Tag: How to Be Faithful When No One Else Is

How to Speak When It Matters Most

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Well, you never know when plans are going to be turned on their head. I was all set to preach yesterday, but wound up stuck at home. Our Minister of Students did a terrific job filling in last minute. Here’s what I would have preached had I been able to go as planned.

This week, as we continue in our series, How to Be Faithful When No One Else Is, we are exploring the next part of Daniel’s story together. Here we find a king demanding something utterly irrational and throwing a royal temper tantrum when he can’t have it. Yet it is Daniel who comes to the rescue by providing the king (with God’s help) exactly what he was seeking. That’s the part of the story that usually gets all the attention, but there was something else Daniel did along the way that is so important for us to understand if we are going to stand firm in our faith when the world is pushing back against us. Let’s explore this together!

How to Speak When It Matters Most

Have you ever thrown a truth bomb? Do you even know what a truth bomb is? If you’re on social media in some capacity, I suspect you do. A website called Slang.net defines a truth bomb this way: “A truth bomb is a statement made that might seem shocking to the recipient but is the truth. It feels like a bomb because the victim…is unsuspecting of it and is usually left disoriented. Truth bombs can lead to disaster depending on the truth they reveal and how the recipient takes it.” Truth bombs aren’t so fun if you are on the receiving end of one, but we live in a day when people love throwing them at each other—especially on social media. Now, just how fully most “truth bombs” actually fall in line with the truth is a matter of some debate, but it’s always fun to feel like you’re telling people something they don’t already know and will shock them to learn it. We love the idea of speaking truth to power like this. 

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Courageous Faithfulness

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This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, How to Be Faithful When No One Else Is. Over the next seven weeks we are going to be working through some of the story of Daniel to see how he maintained such incredible faithfulness to God in spite of living in circumstances that were generally not even remotely supportive of that goal. Living as we do in a culture that is increasingly hostile to public expressions of the Christian faith, Daniel’s story offers us several important principles we can use to follow his great example. Thanks for reading and sharing!

Courageous Faithfulness

All actions have consequences. That’s just how things work. Sometimes we have control over and can anticipate those consequences. Sometimes we can’t. When the U.S. withdrew our forces from Iraq a few years ago, one of the unexpected consequences was the rise of ISIS. This radical, Muslim, militant group swept to power throughout the Middle East, eventually taking control of a huge swath of territory for a short time. During their brief reign of terror, the world was treated a whole litany of shocking and tragic acts by the group and those who followed them. One of the most shocking, though, also turned out to be the most inspiring. Militants kidnapped 21 oil workers from a refinery in Libya. All but one of them were Egyptian Coptic Christians. The group took these men to a beach on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa and on camera offered each one the opportunity to renounce his faith in Christ and embrace Islam. All of them refused and had their lives taken for their refusal. When it came to the turn of the one African man who was not previously a believer, he responded, “Their God is my God,” and forfeited his life as well. The story of the incredible faithfulness and courage of these men is still told throughout that region to inspire others to follow Jesus as well. 

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