“What’s in your wallet?” Remember that ad campaign? The financial corporation Capital One advertised their credit cards for a while using that tagline and showing how having their card in one’s wallet was beneficial for taking care of all kinds of everyday situations, from simple daily purchases to emergencies to vacations. Obviously, the corporation was encouraging people to be ready for every financial need so the company could make money, but the prompt to be prepared is important.
As I mentioned in the first message of my current sermon series, “Everyday Discipleship Challenge,” I’m becoming a devotee of the everyday carry (EDC) mindset, which encourages people to be prepared for everyday situations by carrying small tools, gadgets that have multiple uses, and other useful items. Even though the mindset is minimalistic in its principles, it can lead a gadget guy like me to overstuff his pockets.
Throughout this sermon series, I’ve been focusing on how we Christians are called to everyday discipleship. That’s Jesus’ expectation: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). That’s a huge expectation, but it’s grounded in the gospel. Through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, we can have new life, and we enter that new life through our own spiritual death, burial, and resurrection when we are baptized into Christ. In that call to everyday discipleship, Jesus tells us that we need to be prepared to die to our old selves, to bury our sins, and to rise and walk in new life every day. Everyday discipleship means everyday preparedness.
So what’s in your pockets? How prepared are you to live every day as a disciple of Jesus? What kinds of knowledge have you gathered, what skills have you developed, what tools do you possess that you use to live as a disciple of Jesus every day?
The obvious first answer is the Bible. Paul wrote that the Bible is an important multitasker: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). When it comes to becoming, growing, and living as a disciple of Jesus every day, the Bible is the go-to tool. We live in an age where we can find all kinds of Bibles published in translations and formats that are useful for all kinds of people in all kinds of everyday situations. Better still, many of us, if not most of us, carry a phone everyday, and with it we can access, read, study, and meditate on the Scriptures. Not only are there apps for reading the Bible, but many of them offer free reading plans, some with daily reminders; some even send prayer prompts to encourage deeper interaction with God and his Word.
As much as we might complain about how distracted people are – both young and old – by their phones, it is amazing how useful these gadgets can be. Not only can we use them to read the Scriptures, but we can also use them to share the Scriptures, to teach, train, correct, and encourage others, enabling us to grow in our faith and knowledge of Jesus as individuals and as the church (Ephesians 4:13). While some might bemoan the separation among people that seems to be growing in this digital age, the technology and gadgets also provide opportunities and methods to bridge the separation.
In these ways, we can live every day as disciples of Jesus, in everyday situations, as Paul encouraged the church, “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). So what’s in your pocket? A distraction or a tool? Discouraging words and images or the Word of God? An opportunity to withdraw from others or an opportunity to bridge the gaps among people? Whether it’s your phone, your computer, your car, your home, your time, your words, or your actions, use what you’ve got every day to live as a disciple of Jesus who makes disciples of Jesus.