Mark me down. I've converted. I am an unabashed, unashamed NASCAR racing fan. Despite mercilessly making fun of stock car racing in the past now I adore it. What happened?
The real break through (or breakdown, depending on your viewpoint) came a while back when I read something in the paper about one particular driver. He was a man of character, who emphasized doing the right thing and being the right kind of person instead of winning. He was also driven to win, and he did win a lot. But he won with style, class, and grace, always crediting his team instead of hogging the glory for himself. ""Wow,"" I thought, ""I didn't think sports still had anyone like this."" A few weeks later a race was on a TV in a restaurant. I looked for this fellow's car just to see how the good guys were doing. A week or so later I was flipping channels and a race was on. I watched a while, again to see how this fellow would do. I was watching some now, but I didn't understand all the rules. So I visited a web site or two, and read the racing report in the paper. Another race came on and this time I watched a lot of it. Why? I wanted to see how ""my guy"" fared. I started picking up the jargon and what went on. I was hooked.
What happened? Simply put I went from watching forty-three cars going around in circles to watching one car that I had a keen interest in. That made the difference. I got to know about a driver, I identified with him, respected him. I wanted him to do well, and I started watching more and more to see how he was doing. One driver made me a NASCAR convert.
If one man can do that, what do you think Jesus can do in people's lives? Too often we introduce folks to Christianity with every explanation about every doctrine, concept and theological idea. We forget that the most attractive and most important part of Christianity is Christ. People need to see Jesus. They need to be introduced to Jesus. They need to see how delightful His character is, how much He loves them, how much He longs to lead them to the abundant life. This and this only will help a jaded secular world stop seeing Christianity as a bunch of folks running around in circles and instead want to be converted. More people than we might imagine are saying ""Sir, we would see Jesus."" Let's find them, and then let's help them see the Lord who so easily will command their total allegiance. Of such is the stuff of real conversion!
Book
of the Month The Westside church is focusing on 12 books of the Bible
this year, reading each of them carefully to really understand them and
to learn how to be better Bible readers and students. The book for December
is Romans.