An app, the Olympics, and the meaning of life

This post, like the blog on the spread of memes - and how spreading the Gospel, with the great love and salvation Jesus gives should be just as easy - touches on a specific Internet fad, as well as a much more ancient tradition: the Olympics.

Even in the 1500 or so years the Olympics weren't around, people could identify with Paul's use of masteries to describe how we should live the Christian life. It might seem silly to compare Pokemon Go to them - after all, fads are often forgotten by many soon after they appear. How many remember pogs, for instance?) Still, it makes an apt analogy for today, just as Paul used a few sports as illustrations. After all, here people are not just picking up on a meme, they are actively looking for something.

Where's Waldo

Games have kept our attention for quite a while. Some of those playing this new app may be familiar with  Where's Waldo books, where kids look for a character named Waldo in a huge crowd. In fact, one could argue that this is a life-sized version of Where's Waldo, where one actually gets out and looks.

Apparently, though I know nothing about it, there are other creatures to find in this game, but we won't get into that. We don't know much about Waldo either, and he could easily have a large family. Seriously, the idea of searching for something is wonderful. It gets people active, and help them realize they can accomplish something.

If we had a where is Jesus app, we would want to look in the Bible. We would also find Godly attributes in the people of God and hang around them because they should edify us and we them - we should bear each other's burdens, love one another, encourage one another, exhort one another, and so on. All this is because we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth,  God lives in each of us through the Holy Spirit .

But, you're saying, there has to be more to this blog post than just that, right?

Yes. That above is plenty, of course. It is important, in this difficult world, to seek what will bring us the peace, comfort, help, and so much more that we lack. And, most of all, we must seek that forgiveness and salvation that we all crave, that unconditional love which God provides.

However, there is even more that our ever-loving God has for us.

"Go" is also vital. Because we are told to go and make disciples of every nation. So, this will also exhort each of us, myself included, to go more often.

Go into all the world

So, people are going around in so many different places to find these creatures. While it's true they don't have to interact with them in reality - and with some of them it's possible they wouldn't want to - they are still going in search of things.

There have been stories of people wandering into dangerous parts of zoos, where are real animals could attack them, and walking into poles and other things. In other words, people just being rather silly.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the silliness, if it is done unto the Lord and something that is pleasing to him. I skip down the street sometimes a little bit when I walk. 1st Corinthians 10:31 does tell us whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do all for the glory of God.

However, we are the rewards in heaven because of what we do for Him. Even better than looking for Waldo in a book or some creature on an app is searching for people to tell the wonderful good news of the Gospel to. Because, the only things we can take with us are souls of those who are saved.

However, Heaven will be filled with things more wonderful than we can even imagine. 1st Corinthians 2:9. This life is so awful for some people, while for others it may be good on the outside they may be hurting on the inside. Still others may be wondering, with all the problems in the world, is it coming to an end soon or will something else awful happen?

These are people who need to be told of the fabulous stuff that is waiting for us in Heaven. Heaven will not be boring, it will be a fabulous place where, in the words of a 105 year old believer who died in Scotland recently, "Thank the Lord for good friends, I'm going to be here forever and ever!" Those friends that maybe we wish we had, they'll be there. The fun we wish we could have instead of the drudgery of life, it will be there in Heaven. It will be a place of no pain, no suffering.

There is a horrible alternative, though, which God did not create for humans. He only created hell for the devil and those angels who rebelled. Matthew 25 41. However, people go there when they choose on their own to reject Jesus Christ. They need to be told that he is real and that He has saved them from their sins, and then all they need to do is call on Him by faith to save them and forgive them, believing that He died on the cross for them to take the punishment for their sins and rose from the dead.

What an incredible Adventure, to go and tell people that their sins are forgiven, if they will only receive it. They don't have to come to church, they can be led to Christ right there on the street, wherever you are.

This is what we should be doing. This is why there are Ministries like our YouthQuake Ministry, and why we need so many more helpers and so many more funds for our radio. We led  5 kids to Christ at a club meeting recently and could do so much more in inner-city Canton. It is why we have Youth Leader Training Institute, YLTI, so we can include the young people and train them to go into their schools and start prayer and devotion clubs and leave their friends to Christ and help them grow in the Lord.

So, please, give if you feel led, you can see on our website how. We have missionaries and staff who need support so that they don't have to work secular jobs and can concentrate on the ministry. Support our golfathon and other things, so we can have a larger radio show as well. Work in your own Community also, wherever God has placed you.

But most importantly comma remember that we are called to go ourselves. And that is people can go around with an app finding imaginary things, that life-sized version of Where's Waldo - nay, World sized version - then surely we can go out and share the gospel, even doing so via the Internet like this. Just as Paul exhausted believers 2 work like Olympians who try for a corruptible crown, strive for an uncorruptible one by searching hard for those who need Christ and sharing His love with them.

True freedom comes when we trust Jesus to save

This is written on Independence Day in one country. However, that independence can be celebrated everywhere as freedom from all the problems the devil throws our way.

Without God, we are still in our sins. As mentioned numerous places, such as here, Sonship doesn't mean physical relations (the Arabic Walad"), it means that Jesus is the very essence of God, having every attribute, etc. (the rabic "ibn"). "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."(Colossians 2:9) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"(John 1:1-,14) "I and My father are one."(John 10:30) Many other verses also point to the fact that Jesus Christ is God in flesh, and "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."(1 John 5:12)

That eternal life - life which begins at the moment you trust Jesus Christ to save you, so you can have life more abundantly as the previous post discusses - is only a single, sincere prayer of repentance to Jesus Christ away. As shown right on the front of our ministry site, simply Admit you're a sinner, Believe Jesus Christ died to take the punishment for your sins and rose from the death, and Call on Him to save you and forgive you and make you new inside. You can do that right now.

However, it is not just frreedom from sin.

Some cultures place a lot of emphasis on the collective. There is a sense of shame in not being like everyone else. However, that shame vanishes when we trust Christ.

Imagine being the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. He was the first person in his country, most likely, to receive Christ. Even if he wasn't, there have been others who were in their countries. (After all, someone had to be first.) Those firsts represent the potential for God to use that person to liberate their whole society. Everyone they come in contact with is someone else who can be saved from the punishment deserved for their sins, that being eternal separation from God forever in a place called Hell. Hell was only prepared for the devil and his angels that rebelled(Mat. 25:41). People go there because they haven't trusted in God's free gift of salvation. And yet, how shall they hear without someone to tell them.

That is the wonderful thing about being the first in one's family. If a person is a Muslim, or a Hinfu, or a Buddhist, and nobody else has believed, then they are together burdened by the shame of not knowing Jesus. And yet, they only have to come to trust Him to save them, and then who knows, their faith might lead others to trust in Jesus Christ to save them fromt heir sins.

There is also freedom from fear. Fear of evil spirits, ancestors, and other things haunt many people. However, these spirits are nothing compared to God and His wonderful love. We fight a spiritual battle every day, but we don't have to do it alone. In fact, we have no chance to win alone. We must rely on Jesus Christ to win that battle. But, the wonderful thing is, we know that He will. The Bible tells us so.

So, when we trust Him to free us from that fear - and 1 Timothy 1:7 promises He hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind - we can be certain that we will only have a healthy respect for God the way we have a healthy respect for a hot stove. We're not scared of it, but we also know not to touch it becasue we'll get burned. However, we will not be scared, because God has freed us from the burden of our sin.

Romans 8:1 promises that "There is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The stains of our sins have been washed away. He has removed them as far as the est is from the west, and will remember them no more.The devil may try to remind us of them, but we can be sure that God has promised that Jesus Christ has taken all of them upon Himself.

What amazing freedom! It's so wonderful to be independent of the devil and his wiles, and of the string of death. When we are, we cleave to Jesus Christ not because we have to, but because we want to out of our love for Him.  After all, we can't serve two masters - Jesus says we'll love one and hate the other or vice versa. There is no possibility of ignoring both of them.

So, the question is, are you giving God your most today. Are you celebrating freedom by honoring Him not because you have to, but because you want to? That is the only way to do it, because we can't be saved by works, only by grace along through faith alone in Christ alone.