Over the last several years, I have been involved with coaching in some form or other. Whether Archery, T-ball, or baseball, I’ve been involved with helping to lead my own children, as well as the youngsters who are on the team with them. It does my heart good when I see someone in public that I’ve coached, and they smile, or wave, or as in the case yesterday, shout at me from across the parking lot to get my attention. Yet this attention is something I also hold very seriously: what am I leading people in to? At times, when I coach, I have a limited influence and capacity, and so my goal is to be as much like Jesus as I can be: you never know who will need to see Jesus in me at any given time. This does not merely apply at sporting activities or even just at church, but in my home, to my wife and kids, in my neighborhood, at the store, while I drive, in private, or in any other public capacity. Each day, each moment is an opportunity to lead someone in to a meeting with Jesus Christ, I just have to be ready at every turn.
And so I have to ask: what are YOU leading people in to? Every day, in your home, in your job, when you’re out and about, when you’re in the privacy of your own home: are you leading people to Christ by your witness? Everything we do is a testimony unto the Lord, so it is important that every aspect of our life measures up to this! When it all comes down to it, each part of our lives must be brought in to submission to Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit and through His Word, so let’s be bold, and ask God to use our lives to lead others to Himself!
Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
1 Peter 2:1-12
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
And
“A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
