It is presumption to
make it out that we can convince anyone of the reasonableness of Christianity
. We can point out that Christianity is
reasonable to the believer but that is as far as we can go. The facts are the facts. The universe is before us to explore and
examine and any atheist or pagan is just as free to look at it closely as the
most holy of Christians. Our task is not
to talk people into following Christ.
Jesus never went out of His way to convince anyone of anything. He showed the disciples his hands and side,
gave the congregation on the hillside food to eat but he didn't talk a single
unbeliever into going after Him. Herod
and Pilate were classic examples of the bait Satan puts out there. Neither of the splendid trophies of
"churchianity" were offered a solitary nibble of rational
evidence. Christ left both crawling in
the dust of their unbelief because each remained in rebellion against the clear
facts of his sinfulness. We must do two
things if we want to be evangelists. We
must present the Gospel clearly and simply and we must let Christ rule over us
as we walk about. We are not to "do
something" to get the world to believe; we are to be witnesses. Yet our overriding call as a witness is not
to be witnesses of the rationale behind our faith, we are to be witnesses of
the faith itself. You sow the seed of
the Gospel at a point where humanity is alerted and it may very well lie there
dormant for an unbearable length of time.
At once however, in a blink, that seed may come alive and sprout but we
cannot initiate the work of it. God
Himself does it. He brings a crisis, a
despair, a spotlight upon the ugliness of sins and when He does, like
lightning, the Gospel will awaken where it was buried and that one soul will
choose to give the Cross a go in him and come alive or walk away from it and
wither. What makes baptism such an
amazing event is that we witness the power of the Cross worked out in the
physicality of faith. Nothing should so
vivify our joy as the sight of one soul socked up in sin released from her
bonds and free to be completely given over to Christ. Let the Lord live through you and when He
gives you the word, say the Gospel clearly and without reticence. God did not fill you up with the fullness of
Christ so that you might be a useless bump on a log. He has given you the opportunity to be a
fisher of men. Get after it!
"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I
will make you fishers of men."
Matthew 4:19-20 NIV
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