NLT Bible Contest

I'm a big contest-enterer. I enter some contest on the Internet almost every day on the Internet, especially the kind where you can enter every day (like this "Win an iPad" contest). I faithfully keep track of a couple of places that have ongoing contests, like this CBD page, and enter the ones with prized I think I'll like. I've even won a contest or two, like this time when I won the beautiful NASB Bible that I still take to church every week. I even have a contest of my own running right now! I don't often enter contests that require something out of me other than a tweet on Twitter or just typing in my address, but my mom mentioned a Tyndale NLT contest to me and I decided to enter. You do have to write something in order to enter, but by this time I figure I know my way around a computer keyboard. The grand prize winner gets a trip to Oahu! hey, that's worth writing a few words! (Daily winners also get copies of the New Living Translation Life Application Study Bible).

To enter the contest, you choose one of six passages from the NLT Bible and write a "what this passage means to me" about it. You can see some examples of recent entries here, and read testimonies from a recent similar contest here. Here's the passage I chose:

Galatians 3:26-29
For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

And here's what I wrote:

The verses from Galatians 3:26-29 in the NLT tell me what it takes to be a part of God's family. I've heard it said so many times that the members of the human race are all brothers and sisters, God's children, but according to this verse, that is wrong! We are God's children only if we have faith in Christ Jesus. But when we have that faith, we become members of a family where racism and sexism are completely foreign concepts. And becoming a member of that family is as easy as changing your shirt! Wonderful!

I don't think this verse means that Christians are some elite group, better than everyone else; just that we've made the right decision. If God has made it as easy as changing clothes, then I have no reason to think I'm better than anyone else... anyone can change their clothes. Members of God's family are special not because we are inherently better than anyone else, but because God has made us into something special. We've just given him permission to do so!

You are allowed to enter multiple times... maybe I'll even enter again sometime. Try your hand. Worst case, even if you don't win, you spent some time thinking about God's Word. And that's a prize in itself!