There was once a young man who was a lumberjack. He worked chopping down trees in the vast forests of northern Canada. One day he went for a few days leave to a nearby town where a Christian pastor witnessed to him on a street corner and led him to Jesus.

"Now that you've asked Jesus to come into your heart, Jake, your life is going to change," the pastor said.

"How?" asked Jake, leaning over to take a closer look at the Scriptures that the pastor was showing him from his Bible.

"Well, look, it says right here in God's Word, `If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away, all things have become NEW!'--2Corinthians 5:17. So I want to warn you, Jake, that when you go back to that lumber camp, it's going to be very difficult for you!"

"Why's that, pastor?"

"Because, as you know, most of those lumberjacks are tough, hard, wicked men, and they don't like Christians!"

"That's for sure!" agreed Jake, eyeing two of his friends engaged in a drunken brawl at the other end of the street.

"But, Jake, you'll no longer be the same as you were before, cursing God, speaking foul language and doing evil things!--You're going to be so different they're going to PERSECUTE you!"

"Oh!" said Jake.

So Jake went back to the camp and a few months passed before he came back to the town for his next leave. He wondered if he'd run into the pastor again, and yes, there he was, standing on a street corner passing out tracts. One could hardly miss him, his happy smiling face seemed to light up the whole street, as he beamed the Love of Jesus on all who passed by.

"Hey, pastor! Nice to see you!"

"Hi, Jake!" exclaimed the pastor, very glad to see the converted lumberjack again. "Tell me, how did it go at the lumber camp?"

"Oh, fine, just fine!"

"I told you it was going to be difficult to live a Christian life there, didn't I?"

"No, no," replied Jake, "it wasn't hard!--Not at all!"

"You mean they didn't persecute you or make it tough for you?" the pastor asked, surprised.

"Oh, no! You see...they never even found out that I WAS a Christian!"

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THAT kind of a sample is NOT being a real CHRISTIAN! Something you BELIEVE in, you TALK about! If you believe in your football team, you talk about them! If you believe in your political party, you talk about it! If you like your work, you talk about it!--And if you really believe in and love JESUS, you're going to talk about HIM and share His Love with OTHERS!--Like Sophie, the washer-woman, who was made fun of one day by someone who said they had seen her talking about Jesus to a wooden Indian in front of a cigar store! Sophie perked up and replied, "Maybe I did; my eyesight isn't so good any more! But talking to a wooden Indian about Jesus is not as bad as being a WOODEN CHRISTIAN and never talking about Jesus to ANYONE!"

Jesus said, "If men have a candlestick, they don't hide it under a bowl or a jar."--They don't sit alone in some corner and hope nobody will find out that they've become a Christian.--But "they put the candlestick on a STAND so that it will give light to the WHOLE HOUSE!"--Matthew 5:15; Luke 8:16. They stand up and TELL others why they've had such a miraculous change in their life! Once you're saved it should be IMPOSSIBLE to hide the Love of God and the Truth of Jesus! If you have Him in your heart and you have His Love, He wants you to SHOW it and to try to SHARE it with OTHERS! It's the LEAST you can do for Him Who gave His LIFE for YOU!

Unfortunately, the vast majority of socalled Christians today are afraid to do anything that would make them stand out as being peculiar or different from the crowd. They've lost their TEETH, they've lost their CONVICTIONS, they've lost their BOLDNESS to take a definite stand for Jesus and be utterly fearless about what people say or think about them! So many try to figure out just how far they can go and yet not hurt their reputation. They're like some of the man-pleasing Jews in Jesus' day, of whom the Bible says, "Among the leaders, many believed on Jesus. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise from MEN more than the praise from GOD!"--John 12:42,43.

They don't want to be real outstanding Christians for fear of being called fanatics, or "fools for Christ's sake" (1Corinthians 4:10), like the Christian businessman who walked down a busy street in London with a sign pinned to the front of his hat which said, "I'M A FOOL FOR CHRIST!" When passers-by turned to have another look at the man they thought must be a religious fanatic, they saw another card on the back of his hat which said, "WHOSE FOOL ARE YOU?"!

How sad that so many Christians rarely dare to be different, or venture to vary from the norm. They try to tiptoe along very daintily in their walk with the Lord and not disturb anybody! How unlike the Christians of the Early Church, of whom it was said, "These are they that turned the WORLD UPSIDE DOWN!"--Acts 17:6. They were called disturbers alright! But names like Paul and Peter and Stephen and Philip live on to this very day, and their influence is still felt, while the passive compromisers--like so many half-hearted Christians that are drifting around today--just faded into oblivion!

Naaman is a dandy bad example of just such a compromiser: He was a man who, if he had stood up for his faith, could have converted the entire nation of ancient Syria to faith in the true God. Naaman was the second most important man next to the King. He was the top general, the Minister of Defense. He had gotten miraculously healed from leprosy when he went down to see Elisha in Israel, and he even started witnessing to his wife and handmaid and a few close friends that there was no other God but the God of Israel. But when the King of Syria asked him to worship with him in the Temple of Rimmon, the heathen, pagan, devil-god that the Syrians worshipped, he failed to stand up for his new-found faith, and he weakly apologised to Elisha, "The Lord pardon Thy servant in this one thing that I do."

What kind of witness was that to the nation when they saw him walking into the Temple of Rimmon with the King? They must have doubted the stories they'd heard about him being healed by the God of Israel. "Maybe it was the god, Rimmon, who healed him. After all, we see him worshipping there every day with the king!"--2Kings 5.

There is no such thing as "neutrality" or compromise in the Christian life! Jesus said, "He that is not FOR me is AGAINST me!"--Matthew 12:30. The Christian life should be an on-fire, all-out, 100%, dedicated life devoted to the cause of winning the World for Jesus! The day has now come for Christians to stand up and give bold expression to their convictions, to rise up and FIGHT the forces of darkness that are at work in the World and that are pressing in on us at such an alarming speed! But there isn't any place in the battle for "chameleon" type Christians who change colour with every crowd and melt into the surrounding World without any convictions or moral courage! That's the real problem of Christianity today--all the supposedly "secret" Chris tians who are merely trying to smuggle their own souls into Heaven without anyone else finding out!

Do YOU practice your religion secretly for fear of the opinions of men?--Or do you have the conviction and Christian courage to stand openly with the other great Christians of all ages, to stand up for your faith at every opportunity no matter WHAT the cost in popularity or position! Jesus says, "I wish that you were HOT or COLD!--But if you are LUKEWARM, I will spew you out of My mouth!"--Revelation 3:15,16. With God, it's usually ALL or NOTHING at all! There's no halfway with the Lord! He abhors the halfhearted, the lukewarm, the indecisive, the compromisers, the "so-far-and-no-further" folks!

Jesus Himself "made Himself of no reputation, was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was despised and we did not esteem Him."-Isaiah 53:1-3. Yet most Christians today are not willing to be the least bit despised for Him and speak out when and where they should for Jesus, to shun the opinions of men and to dare to take a stand for the right, for the TRUTH of God's Word! Look how much JESUS suffered for US, and yet how little many of us are willing to suffer for Him!

The Bible says, "This is how we know what God's Love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And WE ought to lay down OUR lives for our BROTHERS!"--1John 3:16. We ought to be willing to lay down our lives to do WHATEVER we can to win as many lost souls as we can while we still can in these last dark days! There's NO greater work in the World than to witness the Words of God, to preach the Gospel, to tell people about God's Love, to show them the Love of Jesus!

There is a very meaningful true story about an old lady whose son was appointed "the Ambassador to the Court of St.James", meaning he was appointed to be American ambassador to England. That was always considered to be the greatest ambassadorship in the World, especially in the days of the zenith of the British Empire's glory. But when friends came to her with the great news, instead of being overjoyed she nearly wept. She just sadly shook her head and said, "To think that he might have become an ambassador of the GOSPEL, and he dwindled down to nothing but an ambassador to England!"

Think of that! He could have been an ambassador, not of the United States, but of the Kingdom of HEAVEN!--Of the GREATEST King of all, the King of Kings, JESUS! He could have been an ambassador not just to a little country like England, but to the whole WORLD, an ambassador from the greatest Kingdom there will ever be, and could have had a palace forever On High!

THAT'S an appointment that's open for YOU! Will you TAKE it? In this whole World there is no higher position than to be a child of God, and no greater honour than to stand up for Jesus and be a witness for Him!

--Stand up for Jesus TODAY!--You'll be GLAD you did, and so will God!--And all those who receive your message of His Love!