“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” —Matthew 10:34

Some believers might be reluctant to tell their friends about Christ because they are afraid it will cause friction in, or even terminate, the relationship. But it just may be that very tension, that very friction, which produces conversion in the life of that individual. If you are always trying to be cool and get along with everyone, and if you never stand your ground or speak up for your faith, then you will reach no one.

Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household’ ” (Matthew 10:34–36).

“Wait,” some might say. “That is in the Bible? I thought Jesus was loving.”

Yes, He is. He loves us so much that He will confront us in our sin. Sometimes when one member of a family becomes a Christian, friction develops. There are problems. That person has changed the whole dynamic of the family. It was always about drinking and the dirty jokes. Then all of a sudden, there you are, not laughing at the jokes. There you are, Mr. I-Want-to-Pray-before-the-Meal. There are some family members who think it isn’t a good thing that you became a Christian because it has created friction. What a party pooper, man. Oh brother!

But that friction is a result of the conviction of sin. A light just came into a dark place. Now, that little bit of friction can create conversation. And that conversation in the lives of some brings conversion.

Sometimes before there can be ultimate unity, there has to be a temporary division.

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. —Galatians 6:1

The way some people behave, you would think that the Bible says, “If another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should first gloat about it and make sure that you condemn him or her for it. Then proceed to tell as many people as possible.”

The Bible doesn’t say that, of course. Here is what it does say: “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself” (Galatians 6:1).

The idea is to lift up those who are overtaken by sin, not condemn them. The idea is to restore—not destroy—them. Notice this verse says, “You who are godly.” A truly godly man or woman will seek to restore such a person. James 5:19–20 tells us, “My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.”

One day, God forbid, it could be you. We should never lower our guard or rest on our laurels spiritually. No matter how long you have known the Lord, don’t think that you are above falling, because you could fall. Any believer could. That is why we want to always be moving forward, walking with God and progressing spiritually. We never want to coast along in neutral.

And if you know someone who has fallen into sin, then your goal should be to restore, not to destroy. Your goal should be to help him or her, because the next time it could be you.

“I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”—1 Corinthians 9:27

When I take my wife out for lunch, I’m usually hungry, so I’ll decide what I want in the first minute. But even if it’s the same restaurant we’ve been to before, she has to read the menu. Then she needs to ask the waiter a bunch of questions. Then she usually ends up ordering what she ordered last time.

The choice you make for lunch is not a big deal, but the choices of life are super important. Life is filled with choices to do right or wrong, every single day. No one is exempt from temptation’s pull, or from making the wrong choices. And all choices—both good and bad—have consequences.

It comes down this this—we make our choices, then our choices make us.

On more than one occasion, the Christian life is compared to running a race, and the objective is to finish and win that race. In Philippians 3:13–14 Paul said, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven” (NLT).

As we run this race, we must play by the rules or we will be disqualified. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified” (NLT).

In other words, Paul is saying, “I do not want to be a hypocrite. I want to practice what I preach. We’ve seen a number of athletes become disqualified over the years for playing by their own rules.”

Rules matter and you have to play by them. In our spiritual race, God has set up His rules. The rulebook they are found in is called the Bible. We can’t pick and choose the rules we like and ignore the ones we don’t. So the choice is yours. Will you be disqualified because you don’t want to follow God’s rules? Or will you play by the His Rulebook and run to win?

Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. —Genesis 8:1

When we talk about Noah’s life, we tend to focus on the ark. But let’s turn our attention to Noah’s spiritual life for a moment. It probably had gotten pretty old for Noah, his wife, his children, and all those animals inside the ark. The sea can be a lonely place, and they had been inside the ark for approximately a year.

I wonder if Noah ever doubted during that time: Was this a good idea? Is this really what I should have done? He hadn’t heard anything from the Lord. Did he wonder whether God had really spoken to him?

But I love how Genesis 8 begins: “Then God remembered Noah. . . .” This isn’t implying that God had forgotten about him. Rather, it is using our language to help us get a picture of God. The Lord didn’t forget about Noah, and the Lord doesn’t forget about us, either.

Sometimes He works in a dramatic way in our lives. And sometimes months or years go by, and nothing dramatic happens. You’re just living the Christian life by faith. You wonder, Is God even paying attention anymore? He is. And you know what? You just need to do the last thing He told you to do and be faithful there.

Remember this: God always finishes what He starts. That is why He is called the author and finisher of our faith. Philippians 1:6 says, “Being confident of this. He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion unto the day of Jesus Christ.”

You just hold your course. Maybe you have felt a call to ministry, and there hasn’t been a lot of fruit in your ministry. Just hold your course. Just carry on. Keep doing what God has told you to do.

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. —1 Corinthians 3:5–6

George Smith thought his ministry was a failure. He felt called to Africa, but he was only there for a short time as a missionary when he was driven from the country. He left behind one convert, a woman. Not long after that, George Smith died on his knees, praying for Africa.

Some years later, a group of men stumbled onto the place in Africa where George Smith had ministered. They found a copy of the Scriptures he had left behind, and they met the one convert of his ministry, who led them to the Lord. Later a missions organization did a study and determined that 100 years after George Smith left Africa, 13,000 people had come to faith through his ministry as one person reached another, who reached another, and so on.

The Bible calls Noah “a preacher of righteousness” (see 2 Peter 2:5), yet he lived for 120 years without ever seeing a single convert. He stands as an example of all those faithful witnesses out there who don’t see a lot of results.

Are you one of those people? Maybe you have been talking to your family for years, and not one has come to believe in Jesus. Maybe you have shared your faith with your neighbors and coworkers but have never had anyone believe as a result of your testimony. You feel that you’re the worst evangelist of all time.

But it isn’t over until it’s over. Your job is to be faithful. Your job is to do your part and leave the results in the hands of God. When we stand before the Lord one day, it isn’t going to be about quantity; it is going to be about why and if you were faithful to do what the Lord set before you to do.

Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.—James 1:14–15

I don’t know why people become perplexed as to why they fall into sin when they hang around places where they are vulnerable. Let’s say that someone is struggling with drinking and then suddenly falls off the wagon, so to speak. So a friend asks, “Where were you?”

“Well, I was at a bar.”

“Why would you go hang out in a bar when you have a problem with this?”

“Well, they have a nice big-screen TV. I really like to watch the game there, and they also have the best chicken wings ever.”

People will put themselves in a place of vulnerability and then are shocked when they fall.

That is how it started for Eve when she ate from the only tree that God had forbidden. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time, listening to the wrong voice, which led her to do the wrong thing.

Eve had access to all of the Garden of Eden to discover and enjoy it. But where was she? She was hanging around in the one place God told her to stay away from. Genesis 3:6 tells us, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (NKJV).

As you look at that verse, it is a foundational statement about the origin of all temptation. As Christians, we basically have three enemies that we face on a daily basis: the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The world, with its allure, is the external foe. The flesh, with its evil desires, is the internal foe. The Devil, with his enticements, is the infernal foe.

For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.—1 John 2:16

I read a news story awhile ago about a man who was hitchhiking across the county to write a memoir he planned to call The Kindness of America. He wanted to write about his adventures and the wonderful strangers who had reached out to him along the way. But while he was eating his lunch alongside U.S. Highway 2 in Montana, he was shot in the arm during a random drive-by attack. So much for the kindness of America.

It just goes to show that people are not basically good, as some would assert. If you believe that people are basically good, then you have more faith than I do. Because if history shows us nothing else, it shows us that people are basically bad.

Why is mankind the way it is? Why do we do the things we do? Why are we always fighting and warring and having conflict after conflict?

We read in 1 John 2:15–16, “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.”

We like to blame the Devil for everything and say, “The Devil made me do it.” Yes, the Devil can tempt you, but he needs cooperation. He needs to work with you, and you need to work with him.

The sinful things we do have nothing to do with logic; it’s just our nature to do them. It comes from within. And the faster we recognize we have a sinful nature, the better equipped we’ll be to fight temptation.