EXTREME IS IN

A few weeks back while in Columbus visiting my Daughter, my son in law shared with me an extraordinary catalogue he had laying in his office called “Extreme Geek”. Although I don’t really fit the profile of a geek there were a few items that I just found totally interesting. For example there was the retro had set for your cell phone that attached to your existing phone and produced an old fashioned coil phone cord attached to one of those old black hands sets. So while drive down the road, illegally now if I’m not mistaken you can look like you are talking on an old landline… WHY? I did like to TV remote that was shaped like a colt 45, probably designed with sporting or political events in mind. I immediately thought of my son Joe when I saw the “Sonic Boom” alarm clock complete with deafening sound and a bed shaker attached. Why couldn’t we have had one of these when the kids were little? But my favorite item I believe was “Clocky the runaway Alarm Clock” this little piece of fast moving technology is a real alarm with all terrain wheels that jumps off your nightstand loud and with one mission in mind, you gotta catch me to shut me up! It flies across the floor and won’t stop blaring until you catch it an turn it off. This catalogue is great!
It got me to thinking about what kind of items that could be designed for Christ followers. Think of this….. How about a Bible that reminds you daily of how much scripture you’ve read, or haven’t read! Or maybe a floor sensor by your bedside that counts the number of times you have knelt there. Perhaps bumper stickers with personal information on them so unbelievers can compare your road behavior with your Christian bumper stickers! You know, “How’s my Testimony? Call ……….” Well you get the Idea. I guess all this rambling begs the question do we need all that? Or maybe I should ask, should we need any of those devices to encourage a believer to read the word of God, to pray or to live a life that honors God and shows the world that Christianity is real? Our associate Pastor, Shady Mays recently shared an experience he had a few years back with a Jewish friend of his. His friend asked him “If Christians really believe that Christ is the Messiah, then why are you so quiet about it?” WOW!

Now I’ve thought a lot about that question since then and the only answers I have come up with aren’t very good. In fact if we claim to know Jesus Christ as our Savior there are ways we are to live and love and those watching have every right to expect it out of us. Listen to God’s admonition to his children, “And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, …….
Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;”. Pretty simple eh? God loves us so much, and He wants the best for us, therefore we should love and honor Him
with our lives.
Now listen into Jesus words from the sermon on the mount….. “ No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Sounds like maybe we worry to much about the things we shouldn’t and not enough about the things we should. And through it all I don’t think a new kind of technology is what it will take to make us more genuine or effective do you?
Earlier I used the phrase “Extreme”, which Webster defines as …. “Being or attaining the greatest or highest degree; very intense”. Extreme Christ Follower, Very intense Followers of Christ… I think I like it! Mark Twain said it well, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” How extreme are you?