As a teacher for many years, I often share Christ’s love for us is the connection between us on earth and our unseen Father in Heaven.  I also share that we serve as Jesus’ visible love connection between himself and the people who cross our paths.  Acts of kindness, pleasant gestures and caring for one’s needs even as insignificant as providing a cup in water in Christ’s name can be used by God to touch and soften a spiritually hardened heart.  Lastly and remarkably, we have the active choice to be used as an emergency spiritual life connection for people in need of a connection with God or be justifiably declared as just another one of those hypocrites that go to church.

Picture yourself casually sitting back with a thirst satisfying drink.  Lifting it to your lips; you make contact with the straw; then you slowly draw in your drink, with its many satisfying benefits being the result.  The most common use of the drink straw is being that connection or conduit between you and your beverage.  We believers receive our comfort, satisfying benefits and relaxation through Christ, as declared in Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand”.  With Christ as the conduit, we receive the water of life, to be used for the service to others.

Just as Jesus is our connection to God, it is up to us to serve as the connection between Jesus and the people who cross our paths.  Matthew5:16 supports this,  “Let your light so shine that everyone will see your good deeds and glorify the father who is in heaven”; and Colossians 3:17states, “Whatever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”

We have the choice to be used as a strategic connection between the needy and the refreshing benefits of Christ’s kingdom.  You can even take it a step further since we can be used as an emergency life line or connection in the same way a straw can be used as an

emergency connection for medicine to a needy patient or even as a breathing device to save a person from drowning or suffocation.  It is hard sometimes to get our head around the fact, a simple drinking straw can provide enough air to keep an adult alive and prevent a person from drowning or suffocating but it is true!  Our insignificant actions in the hands of a mighty God can be used in life altering ways.  A simple well placed word, an act of kindness, a gesture or caring for a need even as insignificant as providing a cup in water to a thirsty wanderer can be used by God to touch and soften a spiritually hardened heart. Through the prompting of a simple act on our part, the Spirit can motivate the receiver to respond to Christ’s direction.

You can use a straw to provide life-saving oxygen to a drowning victim, or use the same straw to annoy others by shooting spit wads at them.  We too can share the life-saving message of Christ or provide misinformation or misrepresentation by our words or deeds.  As believers, we have the opportunity to greatly affect others in very positive or negative ways, just as the simple straw can be used in multiple ways and for many uses.

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