Duty Free

Non rhetorical: have you heard this word before?

When you are on a trip to another country outside of the US, you will find these shops that are duty free.  This means, in short, items without tax are for sale.  You are purchasing something with no duty to any place except for possible profit margins you are paying just the cost for the object.  I turn to you and Christianity as Un-duty Free.  We are saved and receive salvation in only two acts of faith.  The first, repentance of sin.  The words to repent or the act of repentance has come to have an extremely negative connotation.  However, this word's original Christian meaning, before it became so bastardized, was to turn from sin and to be of a new heart.  You shall no longer desire earthly desires and sinful nature would be disliked, dispised, and all words synonymous to that.  The second piece, to trust in Jesus Christ.  These are the cornerstones of our faith and not only an opinion.  This is biblical, and good thing too.  For I am merely man and can do nothing new under the sun.  I no longer have the task of reinvention.  Phew!  My point in this blog is to see how you know the matters of duty in Christianity.  We are called to make disciples.  I hear many say well I will do this by good acts.  Terrific!  However, if you were to deliver food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, shelter for the homeless, and mistake there needs to solely matters of planet Earth, they may never know Christ.  This can be seen as gimmicky, but I ask, 'where in the world would you have a negative experience with a gimmick that delivers to you the greatest life?'  Jesus says basically we cannot live on bread alone.  He is the bread of life.  Even without evangelizing (another word with negative connotation I know), even without preaching... we are not duty free so to speak.  We are called to make disciples and spread the gospel which literally means the good news!  How awful of us!  To deliver good news about our faith to share with others and not make false converts, but to show them we are salt and light of the earth. 

I'll wrap this up with a prayer for the day.  Lord, help me with my unbelief.  I love you and worship you with all my being.  Bring me to the place where I may find a relationship with you where I will be satisfying to you as you are to me.  Millions of blessings to everyone that reads this and who does not read this today.  God's will and not my own.  Bless Christ's work in your life.