I thought I’d take the time to type out a message that I passed on to the kids (youth) at the Upper Room. If you don’t know what the Upper Room is, it’s a Christian Venue in Statesville, NC. You can go look here. Anyway, back to the point. I was asked to share a brief moment, which is usually reserved for a band member from one of the bands or groups that plays at there that night. Well I was asked to speak, and had time to prepare, so I started preparing! Amazing..I know, well here’s what came through in the end. There were a few different versions, and the last one happened about 5-10 minutes before stepping on the stage. I took with me 2 CD’s, a roll of duct tape, masking tape, a sharpie, and a hammer. I used part of a message that was on the radio earlier that week (obviously not coincidence) but I reworked it for the message I was bringing. I started talking about how we as Christians are like the reflective side of the CD. We can reflect the Light, and that’s our job, to reflect THE Light. We are not ever called to be THE Light, but just the reflection. We could never reach that point to be able to do that, which is great. I don’t want that kind of responsibility, but I’m more than willing to do my best to reflect.
I then took the duct tape and tore off a few pieces and placed it on the back of the CD’s and wrote out “Jesus Christ” with the sharpie. This is to represent the fact that we as Christians are called to show and represent (and reflect) Jesus. It should be seen. (Reference 2 Cor. 5:17) We are to be a new creation in Christ, old things become new. People should be able to SEE the difference in our lives. How we act and react to EVERYTHING.
Then came the “stuff” as I refered to it…I took a piece of masking tape and put it on the hammer and wrote “stuff” on it. It represents all of the junk, crap, and stuff that comes at us and against us in the world to try to break us and make us conform to the world and care about all of it’s “stuff”. Well if you’ve read this far..you can figure out that the hammer met the CD. It broke and dented and looked horrible, but it didn’t fall apart. It even had a crack all the way down the middle, but because of duct tape (aka Jesus) it didn’t fall apart. You (the CD) may be a Christian, and you may have stuff that comes at you that will try to beat you down and try to break you apart. You may have bruises and “cracks” to show that you’ve been through the fight, but if you keep a hold of your “duct tape” (again..aka Jesus) you can come through.
Then came the other CD. It represented the person who does not have Jesus Christ. It had a sticker on it, like a label, which would represent false religion, or just relying on yourself. Then came the “stuff”. The hammer came down, but this time it busted into a ton of pieces. The “label” did absolutely nothing. It tore in two and just fell apart with the rest of it. That’s how it works in real life, you hold on to your good thoughts or your other type of false religion or anything else other than the real thing, and it will fall apart. It may help you have some happy times, but it will never bring you Joy. Joy is something that can’t go away.
It still doesn’t end there…there’s still broken pieces. Well then I picked up all the broken pieces with one piece of duct tape, showing the fact that no matter how broken or beat up we could be from this world, Jesus Christ can come in and take that, AS YOU ARE, and heal it and fix it. He’s not looking for you to do it on your own, He knows that you can’t do it..and that’s ok. He will work on you and heal you from the inside out.
So if today you are reading this, and have questions about this, just know that Jesus Christ came to this world to find the broken and beaten down and take all that upon Himself, a sinless man-God, and died for this world so that one day we can have eternal life with Him in Heaven. All we have to do is tell Him we’re sorry for what we’ve done and ask Him to take full and total control of our life, and then GIVE IT TO HIM. That’s the beginning. Then you need to get into a bible based church, and get around bible based people and read the bible (I sense a theme hear).
Oh..and one more amazing note, the next day I got a message noting that someone heard all of that and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior from this world!! Amazing! Please also note that this was nothing of me, I am just a mouthpiece for God, led by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
