What does it mean to testify about Jesus? Let's talk about that today. 

I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. We do the short devotional each day to help ourselves stay on mission with Jesus in our workplace.  

Today, I'm reading from John 1:6-8 "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through Him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light." 

This is talking about John, the Baptist, and that was the English Standard Version of the Bible.

These three sentences or these three verses are about John the Baptist. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light. He told other people, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," as we will see in John chapter two. But being a witness, we want to be clear. And John wants to be clear here. John, the author of the book is different than John, the Baptist.

John, the apostle wrote the book of John and John, the Baptist, was a relative of Jesus. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light. How do we bear witness about Jesus in our world? Many people think that we have to talk. We have to know some gospel presentation and we have to sit down with someone or stand up with someone and make a sales pitch about why we follow Jesus or why we have to follow Jesus to get to heaven.

And I don't believe that's witnessing nearly as much as living as if Jesus was here. Do we really believe Jesus is alive? Do we believe He's the creator of the universe? Do we believe that He's God and He created everything in it? Then if we do, and if we believe He's present, then we will live accordingly.

We will do different things because we know He's here. And we know those things are part of what he wants us to do. We get joy from many of those things because we take part in His work. Some of that is, avoiding some of the sins in the world, not living selfishly. When I was focused on myself, I witnessed the fact that I believe that everything about the world that's important to me is something that impacts me.

But when I live, according to Jesus, I live differently. My witness bears witness about the light of Jesus. And so did John the Baptist. The true light, which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. That's why John the Baptist was a witness. He was a special witness because the true light was coming.

We'll talk more about verse nine tomorrow. Today. Let's remember that we get to be a witness simply by living, according to what we believe. If we believe Jesus is God. And if we believe that Jesus rewards us when we do what he says, then why wouldn't we do what He says? Why wouldn't we live according to His desire and His commands? He tells us there are two great commands. Love the Lord, our God, with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Well, if we're loving our neighbors as ourselves, and if we love God, and especially if we love our neighbors, because we love God, we're doing what he said.

When we live with this love, we do a better job in our workplace. We watch out for the people around us. We pray for other people. We serve them. We go out of our way to be a blessing to them, to demonstrate love and appreciation. We've been called for that, I believe, as marketplace ministers. And today I want to challenge all of us, myself included.

Let's live love. Because when we do that, when we love other people, we make Jesus visible. We make his kingdom visible. Other people see us living according to a different plan. We basically either live to serve ourselves or to serve God. Which will be today? When we live serving Jesus, He will become visible and our lives will be a witness.

Thanks so much for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference with your faith. I pray that you will love other people because you listened to this podcast today. And because you follow Jesus. I believe that makes Jesus visible in our world. Thanks so much for being a marketplace minister.

Have you ever noticed how darkness can't overcome light? That's a principle that Jesus uses to illustrate things. Let's talk about that today. 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me on the Follower of One Podcast. We've been talking through John chapter one. 

I love these first 18 verses, and so I just wanted to spend some time talking about those and the impact that they make on us in the workplace. Today, we're talking about verses four and five, and I'm reading from the English Standard Version. It says. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

John explains to us that Jesus wasn't an ordinary man. Jesus was God. And Jesus was the Creator. And now he tells us that in Jesus was life and the life was the light of men. Life was God's idea. Making us alive: we didn't think of that. He did. And he uses this illustration of light and darkness to make this point about how Jesus is ruling in our world.

You see wherever the light shines, the darkness runs. Darkness can't stick around when there's light available. Light always chases away the darkness. We get this illustration because where Jesus comes, the darkness hides Jesus has the life and the life is also the equivalent of this light.

I also think John's talking about eternal life here. He's not talking about physical life because our physical life has a beginning and an end. It's our time in the temporal world. It has a start time and it has an end time. But our eternal life is available to us forever. It begins when we trust Jesus and it ends never.

And we were dead before that. The Bible says we were dead in our trespasses and sins in Ephesians 2:1. We were in darkness. But the light of Christ's life exposes us and we become alive. This life is great. And I want to encourage you. I hope that you're living your eternal life. We get to live that life, whenever we're present with Jesus, we enter his kingdom. When we listen to him and do what he says, we become his people. And this light in us then shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. 

Today in your workplace, I'd like to challenge you. Let's live like we're followers of Jesus. What will we do if we were totally in tune with Jesus and why can't we do that today?

Can we listen to him in such a way that we can live our lives a little differently so that people might ask. And when they ask, we can speak for ourselves. 

That's our fifth daily activity that we talk about in Follower of One. We talk about how Jesus transforms us. We're not telling someone else how to live. We're just explaining to them the experience that we have. We've seen the light. The light shined in our life and the darkness of our life can't overcome that light. And then we can take that light into our world. I hope you can do that today. I'm excited that you're a follower of Jesus and I'm excited that you will consider yourself as a minister in your workplace or wherever you go Monday through Saturday. 

I started Follower of One because I didn't want my only job to just be staying out of trouble until I could get back to church. And that's why we have this online community called Follower of One.

We're a group of people who are trying to live our faith on a daily basis. When we pray for other people in our workplace, we partner with Jesus and the work that He's doing in the lives of the people that we interact with every day. You can join that ministry anytime you want, just pray for the people around you.

And if you'd like to do that more, join us in https://community.followerofone.org. We're just a group of people who are trying to live our faith on a daily basis. Check it out and thank you very much for being a minister in your marketplace.

What difference does it make whether or not Jesus was the creator? Let's talk about that today. 

I'm Mike Henry Sr. Welcome back to the Follower of One Podcast. Thanks for joining us. We're talking through John chapter one and today I want to talk about John one, verse three, "All things came into being through Him and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being."

That's from the New American Standard Version. In the English Standard Version, it says "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made."

John's being a little repetitive here in this verse, but I think it's to make a point. Often we don't consider the ramifications of the fact that Jesus was God, and that God created everything.

Nothing has come into being, that didn't come into being through Jesus and as followers of His, I think that simple fact might have an impact on how we live and how we work. 

How much time do you spend worrying about your circumstances or the pressures at work? How much time do we spend trying to engineer things or force ourselves into a particular behavior? I've spent a lot of time beating myself up about things that I did or didn't do.

Jesus is the creator of the universe. And apart from Him, nothing came into being.

How does that make us work today? What does that do to us in our workplace? 

This challenges me because I tend to think of Jesus as a man. But he created everything and all of my circumstances and everything happening in my life and to me and around me, all those things are within his control. Apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Jesus is the creator and I want to live like, I trust him. I want to point my life toward Him. And I want to relax in what He seems to be doing in and through me and the people that I work with. Some of those things are not positive. Some of those things are negative. 

There are bad things happening in our world all the time. Is Jesus is the creator of those things? Well, it says nothing came into being except through Him, but I believe the bad comes about as a result of choices that we've made because people came into the world with free will and we broke it. The very first person did and every one of us would. But our workplaces and our lives exist in this creation.

And Jesus is in control of that. He's powerful enough to overrule certain things that happen and to bless us through certain things that happen. Today in the workplace. I want to challenge us. Let's go into our workplace today, remembering that Jesus created this world and he put us there. And the way we've broken it isn't outside of his control. And what's going on in our world isn't outside of His control. And when we search for Him, when we ask Him for guidance, He shows us how to live. He shows us the difference that we can make, and He uses our actions and our motives and our mistakes even, for His glory. He wants everyone in the world to see Him because He wants us all.  We were all made to know Him and to have a relationship with Him.

And He's trying to restore that. Let's take part in Jesus'restoration of the world today. Take a moment and pray for the people around you and you will be "in ministry." You'll be calling the people in your sphere of influence to a relationship with Jesus. That's what He's doing.

It puts us on Jesus' team, working for Jesus' goals. Let's follow Him today and let Him use us in our jobs just by punching in and remembering that apart from Him, nothing came into being. Jesus is driving today. Let's follow Him and let Him use us. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for making a difference with your faith.

Everything we do because we trust Jesus matters forever. Let's take it seriously today in our workplace. Look for opportunities to serve other people and expect that we will see the joy of Jesus. And we will experience that joy in our lives. Thanks very much.

Just who was Jesus anyway. And what difference does it make in our life? Let's talk about that today. 

Hey, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again on the Follower of One Podcast. I recently began reading the book of John. And I just want to talk through some of the verses that I'm reading and some of the thoughts that I have in my daily quiet time.

Today, we're talking about John chapter one verses 1, 2, and 14: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." And verse 14 says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

In the beginning, Jesus existed. He was God. And the Bible's very clear about that. It says that in several places. If you're one of those people that think of Jesus as just a cool teacher or someone who made a difference. I have news for you. We serve a God who became flesh. In the beginning was the word, the logos.

That's a Greek word that means meaning or word. I'm not even qualified to describe it, but it's the word that John used to describe Jesus. The son of God, this second person of the Godhead, existed at the beginning. He was not created. He is God. And he existed in the beginning of time before any time began.

And he was with God and he was God. And he became flesh. Jesus came to be us, to dwell among us. John was one of the people that saw him and walked with him and knew him. John knew it in the first person. And this is a very bold, clear statement, "that I was there. I was with the guy and I know him to be God Almighty."

Jesus was in the beginning with God. And when he became flesh, he became known by the man, John who's writing this chapter of the Bible. The word became flesh dwelt among us. And we saw his glory. We understood him and who he really was as of the only begotten from the father. That word begotten kind of gets us.

It means that he came from God, but he was not created by God. We substitute "born" with that because in our world, we don't really create the child in the womb. But our actions are something that God uses to create the child. In a way. This is  like "becoming." He came to us.

The only one of God that came to us from God, the Father. This is God, the Son. And then finally it says, "full of grace and truth." When went live following Jesus, grace, and truth come out of us. It is who we are. 

Today, I want to challenge us in the workplace. How can we bring grace and truth to everything that we do today? Our first daily activity is the key. I want to challenge you to pray and ask God, how do you want us to show up today? What do you want us to do? Would you please direct me, and make me someone who demonstrates grace and truth in everything I do?

That's the job of being a marketplace minister. So that's our topic and our to-do for today. Let's be people who bring grace and truth. I will talk more about these passages in John over the next few days.

I'm going to just talk through this passage as we go and make this our podcast. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Consider joining Follower of One, go to our online community and request to join. It's a private community of believers in the marketplace who are trying to help one another, bring grace and truth into everything that we do.

That's what it means to be a marketplace minister. Join us at https://community.followerofone.org where you can also go on the next Marketplace Mission Trip. Check it out. Thanks very much.

Can we handle suffering? I think sometimes it comes down to trust. Let's talk about that today. 

I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One. Welcome back to the Follower of One Podcast. And thanks for joining us. We've been talking through a difficult passage of scripture in first, Peter chapter two. Today, we will wrap it up by talking about how we hand ourselves over from first Peter, 2:23. I want to read the entire passage from verses 21 through 23, "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;" That's first Peter chapter two verses 21 through 23 from the new American standard Bible. 

Jesus trusted God with his life and he was killed. We could believe that God let him down. We could believe that God didn't come through in the pinch. We could believe that Jesus wasn't God, because it makes no sense that God would let his only son die on a cross. But Jesus entrusted himself. Again, almost every translation uses the word "entrusted," "trust" or "committed." When we trust something we commit.

When you get on an airplane, you're trusting a machine, a manufacturer, the FAA and the crew and a company. You put your entire life in their hands. Jesus challenges us to hand ourselves over. When we cheat on our taxes or violate the speed limit, we basically tell God that we need to break the rules to get what we want. God, can't possibly prosper us as well as we can ourselves. 

But when we submit to his rules, we entrust ourselves, which is what Peter reminds us Jesus did in this passage.

Peter began by suggesting that we submit to our bosses, even the ones that aren't so good. Can we entrust our careers to our bosses? Can we be submissive and work for their ultimate good and trust God? The scripture is clear. But I'm tempted to take my career into my own hands. I don't want to trust my boss to manage my career. 

Yet in this passage, Peter's challenge is that we don't work for our bosses. We work for God. We entrust ourselves to God. I come up short of what I read all the time. And therefore I'm only qualified to share the questions with you because I don't walk this way. What happens when we trust God more? Can we trust him even to the point of personal career or financial difficulty?

We each must answer that question for ourselves. I hope this passage today prompts us to ask the question of God and see what he says. "God, can I trust you more? As I trust you, the world will see Jesus. I will experience joy, knowing your actions help someone else see him and follow him." And so will you.

We can take that part. That's what we call marketplace ministry. It's finding ways to trust God more and more in our job and let him direct the outcome. We serve others so that they might see Jesus. That's our job as followers of Jesus. And I can tell you it's exciting and enjoyable following Jesus, but I still know that I come short.

So please understand. I'm not telling you to do what I'm doing. Other than saying that I want to pray and ask God to show me where I need to trust him more today. Why not join our online community? We're a group of people who are all trying to do this more. We all want to trust Jesus more and let Him use us in our daily lives.

You can check it out at https://community.followerofone.org. There's no cost. We want to help you practice following Jesus seven days a week. Once again, head over to our website, https://community.followerofone.org. And thanks very much for being a marketplace minister. Thanks for considering how your faith can be used by God to make a difference in our world.

Lord knows our world needs it. Thanks very much.

Are purpose and suffering related? Let's talk about that today. 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One. Welcome back to the Follower of One Podcast. Thanks for joining us. "Purpose" and "suffer" are very close together in this passage that I want to read today. 

We're talking about 1 Peter 2:21. "For you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps." That's from the New American Standard Bible

"Purpose" and "suffer" are very close together in this passage. And it doesn't matter which translation you read. Almost all use the same words Jesus suffered for us. Suffering is the path to Jesus' purpose.

Many of us don't like to hear this. God puts his people in a position to suffer from time to time, so the world can see how it's done. We're God's strategy. Our job is to live and experience the same things that everyone else does but to do so following Jesus, trusting him and doing what he says. 

Jesus left us an example. He suffered for us and he didn't deserve it. He's God. So today might be a quick episode for you because I want to challenge you to think about your day. What will you experience? How might you end up suffering today? When we can mentally reconcile with our purpose in Jesus and the suffering that he may call us to do, he will use us.

The key is, can we trust him? Can we trust God with the injustice that we face today? Maybe it's a bad boss or an unreasonable customer. The bad bosses were mentioned in the episodes before this. 

I must give a caveat too because I'm certainly not suggesting that you stay in a difficult or illegal situation. If it's in your power to do something, or if the other person is violating the law, use good judgment. But in our first-world kind of work context, if you are micromanaged or if others don't respect you or treat you the way you wish they would, or if you get passed up for a promotion, maybe Jesus is reminding you what he did for you.

In the next episode, we'll talk about the role of trust in all of this too. Today, we want to remember that we've been called for a purpose. God saved us. And the blessings of our salvation, we get some of them now, and we get some of them later. But the blessings of our salvation are something that we experience in a broken world, a world that we broke. We're in this world, and our job is to make God visible in it. And sometimes he calls us to suffer to fulfill his purpose. We have been called for this purpose. That's a dangerous, challenging thought, but for some of us, our purpose is to suffer some today, because we follow Jesus. And we can make him visible. Thank you for being a marketplace minister.

Thank you for listening to our podcast and sharing it with your friends. I know this isn't a particularly attractive episode of the podcast, but it is a reminder to us that we're part of a bigger battle. We're part of a bigger story. Our job is to listen to Jesus and do what he says.

And when we do that, we get to take part in his work. We get to help other people move one notch closer to him. And every time we do that, we experience joy. There's joy and peace and love that we experience when we listen to God and do what he says. 

Join us in the Follower of One Online Community. This is a global community of online Christians who are actively trying to integrate their faith into their work seven days a week. You can join for free at https://community.followerofone.org. And join us also on the next Marketplace Mission Trip. There's one coming up in just a couple of weeks. Check it out. After you joined  https://community.followerofone.org. , head over to the courses or watch for an invitation to the next Marketplace Mission Trip. 

Thanks very much for being a marketplace minister. And thanks for making a difference in your life every day. Your faith matters and Jesus uses you and me to make a difference in the world. Thanks very much.

What does it mean to find favor with God? Let's talk about that today. 

I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. We're talking through a challenging passage in first Peter, about how we reflect Jesus in our workplace. Peter seems to be telling us to submit to difficult bosses. 

Today, let's read verses 18 through 20, but we will focus on verse 20. "Servants be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor if, for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God." That's first Peter chapter two verses 18 through 20 from the New American Standard Bible. 

When we bear up because we trust God, even when we're treated unjustly or harshly, we find favor. Some translations say "is commendable" or "find God's favor." The idea is that the favor of God will find us if we bear up under sorrow or under difficulty if we endure hardship or pain. Today, let's focus on this next example that he makes in the scripture. If you get passed up for a promotion or because your performance is subpar, then you broke even.  

"What credit is there, if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure with patience?" If we do something wrong and suffer for it, what do we expect? We become someone who can't expect favor from God in the future, because we did something and we got what we deserved. But if we do well and we suffer, our actions find favor with God. We become someone who can expect favor from God in the future.

Maybe that favor comes in the joy of knowing God will make it right. Maybe the favor comes in the form of something we didn't expect someday. It doesn't always show up like winning the lottery. Don't head to Vegas because you got passed up for a promotion or because you didn't make a sale. But let's live knowing that God will make it right.

Favor will find us. Peter tells us to trust God and watch for it. God's strategy is more important than our end outcomes. We're all going to die, but in the end, God will make everything right. And he's working now to draw us all one notch closer to himself. When we suffer and endure it, we become part of his plan. We joined him in his work and we get to see his results. 

Today, I want to challenge us. Let's join him. Remember the favor when you were mistreated at work. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. It's easy to jump to where we feel mistreated and we start whining and complaining. But we can submit to those in authority over us and trust God and suffer from gentleness and respect towards others, then we will find favor. And that favor will find us.

Let's trust God today to join Him in this exercise and watch how he works in our lives and in the lives of other people. Let's remember the favor when we're mistreated at work. We can bear up and let God have the glory by submitting to Him, praying to   Him, and trusting him. 

Thanks for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference through your faith in the workplace. Remember even the things that seem unjust to us today are part of God's strategy and his plan. And we can take part in his efforts to draw other people to him. Let's do that today. And you can also join a community of us who are working on this every day.

Check out https://community.followerofone.org. Join our community for free. Take part in the next Marketplace Mission Trip and let God show you how you can live your faith and integrate it into your actions on a daily basis. Thanks very much.

As marketplace Christians,  how we act in difficult work situations is critical to our witness as followers of Jesus Christ. Let's talk about that today. 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One. Welcome back to the Follower of One Podcast. 

Today, and for the next few episodes, we're going to talk through a passage in first Peter chapter two, beginning in verse 18. And today, I'll read verses 18 and 19. "Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly."

That's from the New American Standard. Peter challenges, servants to be submissive, to masters with all respect. And he goes on to suggest that servants behave this way with masters who are good but also to those who are unreasonable.

Have you ever had a bad boss? The older I get, the more, I wonder if many of my bosses really just didn't have a good employee. I wasn't very submissive. It was hard for me to live according to what I consider to be the universal job description, which is to make your boss successful. I worked for other people for most of my career.

And even today, self-employed, I work for my family and I work for people who invest their energy and time in Follower of One. And I work for Jesus Christ. I'm ultimately responsible to God for how I live my life. He's my boss and my owner. But if you report to someone, this passage is for us. I had to realize that my jobs were temporary assignments given to me by God.

When Peter talks to servants here, he's talking to people who would today be employees. We're to be submissive to our bosses with all respect. He's challenging us to live trusting Jesus; to live in a way that Jesus lived. My ministry was to my bosses and customers and coworkers, but I often forgot that. Peter explains why our submissions to our bosses find favor.

If we obey our difficult bosses, and if we bear up under sorrows or suffer, unjustly, God uses that. He uses that to make a difference in the lives of others. 

Today. I want to challenge you to give the benefit of the doubt to every boss. Let's find ways to be submissive with all respect. As we go further in this passage, we'll see God use that submission so that others will see him, and we will experience the joy and peace that come from God. He's bigger than our situation. Let's live like we believe he is in control today and watches what he does. 

Now, one caveat that I need to make in that is, is that if you're being subjected to a situation that's against the law or is physically painful, and you can remove yourself from that situation, please do so.

It's difficult to talk about these passages without people taking some of this out of context. But I want to challenge you today. If it's your choice to be in that workplace, and you work for a boss who might be difficult, find ways to be submissive. Ask God to show you how you can reflect the spirit of this passage in your everyday.

It will matter. It will matter to the people around you. It will matter to the people that you report to. And it will matter for eternity. We'll talk more about that in these upcoming passages as well. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. And thanks for considering how the Holy Spirit would have us live our lives in the workplace so that others might see Jesus. Your life and your faith matter forever.

And that's also part of the reason why we formed an online community, https://community.followerofone.org. Check us out at that website.  Join that community and connect with other believers in the marketplace who are also trying to live their faith on a daily basis. Jesus has a job for every one of us, seven days a week, and we get to take part in that.

Join us at https://community.followerofone.org and check it out. Thanks very much.

One challenging thing for me about our faith is how everything begins with the Father. 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me on the Follower of One Podcast. We try and take a few minutes every day to challenge ourselves to live like full-time ministers in the workplace. 

And in John chapter six, verse 44. Jesus makes a very challenging statement. He says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." That's from the New American Standard Bible, 

Jesus states, many challenging things, very clearly in the Bible. And in this passage, he clearly points out that the Father starts salvation for each of us.

A friend brought this passage up recently while we were praying for other friends and family members who are not yet followers of Jesus. And we know from this passage that the Father is the one who starts the process. God, the Father draws us. We also know from first Timothy two, four, and from second Peter, three nine, that God wants all of us to be saved and to come to a  knowledge of faith in Jesus and truth about how the world really works.

So what does this mean for us today at work? Well, we can't fix people. We can't talk them into following Jesus. That's between them and Jesus. But we can live in a way that is consistent with scripture. We can live like we know and trust God's power. We can live according to God's rules.

And when we live that way, that helps us to pray for others and to consider them more important than ourselves. It also helps us to appreciate others and to share Jesus' love for them; to look for ways to be a blessing to others. It helps us serve others because of what Jesus did for us, by coming as a servant. 

Our lives change when we realize that everything begins with the Father. Our job is to simply do what he says. Our job is to simply take part in his plan. 

But we also must be ready to give a defense. That's why we practice being able to explain our actions, using "I" and "me" statements. That's the fifth daily activity that we talk about called speaking for ourselves. This passage reminds us that everything begins with the Father. We still have a role to play. Our faith in Jesus provides contrast in an unbelieving world.

When we live differently, God uses our lives in the life of others. The facts of our lives can't be argued when we live according to a different strategy; when we live following Jesus. 

So the question today for us is will we cooperate? It all begins with prayer. We can punch in, tell God "Here I am," and get on the clock with Jesus."

Jesus. Here I am. What do you want me to do today? Help me listen for you and act when you give me ideas to act." That's a great beginning prayer. Prayer like that will be answered, too. God will transform our common everyday weekday into a landmark day. Today could be that day. I would like to challenge you to live that way today and also to consider joining us in the Follower of One Online Community.

We're a body of people who want to live following Jesus every day, seven days a week. You can learn more about it at https://community.Followerofone.org. Join us and you can even check out our next Marketplace Mission Trip. Thanks so much for being a marketplace minister.

And thanks for making a difference in your life. Live today, following Jesus. And he will use that in the lives of other people. Thanks very much.

On the final day of the Marketplace Mission Trip, we remember how important it is to be able to give the reason for our faith. 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. I love doing the Follower of One Podcast. Thanks for joining me again today. And I'm talking about one of my favorite stories in scripture. Our verse today is John chapter nine, verse 30, "The man answered and said to them, 'Well, here's an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet he opened my eyes.'"

Jesus was walking through town and he came across a man who was blind from birth. And it was believed to be impossible to heal a man who was blind from birth. His eyes had never worked. There were no nerves connected. This was a physical impossibility. And yet Jesus healed this man.  And all of John chapter nine is a story about this man explaining what happened to these Pharisees and, these righteous people who weren't there when it took place.

And this explanation is core for what we talk about in Follower of One, especially on the final day of the mission trip. We talk about being able to remember and be able to explain why you believe in Jesus or why you follow Jesus. You see, I believe that's what makes things different about us in the marketplace.

If we can explain our faith using "I" and "me" statements and speaking in the first person, we can introduce Jesus into the world without telling anyone else how they have to live or what they have to do. We simply tell them what we chose. This way we're not being offensive or telling someone else how to live.

We're simply stating facts like this man did. This man was healed miraculously. And then Jesus left.  All these people are asking him about his healing and they're grilling him and questioning him. And at the end, the man finally says in verse 30, he says the man answered and said to them, "Well, here's an amazing thing, that you do not know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes." 

The religious leaders ended up getting irritated with this man, because here he is teaching them. And yet they're the ones who were educated. But the point of the story is your relationship with Jesus Christ matters. Your story and the way that you interact with Jesus, the difference that he's made in your life, it matters.

And it's relevant information, especially if you live a life that can't be explained.  When we live a life that can't be explained by the normal everyday life without Jesus. All of a sudden people search for an explanation. Your coworkers want to know why you're different; why you always have a good attitude. Why do you never complain? And if these things aren't true about us, then let's change our behavior. I wasn't as good or representative of Jesus in the workplace, as I wish I could have been.

I chose to live more like my former self, than my saved self. And I'm sorry about that. When we can live-giving our life away, because we follow Jesus, it makes a difference. And our coworkers, want to know. They want to understand what's our motive and what's going on behind the scenes.

And a simple two-sentence answer about why I follow Jesus is often the key. When we live, like we've lived over these last two weeks of the Marketplace Mission Trip, praying for others, and loving others, and serving others, and doing things to bless other people, then they want to know why we're doing that.

It doesn't fit their mental model and our being able to give a succinct explanation about why we follow Jesus and why our relationship with Jesus is what prompted our behavior helps bring Jesus into the marketplace. It helps other people see him. I believe this is the secret sauce to the Marketplace Mission Trip, and to us being able to become full-time ministers of Jesus Christ, no matter what our job is. You can be a minister of Jesus Christ serving other people because you follow him. That's what a minister of Jesus Christ does. We can serve other people because we follow him. And then when they ask us, we give them this first person answer.

We speak using "I" and "me" statements. And we state very clearly while I did X because I follow Jesus, and I felt like that's what he wanted me to do. When I started following Jesus, he changed my life. 

This man said, "Well, here's an amazing thing, you don't know where he's from, and yet he opened my eyes." God will give you cool words to say like that, if we can live in such a way that people ask. Let's live that way today. Thanks for being a marketplace minister. And thanks for making a difference in the world because you follow Jesus. The way we live matters. And then what we say about it matters, too. Let's practice walking our faith daily and living our faith so the other people would ask us, and then we can share our why. Thank you very much.