman not pay attention so that he doesn't see you going 80 in a 60!;)  Anyways…look to do good things and see what happens.  Don't make consequences a word that only gets used when something bad or wrong happens. 

P.S:  I don't think I'd be to far off if I guessed that when you read the title you thought this would be about 'sin finding you out'?

-Levi-

SATAN Shout Out

Get Some Experience!

Proverbs 19:2 “Also, that the should be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth”

So when I read this I saw two things – two meanings in the verse.  The first part of the verse I took to be talking about education AND experience.  Solomon tells us that we need to have knowledge about things, and since he didn’t specify I think that he means we have to have knowledge in EVERYTHING…yes…even the dreaded ‘English.’  Also I think that he also means that we need to have experience because after all experience IS knowledge!  Example.  If I wanted to be a Marine, I could read al the books about Marines that were ever written, I could go and talk to former Marines, I could even go at watch videos on how to train to be a Marine, but if I never go to B.U.D.S then I can’t be a Marine, because I may have ALL the book knowledge possible, but I don’t know HOW to use my knowledge because I don’t have experience.  A really REALLY smart guy once told me that if he were to start a college, the first two years would be getting the students out and giving them LOTS of experience in LOTS of different things, THEN the last two years would be academics, because now a days some kids when they go to college have NO-CLUE what they want to do because they’ve never had any experiences!  So staying cooped up as good little holier than thou Christians, and gathering TONS of book knowledge, but no experience knowledge is not a good thing!  We AREN’T going to win the war against Satan, if we stay in out headquarters and read books about strategy, we have to go out and fight.  Anyways, moving on.  The second part of the verse I took to be talking about the way that we work.  To me it says that we need to a job properly and don’t just skippy-do right on through it!  As Christians we always want to be the fastest and hardest working people, but we HAVE to make sure that we balance speed, and quality.  We don’t want to sacrifice the job because ‘we did it in record time’…NO!!!  Don’t be TO hurried in what you do.  This just came to me but that could also apply to being rash in our decisions.  Take a second and think things through!:D

It's Your Rep People!

So I had a devotional ready, but I just felt like posting this thought instead. It's something I've been thinking about, and something that I think is really important. Do the people who know you - talking about un-saved people - and the people who don't know you, know that you are a Christian. Can they look at you, your lifestyle, your dress and talk, and your behaviors, and tell that you are a Christ follower? Or are you a person who just looks nice, does the right things and goes to church? It's something I've been thinking about and thought I'd share with y'all!:)

Kiss Anger Bye-Bye

Proverbs 19:11 "The discretion of a man deffereth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression"

Okay, so this is kinda an anger management verse, but kinda not.  Loosely translated in the ALAV, Solomon is saying, Hey dude, a little tip...when you get angry or somthin' and you have a chance to give 'pay back', run it through your brain first to reason out all the consequences of your actions.  So we've all see it happen with other people, and if we're honest with ourselves we're also guilty of this, but something will happen that really ticks us off...sometimes rightfully so, sometimes not...and we just totally blow up about it and go all Kung-Fu Panda on the person!  Now what good does that do, besides showing off your awesome anger skills?  None.  It simply makes us look immature and partially ruins our relationship with that person.  So taking from what Solomon said, we need to think over the consequences of our actions to see if it really is going to be worth it.  Most times it's not.  To be HONEST, this is something that I still work on:/  But I've found that if, when something ticks you off, you take a BIG deep breath and yell at the person mentally without looking at them, then look back at them it's surprising how most of the anger dissipates!!:D  Is it worth ranting and raving at someone for ripping a nice big hole in a pair of your nicest jeans?  Probably not!  Also if the issue/problem isn't a big deal, it is GLORY to just let it go.  If you do that then it makes you look like the bigger person.  I'm not saying that you WANT to try to make the other person feel guilty, but if you do something to someone else on purpose or accidentally that could make them angry, how does it feel when that person doesn't give a reaction, and they simply calmly tell you "it's okay."  You feel MUCh worse that if they had totally blown up at you.  I'm not saying we WANT to make others feel bad, but I AM saying that sometimes/most of the time it's A LOT better just to 'Let it Go'