What Are You For?

When Paul saw them he thanked God and took courage. Acts 28:15b


I was so inspired by Colonel Erskine Austin’s part of the sermon last week. He talked about point #2 - “Freedom is Not Free.” It was a great moment for everyone in our church having our lives marked by such a wonderful man. He said something that really made the hair on the back of my neck raise up. His statement was, “Pastor Tim and I agree on the principle ‘it is not what you are against, but it is far more important what you are for!’”

It is easy to stand against almost everything. But, the more important issue is “what are we proposing for the future?” Pastor Scott gave me a book the other day entitled Presidential Courage. It tells the story of how brave leaders have changed America from 1789 to 1989. One thing I couldn’t help but notice is the diversity of philosophies -- George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and others. They all have one thing in common -- in the complexity of their life challenges they found a vision to pursue. A vision they could stand by, and hang onto as they pounded out the practical issues. They were prepared to sacrifice because they knew in the final analysis the vision was bigger than they were.

Let me ask you a question. What do you stand for? What can you get behind? What will you be remembered for? And what in your life requires an enormous amount of courage just to continue? So much courage that you cannot possibly do it by yourself – God must help you.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every person who complains about our society or government, or community, or a business, or faith would instead propose a change to improve it? And what if they backed up that proposal for change with an offer to wade in and help until the change came about? Can you imagine what kind of world it would be if there was just this one attitude change?

I for one am tired of religious people being known for all the things that they are against. What are we for? What changes are we proposing and what are we doing to wade in and back up that proposal with an offer to help?

Tim White