Chambers' text found here in the original English, and here in the modern English.

The Scripture passage for today is I Thessalonians 5:23-24: May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

     The smartest thing in the world, right now, is for Tim Tebow to lay low until after he's drafted and has signed what may be the biggest rookie contract in the history of professional football.  But that's not what the apostle Paul would have coached Tebow to do, and it's not what Tebow would do.  Regardless of how you feel about the Tebow Super Bowl commercial (see my thoughts in our rabbit trail below), the all-world quarterback lives by a different standard than most of the world; the standard Paul and Oswald Chambers describe in today's Scripture and devotional. 

     I'm going to risk some generalizing here: Most Christians become Christians because they want to protect themselves from Hell.  All they want from God is a promise to let them into heaven.  They may be grateful for the fact Jesus makes this possible, but they're not really interested in changing their lives much.  "Let me be saved, but let me be me," could be their motto.  It's probably safe to say this is the category most people fall into who consider themselves Christians. 

     Not Tim Tebow and others like him.  Christians of his ilk want to be one with Jesus Christ; to view their world and their work through His eyes.  Their motto could be summed up by the quote John the Baptist gave when asked if he was jealous of Jesus: "He must increase while I must decrease." So Tim isn't thinking about how he can maximize his pro contract; he's thinking about how he can effectively use his talents and skills to draw people to Jesus Christ.  For him, this world is about Jesus and not Tebow. 

     If we want more from our faith than just hell insurance, then we need to adopt John the Baptist's words as our life motto, too. 

So-Whats for Work: When a Christian seeks to be one with Christ (to see the world through Jesus' eyes), every job they do has meaning and eternal significance.  When a Christian decides to settle for hell-insurance-faith, they're never really sure if any job they do has meaning and eternal significance.  Fence-straddlers are always miserable.

So-Whats for Home:  Most of us inherit the faith (or lack of faith) of our parents.  What gift are you giving your children: Part-time, half-in, straddle-the-fence-and-cover-all-bases faith, or the power of unabashed affection for the Savior?  Most spouses surrender to the weakest faith in the household. What faith are you forcing on your spouse?

So-Whats for Community:  The world doesn't know Jesus because Christians are selling so many different versions of Him. The only real version of Jesus is Jesus Himself, and the only way to "sell" that version is to surrender ourselves to being one with Him; to seeing the world through His eyes and living life through His body; and therefore teaching the world His thoughts instead of our edits of those thoughts. 

Rabbit trail of the day: So what did I think of the Tebow ad?  It was an utterly brilliant example of that instruction in the Bible for Christians to be "wise as serpents and gentle as doves."  For weeks, opponents of the things Tebow (and Focus on the Family) believe have been foaming at the mouth, spewing horribly uncharitable words, and mounting often vicious, mean-spirited rebuttals without even knowing what the Tebows were going to say!  The Tebows refused to respond in kind, and when the commercial finally aired, their critics were sitting with egg on their face (ALSO not something the Tebows intended). 

     Abortion has become a terribly divisive issue, and folks on both sides of the issue use it as a battering ram to inflict as much damage as possible on those who disagree with them.  The Tebows, on the other hand, know their mission is to draw people close enough to see the love of God instead of the hate of humans.  It doesn't mean they water down their faith; it means they find a smarter, loving way to tell their side of the story; in this instance, the courage of a mother to risk her life to save her baby.  It's a story of character not choice, and it's a story of triumph not venom.  The simplicity of the ad, and its sweetness, makes the extremists on both sides of the issue look shameful without abandoning an unadulterated commitment to the truth that life is life is life, and life is precious and to be protected.

CuriousChristian's Favorite Finds for the Day  

• Here's the ad everybody's talking about today.  And here's the place to go to see the whole story.
• Better still, visit the Tebow family sites direct!  Here's the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association, and here's the Tim Tebow Foundation. 
• When I'm troubled, I like to be reminded of two things: (1) That God is bigger than all the problems of the world; and (2) that humans are able to be lifted from the morass and empowered to do majestic things.  One of the places I can go to get a great helping of both truths is a Space Shuttle launch.  Click here to catch up with Endeavor as it blasts into space, and see both the beauty of God's extraterrestrial creation, and the majesty of human invention.   

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