Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Friday, February 22, 2013

"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."¹

"Three military recruiters accepted an invitation to address the senior class of a local high school.... Graduation was only a few months away, and the principal wanted his two hundred young men to hear the options available in the military. The assembly was to be forty-five minutes in length. It was agreed that each recruiter would have fifteen minutes to make his pitch and then have another twenty minutes in the cafeteria to meet with interested boys. The Army recruiter went first and got so excited about his speech that he went over twenty minutes. The Navy recruiter, not to be outdone, stood up and also spoke for twenty minutes.

"The Marine Corps recruiter, realizing that his fifteen-minute speech had been cut to two, walked up to the podium and spent the first sixty seconds in silence. Wordlessly, he gazed over the group of high school seniors. They knew he was sizing them up. After what seemed to be an eternity, the recruiter said, 'I doubt whether there are two or three of you in this room who could cut it as marines. I want to see those three men as soon as this assembly is dismissed.' He was mobbed by a herd of young men when he arrived in the cafeteria."²

The military needs and is always looking for good men and women. So is God. And he is calling you and me to play a part in what He is doing in the world today. And that is impacting the world for Jesus Christ by living and sharing the gospel and by being "as Jesus" in some way to every life we touch. When we do this, we do make a difference—for both time and eternity.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please make and use me as a 'soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb, and may I never fear to own your cause nor blush to speak your name.'³ Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Joshua 24:15 (NIV).
2. Steve Farrar. Cited in KneEmail, http://associate.com/groups/kneemail/.
3. Isaac Watts, "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" hymn (paraphrase).

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