The First 2 Letters in "Gospel" are GO

Finish Strong

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. 2 Timothy 4:6-8
I’ve been around long enough to know some men and women whose lives were totally sold out to God a few years ago who have since walked off the track in the middle of the race. They’ve given up. They’ve lost their longing for God and all that He is. They’re awol from the Christian life . . .
The fear of following in their footsteps haunts me. It should you, too. The possibility is real for all of us unless we allow our hearts to be completely gripped by God . . . today— now. The faithfulness of my walk with God in the next year and the next decades depends on my willingness to stay current with God. In a word—to stay in relationship with Him.
I never want to lose the hold God’s greatness has on my life and the supreme privilege it is to be in relationship with Him and to serve Him faithfully till the day I am welcomed into His presence. That passion compels me. It keeps me very honest and very humble before God.
The last thing I want to do is crawl across the finish line a defeated, derailed Christian or worse—give up the race before my life is over. I want to break that tape with arms high and my face to the sun and say with the apostle Paul, “I have finished the course; I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 3:7).
So what can we do now to ensure that finish line victory? We can get back to basics: Honestly answer these seven questions:
Do I hunger after God?
Does God’s Word govern my life?
Do I grieve over sin?
How quickly do I repent when I see my wrong?
Am I sensitive to the Spirit’s prompt in me?
Do I obey?
Is my faith growing?

ESPN story of a High School being Jesus to someone

It was halftime at the Lake Fenton-Mount Morris game, seemingly just another high school football contest during another homecoming week on another October Friday night in another American suburb.
But this time the fix was in.
Four Lake Fenton (Mich.) football players and a co-conspirator on the golf team arranged it. Seniors all, they'd used their cell phones to hatch and agree on the plan, and then met outside the school building the afternoon before the big homecoming game to nail it down.
Lose on purpose?
Jake Kirk, the ringleader and a Blue Devils' running back, saw the decision differently: "We knew we'd all be winners if we did it."
By game's end, they'd done it. The scoreboard at Lake Fenton Stadium claimed the Blue Devils lost to Mount Morris 37-20, their lone defeat of the season so far.
But scoreboards can lie.
Last Friday, Kirk and fellow seniors David Bittinger, Lucas Hasenfratz, Matthew Tanneyhill and Ethan Merivirta scored one of the biggest victories of their lives.
Candidates for the senior royal crown, they each gave up the chance to become Lake Fenton's homecoming king.

Tri-County Times, Fenton Michigan
Eli Florence, a former offensive lineman, receives a football from a player on the Lake Fenton team.They fixed it so Eli Florence won instead.
Eli is a 5-foot-7 former offensive lineman. He's only a sophomore. The doctors say there's nothing more they can do for him. He's at home, barely able to speak, getting regular blood transfusions. Eli Florence, 15, is dying of leukemia.
"I'm praying for a miracle now," said Trina Florence-King, his mother.
In these days filled, it seems, with it's-all-about-me athletes and iPod-wearing, text-messaging teenaged zombies, these Lake Fenton High athletes did something special for a special classmate.
"He's taught us never to give up," Kirk said. "And if you keep fighting, you can overcome the odds. We're happy he's still around because he wasn't supposed to be."
It's etched in her memory: Aug. 20, 2003, Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Mich., a short drive from Lake Fenton.
That's when Trina Florence-King learned her son was suffering from acute myelogenous leukemia.
That day, her wise little boy boldly consoled her.
"I've got something to tell you," she remembers him saying. "Me and God, we had a heart-to-heart. I told him I was available for whatever he needed."
And Thursday, Trina Florence-King told ESPN.com: "Since then, I've seen him working on other peoples' lives, working on people for four years. I'm not saying this because I'm his mother, but this is a special boy."
From one remission to two cutting-edge stem cell transplants to one stint of 13 straight months in the hospital, from Flint to Ann Arbor to Minneapolis and now back home, Eli Florence traveled and endured.
"Eli has become an icon for strength and perseverance and character for this entire community, and especially our student body," said Lake Fenton principal John Spicko.
But last month, the awful, final, numbing news came. Eli's mom reported it on a Web site set up by friends to monitor Eli's health.
"Tonight I come with a broken heart," she wrote. "Eli has been given just a few weeks to maybe one month to live here on this Earth with us. … This process of 'losing my son' is going to be very soon. When I look at him, even today, it just doesn't seem possible."
That was Sept. 16. Word spread around the school and the town of about 5,000.
The nicest kid in school, the one who's out of class so often, was fading.
Then, it came to Jake Kirk, as crisply and clearly as his two syllable name: Eli should be homecoming king. King Eli.
It felt so right.
On Oct. 4, on his way to school, Kirk got the plan under way. A neighbor had given him an orange ribbon -- orange is the color of leukemia awareness -- and it triggered Kirk's vision.
"It had been in the back of my mind," Kirk said Thursday via phone from the high school. "I've had people say, 'Wouldn't it be cool if Eli could get to be king?' I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if the five candidates gave it to Eli?'"
Kirk phoned Tanneyhill. Tanneyhill was with Hasenfratz. Before Kirk even got the entire concept out of his mouth, "They immediately said, 'Yes!'" Kirk said. Soon after, the other two senior candidates for homecoming king agreed.
King Eli
By lunchtime, they'd planned their announcement for what was to be the king candidate-selection assembly.
Kirk took the microphone in front of the entire student body of 538 students and said there wouldn't be any vote this year for king.
"We, as the king's court, decide there is nobody in this school who deserves this more than Eli Florence,'' Kirk said. "This year's homecoming king is going to be Eli.''
The entire audience cheered and clapped in unison.
But Eli was too sick to be in school that day.
"The whole school knew, but Eli did not know," said Sticko.
That night, Trina Florence-King received a text message on her cell phone.
Eli would be crowned the next night at halftime of the football game.
She didn't tell her son.
There was a problem. Halftime was approaching and the king-to-be was at a local clinic receiving a necessary blood transfusion, getting energy, getting life. He was scheduled to escort his friend, Ashley Look, a member of the sophomore royal court, to midfield. He didn't have a clue he would be the center of attention.
Barely in the nick of time, Eli, in a wheelchair, and Ashley joined the other members of the court and their parents at midfield, surrounded by the Lake Fenton band, clad in blue and white.
The public-address announcer said: "Your 2007 king, as designated by the five candidates is … is Eli Florence."
The king was stunned.

Tri-County Times, Fenton Michigan
King Eli and part of the Lake Fenton royal court."It's like he heard his name, but it was sort of surreal," his mother said.
"But I'm not a senior," Eli told others around him. "I'm not a senior."
The crowd of 2,000 people, including homecoming queen Brooke Hull, 17, stood. Many cried.
The four Blue Devils football players who ceded their kingship opportunity to Eli missed the moment. They were in the locker room trying to make adjustments for the second half to hold off Mount Morris.
Eli's mom brought the telephone to Eli in his bed Thursday morning.
He spoke softly of the five boys who honored him.
"It was definitely a sacrifice to take that step down to let someone else get it, to be homecoming king," he said. "The guys were really sincere. They honestly were OK with it."
Even Spicko, who sees a lot as a high school principal, was taken aback by the action of the Lake Fenton Five.
"There's not much that surprises me, but that did," he said. "We can't lump all kids into the same bucket. We see so much character development in so many kids in so many ways. This was just amazing."
Said Trina Florence-King: "I'm so proud of those boys. They wanted to honor him and make him feel special."
Saturday, Eli has another football date. Through a friend, he's been invited to visit the University of Michigan bench before the Wolverines' game against Purdue.
"It's going to be really cool," Eli said.
It's Michigan's homecoming game, the perfect place for the toughest little homecoming king of this, or any, football season.

The Day God Ran

And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate. Luke 15:20-24
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people who are runners. Not the track and field kind—but those who are on the run from God. You know who you are. You might sit in church on Sunday, but in your heart you’re putting distance between you and God.
I don’t know what has prompted you to take off. Maybe you’ve done something you think is beyond God’s mercy to forgive. Maybe someone has hurt you and you don’t understand why God let it happen. Maybe you’d just rather live by your own rules and cling to some silly, sordid something than turn around.
I may not know why you’re running, but I know this: you’re tired. You’ve grown so used to this flight pattern that you can’t imagine life any differently.
Can I ask you to rest for a minute and listen to something that will determine your course for the rest of your life? I’m not exaggerating.
Jesus told a story about a runner. He pictured him as a son taking off from his dad’s house. You probably know the parable of the prodigal son. After all the details of this runner’s rise and fall, Luke 15:17 tells us that he woke up one day in a pigsty and said to himself, “Whoa—how did I get here? I need to go back.”
His first thought was “what will Dad do?” Have you ever thought: If I come back to God, how will He receive me?
Some people think God wouldn’t care one way or the other. He would barely look up from what He was doing to say, “Oh, you’re back. Fine. Just throw your things over there.” But that’s not how Jesus described His Father. He said, “Listen! Hear those feet pounding the pavement? There’s getting closer! That’s God running toward you! He’s been searching the horizon, waiting for just a glimpse of you, and now that He sees you He’s in a full run toward you.” Luke 15:20 says that when the father got to his son, he threw his arms around him and kissed him. Can’t you just picture the tears running down his face? My son! He’s home!
God put that in His Word so that every runner would know what to expect when they reversed course and ran back to God.
I’ve never been more sure of this: God loves you and is running toward you. Will you turn around and fall into His arms?

What must I do to be saved?

"What do I have to do to get saved?" In my Baptist context, we've heard these thoughts a thousand times. The problem is that we have in our pocket a message in which Jesus himself had a very different answer to regarding the question of salvation. The Big Question In reading through Luke, I had discovered that twice (10:25, 18:18) Jesus is asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" In the first passage, Jesus turns the question back on the lawyer who asks it. The lawyer replies with the Old Testament commands to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (cf. Mt. 22:34-40). Jesus affirms his answer: "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." The lawyer then tries to narrow the meaning of neighbor. So Jesus tells the unforgettable parable of the compassionate Samaritan, who proved to be a neighbor to a bleeding roadside victim. In Luke 18, Jesus responds to the same question, this time from the man we know as the rich young ruler, by quoting the second table of the Decalogue, forbidding adultery, murder, theft, and false witness, and mandating honor towards parents. His questioner says that he has kept these commandments, and Jesus proceeds to call on him to "sell all … and distribute to the poor." Jesus assures him, "You will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." The "extremely rich" ruler won't do this, and Jesus goes on to teach his disciples about how hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. Trying to be an honest student of the texts in front of me, I see that on the two occasions in Luke when Jesus was asked about the criteria for admission to eternity, he offered a fourfold answer: love God with all that you are, love your neighbor (like the Samaritan loved his neighbor), do God's will by obeying his moral commands, and be willing, if he asks, to drop everything and leave it behind in order to follow him. I conclude that the contrast between how Jesus answers this question and how we usually do is stark and awfully inconvenient. Getting Radical In my Baptist tradition, especially, we direct people to "invite Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior," an act undertaken using a formula called the "sinner's prayer." Or we simply say, "Believe in Jesus, and you will be saved." But Jesus never taught easy believism. Whether he was telling the rich young ruler to sell all and follow him or telling a miracle-hungry crowd near Capernaum that to do the work of God was, yes, to believe on him (John 6:28-29), he called people to abandon their own agenda and trust him radically. Radical trust calls for both belief and action. I suggest that we tend to confuse the beginning of the faith journey with its entirety. Yes, believe in Jesus—that's the first step. Yes, invite Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior. Then, empowered by God's grace, embark on the journey of discipleship, in which you seek to love God with every fiber of your being, to love your neighbor as yourself, to live out God's moral will, and to follow Jesus where he leads you, whatever the cost. If Jesus is to be believed, inheriting eternal life involves a comprehensive divine assessment at every step along our journey, not just at its inception. Mediocrity and hypocrisy characterize the lives of many avowed Christians, at least in part because of our default answer to the salvation question. Anyone can, and most Americans do, "believe" in Jesus rather than some alternative savior. Anyone can, and many Americans sometimes do, say a prayer asking Jesus to save them. But not many embark on a life fully devoted to the love of God, the love of neighbor, the moral practice of God's will, and radical, costly discipleship. If it comes down to a choice between our habitual, ingrained ways of talking about salvation and what Jesus himself said when asked the question, I know what I must choose.

Eliminate the Drain

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 2 Timothy 2:1-2

If you had a hole in your gas tank, it wouldn’t be long until you investigated why your tank is always empty. I just filled up, you think. Why am I on empty again? The same thing happens in the Christian life. We get filled up with great Bible studies and sermons, and we think we’re good for the long haul. But not far into the trip, we’re out of gas. Completely drained. What happened?
I believe one reason our spiritual strength drains quickly from our lives is because we hoard it. Sounds like the opposite would be true, but it’s not. If we keep everything we gain in the Christian life to ourselves, we end up running out of gas. Paul tells Timothy: “What you have heard from me . . . entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
The way to grow spiritually is not to pack every study, every sermon, every lesson you can into your skull. You might think you are a great Bible scholar but really you’re just a big Bible fathead. Some of the most spiritually weak people I know have more Bible information in their cranium than anyone around. But they can’t face temptations or weather even the smallest storm because they haven’t been growing in what they’ve learned. You’ve got to transfer truth to others in order for it to make a difference in your own life.
Do you take sermon notes each week? What do you do with them afterward—stuff them in a drawer? Carry them around in your Bible until you purge them all? Find someone this week to share something new you learned from the sermon or from a message you’ve read in a book or heard on the radio. In Paul’s words, entrust to others what you have learned. You will experience a fresh infusion of the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Merely reading the words will do nothing for you. But if you do what they say, you will fill up on God’s strength.
How about it?