tim_peggy.jpgPeggy and I just returned from ministering in the Detroit, Michigan area. While we were driving to our destination the Lord really began to minister to me about the word “difference.” As I thought about this word, the Holy Spirit asked me, “What is it that makes you different, Tim?”

Well, like many of us, I began to focus on the obvious: I am saved, Jesus is Lord of my life, I am full of the Holy Spirit, I live by faith! The list could go on about what all the Lord Jesus has done in me. I could even focus on the things that God has delivered me from: sin, sickness, poverty, etc. But I knew that those things were not the “difference” the Holy Spirit was speaking about.

What He was stirring in me was, “What is it about me that makes me different to others?” The world around me does not know what I have been delivered from or even all the good things God has done in me and for me. Unless someone knows you in a more personal way and how you used to be, they really have no way of knowing what makes you different today. Even people in the world (some) have good morals. They work hard. Some give their lives to serve our country. They are, by the worlds standard, good people! So there must be something greater than just doing good things.

How is it that our lives change the lives of others? People in the world, for the most part, could care less that you’re saved or filled with the Holy Ghost! The world laughs at and mocks people like us until they come into direct contact with Jesus who lives in us. I realized, He is the difference in me! I am a man full of Faith, Hope & Love, not to my own credit but because Jesus Christ lives in me. Like the Apostle Paul, I count myself dead yet alive unto God and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

Faith, Hope and Love! These three to me represent the Father, who is Love, the Son, who is our hope, and the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Faith. When the world around us comes into direct contact with the Love of God in us, it makes a difference! Love does. Love gives. Love never fails!

The world is in a mess, but we have and carry a message of Hope- not that things are going to get better, but that there is a new life to live! God did not send His Son to make the things of the world better, but to give us new life!

The Spirit of Faith is what compels me to GO DO what Jesus said to do! People see and experience the “difference” when you and I do what God has appointed us and anointed us to do. So, change some ones life today and don’t just say, “God loves you,” but show them He does.

Christ in you, faith, hope and love are the difference!