Every single day, whether we realize it or not, we're leaving something behind in the lives of people around us.

A mood, an attitude, a spirit that either lifts others up or quietly pulls them down.

We're all contagious, not in a medical sense,

but definitely in a relational one.

So the question is simple.

How are we infecting others?

Today on Insight for Living,

Chuck Swindall says it takes something most of us

wouldn't expect, courage, to spread the kind of influence that actually changes lives.

Chuck titled today's message, germs that make us contagious.

Do you have the courage to be a contagious Christian?

Perhaps you never realize that being contagious requires courage.

But think about that for a moment.

Releasing Christ's infectious presence in your daily life

takes the courage to do several things, like a smile at life rather than dread it.

Like it takes courage to listen to God's you can do it, rather than paying attention to others,

you better watch out. Better hold back there. And it also takes courage to be enthusiastic

rather than pessimistic about what the day may hold for you. It doesn't necessarily take a dynamic

personality to be contagious. For instance, we wouldn't say that the late Mother Teresa had a boisterous temperament.

Yet her vision to give love to the unlovable, the sick, and the dying influenced untold millions of others, even in her own quiet way.

Contagious Christians, you understand, inspire and challenge, and sometimes even rebuke by their example of courage.

Listen, for example, to some descriptions of courage, as found in J.B. Phillips' paraphrase of 1. Thessalonians 5, 13 to 23, where he writes,

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