Billy Sunday - Follow Jesus

Read:

A certain man had a fine canary whose song was unusually beautiful. During the summer it seemed a shame to keep the bird inside. So his owner placed his cage outside in a tree. Many sparrows frequented the tree, attracted by the cage. At first the canary was frightened, but he soon began to enjoy his feathered companions. Gradually, however, he lost the sweetness of his song. At the end of the summer he had nothing left but the monotonous twitter of the sparrows.

Because he spent his time in the wrong environment, the canary lost the finest thing he had. Today, the Christian who spend his time in a worldly environment and neglects his church attendance, Christian fellowship, and daily living with Christ loses his power to testify for Christ.*

Reflect

Read Romans 2:1-2 from your Bible.

Respond

Right now is there anything in your life that is displeasing to God? If so, what is stopping you from letting go of this sin and fully following Christ? Do you feel like you have been conformed to the image of this world or the image of Christ? What would your friends say? What do you think your relatives would say?

Prayerfully consider what you have read today. Then take a few moments to pray for yourself, your students, and others with whom you serve in ministry.

Remember

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!” -Billy Sunday*

Get all 52 Children’s Leader Devotions HERE.

Find more children’s ministry resources and training at:
www.330resources.org/child ren.

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*W. Herschel Ford, Sermons You Can Preach on John, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958) p. 350.
**Hutson, Curtis, ed. Great Preaching on Soul Winning, (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1989), page unknown.

Read:

The following story is taken from a sermon preached by the famous evangelist Billy Sunday:

I will never forget one time in a town in Illinois when I was leaving the tent where we were holding meetings. Among those who went out last was a young man to whom I was especially attracted by his keen, bright appearance. I walked down the street with him, and we engaged in conversation. Presently I put to him the inevitable question, “Are you a Christian?”

“No, I am not.”

“Father and mother alive?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Father a Christian?”

“I don’t know; he is a steward in the [local] church.”

“Is your mother a Christian?”

“I don’t know; she is superintendent of the Sunday School in the same church.”

“Have you a brother or a sister?”

“I have a sister.”

“Is she a Christian?”

“I don’t know; she teaches in the primary department in the Sunday School.”

“Do you have family prayer in your home?”

“No, sir.”

“Ask the blessing at the table?”

“No, sir.”

“Has your father or your mother or your sister ever asked you to be a Christian?”

The tears trickled down his cheeks as he answered, “Mr. Sunday, as long as I can remember, neither my father, mother nor sister has ever asked me to be a Christian.”

Certainly that young man had a right to say, of his own flesh and blood, the mother whose breast he nursed, the father whose name he bore, and the sister he loved, that they didn’t care for his soul.”*

We say we care, but our actions speak louder than words.

How much do you care that souls are going to Hell?

Reflect

Read what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 9:1-3.

Respond

Prayerfully consider what you have read today. Then take a few moments to pray for yourself, your students, and others with whom you serve in ministry.

Remember

Sidney Lanier, the great Georgian poet, died at the age of thirty-nine. He said, “I have a thousand unwritten songs in my heart.” When we come to the end of the way, must we also say, “There are thousands of things which I should have done for Christ, but now I must leave them unfinished.”**

Get all 52 Children’s Leader Devotions HERE.

Find more children’s ministry resources and training at:
www.330resources.org/child ren.

If these resources bless you, consider supporting this ministry:

*Curtis Hutson, ed. Great Preaching on Soul Winning, (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord Publishers), 1989.
**W. Herschel Ford, Sermons You Can Preach on John, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958) p. 329.

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