If I were a guy, I'd play football. I used to try with the neighborhood boys until they realized I was a girl, and now my lack of muscle would definitely place me on the side-lines. But I love football. I love the exciting atmosphere, the thrill of each play, and the sheer bliss that comes when you team wins (Whoot for NDSU Bison! Sad to be a Viking...). But I've been thinking about football for more reasons than the fact that last weekend was a little crazy to be a football fan in Minnesota/North Dakota.
Last week I went to a conference called TCX in Minneapolis with Campus Crusade for Christ. It was an amazing few days spent soaked with the Word of God, Christian fellowship, and very few hours of sleep. Many of you have been to something similar to this: the FLY Convention, Bible camps during the summer, Urbana, Passion, or any of retreat/convention. During this time you're filled, you get the "mountain top experience" (literally at the FLY Convention!) and start to think this is normal life. You settle in to hearing such sweet Gospel preached to your convicted soul and enjoy the often times multiple praise and worship sets throughout the day. But then the last day comes, and you're sent off to return to the mundane life that found you before these life-altering few days.
This was exactly where I was on New Year's Eve. I wanted to stay right there, but as morning came we were ushered out of the hotel and I suddenly found myself in Fargo again. Something that night struck me:
"This is the team huddle. We can't stay here, we have to go play the game. If you try to go out alone, they'll crush you. You need the team, and the team has to go out together."
This picture reminded me of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles. They had just experienced the ultimate "mountain top experience", but they didn't stay there. They went out and preached, even with the rules and elders and scribes against them, "for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:20ff) They hadn't hopped a boat and went to far away cities, in fact, these men stayed where they were for quite some time, but they couldn't help but be changed. They couldn't return to their mundane lives from before, because their lives had been so utterly turned upside down that it didn't exist anymore.
"And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness." -- Acts 4:31
Later in Acts they do embark on bringing the Gospel to the Nations, and the leaders spoke of them as "the men who have turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). This wasn't anything they were doing in themselves, but the fact that God was using them in more mighty ways than they could imagine as they walked with Him daily.
Friends, this started across the street for them. They preached the Word and loved the people where God had placed them. It's easy for me to think I need to prepare myself to serve God in Africa or Asia, but forget that I'm here, in Fargo, with lost souls as well. And there is a time to cross the ocean and go "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8), but when we're here, don't forget to take notice to who's across the street. And recall that YOU cannot save a soul, but you can point them to Christ, who can.
Let us love like Christ, and put that passion into action, here, today.
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