Upside Down

I listened to an old Billy Graham message the other day on XM radio. He said something I don’t know if I’ve ever given much thought to. The 120 men and women in that upper room – men and women probably not much older than their early twenties, maybe some in their late teens – those 120 didn’t have the wonderful benefits of phones, email, the Internet, cars, television, planes, radio, or any of the hundreds of other modern technological advantages we enjoy. Yet despite what they DIDN'T have, those young people turned their world upside down and inside out for Jesus. Their words spread like a tsunami across a mostly pagan Roman Empire that was in many cases hateful of Christ and of His followers. If you think about it, the Roman Empire was not too much different than our own 21st century culture. Upside down and inside out. How did they do that without even a sliver of the technology we consider an absolute necessity for evangelism? They met Jesus. Those 120 souls had a life-altering, up close and very personal encounter with the Risen Savior. And that encounter exploded into an ‘over the top’ ongoing commitment to the Savior. It impelled them across the continent with Christ’s message of salvation, forgiveness of sins, and the promise of eternal life through the blood of Golgotha’s cross.  

Oh! How I pray nearly every day for that kind of self-commitment of my own life, to wait for Him, to long for Him as a thirsty deer pants for the stream -- and then share His water with a very thirsty world. 

Don’t you?