Many people’s lives have been changed by this challenging sermon from Paris Reidhead called Ten Shekels and a Shirt. He preaches about how easy it is to miss what God wants for our lives by pursuing a religion based on utilitarianism and humanism.

You can listen to it at sermonindex.com.

Here are a few choice passages from the transcript:

And then we come to another well known person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was a failure from judging all the standards. He never succeeded in organizing a church or denomination. He wasn’t able to build a school. He didn’t succeed in getting a mission board established. He never had a book printed. He never was able to get any of the various criteria or instruments that we find and are so useful, I’m not being sarcastic at all, they are useful. And our Lord preached for three years, healed thousands of people, fed thousands of people, and yet when it was all over there were 120…, 500 to whom he could have revealed Himself after His resurrection. And the day that He was taken, one man said “If all the others forsake you, I’m willing to die for you.” He looked at this one and said “Peter you don’t know your own heart. You’re going to deny me three times before the cock crows this morning.” So all men forsook Him and fled. By every standard of our generation or any generation, our Lord was a single failure.

The question comes then to this, what is the standard of success and by what are we going to judge our lives and our ministry? And the question that you are going to ask yourself, “Is God an end or is He a means?” And you have to decide very early in your Christian life whether you’re viewing God as an end or a means. Our generation is prepared to honor with single honor anyone that’s successful regardless of whether they settled this problem or not. As long as they can get things done or get the job done or well it’s working isn’t it, then our generation is prepared to say well you’ve got to reckon with this.

And probably the most interesting quotation from the sermon:

So it had gotten down to the place where salvation was nothing more than an assent to a scheme or a formula, and the end of this was that salvation was the happiness of man because humanism has penetrated. If you were to analyze fundamentalism in contrast to liberalism of a hundred years ago as it developed, for I am not pinpointing it in time, it would be like this:

The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he’s alive, and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies.

Arab World Ministries has a new website! For over 120 years, AWM has worked to bring the light of the Gospel to Muslims in North Africa, the Middle East, and major cities in Europe and North America. If you don’t know this unique outreach, now’s a good chance to check out their new site and learn about their ministry.

Here are a few noteworthy sections of the new site:

• Ministry opportunities, both long- and short-term, in Jordan, Morocco, London, and other locations around the world. Find out how you can get involved.
• The history of AWM—and how a worldwide ministry began after a heartbreaking encounter in Algeria in 1881.
• AWM Media has been broadcasting Christ-centered television and radio programs to the Arab world for decades. Their new media programs like Maarifa continue this legacy.

Take a few minutes to get to know AWM and the amazing work they’re doing in the Muslim world.

Back in high school I was challenged to spend at least one minute a day in prayer. The idea being that one minute is better than nothing. After doing this for a month or so I found that that minute had expanded to far more than 60 seconds and had become a valuable part of my day. All it took to change my life was trying out a simple challenge.

When’s the last time you challenged yourself spiritually? Nancy Leigh DeMoss explores the connection between loving God’s Word and loving God and how 30 days can change your life. You can listen to the radio broadcast on The Revive Our Hearts page or read the transcript. She offers some compelling evidence to why reading the Bible is important for Christians.

And if you want some help reading through the Bible this year, it’s not too late to take advantage of the Bible Gateway reading plans.