The nicer grocery stores will often have different stations where they are giving away free samples of food. I don’t usually buy what they are giving away, but it is fun trying different foods. Have you ever wondered why they would just give food away for free?

According to a Time article, dated February 17, 2011

[see: https://goo.gl/cSPJxa], “…companies such as Kraft, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever typically shell out a couple hundred bucks a day to set up a free sample stand inside a supermarket.” That may sound like a lot of money, but keep in mind that those companies also spend $94 billion dollars a year just advertising their products. The Time article went on to explain that, “In terms of reaching consumers, free samples are often much more powerful, and much cheaper than traditional advertising. Once you’ve had your free sample, it’s up to you to figure out if this is a product you’d choose to buy….”

Maybe you’ve never thought about it this way before, but “free samples” are also given out in the spiritual world. Jesus said that Christians are to be His free samples of what it means to be forgiven and to know God personally:“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Peter told Christians that they should “… proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

What about you? Has someone shown you samples of what it means to be a Christian? Maybe you know someone who has experienced some of the same difficulties you have been through, but they have been able to handle it without panicking. Perhaps you know a Christian who has much more peace about life than you do. In a small way, these weekly articles are my way of giving out samples of Christianity.

Do you have a Christian friend who has lived a much different life in front of you, who maybe has even tried to explain how you can have peace with God. How are you going to respond?

In his sermon Marvelous Light, Charles Spurgeon says that…  “Everything about a true Christian is marvelous. He is a marvel to himself, and a marvel to all who are round about him. Mere professors [those]… people who have made themselves Christians by their own free will apart from the Spirit of God, have nothing marvelous about them. You can make [phony Christians] of that sort by the score, and you can see them dissolve by the score, for what man made, man can unmake, and what is merely natural has its season, like the leaves on the trees; and, by-and-by, it withers away because it’s time to fade has come.

“But a true Christian is a God-made man, a twice-born man; and he is a partaker of the divine nature. He is a mass of marvels, for he is dead, and yet he is alive; he is one who lives here, and yet his life has gone away up yonder; he is one who is a citizen of earth, and yet his citizenship is in heaven. He is a true man, but he is more than a man, for God has lifted him up above the level of other men, given him a life which other men do not possess, revealed to him secrets which others do not know, and prepared for him a place into which the ungodly can never enter. The longer he looks at himself, the more he wonders at God’s grace, and at what God’s grace has done, is doing, and will yet do for him.”

Are you a true Christian? When the world samples your life, when your family samples your life, do they taste a life that is deliciously different from theirs? Are you living a life that is drastically different from your own past life? Jesus told a very strict, religious man that “…Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). What we all need is a radical change in our hearts that only God can perform.

If you have experienced God’s “new birth,” then your life will begin to change in ways you never thought possible. That is why Paul said that he was “… not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes….” (Romans 1:16).

When a grocery store gives away samples, it costs them a lot of money. Similarly, living a life that has been changed by God will often cost us something, too. Sometimes it is ridicule; sometimes it is contempt; sometimes it even means sacrificing our comforts to help others; sometimes it means being honest, even when it costs us to do so.

A final word for those of you who are TRUE Christians: People around will get more of a taste for Jesus from the way you live your life than they will ever get from the Bible or from the church. They SEE us, but they only hear about Jesus. Others may doubt what you say, but they cannot deny what you are.