The last and final word is this: Fear God. Do what he tells you.  ~Ecclesiastes 12:12-13

Yesterday I turned 25 years old. That’s crazy! Someone once said, “Life is like toilet paper, the closer to the end you get, the faster it goes!” That’s a fact!

I spent some time reflecting on the 25 years of my life. What are the greatest lessons I’ve learned? What are my favorite memories? Greatest accomplishments? Favorite relationships?

I came down to one conclusion. The greatest thing about my life is my relationship with God. All I could keep saying to myself yesterday is “God’s been so good to me.”

Choosing to pursue a relationship with God was the best decision I’ve ever made. Everything in my life has stemmed from making that decision.

He’s opened up doors nobody else could open, given me unbelievable experiences, connected me with some of the greatest people on the planet, and above anything else, He’s allowed me to have an amazing relationship with Him.

I’ve lived without God, and with God, and there is no comparison.

My Conclusion: The only life worth living is one passionately pursuing God with everything in you.

If you’re reading this, and you’ve never experienced God in the way I’m talking about, you’re missing out! He longs to have a relationship with you. He longs to do amazing things in your life. He loves you. I’d love to talk to you about how you can start a relationship with Him. Feel free to e-mail me at bsmith@lifeatvictory.com or leave me a message on Facebook.

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¹⁷And when Jesus heard it, He said to them, Those who are strong and well have no need of a physician, but those who are weak and sick; I came not to call the righteous ones to repentance, but sinners (the erring ones and all those not free from sin).                                                  Mark 2:17

Something I’ve been dwelling on lately is this:

This is the only opportunity I have to reach the people that are in my life right now. I’ll never get to reach them again. As I look back at my high school year book I realize, my time to influence and reach those people have past. College – past. Previous jobs – past. I’ll never get the influence I had in those seasons with those people back.

Implications?

College Students: You’ll never get to Room with your roommates again, or sit next to that kid in your chem class – this is your only chance to reach them.

Pastors - People are coming to our ministries every week and it might be the only chance they’re giving to God, they’re coming one time. It’s our only chance to reach them.

High School Students - Even though you think you will, you won’t be friends with very many people from high school once you graduate – this is your only chance to reach them!

Parents - You get a limited window in which you can reach your kids – it’s your only chance.

You – You meet and interact with a ton of people everyday that you’ll never talk to again. You only have one chance to lift their lives and point them to God.

What are you doing to reach the people in your life right now? Time is short, the clock is ticking, and this really is your only chance.

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¹⁷And when Jesus heard it, He said to them, Those who are strong and well have no need of a physician, but those who are weak and sick; I came not to call the righteous ones to repentance, but sinners (the erring ones and all those not free from sin).                                                  Mark 2:17

This is quickly becoming a life verse for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with Christians, in fact my best friends are all Christians. However, I want to have a lot more friends that don’t live for God.

We’re here for one reason: to reach the world for Jesus. How are we going to do that if we’re not befriending and loving on people who don’t know God?

Here are Some Statistics that should shock you, and ideally inspire you to action:

Within 2 Years of Being a Christian, Statistically, Christians will Have 0 Non-Christian Friends in their Lives

There are 5 Types of Unchurched People in the World -4/5 Said they Will go To Church if Someone Invites Them

21% of Christians Will Invite Someone to Church in their Lifetime

2% of that 21% Actually Invite Non-Christians to Church in their Lifetime

What does this mean? Churches are growing at the expense of other churches. We’re taking Christians from one church and bringing them to our church. We’re only reaching 2% of the lost! Does anyone else see something wrong with this?

While we spend all of our times trying to encourage and lift other believers (this is a good thing, but we need a balance), there are billions of people who are desperate for a relationship with God. People desperate for hope. People looking for purpose. People who go to bed and know there has to be something more to life. People who we can point to Jesus.

The Concept is Simple: Hang out with People who don’t know God, love on them, and point them to Jesus. If that’s too hard for you, at least you can do is invite them to church!

If we don’t, who will?

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Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions -I John 3:18

The “Pay it Forward” principle comes from the movie, “Pay it Forward” If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to. The whole concept is this: Help three people in a really big way, do something for them that they can’t do for themselves. In return, ask them to “pay it forward” and do the same thing for three people in their lives.

Ask God to put three people on your heart, something to do to help each of them, and then do it.

Think about that. Have you ever done something for someone that they couldn’t pay you back for? It’s the most rewarding thing in life!

I would encourage you to put this principle into practice -> Ask God to put three people on your heart, something to do to help each of them, and then do it.

When they want to pay you -> just say, “No thanks, just know that God loves and cares about you very much. If you’d like to pay me back, do something for three people in your life that they can’t pay you back for!”

If we’ll put this into practice, and once we’re done with our three people, find three more, we really will change the world one person at a time.

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But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty I Corinthians 1:27

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” -Psalm 14:1

I used to work at a Bank. I got to interact with hundreds of people everyday and I got to know our regular customers pretty well. One of my favorite customers was an engineer who would always come in chomping a cigar. By the world’s standards, this guy was successful. He was smart and had a ton of money!

Every time he came in, he would share with me “Keys to Success in Life”. We would have some good conversations, until I left for Africa for two weeks. When I came back and saw him again, I greeted him, and he responded, “O the moron’s back from serving God! I’m disappointed in you, I thought you were smarter than that, Doug (My real name).”

(I thought this Picture Was Pretty Funny, I obviously Don’t Believe Atheists Threaten Christians)

From that day on, everyday he would come in, it would be to harass me for my beliefs. He never tried to disprove God, but just tried to make me feel like an idiot for believing in Him. People at the bank  would actually apologize to me for him when he would leave!

I’ve Lived Without God, and Lived for God – There is no Comparison

My response for a while was to just ignore his attacks,  try to have a normal conversation, and love on him as much as I could. He kept this up and so one day I asked him an honest question . . . “Can I ask you a question?” “Yes” he responded. “Do you enjoy your life? Do you have a great family life? You have vacation houses and all the money someone could want… Are you happy?”

“No, my life sucks, I hate it.” He said.

He didn’t have to say much after that. I think he got the point . . . after that moment he started asking me questions about God. He actually invited me to his house for coffee with him and his wife to talk about God. After that we had great conversations and I know that I had the privilege of planting seeds in his heart and I pray that others will water it, and God will take care of the rest.

Whats my point? I’m not saying that every atheist on the planet hates their lives, but I can tell you that they are missing out on the life Jesus provided for them through the cross, and if they’d look deep in their hearts, I promise you that they know there is something more to life than the life they’ve been living.

Philemon 1:6 says, “I pray that everyone who meets you find out how wonderful it is to live in Christ.” That’s something I pray everyday.” Most people are turned off by Christians – Why? Because they know some! They think, if being a Christian is like being like Aunt Mildred, Forget it! When people who don’t live for God see our lives, they should literally be thinking, they have something I don’t and I want it!

If there are people you know that don’t believe in God – don’t condemn them, love them. Love always wins and never fails. Don’t try to prove to them God exists – show them God exists by living your life for God. When a door opens to share Jesus with them do it! I promise you that one day – they’ll come back and thank you for it!

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Everyday I pray this prayer, and everyday it comes to pass:

God, I open up my heart to you today. I’ll do what you want me to do, say what you want me to say, go where you want me to go. Let the right people come across my path today so I can point them to you and lift them with your word and your love . . .

Smith Wigglesworth would not go to bed unless he had led someone to the Lord that day. That is awesome, and I’m not there yet, but I don’t want to go to bed until I have pointed someone to God. I don’t want to go to bed until I know I’ve been used by God to lift at least one life.

In his brilliant work, “Spiritual Leadership“, J. Oswald Sanders talks about interruptions he would receive during the day:

‘People would walk into my office and say: “Well, I just had two hours to kill here in between trains, and I thought I would come and see you.’ That used to bother me… Then the Lord convinced me that He sends people our way…So now I take interruptions as from the Lord. They belong in my schedule, because the schedule is God’s to arrange at His pleasure.”

Pray this prayer today – view every interaction you have today as an opportunity to point people to God. I promise you, if you’ll do this, you’ll have more opportunities than you can imagine to be a witness.

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Serve Your Way to the Top – 7 Lessons I Learned While Serving My Way onto a Church Staff

Lesson 6 – It’s the Changed Life, Not the Crowd that Makes the Difference

^19-20My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.                                                      James 5:19-20

Something I’ve been recognizing lately is that whenever Jesus would heal someone or impact one person’s life, often the crowd would be wowed by the actual event other times the crowd would be upset and in disbelief. However, Jesus never really cared what the crowd thought. He cared about the person He was ministering to. Jesus didn’t care about attracting crowds, He cared about impacting individuals.

Too often – we focus on drawing a crowd and forget about the individual. While crowds are great because it means more people are hearing the Word, we forget that it’s each of those individuals being changed by God that truly makes the difference. A marriage restored, an addiction broken, someone with no purpose grabbing hold of God’s purpose for their lives – it’s a beautiful thing. It’s a compilation of changed lives that makes a move of God and a crowd an amazing thing, not a crowd of people just there for an event or experience.

Some Thoughts on this:

1.) The Crowd will Never Be Big Enough – Unless we recognize the power of one changed life and value it for what it’s worth, we’ll never think there are enough people in our ministries.

2.) When the Crowd Comes, It’s not a Big Deal - We often think if we’re able to minister to a large crowd, we’ll be satisfied. That is not true at all. We have to find our worth in Christ, so when God does bless us with more influence, we won’t be disappointed that it doesn’t provide the feelings of success we thought it would. A big deal in life is when we’re free from worrying about attracting a crowd and worrying more about impacting one life.

3.) Nothing is More Fulfilling than Touching One Life – There isn’t anything more fulfilling than knowing you’ve made a difference in one person’s life because you were obedient to God.

4.) Be Faithful with One, God will bring Many - The bottom line is that if we’ll be faithful with the one person in front of us, God will continue to bring people in front of our path so we can minister to them. In time, you’ll be impacting more people than you could have dreamed of, and it’s not because you’re so awesome, it’s because God knows you’ll be faithful with the one.

Focus on ministering to one person today – make a difference in their life!

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This weekend at our Church we’ll be giving away free Steelers Tickets at every service. All you have to do to have a shot at winning them is simply show up! This is a great weekend to bring your friends to church, think about it, the more people you bring, the better your chances are of winning! Don’t forget to wear your Steelers gear – it’s a black a gold weekend at Victory!

Here is a video promo for Steelers Weekend staring our senior pastor! Hilarious!

See you Sunday!

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7And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly… -Acts 6:7

We’re just finishing up our Viva Revolution series here at Revolution and I am getting absolutely stoked for what God is going to do at Rev and in all of our students lives. We’re called to revolutionize the surrounding school districts with the message of God. I thought I’d share some thoughts and ideas on how you as a student, can revolutionize your school:

1.) Get on Fire For God Yourself- You can’t give what you don’t have. Fall in love with God, spend time with Him, get in His Word, come to Rev, find friends who will talk God with you, etc.

2.) Don’t Just Talk, Live It – Anyone can talk a good game, anyone can say they’re a Christian, but are you actually living it? When you say your a Christian, you represent Jesus everywhere you go. If you’re talking it, but not living it, you’ll be considered a hypocrite, and people will run from God.

3.) Be Bold – This is probably the hardest step for students. Being bold and standing up for what you believe, regardless of what comes against you. You’ll have to say no to things that you may want to say yes to, you may be made fun of for not doing what everyone else is doing, or you may not get to go to all the places everyone else does. BUT, I promise you that long term it’s worth it. You’ll establish yourself as a leader, you’ll earn people’s respect (regardless of what they say), and ultimately people will see you living a life that they wish they could. Then comes your opportunity to share your faith with them. BE BOLD! (Joshua 1:9)

4.) Invite Friends to Revolution - One of the best ways to Revolutionize your school is get friends to go to youth group with you. Talk about Rev as much as you can, talk about all the sweet events, act like it’s the best thing going on in Pittsburgh (Cause it is!), then grab your friends and say, “You gotta come!!!” Whatever it takes, get them here!

5.) Respect the School and it’s Policies – This is the most important. You can be doing all these things, but if you’re doing them by breaking school rules and policies, you’re going to Unrevolutionize your school. Remember, your life will speak louder than anything. Live the life, respect the school, and watch God revolutionize your school.

I recently heard of some testimonies from school districts in South Carolina being revolutionized by teenagers from a certain youth group. Teachers were giving testimonies of how their lives were changed as a result of what God was doing in students lives. Entire school districts were and are becoming on fire for God. I believe that is what God has called us to here at Revolution. We can’t do it without you. Your the ones who can and will Revolutionize your schools!

Are you up to the challenge?

What are you going to do with what God’s put in you?

Will your high school be different because you went there?

You are the Revolution

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Catalyst Takeaway #5 – We’re all in this Together – We are the Church

Watch this video….

If this doesn’t stir up your heart to make a difference in the world with your life, I don’t know what will… Here are some thoughts that stirred me up at Catalyst:

Lose Your Life, Just so You can Find it – Matthew 10:39 – You have not lived until you’ve surrendered your life to God so He can use your life to make a difference in the lives of others. Forget yourself…Focus on others…Find true life.

What Are YOU Passionate about? – You need to find a cause that you would die for… the lost, the broken, the poor, the slave, the prisoner… find your cause, and give your life to it.

We’re in this Together – Everybody in the body of Christ is important. There is no small or insignificant role. We’re all here for one reason – to reach people for the Kingdom of God. No matter what you do, recognize, it is no small thing in God’s eye.

Get a Mega Vision -Craig Groeschel said he hates the term “Mega Church” how can we call a church mega when there are 4 billion people worldwide that don’t know Christ? Millions starving, millions involved in human trafficking, millions abandoned… We need to increase our vision.

If we Don’t Believe in what the Church is supposed to be, how will the world? -We must believe that the church is the catalyst to bringing the change the world needs through Jesus Christ. Do you believe in the church? Your church? Jesus does. It’s time you start.

Judge Your Church on Sending Capacity, not the Crowd - Anyone can build a crowd… the question is – who is that crowd becoming and what are they doing for the Kingdom as a result of being in your church?

We’re all in this together and together we CAN and WILL change the world.

As Mother Theresa said, “You can do what I can’t do, I can do what you can’t do, together we can do GREAT things.”

What are you doing to change the world?

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