TXT3

1. Make a commitment to be uncomfortable (sharing Jesus with people will do that to you)

2. Ask someone to “come and see” what God is doing at TXT3

3. Tell your story with someone.

Three things to do if we are going to love people.  I decided to type those out, because I think most of us are still thinking about the video blog from Penn Jillette.  Pretty powerful stuff.  There are a couple of things that have stuck with me this week as I’ve reflected on it (and I should say that this was my first experience with Penn Jillette and I’m in no way an expert on what he thinks or has said).  First, it is interesting that Jillette refers to the man who gave him a Bible as a “good man.”  Ironically, there is no such thing as “good” without some sort of moral reference point.  That is one of the logical problems with atheism.  God’s character gives us a definition of what is good and acceptable.  Without that we are left to our own ideas of good or we define good by what the majority of people (i.e. a country) deem as good.  That might sound like it makes sense, but ask a Jewish person who lived in Germany during the 1940s if “good” can be defined by a country’s laws.

The other thing that I’ve pondered is what happened to Jillette in his life that soured his openness to God.  He’s more than an atheist.  He’s an activist.  He spends a lot of time denouncing the God that he doesn’t believe in.  He says that religion causes a lot of problems in the world.  That is certainly a debatable point.  Why the closed eyes to all of the great things that the followers of Jesus have brought to the world? 

I don’t know the answers and I doubt I’ll ever meet him, but today is certainly a day that I can pray for him!