Acts 13:46 “Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.”

On television this past several weeks, this one commercial runs. A man shown from the upper chest up is calling someone on his phone. The man is your average white male of thirty-ish years of age, however he has black stripes on his body. In the background, you can see his room, covered in baseball and football paraphernalia. The man on the phone says, “I know what you said last time, but this time I am calling on my new digital phone.” An obviously oriental voice is heard (presumable from the phone) to respond, “Sorry, Roger. Tattoos are permanent. You Tiger now.”

Actions have consequences. All actions, good or bad, have their repercussions. Just because we change something in our life, do something to try and cancel our previous actions, or make another choice, it does not effect the consequence of our prior choice.

We chose to go to college, thus we choose a college, and then we have to go there. If we do not like it, we can transfer to another college. We can choose to study or not to study. If we study, we tend to do better on tests. If we don't study we do worse, and our GPA goes down. If we really need to pass one test, or write a really good paper, we can study and research, or we can cheat. If we cheat and the teacher notices, we get a zero, and it goes on our scholastic record. If we are freshmen at the time, then it goes all the way to graduation with us. Our employers who look at our school records will know that we cheated - that we lied - on a test. Just because we never cheat on another test does not change the fact that we cheated on one.

When we come to the cross, our sins are expunged. We are forgiven our actions and misdeeds. What we frequently do not realize is that the consequences and the aftermath of our deeds still remain. For some of our choices, we do not notice the effects. We date a certain girl, we study (not as hard as we should) and get decent grades. We help an old lady across the street and feel good about it. We get pulled over for speeding and get a ticket or a warning. These have no effect on our future lives. Some of our actions do, however. We have a good or bad reputation with our teachers, teachers who will be references for us. We get drunk one night, and run over someone, and thus we get a prison sentence for accidental death. That prison record goes everywhere with us. Our actions have consequences. Just because Jesus' death on the cross expunged our sin from His record, we are still in jail for accidental death, we still have upset teachers or supervisors, we still have our names in the paper, etc.

Walking the Christ-road requires us to change ourselves. We still have our prior life of Christlessness behind us, the reputation we got there dogging our every step, but now we have Jesus' way to live. We now have to walk by faith and be known as Christians by what we do. We have to make our faith and our works be the same! Faith without works is dead and yet we are saved by faith alone. We can do nothing to earn Christ's love. He has already given it to us. Once we commit ourselves, we have to live so that people will know us without us even opening our mouths.

Let us walk the Christ-road, despite our actions, despite our lies, despite our love, despite our previous reputation. Walk the road with vigor and strength, walk, or even run that the world will see Christ through us. The world can see the change in our life, even when we can not.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you,
Richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another
In psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,
Singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord
And whatever you do, in word or in work
Do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Do all in the name of our Lord.