‘The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes(he makes), but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship’. Those are the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther king, and I totally agree with him. We need to desist from mediocrity as Christian artistes. We need to stop thinking that the quality of our art automatically becomes topnotch once we loosely throw Jesus’ name in there somewhere. Not at all. God deserves the best of everything and He is not honored only when we indulge ourselves in ‘ministry work’ directly. God receives honor when we excel in our chosen fields.

In the picture you see up there is Tim Tebow – my latest role model. This handsome young man is an inspiration to me, and this is why. He is an American football player who has excelled in his career from the college league well into the NFL. Tebow, has chalked so much success in his career and this has made him famous over the years. One very outstanding characteristic of this young man is how outspoken he is about his Christian faith. He is known to be that Romans 1:16 ‘unashamed’ type of Christian(that’s how all Christians are supposed to be anyway). One remarkable achievement of Tim wasn’t even chalked in his NFL days, but in his college career. The eye-black, is a black paint (grease) most football players apply beneath their eyes. It is known that some go on to write a few words on the grease. Tim Tebow is very fond of that. He once walked onto the field with John 3:16 written boldly on his eye-black. I believe he didn’t anticipate the results of this seemingly little gesture. Over the next 24 hours, the verse was the highest-ranked Google search term. It generated over 90 million searches. Almost 90million people looked up John3:16 in one day because of this young man. This sort of feat, should bring joy to any evangelist in the world. John3:16 is the most important verse in the bible (I dare say). It basically encapsulates what Jesus came to do on this earth and God’s intentions for humanity. So for an individual to be able to influence that many people to read it in one day, is no mean achievement. And Tebow, got the message out to millions of people merely by writing it on his face. He got the message out to people merely by being awesome at playing football and being that influential. He told about a 90million people that night, that God loves them so much, he sent his only son to die for their sins. I want to be like Tim Tebow. I want to be able to reach the people who won’t come to church. I want to carry the pulpit from my church, strap it to my back and go to work with it each day. I want to be so good at what I do to the extent that the scope of my influence will reach all the corners of the world. I want so many people to look up to me, and when they ask how I do it, I will tell them to look to the cross. I want to be Tebow in my career and calling.

Very often we find Christians, living double lives – a career life and a Christian life. There is no synchronization of the two. Therefore, it begins to feel like one pleases God only when he is at church and probably serving in a department. Well of course these things please God greatly. He commands us not to forsake the gathering of the saints and at such gatherings there must be people working to make things happen. Hence, playing a role in such gatherings is immense and very relevant. But can we say that is the only way we please our maker? Certainly not. We please him even in doing the not-so-spiritual activities such as working in a bank. We can please God greatly in those areas too. In the book of Acts we see how tremendously God uses the Apostle Paul. He uses Paul wholly. By that I mean, he uses every single aspect of Paul’s life. He uses his intellect greatly, as we see Paul often reasoning with people of other faiths and debating them over biblical issues. Paul’s Roman citizenship is also greatly used by God. From what I understand, in those days, the Romans had constructed roads to connect various parts of their colony. And these roads were meant to be used only by Roman citizens. Guess who travelled  20,000 miles (sometimes on those roads) throughout his entire ministry? Paul!! Because he was a Roman citizen. There you have it, if God required all of us to enroll ourselves in bible schools and become pastors, He would have stated that categorically in his word. I believe he has called us into different fields purposely to achieve his goal of establishing his kingdom on this earth. And this involves having representatives in every area of study and career. God needs people in the medical field, legal field, politics, sports, film industry, music, academia etc. He needs us all.

I thank God for people like Dr. Ben Carson and Dr. John Lennox, who have proven that pursuing a course in science isn’t tantamount to atheism. Both are exceptional in their chosen fields, yet they believe in Jesus Christ and in His power to save mankind. I thank God for Tim Tebow. He is an enormous inspiration to me. His  career is fully captured in this statement – ‘if the world won’t come to church, carry a pulpit and take the church to the world wherever you work’.