Passages #6

I’m doing a series on some of my favorite passages in the Bible. Here’s one:

Recently I went to Church Planter Assessment. During one project we discussed what are the most important qualities to look for in a church planter. Perhaps you’ve thought about that. Or what do you look for in a pastor?

Well, in the Bible, in Acts 15 the church is trying to decide who to assign an important task and they choose Paul and Barnabas. Do you know why they were selected? Because, the Bible says that they were “men who had risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15:26). Okay, how cool is that? What if today you couldn’t get a good job in a church unless your resume included, “Risked life for Jesus.”

And how dramatically have things changed in the past 2000 years? We Christians (at least in America) are so far from having to risk our lives, or really take any significant risks at all for Jesus.

Maybe you and I need to take a big risk for Jesus. So what risk are you being called to take?