Last week I had the privilege of teaching mostly the young staff of the Spring Canyon Conference Center, operated by Officers’ Christian Fellowship. It was fun talking with young people! These were high school and college-age men and women I pray will get the vision for following Jesus and helping others do the same.

As I was preparing for our last session in which I was using the whiteboard to record their applications to the week’s teaching, I found what I always do in the tray of a whiteboard: an empty marker! I saved it and challenged them:

Do you all know the difference between using a whiteboard with markers and using a blackboard with chalk? Let me help you… If I have a blackboard with five pieces of chalk, how many pieces of chalk do I have? Right – five. If I have a whiteboard with five markers, how many markers do I have? Answer? We don’t know! [I held up two red markers] What’s the difference between these two red markers? We can’t tell by looking, but one of them is stone empty and should have been thrown away. [I threw it across the room.] Don’t be an empty marker!

Right after I said that, the sound man came running up to me and said that the batteries in my mike had gone dead. A perfect follow-on illustration that the kids got instantly:

Don’t be an empty battery either!

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: “The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.'” (Revelation 3.1, ESV)

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7.21, ESV)

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (John 15.5, 6, NIV)