Question: Why Not?

"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified."
1 Peter 4:14

Hello brothers and sisters in the Lord,
I have a question to ask you all:
Is there any reason why a follower of Christ (aka "Christian") should not tell unsaved about the gospel of Christ?

It's so important for us to first of all realize: why we share the gospel. One reason, God told us to in the great commission.
Also, just think of God's amazing love that he showed to us, you and me, in that WHILE we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)
That is amazing, amen?

Then think about others, and think: Why not share the gospel?
1. What do you have to lose?
a) That relationship; they might not talk to you, they might start yelling at you, they might make fun of you.  But guess what? Jesus said "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. REJOICE, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." (Matt 5:11-12) and 1 Peter 4:14
b) Your physical body; man might kill the body, but he can't take your soul!
Typically this doesn't happen in the U.S; We have it pretty easy here, compared to different countries where people are being martyred every day for the name of Christ. But IF they even physically hurt or kill you and me, it's just like Paul says: "For me to life is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 4:21 I believe)
2. What do they have to lose?
They might lose that comfortable feeling that they have in their sin. They might lose pleasure in their sin, as they realize that a Train of Death is about to hit them.
3. What do they have to gain?
Eternal life with Jesus! "He who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son does not have life." (1 John 5:11-12)
4. What do you have to gain?
Eternal treasures in heaven; whereby rust and moth can't ruin, and thieves can't steal. (Matt 6:20)
And God's approval, so that if we were to die today, God could say "Well done my good and faithful servant!"


So let's love God and people as if we knew today was our last day!
Love in Christ,
Landon

Indonesian Christians are worshiping Jesus, whether anyone likes it or not!

Recommendation: 
Voice of the Martyrs Magazine



Perspective:
After the missions trip in July 2010, and after feeling so fired up and inspired up for God and coming back to normal life, I realized this: "The country I'm in shouldn't alter my walk with the Lord. My walk with the Lord should alter my country."

Tick Tock

“Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

Psalm 90:12

"Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself. Be sure of that" -Charles H. Spurgeon

That quote really hit me hard in the face when I heard it, and initially I was thinking “What? That's crazy, that doesn't make any sense.”

But when I just think about life, death, eternity, and what it means to be saved for about 5 minuters and then re-read the quote...

Then it makes sense.

Have you ever been in a conversation and told yourself: “I need to share the gospel with this person?>” But then suddenly fear creeps in, you don't bring up any spiritual topic, you say goodbye, and then you feel terrible because you know that you should have.

I know I have!

Remembering that God has everything under His control, and realizing that God knew precisely what He was doing when He told us to preach the gospel to every creature.

I had a visual illustration pop into my head on November 14, last year, that has helped me to put things into a different perspective.

Imagine this...

On a cold winter morning you wake up, and there's are some glasses and a note sitting right next to your bed.

It says:

Dear [Your name]

Please hurry up.

The clock is ticking.

Love,

God

“Interesting,” you say.

You put on the glasses, and find that when you look through them, everyone has numbers in year, day, hour, minute, second format posted on their foreheads.

These meters tell how long a person has left to live.

Most people's meters show at least 20, 30 or 70 years left to live.

You think, “Yikes.”

After wearing these glasses for a few hours, you are talking to a person in a store, and you notice that his reading says Yr 00: Day 00: Hr 00: Min 45: Sec 19... he has less than one hour left to live.

How long are you going to talk about his favorite hobbies, his life goals, or anything else of that nature as his remaining moments left here on earth wither away before your very eyes?

Not long!!

Not if you care about his eternity, and you know for a fact how to get there.

You would make sure that he knows exactly how to get to escape hell, and be with God forever in heaven.

You would tell him that his life is almost over.

Now think about this...

Everyone's life is almost over.

When compared to eternity, life on earth will eventually seem like zero time at all.

Everyone has life meters.

We just can't see them.

So when your talking with someone, whether a close friend or a new acquaintance, remember: this person may have 1 hour left to live.

Are they absolutely sure where they are going when they die? And are YOU preaching the gospel, and sharing the love of Christ with your actions?

A lot of times we get so busy studying God's Word that we forget the basic commandment to preach the gospel. (Mark 16:15 “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”)

Challenge:

Let's always continue to gather wood (Read/study/meditate on God's Word) to keep the fire (Application God's Word) hot

But not be so busy only gathering wood that our fire dims and dies.

God bless you all with grace and peace!

Love, joy and peace in Christ,

Landon

Would you do anything different if you had this much time left on earth?

Recommendation:

For evangelism, it's very helpful to be able to transition from natural conversation to spiritual conversation with tracts.

Chick Tracts, Chick.com

Catchy, impacting, powerful, to the point cartoon tracts.

Good Like a Medicine

Verse: Colossians 1:11b
“Longsuffering with joyfulness.”

It's easy to be happy and thankful when everything is going perfect, isn't it?
Well what about when everything isn't going perfect? How about then?



So I've been studying a bit on joyfulness, and found...
We are called to be joyful through Christ! (Neh 8:10)

And when are we supposed to be joyful??
 ALWAYS! (Phil 4:4)

Even when it's hard,
and when everything is going wrong,
and we don't understand what God is doing,
and if we don't feel like being joyful,
....Remember exactly what we've been saved from: hell and eternal separation from Christ,
and exactly what we've been promised, heaven and eternity with Christ!

"Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS, and again I say REJOICE!" =D



Your joyful attitude affects everything you do.
“A merry heart does good like a medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22a)
That's a powerful statement!

Green smoothies are almost like a medicine. :)

And with that being said...
Are you going to let people and any other circumstances to affect the joy that we have in Christ?
Or are you going to let the joy of Christ affect the people and circumstances around you?

Crossroads Missions Trip 2011
These little people were so joyful. :)

Let's go and show our friends and families what it means to be filled with the joy of Christ!
Love in Christ,
Landon

Train of Death

Dear Christians,

Do you really love God? 

If you say yes, then the next question is, "How do you know?"

I wanted to share some interesting perspective  on this topic, that I believe God has been reminding me recently.

What if Jesus was sitting right next to you? (A lot of times the phrase: "Jesus is right there with you" is used as a comfort in our sorrow, isn't it?)

But what if every time you were about to get angry, lust, covet, or dishonor your parents you just thought of the same phrase "Jesus is right there with you," and then pictured Jesus being tortured because of you.

What if you knew as many verses of God's Holy Word as you knew lyrics to songs or hymns? Or lines to movies?

Even if it's "good," "godly," or even just "pretty clean," how much better would it be to fill up our minds and memorize that which will last forever?? 

3 Concepts that are great reminders to do and think of what's MOST important.

1) Life is short. Estimated life expectancy: 0 - 100 years per person.

2) Death is certain. 10 out of 10 people die. (Unless God changes that.)

3) Eternity is forever. That's a long time, isn't it?

I want you all to know, that I'm not by any means saying that I've attained perfection. (Philippians 3:12 -14)

It's easy for me to write this, but living it is the challenge, isn't it? 

So how does one go about changing oneself?

Finding inspirational people to model after and learn from is essential to succeeding at just about everything.

It's easy to find a lot of inspiring people, because there are many, including: 

Parents, family members, friends, characters from books and the Bible.

You may, like me, find yourself asking "Who is the best example of love? Or humility? Or kindness, joy, peace, honesty?

But who is the very best at every good thing that Christians should be striving for?

It was a Man who lived about 2000 years ago, named Jesus Christ.  

I'm so thankful that God sent Jesus not only to save you and me from eternal punishment...

but also to LEAD BY EXAMPLE, and set the pace for the world by what he did, so we could see exactly what it looks like to be a perfect; completely God, and completely surrendered to His Father.

So when looking for inspirations, remember:

Be inspired, model after and learn from godly men and women, but...

Be more inspired, model more after, and learn more from Jesus than anyone else.

Deep Thought of the Week: You walk onto a train track with a train coming at you, but your are daydreaming and don't see or hear it coming. Right as it's about to hit you, you are pushed out of the way of the train by a total stranger, who died in your place. Wouldn't you share the story about how the train almost hit you? And then tell people about that man that heroically saved you? 

Train of Death

Challenge: Tell the story about how Hell almost hit you, but then Jesus stepped in and saved you.

Saints, let's pick up our cross and go!
Peace, joy and love in Christ,

Landon

Joy and Peace

Hi friends,

It's been an amazing week. God has been teaching and reminding me of a lot of things.

I had an entire post written up a few days ago, but I think God showed me something better to write, so here I am starting at 11:15am when it's "due" in less than an hour. :)

I have recently been taking the position of: "I-need-to-go-witness-and-evangelize-like-crazy," to a point where I was actually stressing out, and putting the pressure of the world on myself, and losing the JOY of sharing Christ.

I don't recommend sharing Christ as if we are forced to do it. Realize that it's an honor and privilege to do so.

God showed me a lesson in balance. 

Basically in faith and works.

We all need to have the works, of actually sharing the gospel of Christ, and fulfilling the great commission and telling the best news ever.

But yet at the same time, have faith that GOD has it all worked out for people. It's an amazing PEACE and JOY that comes in trusting the Lord; HE is the Savior, not me.=D

Here's a picture of me almost 2 years ago in Minneapolis in 2010.

This pic is a reminder to me that the important thing is: Loving God, and loving people. :)

Tip of the week: "Share the truth of Christ with and as a result of love."

That's all for this week! :)

God bless you all with grace and peace,

Landon