Words are everywhere.  As you read this post, you’ll be inundated with hundreds of words.  Words allow us to communicate thoughts, ideas, messages, ideologies, beliefs, and reasoning.  Without words we’d be unable to communicate and thus unable to collaborate, effectively do life together, or exchange knowledge.  However, for all the positive things we can do with words, they can also be used for evil.  With our words, we can boast in our limited knowledge, puff ourselves up with pride, and mock the God who created us.

In America, we have many unspoken expectations out of life.  The quest for the American dream consisting of a life of plenty, affluence, and luxury is still very much alive.  We want a life of comfort, ease, and abundance.  While these desires and aspirations are not bad or evil, the truth is that throughout history, most true followers of Jesus Christ rarely experienced these things.  In fact, in 1 Corinthians 4, Paul gives a rather sobering picture of what life as a first century Apostle was like.

​As sinful human beings, we love complicating life and weaving an intricate web of ideology, rules, viewpoints, positions, and standards, especially when it comes to religion and religious leaders.  Countless men and women have tried to add or remove parts of the Bible to better fit their self-constructed idea of who God should be and how the Christian life should work.  However, that strategy has never worked and just leads to deception and sin.  

​Billy Graham, John Piper, Louie Giglio, Max Lucado.  These are just a few men who were and are mighty men in the faith and leaders of the American church.  They have done much to advance the kingdom of God and shape and mold church culture here in America.  God entrusted them with a large platform and wide sphere of influence; however, at the end of the day, they are just like each one of us:  servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.