“We Christians today are indeed a tepid crew… Had we but half the fire and enthusiasm of the Suffragettes of the past, we would have the world evangelized… Had we the pluck and heroism of the men who go on Polar expeditions or climb Everest, or for any daredevil enterprise, we could have every soul on earth knowing the name of Jesus Christ in less then ten years. To your knees, man~ And to your Bible. Decide at once. Don’t hedge. Time flies, cease your insults to God. Quit consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame lying and cowardly excuses…”

This is my inaugural posting so I thought I’d write about something significant.

I recently read a biography of C.T. Studd, (If you don’t know who he is- find out.  Read his biography or google him-he is, without a doubt, one of the great spiritual giants of the past 100 years…) and when i came across the above words I was intensely challenged by them. Studd delivered the above salvo more than a hundred years ago to a crowd of British ladies and gentlemen, but it’s amazing how little has changed between the Christians of Studd’s Britain and the 21st century body of Christ-and, to put things in perspective a little, its amazing how much has changed between the impassioned men and women of love and conviction of the early church and the vapid, worldly and sluggish Christianity of today. 

“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell…”  C.T. Studd

I look around school and it’s all but impossible to delineate Christians from non Christians. I look at the world, and while 24,000 kids die every day from preventable causes and 27 million people are living as slaves in brothels and brick kilns, the representatives of Christ are twiddling their thumbs.  I look at my own life and see that I too am infected with this same laziness and inertia.  A great War is waging between heaven and hell- we’re hard pressed on every side by the forces of darkness- God calls us to rescue our fellow men from the clutches of sin and death – and we’ve settled for a suburban faith that makes only a convenient difference-and a convenient difference  is really no difference at all.

Christians are revoltingly lukewarm and all too comfortable- we love listening to our praise songs over the expensive stereo in our air refreshen-ed sedans and ignore the drug-addict homeless man begging outside our window. We pride ourselves for sitting on our couches and sipping coffee over the bible-yeah, and we imagine ourselves to be spiritual.  We’ve sucked the fire out of our faith, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

“So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you our of my mouth”

Let’s be radically different from the world. Our friends are sprinting headlong down the road to hell and what are we, representatives of Christ, doing? Instead of leading them to the truth we join them on their road. Instead of being a light in the darkness we hide our faith from our friends-we’re ashamed of the fact that God loves us so much that he would send his son to die for us?  How senseless is that?  How can we fail to share the free gift of salvation and eternal life with our friends?  We’re loved by the God  who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, who has cast the stars into heaven and calls them out by name- yes- he has a plan for us and wants us to serve alongside him!  Truly, our God is an awesome God!

I know I, for one, know that I am going to fail time and time again as I try to serve God.  I know it is not going to be easy.  But let’s wake up and rise- dream dreams for God and embrace suffering for our Lord who suffered for us

Noah Kang, Alameda High School, Class of 2011.