A teacher tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “What are you doing Greg?” I remember feeling frustrated that this teacher had disrupted me in what I felt like was a spiritual exercise tantamount to fasting and meditation. I looked up in exasperation and answered flatly, “I’m flipping off the devil.” The look on my face must have convinced the teacher that I was totally sincere. So, instead of sending me to the office, he stuttered out, “Well, um, stop doing that.” I complied with his request but took secret pleasure that I was still going to flip Satan off in my heart.

Okay, so I was a weird kid. But you have to understand my background. I was raised in a family filled with body building, tobacco chewing, beer drinking thugs (insert signature line here*) where flippiing off someone was as common as waving hello. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant but I knew it was something you’d do to those you really hated and the only person that I really hated at the time was the Devil. So I reasoned that if there was one person I could flip off and consider it an act of worship it would be the Devil.

Up until that time I had never read Jude 8-10, “In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand.”

I didn’t know that I was supposed to be careful in the way that I dealt with Satan by refusing to try to take him on myself. I didn’t know that slandering celestial beings was a no no in the divine scheme. I didn’t know that a simple “The Lord rebuke you” would suffice. I didn’t know all this because I was only eight years old.

So how do I deal with Satan thirty five years later? Well, I don’t flip him off anymore, although I hate him more than ever. I hate what he has done to this nation and the hearts of our young people. I hate that he has blinded the minds of those who believe not so that they won’t trust in Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4.) I hate that he hates the God whom I love and who loves me in spite of all my mess ups.

I hate Satan with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. But now I choose to flip him off with my life and not my middle finger(s). I want to live such a God honoring life that it enrages him more than any word or gesture ever could. I’m not quite there yet but I am pressing on to live a life that makes God smile and gets Satan ticked.

Join me.

* The signature line “….and that’s just the women” is a registered trademark of Greg Stier Inc and is not to be used without the express written consent of Greg Stier and the female bodybuilders in his family.

But there is nothing novel or nobel about it. This whole thing makes me sick. It is very sad, not just for his family, but because it gives another black eye to the battered bride of Christ.

Speaking of brides, I actually respect his wife for not just blindly standing by her man, pretending like she supports him. She is angry, committed to God and processing what to do next. She seems like the only one in this story who is not a fake. Don’t get me wrong, I hope they work it out. But I hope they really work it out and not just stay together in the marriage because divorce is not an option, or for the sake of the kids or whatever. And talk about Sanford and sons. I feel bad for the junkyard he has left for his young boys. Their hero has fallen. Their world has cracked.

I am praying that Sanford repents, resigns and then restores his marriage. and gains back the respect of his kids. But the dude has got a long way to go from what I can see.

It’s always something with us Christians. A few years ago it was the whole tawdry affair between Ted Haggard and a male escourt (isn’t that just a fancy way of saying prostitute?) It just seems like every year or two another nationally prominent Christian bites the dust of the lust and we, the believers in Christ, become a laughing stock to the world…again. We just keep giving the unregenerate more and more reasons not to believe in Jesus.

So how are we to respond? What’s a believer to do when good Christians go bad?

1. Don’t be surprised.

A Christian can commit any sin that an unregenerate person can. We still have a sinful nature and it is as depraved as ever. Our sinful nature doesn’t become less sinful when we become Christians. Sure, it is legally dead, like a prisoner on death row without appeals. But it still can lie to us from behind the bars. Paul makes this clear in Romans 7:15-19, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”

Don’t be surprised when Christians sin. We all have it in us.

2. Don’t get cocky.

My wife sometimes gets frustrated with me when she asks me “Would you ever cheat on me?” and my answer is inevitably, “I sure hope not.” She wants me to give her a definitive “no!” but I am afraid of giving it because I don’t want to get arrogant about my own ability and resolve to stay pure. It’s that kind of sure-fire cockiness that leads to moral compromise. Galatians 6:1 reminds us, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.”

I have reminded my wife of this verse and she has reminded me that she won’t be one of those stand-by-your-man kind of women if I ever cheat. She has made it clear that she will use her get-out-of-marriage free card (Matthew 19:9) if I ever commit adultery. And I believe her! This may surprise those of you who know my wife as the sweet and kind lover of people that she is! But she has another side that only those closest to her know about, an unmatched inner strength and resolve. I actually am reminded of my wife when I read Mrs. Sanford’s comments about her husbands infidelities. To be honest, I am afraid of cheating on my wife and, in some wierd way, that makes me more attracted to her. Debbie is not defined by me. She is defined by God and, therefore, she looks at me with a perspective calibrated by who she is in Christ.

We are going on our 19th wedding aniversary and my hope is that we are both faithful to God and each other for the rest of our lives. But we can’t get cocky about the strength of our internal resolve to stay pure. Instead we must….

3. Choose to live a life of dependency on Christ moment by moment.

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:21-25

It is Jesus who has rescued us from the penalty of sin (when we trusted Him as our Savior), is rescuing us from the power of sin (when we continue to trust Him moment by moment) and will rescue us someday from the presence of sin (when we die or fly.) But, in the meantime, we are in a daily battle with who we were (our sinful nature) and our new identity in Christ. When we choose to listen to our old self we lose. When we choose to depend on Christ we live out who we really are in Christ.

Once, at a pastor’s conference many years ago, the lead speaker (who was a famous Christian psychologist) claimed that he had counseled thousands of pastors and their wives through adulterous situations. He said that the one common denominator that all of the compromising pastors had was the the safeguards they had put in place with members of the opposite sex. This may surprise you as much as it did me but he vehemently said it was true. Every one of these unfaithful men of the cloth had refused to counsel a woman alone or be in a car with the member of the opposite sex alone or whatever.

The speaker then told us something I’ll never forget. He said, “Gentlemen, safeguards, in and of themselves, will not protect you from unfaithfulness. Only a strong relationship with Jesus and your wife will.” He went on to explain that he thought safeguards were all well and good but he pounded the point and the pulpit home with a phrase I will never forget, “lust will pick a lock.”

He is right. The only thing that will keep us pure is not some human rule but the divine rule of Christ in our hearts. The moment we put our trust in the safeguards instead of Jesus is the moment we fail. As Colossians 2:23 reminds us, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance fo wisdom…but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgences.”

4. Forgive and restore or confront and ostracize.

I don’t know Mark Sanford’s heart. Maybe his repentance is genuine, maybe not. That needs to be determined by the spiritual leaders at his church. But if and when true repentance takes place we Christians should be the first to forgive. If genuine repentance doesn’t take place then there should be Biblcial confrontation (Matthew 18:16-17) and, if that doesn’t do the trick, then ostracization by the entire church (Matthew 18:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.) Think of this as a holy cold shoulder done out of a heart of love with the goal being shame, repentance and restoration in the heart of the believer.

Tough stuff. But the stuff that makes Christianity unique, holy as well as loving.

I am praying for Mark Sanford as well as for his wife and family. I hope he repents, resigns and restores. I am also praying for you to be pure, to trust in the Lord, not your human safeguards to keep you pure. Please pray for me. I want to be a faithful husband who finishes well. I want to be dependent on God’s strength and not my own.

When good Christians go bad we need to confront and seek to restore. We need to analyze ourselves and not become arrogantly judgmental, to humbly trust in Christ’s power to keep us pure and to seek to rebuild the Name and Fame of Christ by living holy lives of love outloud to all around us.

We have our work cut out for us.

Would you spend some time seeking God about what He might lay on your heart to give towards THE Cause before next Tuesday? Imagine hundreds of thousands of Christian teens inspired, equipped and unleashed to lead the charge for an awakening with their friends at their own schools! You can get involved through giving by going to our website here: https://www.dare2share.org/donate/general/ or sending a check to Dare 2 Share Ministries PO Box 745323, Arvada, CO 80006-5323.

Another way you can get involved (other than prayer of course!) is by signing up for Mission Mobilize, a monthly e-mail from me to you which will give you a tool, resource or idea to mobilize at least one teenager you know for evangelistic action! To sign up for Mission Mobilize click here.

THANK you for being a co-laborer with us in seeing God’s people (in this case teenagers) effectively equipped to reach their friends with the gospel. Please feel free to post any questions you may have about THE Cause below. I am excited!

One of the things that cracks me up about little Kailey is that she always carries a bucket full of toys with her wherever she goes. In that bucket there is every little toy you could imagine. She has Wonderpets, legos, little dolls and rubber balls. She’s got all sorts of seemingly unrelated toys in that tiny bucket of fun.

Wherever we take her, whether it be at a park, a birthday party or our childcare provider’s house she busts out the bucket-o-toys and starts playing. Somehow she connects all the toys together in some kind of game that only she understands. Literally, the girl can entertain herself for hours with that little bucket of toys. She LOVES it and talks about it all the time.

At night she wants her B.O.T.s by her bed so that she can wake up and see it in the dark by the glimmer of her night light. She even wants to take it with her into the bathtub when its scrubbing time at the Stier house. But even I, the great Mr. Puddy-in-her-hands, says no to that…usually.

I tolerate her bucket of toys because she is four years old. I understand that this kind of thing is part of being a kid. I know that someday, all by herself, she will put down the bucket of toys and exchange it for something more grown up.

As I was watching her one night playing with her toys I started thinking to myself, “What is my bucket of toys? What is that thing that I take with me wherever I go and talk about all the time?”

I wish that I could honestly answer that it was the Lord Jesus Christ. But to be honest, my passion for Dare 2 Share can sometimes surpass my passion for Jesus. At these times I can plop down my bucket of toys and blab non stop about all the ministry taking place through Dare 2 Share, then pack up my toys and go home.

Like Kailey, I love my bucket of toys.

Don’t get me wrong, executing the mission and ministry of Dare 2 Share is a big part of what Jesus has called me to do. But too often I forget that the bucket of ministry I’m responsible for is not the point. Jesus is.

It’s way too easy in ministry to let what we are doing for Jesus take the throne of Jesus. Sure we were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” But, when those good works rule in Christ’s stead, good ministry becomes bad idolatry.

Hence the trickiness of our relationship between our calling and our King. The reason that this relationship can be tough to manage is that we are called by God to accomplish our missions with passion and precision. But these holy callings from God can quickly morph into something more sinister. It can for me anyway. I know that when I’m in flesh mode instead of Spirit mode, Dare 2 Share becomes my Lord instead of Jesus.

Pray for me. I want God to be the object of my utmost desire, for Him to be my bucket of toys. The apostle Paul put it this way in Philippians 3:7-11, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

I want Jesus to be what fills my bucket every single day, not Dare 2 Share or anything else. I want to do Dare 2 Share with passion because I have a passion to know Jesus and share Him with as many people as possible. I want Dare 2 Share to be an instrument of my passion for God and not the object of my passion.

This is the battle that I face everyday in ministry. This is the challenge I have with my bucket of toys.

What about you? What is your bucket of toys? Is it ministry or sports or work or friendships or technology or something or someone else? We all have a go to bucket that we run to when we are contolled by the flesh instead of the Spirit. Whatever your bucket of toys is let us learn together to allow Jesus to fill our hearts to overflow with a passion for Him. Let’s discover how to let everthing else we do be an expression of our love for Him!

Fill us up with you and you alone O God!

You see I was the result of a short term relationship that my mom had with a guy named Toney whom she had met through a mutual aquaintance. They partied and she got pregnant. He found out and he got gone.

Mom decided to leave town too. She drove from Denver to the east coast, fleeing the shame of having to face her very Baptist parents with another reason to make them cringe at her hard partying lifestyle. Instead of having this baby and creating more havoc in her own personal life she decided to have an illegal abortion out of state. She left town under the guise of visiting relatives in Boston.

My mom had been a rebellious daughter since her teenage years. She already had one son that she was trying to raise on her own and she was way too proud to accept government assistance. Between the shame of facing her parents and the pricetag of yet another kid to raise she decided to flee the scene of the accident.

When my mom was in Boston my grandparents found out about her pregnancy (thanks to my relatives there!) and convinced her to come back and have the baby. And, believe me, I’m glad she did. When my mom was going through her guilt spells I used to try to get her to laugh by saying, “Hey ma, I’m not glad you sinned, but I’m glad to be here!”

A good hearty smoker’s laugh would always ensue, sometimes followed up with a smack to the back of my head and a “ya jerk!”

Sidenote: It kind of gets me ticked when I hear pro-choicers try to make a case for abortion through the old, “well abortion is better than having to be raised in a broken, violent home in a high poverty situation.” Whenever someone uses this one on me I ask, “Were you raised in a home like that?” The answer is inevitably “no.” I respond with, “Well, I was and you have no clue to what you are talking about.”

But I digress….back to Father’s Day.

So I never really celebrated Father’s Day. My brother’s dad was never around. I can’t remember if I ever actually met him either. He was a jerk to my brother and mom anyway. If you looked up dead beat dad in the dictionary it would have a picture of him and the alimony money he refused to pay.

Later on my mom married another dude named Paul but that ended abruptly with a bat cracked upside his car and then his head after he disappeared for a long period of time and then suddenly showed up looking for money. The bloody beating I witnessed that day taught me to always obey my momma.

So, needless to say, Father’s Day was not a holiday I was familiar with much growing up. But, as I’ve been thinking about it, maybe I did actually celebrate it but in a totally different way.

Five years ago, before my mom went to be with the Lord, I had several conversations with her while she was slowly dying. In one of our many chats over the forty days that she was in Hospice, she asked me, “Do you remember what you used to say when the neighborhood kids used to make fun of you for not having a dad?” I couldn’t remember. She said, “You used to say, ‘God’s my Daddy!’” I said, “Mom, I don’t remember ever saying that but I remember feeling that.”

I still feel that to this day.

For me Father’s Day is everyday! I met my Daddy when I was 8 years old and He has never left me or forsaken me. He wasn’t disappointed about my entrance into the world like my biological father was. He didn’t leave town when He found out about me. Instead He loved me so much that He sacrificed His own Son so that I could be adopted into His family.

I get to tell the story of my bio dad often when I preach across the nation. Whenever I sense an audience is tempted to feel sorry for me because I don’t have a “real dad” I remind them that I do have a Daddy, the best Daddy ever, and that He loves me like nobody’s business…and that he loves them too.

If you know me you know that I’m consumed with getting things done on a ministry level. As a matter of fact at Dare 2 Share we just officially embraced the goal of mobilizing teenagers at every one of the 67,000+ high school and middle school campuses to relationally and relentlessly reach and then mobilize their friends for Christ. This is a daunting goal that, by God’s grace, we tend to accomplish through thousands of participating local churches.

This is a very aggressive, some would say, unrealistic goal. But we are going for it anyway and I believe that it will, through God’s strength demonstrated through His people, get done.

Sometimes people ask me what drives me full throttle toward goals like this. Sure I want to see teenagers reached and I want to see the church revived. But I think the biggest driver for me personally is the hope that, someday, when I stand before my real Daddy, I will hear Him say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

I want to make my Daddy proud of my life, family and ministry. I want to do as much as I can in His power for His glory so that when I stand with my life report card in His presence He looks at me and say’s, “Well done son. I’m proud of you boy.”

Whether you have a biological father or not this Father’s Day, celebrate the reality of a Heavenly Father that loves you so much that He sent His most cherished Son to die in your place for your sin. Through faith in Him you have eternal life. Receiving the gift of eternal life means you are entering into a relationship with your real Dad forever. As Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God….”

Amen and happy Father’s Day!

Simply awesome.

You see D.L. Moody knew that prayers that worked most effectively weren’t necessarily the long ones. And he knew that the purpose of prayer was not to show off one’s eloquence to the audience but to pour out our hearts to our Daddy.

Remember the showdown at Mt. Carmel Corral between the 450 prophets of Baal and the lone prophet/ranger Elijah? This was a contest between Baal and Yahweh to see which God would answer by fire first. Each would make a sacrifice and pray for that divine bolt of fire to turn their killed bull into barbequed beef.

Being the lone ranger/prophet/gentlemen that he was, Elijah let the prophets of Baal go first. Lighting up the sacrifice should have been an easy one for Baal. He supposedly lived on Mt. Carmel which means that he had home field advantage. He was the god of fertility, rode clouds regularly and chucked lightning bolts for fun.

The P.O.B. prayed for like six hours with skin slashing intensity. That’s the equivialent of 2,700 man hours of prayer! The result of their prayers? Flies, not fire on their sacrificed bull.

So after Elijah gets tired of taunting and waiting (six hours is a long prayer service, even for a prophet of God) he rebuilds the altar, makes a sacfiice, drenches it three times with water (just to rub it in) and then prays this simple prayer,

“O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again” 1 Kings 18:36-37.

Crack! Boom! Bang!

The fire falls from heaven and burns up the sacrifice, wood, water and altar!

2,700 man hours of labor intensive, vocal straining prayer to the wrong God can’t stand up to a less-than-sixty-seconds prayer given in the right way to the right God. In the words of Charles Spurgeon, “Some brethren pray by the yard, but true prayer is measured by weight-not length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length.”

The prayers of the P.O.B. were focused on the wrong God whereas Elijah’s prayer were focused on the right God, connected with the right sacrifice and done for the right reasons (”so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God….”)

In the same way when we recalibrate our minds on the true and living God, offer our prayers in faith based on the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ and are praying with the right motives we can be sure that, like Elijah, our prayers will be answered…no matter how long or short our prayers happen to be!

So pray short prayers throughout the day. Pray while you are driving (but keep your eyes open please). Pray at your cubicle. Pray in your yard. Pray in the midst of boring conversations. Pray short, hard and for the right reasons. I guarantee you that, as you get into this habit, your extended times of prayer will have more punch too!

When I hear people talk about the kingdom as if the only sense of it is that it is already here I wonder if they are reading the same set of Scriptures that I am. Don’t get me wrong. I do believe what Jesus said when He referred to the kingdom of God being inside of us. In the general sense, those of us who have put our faith in Jesus are His servants, and He is our King. The kingdom of God in it’s broadest sense is God’s rulership in the hearts of His subjects.

In Luke 17: 20-21 Jesus makes this powerful point to the Pharisees, “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.’”

The Pharisees were implying that if Jesus was the Son of Man then He should bring the kingdom as prophecied in the book of Daniel. But Jesus challenges their kingdom thinking by referring to the broader, spiritual kingdom of God. In this passage Jesus is making it clear that, while they were looking for deliverance from the Romans dominating their country, Jesus was more concerned about their deliverance from the sin dominating their hearts.

Jesus then clarifies the literal kingdom that is coming to His disciples in verses 22-30 of Luke 17, “Then he said to his disciples, ‘The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. Men will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. ‘Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.”

The verses before Jesus was telling the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was a matter of the heart but here He is saying it is a literal kingdom that is coming someday. Which of these kingdom realities is true? Both are!

In the general sense the kingdom of God is within us who believe, but in the specific sense there is a literal kingdom that is coming. Jesus refers to it again and again and again in the book of Matthew as a literal kingdom that we should seek for, search after and strive to enter into. In His analogies the shadow of the kingdom hovers over our earthly reality with a sense of hope and foreboding.

But if Matthew is the kingdomfest of the New Testament, Daniel is the same for the Old.

Throughout the book of Daniel God’s kingdom is referred to as a literal coming kingdom. He referred to it in chapter seven and verse eighteen of his book, “But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever.’” In verse twentyseven he goes even further with the literal kingdom reference, “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.’”

Paul refers to it as something we will inherit someday in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Later on in that same letter he refers to it as something that Jesus will hand over to the Father at the end of days, “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power” 1 Corinthians 15:24.

The writer of Hebrews (whoever he or she may be) wrote this in 12:28 of his/her book as a sober reminder of the amazing reality that someday we will enter into God’s holy kingdom as our own possession, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe….”

Peter reminds us to live a godly life so that, “you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” 2 Peter 1:11.

What’s ironic is that the ultimate description of our reception of this kingdom doesn’t use the word “kingdom” at all. It doesn’t need to. Check out Revelation 21:1-4,

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’”

Someday the kingdom of God will land on earth with a thud and the dwelling of God will be with man. The old will be passed away and the new order shall begin and never end. What a day that will be!

How should we respond to God’s underestimated kingdom?

1. Be excited. Our best days are ahead. We have the audacity of a true and lasting hope, not just a temporal and painful one.

2. Be striving. When we stand before the King in His kingdom we want to receive the rewards that we, as believers, have been striving for through our service to Him. Work hard to advance His kindom through spreading the gospel of Jesus to everyone you can. We want to stand before Him in joyful anticipation not with a “would’a, could’a, should’a” regret.

3. Be sure. Are you sure that you are headed for the kingdom of heaven when you die? Good works don’t cut it because we could never be good enough. Revelation 21:27 reminds us that even a liar won’t enter God’s pure and perfect kindom.

There’s only one way in and Jesus tells us in John 3:3-6, “Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’ ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!’ Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

This confused Nickodemus, like it may confuse us, so Jesus clarified himself a few verses later, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” John 3:16-18.

Believe that Jesus died for you, trust in Him and Him alone and you will be born again spiritually and, through Christ’s sacrifice, be made fit for the kingdom of God.

Thy kingdom come!

But it’s not enough.There are 83 million people in America under the age of 19 that must be reached and then mobilized with the gospel before its too late.

A week or so ago I caught just a few minutes of the MTV Music Awards. During those few minutes I watched the “Bruno” prank (Bruno is an overtly gay character portrayed by the same guy who brought Borat to the world.) His little schtick/skit/prank with Eminem made me sick and got me ticked. I wasn’t angry with them or MTV, after all a dog’s gonna bark and sinners are gonna sin.

Instead I got angry with myself.

To be honest I don’t feel like I, Dare 2 Share, or the church for that matter, has done nearly enough to stem the rising tide of hedonism in this nation. It’s moving from bad to worse to “worser”. And before it hits “worsest” things have got to change.

And when I say change I’m not at all talking about the culture wars. Christians who spend their time raging against the machine are wasting their time. We are not going to be able to legislate, protest or picket our way out of this one. This world is on the highway to hell and there’s no stopping them with the arm of the flesh. Sorry people but it looks like we are going to have to bust out the weapons of righteousness…stuff like prayer, loving our enemies, living the truth and proclaiming the gospel.

I’m going old school with this one but bear with me because it’s the same kind of old school approach the believers in the early New Testament took to transforming their culture. If you read the Gospels closely you’ll see that Jesus never advocated a political or moral approach to changing the Roman Empire. And talk about depraved! The Roman culture of unrestrained naughtiness would make Bruno blush.

But Jesus launched a different kind of revolution. His was a revolution that centered around the transformation of the internal which would lead to a transformation of the external. In other words the plan of Jesus was to change the world through the good news of the gospel delivered through the lives and the lips of his followers.

Now you may be thinking “well isn’t that what Dare 2 Share has been doing for the last 18 years?” Yes but in the last twelve months our cause has become clearer than ever: to mobilize teenagers on every high school and middle school campus in America to reach and then mobilize their friends to reach and mobilize their friends until every teenager in this nation hears the gospel from a teenager they know and trust.

Maybe you’re wondering if this means that Dare 2 Share is getting into campus ministry. The answer is yes and no. Yes in the sense that we are going to challenge and equip youth leaders to mobilize teenagers for evangelism at every school in their community. But no in the sense that we are not advocating another campus ministry model. Instead we are pushing a strategy that any teenager, group of friends or campus ministry can employ at their own school.

This strategy is a teen-to-teen evangelism plan rather than an “invite them to a meeting where an adult can reach them” plan because we believe that the best one to reach teenagers with the gospel is a teenager they know and trust. Sure, inviting them to a meeting may be a part of that process but it is the teenager who drives the gospel-centered conversation before, during and after that invitation. The goal is lunch room, hallway, afterschool, Facebook/MySpace conversations led by fully motivated and fully equipped teenagers.

Fear not homeschoolers and Christian schoolites, you can participate in this strategy too! Because it is a friend-centric strategy all you need is some unreached friends (online friends, sports leagues, extended family members, neighborhood teenagers, etc.) Pop the bubble my young friends and engage. Somebody once told me that a homeschooler that doesn’t share his/her faith is like a Ferrari that you keep locked away in the garage.

Its time to revv up and peel out.

We are calling this big, hairy, audacious goal “THE Cause” because we believe it is, at it’s core, the Great Commission given to us by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. As LeCrae raps, “One teach…two teach…three teach…four…disciple cycles who make disciples.” We are truly becoming Dare 2 Share, not in the cold calling “jack you upside the head” with the gospel type of way, but in the being witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria type of way.

Today’s teens are into causes (environmental, social justice, etc) and this is the cause of causes. It is the cause of giving teenagers purpose now and heaven later. It is the cause of saving them from the hell they are headed to and the hell they are going through. It doesn’t get anymore urgent than that.

I believe that the upcoming Blaze conference, starting November 6 and 7 in Denver, Colorado, will feel more revolutionary than any D2S conference of the past. Teenagers will start doing THE Cause before they ever leave the event. By the time they pile on buses to go home they will already be well on their way to reaching and mobilizing their friends with and for the gospel. Youth leaders will be on their way to seeing this God-give initiative (aka “The Great Commission”) become a reality in their own communities.

What’s really fun is that this is a cause that youth leaders can accomplish with their own style, flair, imprint and pace. This is a cause that everyone can do, speak into and improve.

We don’t have all of the strategy and tactics for THE Cause figured out on purpose. Although, by God’s grace, we are going to have the basic tools and strategy to launch this initiative we are going to depend our champions (sold out youth leaders, students, volunteers and donors) to help us figure it out on the ground. We are going to elicit feedback and build the full strategy based on the input that we get back from those who are actually carrying it out.

To mobilize teenagers on every high school and middle school in America is no small feat. It is sobering to realize that there are over 67,000 schools that fit this category. It is such a big mission that we are convinced that we are not the ones who can accomplish it…the youth leaders, students and adults who buy off on THE Cause are. What we are fitted to do, by God’s grace, is to inspire these champions and arm them with the tools to carry it out.

What do we need? We need wisdom. We need money. We need champions. In other words we need you. Check out the Get Involved section of the Dare 2 Share website to see how you can get involved right away with mobilizing teenagers. Signing up for Mission Mobilize is a start. Prayers and donations are appreciated as well.

If you want to find out more about THE Cause make sure you sign up to bring your teenagers to The Dare 2 Share “Blaze” Tour this upcoming school year. That’s when we will officially unleash the idea and strategy to youth leaders and students. By God’s grace we will unleash it nationally a year later.

Sign up and stay tuned.

Bruno and Eminem watch out. Some teenager you know may be trying to reach you with the gospel soon.