The Success Recipe

Akin Ojumu

What do successful business enterprises have in common?

It must be more than just smart people with good ideas. After all, there’s no shortage of both in the world, and only a fraction achieve commercial success.

What else is involved?

There are numerous common denominators to success. The team behind an idea exhibits honesty, openness and trust. They are able to break their idea down to its simplest form and clear value proposition. They carry a fire in their belly and operate with a sense of urgency to meet every objective. They deal with adversity and willingly step beyond their comfort zone. They temper their vision with generous measures of reality and consumer focus.

Most of all, they listen.

No magic. No complicated formula for success. Just healthy doses of integrity, drive and common sense and above all..........the grace of the Almighty God.

Does that describe you?

The First Council of Nicaea AD 325

The Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical debate held by the early Christian church, concludes with the establishment of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Convened by Roman Emperor Constantine I in May, the council also deemed the Arian belief of Christ as inferior to God as heretical, thus resolving an early church crisis.

The controversy began when Arius, an Alexandrian priest, questioned the full divinity of Christ because, unlike God, Christ was born and had a beginning. What began as an academic theological debate spread to Christian congregations throughout the empire, threatening a schism in the early Christian church. Roman Emperor Constantine I, who converted to Christianity in 312, called bishops from all over his empire to resolve the crisis and urged the adoption of a new creed that would resolve the ambiguities between Christ and God.

Meeting at Nicaea in present-day Turkey, the council established the equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity and asserted that only the Son became incarnate as Jesus Christ. The Arian leaders were subsequently banished from their churches for heresy. The Emperor Constantine presided over the opening of the council and contributed to the discussion.


Find article here: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/council-of-nicaea-concludes

Pyknos Aestheneia…Often Infirmities

Akin Ojumu

May 16, 2011


"When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, 'Storm's coming'—and you're right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, 'This'll be a hot one'—bingo right again.

That’s Luke 12: 54-56 paraphrased somewhat in my own words…and to which I’d like to add…..

“When there appears to be a deluge of sneezing, wheezing, runny nose, and itchy, watery, red eyes, all around you, you say ‘the allergy season is upon us’. And yippee, you‘d be right again, for ‘tis the allergy season indeed.

From around March to May each year thirty five million Americans battle the symptoms of seasonal allergy as trees, grass, flowers, and plants spew out pollen into the air in gazillion of barrels per day. Like a hunter hunting its prey, they spring on us as often as it happens in spring – one of my least favorite seasons of the year.

Yes! I’m one of those 35 million allergy sufferers. Unfortunately so I might add.

The silver lining in all of these - being the glass half-full soul that I am - is that relief for the coughing and sneezing and itching and watering is but a pharmacy store away. Eye drop, nasal spray, and oral medications – of different shades and tastes – are the mainstay of treatment for me. I take them QD and BID all season long for a relief – that too often is temporary – and comes with a hefty price, in form of a gaping hole in the wallet and myriad of side effects.

Of course the natural thing to do to avoid these untoward consequences is to occasionally steal a medication holiday – skipping a dose here and there for a period of time – hoping that the wallet will hold and the untoward effects abate. Well even that has its consequences; the symptoms come roaring back with a vengeance after a while.

This past weekend was payback time for me for daring to steal a holiday from the medications. The waves of symptoms knocked me flat on my back, leaving me congested and breathless, sucking in air through my gaping mouth.

It was in this knocked down state that I engaged a friend in a tete-a-tete; a benignly routine catching up on how both of our weekends went down. Well as you can imagine the conversation came around to my major big deal ordeal in the hands of mother nature. I explained to my friend that nemesis – that recoil of nature that even the most wary transgressor find impossible to escape – caught up with me for stealing a medication holiday.

After hearing my tale of woes my friend – good soul and all – replied with these words:

“….it was good you tried going off medications, but I’m not sure whether you did that by faith or you just stopped by yourself. I believe with God you can actually live through the season without medications….if your faith is strong enough; otherwise I suggest you stay with the medications….”

You see my friend meant well and said that in good faith. However those words stung like bee sting. They were like a dagger’s thrust into a wounded soul. They came across as overtly insensitive especially to a man who is already knocked down. And it raises a lot of questions in my mind about my Christian faith – which my friend and I both share in common of course.

Is my faith really that weak? Does that explain why I’m at the mercy of seasonal allergy? Are Christians supposed to be immune to the forces of nature? Is the strength of our faith measured by the presence or absence of disease?

As those questions begin to pour, what kept ringing at the back of mind was…..

”Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.” 1 Tim 5:23.

Often infirmities….pyknos aestheneia…..!

A weak faith? You are indeed in good company.

No Such Thing as “Little”

Akin Ojumu

Sometimes when you consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, you are tempted to think; there are no little things.

Think of it for a moment:

“Little hinges swing huge doors.”

“Little foxes spoil the vines”

“A little leaven leavens whole lump of dough.”

“A little rudder makes a huge ship turn”

“A little spark makes huge flames”

“The little tongue sets the whole body on fire”

“A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.”

Small helpful or harmful behaviors and inputs tend to accumulate over time, producing huge results. Many small improvements, consistently implemented, inevitably produce unimaginable results.

A Sheep or a Goat in the Imperfect Church?

Jennifer LeClaire

You know the drill. It was the end of a long workday. I was racing from one errand to another before it was time to pick up my daughter for our dinner date. I didn’t have a moment to spare…

So when Richard, a disheveled character with enough sand on his face to nearly disguise the scar on his cheek, approached me asking for money to buy food, it took me a minute to catch on to what the Lord was doing. I honestly didn’t have as much as a penny in my pocket and apologetically told him so. After Richard walked on by, it suddenly dawned on me that I was standing in front of an ATM machine!

“Hey mister!” I cried out after him.

Richard turned around slowly as I raced up to him with my debit card in hand. We were standing in front of a Subway, so I invited him inside for a meal. Richard had a grateful heart, but also an aching one. He hugged and kissed me and thanked me profusely for the double meatball and tuna fish footlong sub—then he dropped the “S” bomb. Richard told me he wanted to kill himself.

“Brother, do you know where you’ll go when you die?”

“Yes, I do. I am going to be with Jesus Christ in heaven.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said beginning to weep, “I just want to go now. I don’t want to live here another day. Nobody cares about me. Nobody loves me.”

Richard told me how the Lord talks to him about everything from quitting his cigarette habit to receiving healing for his chronic health conditions. Richard vowed to the Lord more than once that he would launch a ministry to help homeless people if he only had the money. Then Richard preached a message from Matthew 25:31-46 right there in the parking lot. You know the one. It’s where Jesus talks about feeding the hungry and visiting people in prison—the one about separating the sheep from the goats. (In case you haven’t read it in a while, the sheep enter eternal life and the goats eternal punishment.)

Some may have seen Richard’s sermon as manipulation. Yes, I knew he was angling for some cash. But by the grace of heaven I purposely looked beyond his desperation to the heart of a hurting man who was physically wasting away day by day. Richard was so full of the Word of God, even in his malnourished condition, that I finally asked him, “Did you grow up in the Church?”

“I grew up on TBN,” he answered. “The Church doesn’t care about me.”

That floored me. Here was a man full of the Word of God who felt totally rejected by the Church. He wasn’t always homeless and distraught. Somewhere along the line, Richard lost his hope. Now, he was living with a group of homeless men behind Walmart in the bushes, waiting to die. What went wrong?

God’s love never fails. And this man clearly had a running dialogue with God in which the Father was continuing to woo Him to His heart. I dare say Richard understands the heart of Jesus better than some career pew-warmers. Again, what went wrong?

I don’t know all the circumstances of Richard’s life. But as I continued to stand there before him, I also continued to ask the Holy Spirit what was going on in Richard’s heart.

Richard is a man who never found God’s love manifest in God’s Church. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for Christian television. But Christian television alone is not enough to sustain the human spirit. We need real fellowship with other believers who can weep with us when we are weeping and rejoice with us when we are rejoicing. True brethren who don’t judge us, but embrace us with all our weaknesses with the unfailing love of the Father.

There are plenty of wonderful local churches that are full of the love of God. It seems Richard never found one. Instead, he found churches that were full of religion, and not the pure and undefiled type James talks about. Unfortunately, there are plenty of those, too.

I’ve visited many churches in the past year. I’ve learned that there are many different flows—and as long as it’s flowing from the heart of Jesus it’s all good. But I’ve also seen far too many local churches with cultures that profess love but embrace cliques; that preach a heart for the lost, then rebuke people for evangelizing “without permission;” that confess children are the priority, but unless the parents have money to give to the offering the church van won’t stop in their neighborhood anymore.

What is going on? I don’t claim to have all the answers. And I’m not prone to focusing on everything wrong about the Church. Jesus loves the Church—and so do I. But I’m grieved when I see the cliques, the hypocrisy, and the control. That spiritual climate doesn’t leave much room for people like Richard.

Sure, maybe Richard never found the right local church. Maybe he didn’t look hard enough. But should it be so hard to find a local church full of love and grace? No church is perfect. I mean, as soon as I walk in the door any supposed perfection goes out the window because I am so far from perfect myself. But I strive to be a sheep and not a goat.

I ended up spending about an hour with Richard; an hour I didn’t really think I had to spare. But I am glad I did. I couldn’t get Richard out of my mind the rest of the evening, or even the next day. Here’s the bottom line: We can’t blame the Church as if it’s some separate entity that’s not living up Christ’s stature. We are the Church. And the Great Shepherd is coming soon to separate the sheep from the goats. Which side will you be on?

Jennifer is news editor at Charisma. She is also the author of several books, including Breakthrough!

Don't be a Glass Half Empty Christian

J. Lee Grady

Terrorist bombings. Middle East turmoil. $3.95 gas. Killer floods. Moral breakdown. Fragile economies.

No wonder Charlie Sheen is going crazy!

Seriously, there’s a lot of bad news out there. Negative headlines make people fearful, agitated, addicted or even sick. But from what I’ve read in my Bible, Christians should not freak out every time a gloomy cloud settles over us. We, of all people on earth, should be full of hope.

A few days ago a friend asked me what I thought about a prophecy from a well-known Christian leader. This man has predicted a financial collapse in the United States by sometime next year. Other Christians have foreseen terrorist attacks, assassinations, bread lines and even the total breakdown of society. My friend asked me: “What are you hearing from the Lord about the future?”

I’m not a fancy guy, and I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the federal deficit or the real meaning behind “climate change.” I’m not privy to what al-Qaida is doing inside the United States or who is pulling the strings behind the protests in Yemen, Libya or Bahrain. (And I’m not sure our lawmakers in Washington understand these things either.)

But I do know the Bible is a book of hope—and the last book of the Bible (which is often viewed as pure doom and gloom) is actually a message of triumph. Recently I’ve been finding comfort and encouragement in Revelation. Here’s what I know about the future based on the apostle John’s amazing vision:

1. Jesus will remain on His throne. Revelation opens with a glorious vision of the triune God on His throne (see 1:4-6) and it ends with a scene of the restored Eden—with a river flowing from God’s throne (see 22:1-2). The Bible does not end with gloom or destruction. It ends with restoration and grace. This is God’s ultimate plan for us.

Never lose sight of the throne. You can bank on it. It is solid and secure. No matter what the devil or sinful men devise—terror plots, nuclear bombs, stock market crashes—in the end Jesus overrules the wicked. And He has the last word: “Yes, I am coming quickly” (22:20).

2. His kingdom will continue to advance. I know many Christians who have a Chicken Little mentality. Like the faithless spies who were frightened by Canaan’s giants, Christian pessimists view the world with a glass-half-empty perspective. They focus on what the devil is doing rather than on how God is working by His Spirit.

I want to shake these people to wake them up. Look around! Missiologists believe China will be a Christian nation by 2035. Churches are growing at record rates in India and parts of Africa. Before long a wave of missionaries from the developing world will descend on every unevangelized region of the world. And I’m convinced one of the greatest spiritual awakenings in history will take place in the Middle East.

I’m not saying wicked people won’t get worse, or that banks won’t fail at times, or that we should adopt a Pollyanna worldview that ignores the threat of evil. But please read your Bible! We win!

God is not the kind of builder who starts a project and then leaves it unfinished. He was serious when He commissioned us to take the gospel to the whole world. He will supply the grace, the manpower, the strategy and the funds to get the job done. In the end, a “great multitude which no one could count” (7:9)—will be redeemed by Christ. This hope stirs my heart every day and gives me the strength to press on.

3. His grace will see us through every challenge. The first Christians who read John’s message in Revelation faced lions and gladiators in the coliseums of Rome. Throughout history, Christians have been beheaded, hanged, stoned, drawn-and-quartered, burned at the stake, tortured, starved in gulags, shot, banished to work camps and denied human rights. Yet these people appear in the book of Revelation. It says of them: “And they overcame [the devil] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death” (12:11).

Please don’t abandon your hope. Don’t let the headlines—whether on CNN or Fox News—turn you into a Christian pessimist. If the martyrs of the ages can sing a victory song, surely we can maintain our joy when we face the uncertainties of our future.

J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady.

Choose Faith Over Fear

Don Moen

In March of 2007 my band and I were in Ghana, West Africa, on a worship tour singing for crowds of up to 64,000. Before the trip, I was so busy as a music executive that I had very little time to prepare myself spiritually. Knowing that I should have contacted friends to cover us in prayer, I instead said a few hurried, solitary prayers while on the long flight to Africa.

Once on the ground, I quickly realized that the spiritual atmosphere in Ghana was intense and we desperately needed God’s power flowing through us to see real breakthroughs in people’s lives. So I called as many prayer teams around the U.S. as I could and asked them to intercede for us.

God was faithful and anointed our worship, and many people were healed. But after the trip, I felt like one of the disciples Jesus had to rebuke for a lack of faith and preparation.

Nearly all the musicians, including myself, battled serious illnesses. I cried out to God and repented for my sin, asking Him to help me find a way to put my call as a worship leader back into a place of primary importance in my life.

To be honest, I did not know how it would be possible given the demands of my job. I had responsibilities, and along with them came a paycheck, great benefits and stability for my family.

Walking away from a comfortable career at age 56 seemed completely irresponsible, and the thought of it produced tremendous anxiety in me. I had near-panic attacks and difficulty breathing.

I was so entrenched in my career that God had to shake things up for me to even contemplate a change. Through a series of unique circumstances, it became clear to me and my associates at Integrity Music that it was time for me to go. So I submitted my resignation and launched out into unknown waters as a self-employed worshiper.

I had a choice to make when I considered changing careers: to either resist God’s clear leading, or choose to trust Him and walk by faith. I chose the latter, but it wasn’t easy.

The biggest battle I’ve faced in believing God has more for me is the spirit of fear. The spirit of fear will paralyze us from stepping out in faith.

Since I became a follower of Jesus, I can honestly say that I have made every effort to live by faith. Some days I do much better than others. However, the biblical story of Caleb, who at age 85 still believed he had the strength to go into battle (see Josh. 14:10-11), inspires me to press ahead with the same vigor I had as a young man.

Why? Because God still has much more for me to do. He wants to complete the good work He began in my life many years ago by giving me tasks that will continue to mold me more closely into the image of Christ. So, in a spiritual sense, I don’t believe in retirement. Until my last breath, God will be at work in me, and His work will be what touches people for eternity.

Having walked through some significant storms in recent times, I still feel hopeful that God does have great things ahead. And this joyful hope is not just for me. It’s for all of us.

Everywhere I go, believing there is more is a theme that resonates with people. Around the world, folks are sensing that God has more for them to do. Even people who have been very successful are saying these words.

Many in the body of Christ are wondering where they are going with their lives. There are successful people out there wondering if God is finished with them.

I encourage you to choose faith over fear today. Choose to release all the reasons why you can’t do something. Choose to trust in God’s unfailing love and in His purposeful activity in your life. Choose to believe that He still has much more for you.

Don Moen is a platinum-selling recording artist, worship leader and prolific songwriter known for praise choruses such as “God Will Make a Way” and “God Is Good All the Time.” Moen is the founder of The Don Moen Company and a former president of Integrity Music. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Recovering the Lost Gift of True Friendship

J. Lee Grady

Last week one of my best friends, Chris Maxwell, organized a two-day prayer gathering for me in north Georgia, where he serves as the pastor of a Christian college. Chris had listened to me whine for months about how confused I was about my future. He took it upon himself to contact a group of my friends, and they agreed to take time off work to pray with me about some important decisions.

Chris not only gathered nine men for this prayer retreat, but he also solicited counsel from other friends who couldn't attend, and from my wife. When I sat down in that living room on the first night, they put me under a microscope and proceeded to meddle in all my business. It was 48 hours of probing questions, wise counsel, sober warnings, gushing encouragement, brotherly affection and in-your-face honesty.

Uncomfortable? Definitely. Embarrassing? At times. Humbling? Totally. But the pain was worth what I gained in the end.

One of the main things I gained was a renewed understanding of how important true friendship is. In this day of unprecedented social isolation (when many pastors admit they have no one to talk to) and in this season of tragic moral failure (when church leaders wait too late before they expose their weaknesses to anyone) I have learned that we cannot survive long without godly relationships. Here are three qualities we must reclaim:

1. True friendship requires sacrifice. I was blown away that nine guys from four states would take time out of their busy schedules to pray for me. One guy drove all the way from Pennsylvania; two others drove more than seven hours. When we were finished, several of the guys expressed amazement that Chris went to so much trouble. "Lee is so blessed to have a friend like you," one of them said.

Real friends do extravagant things to show their love. They don't just do what is expected—they go the second mile. Real friendship always cuts against the grain of selfishness. Jesus told his closest friends: "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13, NASB). A few hours after He said that, He was arrested, beaten and nailed to a cross.

2. True friendship requires transparency. Jonathan and David are models of friendship because they didn't allow their positions, titles or ambitions to separate them. Even though Jonathan was Saul's son, and the rightful heir to the throne, he recognized the call of God on his friend David and set aside his own agenda.

The Bible says in 1 Samuel 18:3-4: "Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt." Jonathan wasn't going through an airport security check; he took off his outer garment and weapons because these things represented his future status as a warrior king. He was signifying to David: "I'm putting you first." The same humility is required of us if we want genuine friendships.

At one point during our prayer retreat last week, the guys took turns sharing their most serious prayer concerns. Before we went around the circle we pledged not to divulge anyone's secrets. Then, with full confidence that no one was going to condemn anyone, we took our body armor off, let our force fields down and spilled our guts.

It wasn't long before the tears began to flow. I don't know if you've ever seen a group of grown men crying—but I can tell you it is one of the most beautiful sights on earth. One guy unashamedly offered a box of Kleenex to those who couldn't keep their emotions under control. We weren't worried about looking weak. We knew the Father was pleased that a group of guys had discovered that true manhood is about vulnerability, not about acting tough.

3. True friendship requires prayer. Ever since I became friends with Chris Maxwell in the late 1990s he has prayed for me faithfully. Often I get a simple text message from him that says: "PRAYING FOR YOU." It reminds me of the heart of the apostle Paul, who wrote to his spiritual son Timothy: "I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day" (2 Tim. 1:3).

It might be safe to say that our love for our friends and family can be measured by our prayers for them. True friends pray for each other. The prophet Samuel even wrote: "Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you" (1 Sam. 12:23).

Few of us would make an appointment with a friend for coffee and then nonchalantly forget to show up. But how many of us have told a friend, "I'll pray for you," and then forgotten to breathe one word of prayer for him or her? I've recently gone back to using a written list to help me remember my friends' prayer needs, and to record answers.

My life was changed last week because some friends cared enough about me to get in my face, hold my feet to the fire and offer biblical encouragement and counsel. If you don't have friends like that in your life, I pray you will find them soon. And more importantly, I pray you will be that kind of a friend to someone else.

J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma and author of the new book The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale. Follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

We Need Another Jesus Movement

J. Lee Grady

In today’s hip, sophisticated churches, we often forget to preach about Jesus. Let’s get back to basics.

I became a serious Christian at the tail end of the Jesus movement. I was too young to remember the hippie beads, tie-dyed shirts and “Jesus Is Groovy” slogans, but the songs were still popular when I was in college (from musicians such as Andrae Crouch, Love Song and Barry McGuire), as were the movies (especially The Cross and the Switchblade.)

The Jesus movement was like a spiritual tsunami that washed over hundreds of thousands of young people in the late 1960s and early ‘70s and brought them into a personal relationship with Christ. Some of these kids had been drug addicts and social misfits; most were just average Joes and Janes who discovered that Jesus is a lot more exciting than traditional churches had led them to believe.

Because the movement was pioneered by untrained leaders it sometimes resulted in abuse. But despite its flaws, it gave rise to a new musical genre (contemporary Christian) and new denominations (Calvary Chapel, Vineyard). It also fueled organizations such as Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ and made it a powerhouse of evangelism for the next decade and beyond.

Lately I find myself waxing nostalgic for those days—not because I want to return to the awkward fashions and hairstyles of 1972, but because I miss the spiritual simplicity of that era. The Jesus movement was primarily focused on—surprise!—Jesus. Theology was not complicated, pastors weren’t trying to be hip or sophisticated or tech-savvy; and we hadn’t yet created a Christian subculture with its own celebrities and political power bases.

Today, we just don’t preach enough about Jesus. This is certainly true in many charismatic churches, where we’ve become experts on everything but basic Christian theology 101. In my travels this past year I’ve been horrified to learn that many Spirit-filled believers have given up the discipline of reading their Bibles even semi-regularly. They prefer a steady diet of culturally relevant, fast-paced, techno-theology that is a poor substitute for discipleship.

Many charismatics have developed the attitude that a simple focus on Christ isn’t enough. We’d rather go to a “prophetic encounter” to hear what Obama’s chances are in 2012, or experience some exotic spiritual manifestation (gold dust, gems falling out of the ceiling), or ask Rev. Flash-in-the-Pan to pray for us for the sixteenth time so we can receive yet another “special anointing” that we will probably never use.

In the midst of all this charismatic gobbledygook, where is Jesus? Am I the only one out there who is weary of this distraction?

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve decided to get back to the basics of the faith. That’s why I am reading What Jesus Is All About?, a classic book written more than 50 years ago by Henrietta Mears, a Bible teacher who helped mentor both Billy Graham and Bill Bright in the 1940s.

Mears explains in her book how each of the four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—give us a unique, four-dimensional portrait of the Savior. According to Mears:

Matthew was written to Jews to tell of a Promised Savior who is also a King—and it uses the word “kingdom” 55 times.

Mark was written to Gentiles to tell of a Powerful Savior—and it reports more miracles than any other gospel.

Luke was written by a Gentile to tell of a Perfect Savior—and it has the most references to Jesus’ humanity.

John was written by “the disciple whom Jesus loved” to tell of a Personal Savior—and it has the most references to Jesus’ divine nature.

The Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible knew we needed more than a one-, two- or three-dimensional look at Jesus. The Spirit gave us a four-dimensional view so that we could gaze at Him from all sides and become captivated by His magnificence—His supreme kingship, His compassionate mercy, His supernatural power, His perfect justice, His amazing humility and His love for sinners like you and me.

There’s so much more to Jesus than we realize. And there is so much more to say about Him than we are telling our generation. That’s why I’m spending most of my study time in the four gospels for the next few months. I want a fresh revelation of Jesus!

Perhaps another Jesus movement will be unleashed in our country when we discard our distractions and focus on Him again.

J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

The War for the Soul of the Millennial Generation

J Lee Grady

I know the battle I faced as a teenager. Today’s younger generation faces something more challenging.

It wasn’t easy for a guy to find pornography when I was a teenager. I remember giving into the temptation to buy a Hustler magazine when I was in high school. Inside the drug store I paced back and forth near the magazine rack for at least half an hour. My palms were sweaty. My heart was racing. I finally walked to the front of the store, put the magazine face down on the counter and avoided eye contact with the clerk as I forked over the cash.

I grew bolder in my sin when I graduated from high school. When I turned 18, I went to downtown Atlanta to visit an “adult bookstore” (a strange label, really, since the men who frequented these seedy establishments did not act like mature adults). In 1976, anyone who wanted to see hard-core porn had to visit these awful places with garish signs and painted-over windows.

As I pulled into the tiny parking lot off of Ponce de Leon Avenue, the heart palpitations returned. I rushed inside the shop with my head down so no one would see me on the street. Then, when I saw the graphic images on the magazines that lined the wall, I almost fainted from a combination of adrenaline, fear, nausea and guilt. I bought a thin magazine that didn’t cost much and literally ran out of that place.

As I was leaving I caught a glimpse of a bumper sticker I had put on my car a few months earlier, in response to some decisions I had made in a Baptist youth meeting. It said: “THE DIFFERENCE IN ME IS JESUS.” Suddenly I felt even sicker to my stomach. I was already convicted of my sexual sin; now I realized I was a hypocrite. All I wanted to do was get out of there. Before the night was over, the magazine I bought was in the trash and I felt miserable.

A few days later, while I was mowing my yard on a hot July day, I began to think about a Bible verse I had heard in church many times. I didn’t know the reference, but I was able to paraphrase it in my mind. It said: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13-14, NASB).

I had never experienced a vision before, but at that moment I could see a fork in the road in front of me. I knew I was approaching a crossroads. I could either be a committed Christian, or I could choose a life of compromise. God was showing me that I needed to choose the narrow way before I took any more steps in the wrong direction. I was hit by a terrifying sense of the fear of God, but I also recognized this as His protective love. Within a few days I had surrendered my life to the lordship of Christ.

I shared this embarrassing story last week when I spoke to a group of students at a Christian college in north Georgia. I knew many of them were at a spiritual crossroads. I also knew that in today’s cybersex world, they don’t have to go to drug stores or adult bookstores to see porn. The voice that lured me to downtown Atlanta in 1976 has become more brazen and aggressive today, making porn available 24/7—on the Web, TV and even phones.

Young people today—the so-called Millennial Generation—are continually assaulted by temptations that kids didn’t face in the 1970s. The war for a generation is on—and it is intense. Families are in shambles. Many kids are fatherless. Media has entirely rewritten our moral values in a few short years. Casual sex is considered a normal pastime for 14-year-olds. And many teenagers today haven’t been exposed to the gospel, so chances are slim that they might remember a Bible verse from childhood or feel the sting of guilt like I did years ago.

That’s why I’m devoting time this month to prayer for a spiritual awakening to touch the younger generation. The devil has claimed today’s youth, but the same God who averted disaster in my life can do it in theirs. As you thank Jesus for the grace He’s shown you, please ask Him to extend it to the millions of Millennials who are following the crowd down the wrong road.

J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady. For more information about the Awakening America Alliance’s prayer and fasting campaign, being held Jan. 1-21, go to awakeningamerica.us/.