For your own spiritual health, you need to be moving everyone, every day, closer to Jesus and spending your quality time with friends who are doing it as well. The dedicated body of Christ is going to be of paramount importance as we face the challenges of living in the last days. But it’s inconceivable how lukewarm Christians, who already live in fear today, will survive when the persecution of Christians becomes commonplace in America.

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine” is more than a cute chorus. As a Christian, your light is growing brighter and needed more as our world gets darker. But you can choose to not let your light shine, to not let people know that you’re a Christian (Matt. 5:15) by putting it under a bushel basket. That’s exactly what most Christians are doing today. It’s by our silence that we’ve allowed darkness to overtake America.

Most Christians feel good about the good they’re doing, never thinking about the salvation of those around them. In fact, most Evangelicals believe being good is the same as sharing their faith. But being good and doing good things doesn’t get you or anyone else into heaven.

A solid Christian friend of mine was proud to tell me how he had tipped a cleaning worker in a public restroom. It never occurred to my friend that he could have told that man God prompted him to give him that tip to let him know that God loves him. He was focused on the good he was doing rather than on the ministry he could have been doing. It takes the same amount of time! It just needs to be intentional. Most Christians make this mistake all day long. If Christians just started giving God the glory for the good they are doing, we’d ignite America with revival.

Scripture Actually Works … So Live It

As I look back on my lifelong walk with God from the viewpoint of an eighty-year-old, I often say in jest, “Wow! The Scriptures actually work! Who knew?” I grew up attending church Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, and usually added special nights every week. I’ve heard thousands of sermons, and I’m still learning.

Here’s my experience: the biblical teachings that have been preached, taught, and modeled for me, including my own lifelong deep dive into the Scriptures, have all proven themselves to be true. This includes one of the most profound Scripture verses of all: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).

Nothing amazes me more than the truth of scriptures we’ve known from birth, quote without thinking, and yet routinely fail to do without giving it a second thought. And we miss the blessings that come from doing them, such as God protecting us, directing our steps, and making everything in our lives work for good. Then we blame God for not being there for us.

It bears repeating. God makes everything in our lives work for good when we love Him and live for His purpose (Rom. 8:28), to seek and save the lost, to move everyone, every day, closer to Jesus. This may be the most important verse in the Bible, after John 3:16.

God is promising, from now until you get to heaven, that He will make everything in your life work for good if you do these two things. But how many of us are loving God as our first love and living for His purpose, which is to seek and save the lost? I can’t ask this question often enough. Why are we not hearing this message preached from our pulpits?

This is not an academic message for me. I’ve been to hell and back and found that God is even more real and His joy more full because of the bad times. There’s no hope without God. In my worst moments, God has proven Himself to be faithful and His Word to be truth. He’s taught us that we can always trust Him to make our paths straight and everything work for good. It’s so simple! All we have to do is love Him and live our lives for His purpose. That’s when our faith becomes effortless.

Barry Meguiar shares his passion for evangelism this Thursday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from Ignite Your Life by Barry Meguiar. Copyright © Barry Meguiar. Published by Charisma House, an imprint of Charisma Media. Used by permission