It’s a great way of saying, “I don’t know what I should do in this situation…but no matter, I should do what Jesus would do…so WWJD.”

So, we see a car stranded. Or we see a person in need. Or we have a conflict with a friend or family member. And we ask WWJD.

It’s great advice. Jesus is our role model…and it IS HE that we should emulate.

How many of us acknowledge what Jesus would do…but then don’t do it? It’s a BIG reason why non-Christians look at Christians and label us hypocrites.

We must not SAY one thing (talk the talk) and then NOT do it (not walking the walk).

So, I propose a NEW catch phrase: WIDWJWD – “Will I Do What Jesus Would Do?”

1 John 3:18 says “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

To be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, we must take action. Until we do this consistently, outsiders will continue to look at us as all talk, and no action.

So in the coming weeks, start asking yourself: WIDWJWD! And let me know how it works out.

To learn more about how you can LIVE your faith and walk the walk, visit this site.

One thing I keep seeing is situations where the person (the non-believer) finally tells their parents or friends…and BAM…rejection. Parents and friends stop talking to them (presumably because they are so hurt)..they are shunned.

It leaves me scratching my head in disbelief. I know it happens, but WHY?

God calls us to love each other. God calls us to take care of one another.

How do you think non-believers feel when us Christians, who are supposed to show unconditional love, about face and walk away from the relationship?

From reading the comments, it’s clear that it’s incredibly damaging…not just to the person who’s at a very vulnerable time (spiritual low you might say)…but also damaging to Christianity.

Our reputation should be one of loving people THROUGH a hard time in their life…not walking away. People should know us as the people who didn’t judge, didn’t condemn, didn’t shun.

So, I’ll ask the pink elephant in the room question here: Is there anyone in your family that you have severed relations with because they fell away from the church? Ask yourself…is that what God wants, or is this just my imperfect human way of dealing with difficult situations?

Reach out in love and rebuild the relationship. Don’t try to drag them to church, don’t have your pastor chat with them, don’t try to fix them…just love them and spend time with them. Show them God’s unconditional love and mercy by how you treat them.

Who knows…LIVING the Christian faith may be just the witness they need to someday return to the faith.

To learn more about how you can help reverse negative Christian stereotypes, visit http://www.changingthefaceofchristianity.com. When you get there, JOIN the cause.

Because Josh’s song affects me so much, I thought I’d share some of the lyrics and WHY they are so meaningful to me.

“Can you hear me when I’m calling out your name? I guess sometimes I get the feeling, that I’m all alone, that I’m doing this whole thing on my own…but then,

…you were right there when I need you the most, in the darkness when my hope is lost. I know, I know, that you hear me when I call.”

…and you tell me everything is gonna be OK, you’re right there, you’re right there, you’re right here…always!”

I think this song is so profound because I think of all the years I ran away from God…but He was right there ALWAYS. I had spent so much time running and denying Him that I was in darkness and couldn’t see. When I finally decided to seek Him it’s like the light switch was turned on and there He was…waiting for me.

God is like a loving Father who must be patient as he sees his child rejecting his help and trying to do it “all on my own”. He waits for us to swallow our pride and humbly ask for help. And then, instead of criticizing our pride or stubbornness, he embraces us in unconditional love.

Just like in Josh’s song, when I finally called out to God…He heard me and He forgave me. And now I have Him to walk with and talk with ALWAYS.

Do you ever feel like you are all alone, struggling to get through life all by yourself? Remember, God IS always there. He wants you to love Him just as much as He loves you. But because of His gift of Free Will, it’s a choice you have to make.

Even if you are a life-long Christian, I encourage you to seek Him with ALL of your heart…daily. When you feel like all hope is lost because of growing debt, a job loss, marital problems, or just life’s pressures…turn to God and He will be there.

If you’ve never heard Josh’s music, visit his page on myspace.

Thanks Josh for using your God given talents to bring Joy to my heart. God Bless.

God commands us to love one another (1 John 3:23). Love can be communicated in many different ways… by listening, by helping, through words of encouragement and hope, and through acts of selfless service. But love always starts with ”hello”. When you first meet someone, do you give them undivided attention, or are you looking for the next person to meet?

I can count on one hand the times in my life when I have witnessed someone giving consistent focused attention to a group of new people; treating each person as uniquely important. How about you?

We meet new people at the grocery store, at the pharmacy, standing in line for tickets to a show, waiting for a table at a restaurant, at a power-lunch or networking event, and even at church. How do you make people feel when you first meet them? My suggestion is to first make them feel important to you with your eyes. There are other suggestions, but this is a good first step.

In my church, there is a small time set aside at the beginning of service to ”go shake some hands”. This is where I have most often felt invisible to those new people I’m meeting. For some visualization, imagine you are in a dense fog and all you see coming at you is a hand. So, you start to extend your hand to meet theirs. Now, if you are like me, the next thing you do is look up and see whose hand it is.

This is the moment of truth. Will the person be looking at you as they shake your hand, or will they be looking left, right, or past you for the next hand? The goal is not to ‘’shake as many hands in the next 30 seconds as possible” and the winner gets a prize. It’s about connecting briefly with another human being.

I’m calling you to be the type of person who looks the other person in the eye. When they look up, they should see you looking at them and only them. While you say hello, continue to look at them. In that brief moment, make them feel important with your eyes.

Jesus Christ was quoted as saying ”If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) The practical application today is this: How can you love others if you aren’t even willing to give them your brief undivided attention? If it’s tough to do this in church with fellow believers, how are you possibly going to make non-believers feel important when you meet them?

When it comes to evangelism and connecting with non-believers, I won’t suggest I have it all figured out. But I do know this: true evangelism starts with a loving relationship where the other person feels as important to you as they are to our heavenly Father. The first and possibly only chance you will get to develop such a relationship depends on your eyes. Where are they focused?

My plea is that you let the whole world turn into a thick fog where the only thing you see is the other person’s eyes. In that moment, choose to love them as our Father has commanded, through focused attention. Who knows? The next time you meet them they might actually remember your name and you might remember theirs.

• The illusion of getting ahead
• The sense of being important or known as “highly productive”
• The feeling of being in control of your future

If you actually got “ahead”, would you pause and rest a little…or just keep pressing forward to get even more “ahead”? Most of the people I know that are running around busy all the time, trying to be in control, actually appear the most out of control. Instead of having a balanced life, one thing usually dominates their life and everything else suffers.
It’s time to start living a new, joyful life. But first, let’s talk about what busyness really costs you.

• Busyness robs you of a deep connection and relationship with God. If you are too busy for your spouse, your kids, your extended family and friends, where will God end up on your priority list? How can you be sensitive to God’s voice if you are always on the go?
• Busyness robs you of quality time with friends and family. Busyness usually revolves around jobs, projects, tasks, or activities…not around the important people in your life. (Read Luke 10:38-42)
• Busyness robs you of time for reading the Bible and quiet times of contemplation and prayer. Even if you do make time for such things, you likely feel rushed to get through them…which diminishes the value and purpose behind them.

So, to achieve a close relationship with God, your family, and important friends, start living a new life. Here are three timeless principles for eliminating busyness in your life:

• Establish your priorities
• Learn to say NO!
• Lower the bar

Remember, what’s at stake here is your joy, and a deeper connection with God, and the important people in your life. Establish your priorities, learn to say No!, and lower the bar. Give this a try for 30 days and let me know what a difference it makes in your life. It’s guaranteed!

We all here these comments from time to time. The question is “Do you believe it?“  Are people just wishful thinkers, or is God really so intimately involved in our daily lives that he orchestrate events on our behalf?

In John Ortberg’s book “The Life You Always Wanted”, he posed a similar question that resonated with me: Why are people ok about praying TO God for everything…but seem skeptical and call people crazy when they suggest that He talked back?…as if God only hears and never speaks! Or in our case…why are they surprised when He responds through another person or event in our life?

I’m hear to tell you that God does speak to us, and I firmly believe that there are no coincidences. We don’t always recognize them at the time, but hindsight has a way of revealing them to us. I believe God CAN speak to us audibly (although it’s arguably more rare…and apparently not His preferred communication style). More often than not He speaks to us through other people, animals, events (coincidences), His Bible, a sunrise, the look  on the face of a small child, an innocent and unknowing question that strikes deep into our heart to address an issue we were struggling with, etc…

I have many stories of how God orchestrates “coincidences” to share over the coming months. However, I also want to hear your stories. If you have a story to share, please email it to brad AT deeperbiblestudies DOT com.

Many people come to such an epiphany when camping out in nature… and experiencing God’s creation outside of the man-made cities we all live in. They look at the moon, and stars and heavens and just stare in awe of God’s majesty.

So, here is a simple argument for the existence of God…that even an Atheist would have difficulty explaining with a non-God answer:

1) Look around you for a moment. Can you identify anything that is man-made…something that obviously God didn’t make? Take that house for example. Did God build it? No…an architect and a construction crew did right? How about that car? The good folks at Ford or Chevy built it right? Ok…here’s a tough one…how about those sneakers you are wearing? Did God make them, or did Nike make them? OK…it’s pretty easy to identify things that are man made right? We just KNOW by looking at them, and from our experiences during our lives we just KNOW that man made them.

2) Now, look down at the ground. Did man make the dirt? No. Now look at the sky. Did man make the sun, the moon, and the stars? No. Why do we just KNOW that man didn’t make them? Why do we not need a scientific method to prove that man did NOT make those things? Maybe it’s the good old common sense and experience that helped us know that our car was made by man. It’s just plain as day…man did NOT make the heavens and the earth.

Now, if we didn’t know for a fact that man made the house, the car, and the sneakers…we would probably start looking for a creator and eventually find someone who could be caught in the act of creating them. But we don’t need to….we just know.

Well, the same is true for the heavens and the earth. Man is simply not big enough, powerful enough, or resourceful enough to create ANY of it. But if man didn’t create them…then who/what did? Where did it all come from?

Now, some might say that the Big Bang created it all. Let’s assume the Big Bang theory is true. Did man create the Big Bang? I know that’s a tough one…but again, NO. So who/what did? What caused the Big Bang? Just keep going back far enough in time, and guess what? Man still didn’t have a finger in creating it. It’s 100% God. God did it…all of it. And then God created us humans and absurdly some of us say… “there is no God.” How laughable.

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Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. We can learn several lessons from the story of Joseph.  1) God expects us to live faithfully and obey His commands… even if we don’t know where and how He’s using us. 2) God’s timing is MUCH different than ours… God works in decades and lifetimes… not days and weeks like we want. 3) Our toiling in obscurity is preparation for the day when God will use us to accomplish His purpose for our lives.

When we live in God’s will, and God’s timing, using our God given talents… our eventual greatness will bring glory to the One who deserves it… God.

I was an atheist for 13 years, and through a miracle, started believing in God and eventually put my faith in Jesus Christ. Hear about my transformation and also learn a few tips on influencing Atheists.

Click here to hear the radio interview (26 Minutes). Also, let me know if you have any comments.