Show Them the Way

March 11, 2025March 4, 2025 / Mark Brady / 4 Comments

There are many ways to share God with people. I have either heard or watched as others tried their way. One person told two young women they were going to split hell wide open. He judged them after learning they were lesbians. That wasn’t a very effective method at all. I told the individual, “Those ladies needed to hear of God’s love, not your judgment.”

I watched one Saturday night as an individual argued “religion” with another person, thinking they were going to convince them to accept their views and accept Jesus. It didn’t work.

People come to God in many ways. One way of sharing God that I have found to be effective is what I like to call “Lifestyle Evangelism.” If you come across an individual that you know you are going to be seeing from time to time, you can start sharing God and his love little by little. Whether it is going out of your way to help them, or remembering them in a time of need, or if they are celebrating a life event.

Eventually, they begin to realize that you are not “weird” but that you really do love God and want to love on people. People will begin to see that you and your way of life are so different from anyone they have ever known. It happened to Jesus. This can lead them to ask or to be open to hearing how to accept Jesus Christ into their life.

People don’t like to be controlled; they prefer to be led.

You could put it this way: people don’t want to be told what to do. But they are sometimes open to being led in the way they should go. Jesus is the way. Show people the way. Show people, Jesus!

Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (NET)

Be imitators of me (Paul), just as I also am of Christ. 1 Cor. 11:1 (NET)
(The insert of the name “Paul” is mine.)

Who Do You Want to Be?

August 20, 2021August 22, 2021 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

I had a mission before me this morning, so I prepared. I ate a meal, used the bathroom, twice and put on comfortable clothing, and shoes. I gathered my necessary paperwork, ran down my checklist. I was ready. Yes, I was going to the DMV.

I arrived early, and the line inside the door wasn’t too bad. I was hopeful to be done before needing another bathroom trip. You don’t want to be in there when they call your number!

(Hmmm, that sounds like a future blog. I’ll have to write that down.)

Okay, I’m done putting that idea in my notebook. I made it pass Charlie Checkpoint Number 1. I had the proper paperwork with me. Next, I had to fill out a small form I was given at Charlie Checkpoint Number 2 and then pay attention for my number to be called.

“Number 462,” cried out the attendant, who then directed me as to which window to proceed to. I greeted the woman, whose grey hair was pulled back into a pony tail, with a warm smile. I have learned, the hard way mind you, these people own you for the next few minutes of your life and you want to be on their good side. I also thanked her for serving us, and was thinking, “Flowers. I should have brought flowers!”

As she proceeded through her own checklist she begin asking me questions. “What color do you want your hair?” “What color eyes do you want?” “How much do you ‘want’ to weigh?” And my favorite, “How tall do you want to be?”

It was in that moment I felt as though she was asking me, “Who do you want to be?”

As I left I was still thinking about that question. The obvious answers came to mind, “A Christian”, “A Disciple of Jesus Christ”, but those seemed cliché. After getting home I saw a friend had shared a short message by Rev. Craig Groeschel. Craig explained that the first people to follow Jesus were called, “the Way”.

“All this time Saul was breathing down the necks of the Master’s disciples, out for the kill. He went to the Chief Priest and got arrest warrants to take to the meeting places in Damascus so that if he found anyone there belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he could arrest them and bring them to Jerusalem.” Acts 9:2 (MSG)

In other words, these individuals didn’t just accept the truths of Jesus, but also accepted and adopted into their own lives the “way” Jesus lived. I agree with this kind of life, and this is who I want to be. One who lives the same “way” Jesus did. The only external identifiers that matter are, what comes out of my mouth, and how I react to others, for who they are, and how they have chosen to live.

I want to be like Jesus, who not only was the way, but showed the way to his Father, and lived in a particular way that was pleasing to his Father, God. Who do you want to be?

Knowing the Way

April 3, 2020March 31, 2020 / Mark Brady / 1 Comment

040420 When I was four years old I was able to show people how to get from our house to JCPenny. I didn’t know the street names, but I knew when to get off the highway, and when to turn and which way. This may be more important; I knew how to get back home.

Funny story; when I was five, we had been to JCPenny and other stores at the outdoor mall, it was the mid-sixties okay, and I had seen at least four different “Santa Clauses”. Something just didn’t add up. Then it hit me, and while we were on our way home, I blurted out the truth of how the whole thing worked. My mother almost wrecked the 1963 Chevy Impala trying to reach over the back of the front seat and slap my legs, or whatever she should make contact with and screaming at me, “Shut up!” My older sister started crying and whimpering, “It’s not true! It can’t be true!”

A couple of years ago, I was working security at my church, when a middle age couple approached me and asked for money. They said they had been in town to visit his sister who was in the hospital. They shared they had intended to drive into town, visit, and drive back home. Instead, they said they got lost and turned around several times. So much so, their gas tank was almost empty.

I felt bad for them, and I didn’t give them cash, so I walked across the street and filled up their car. While the man she was living with, it was an impression, went in to the store to do something, I had the opportunity to speak to the woman sitting in the car.

After meeting them I kept getting a feeling, or was hearing from God, that she used to go to church, but because of some bad choices in life had gotten away from the faith of her youth. I squatted down so I could look at her in the face through the driver’s window and said, “I feel like God wants me to give you a message. He wants you to know he misses you.” She started crying. I said, “I feel like you used to go to church when you were a little girl.” She, now wiping tears, mentioned, “My grandma used to take us kids every Sunday.” I encouraged her to, no matter what, with or without him, to go back to church again. I told her I was sure God wouldn’t hold it against her that she had been MIA for so long, because he just wanted to see her come home. Hang out, talk, and get caught up.

Before writing this blog tonight, I got the impression there is one, or perhaps many people who need to go home again. Not just to a “church building”, but to a place where you can learn the true nature of God. How much he loves you. I think the message God had for her is similar to the message he wants you to hear. If you don’t know how to find your way home, ask Him to help you. He will. He knows the way.