TAKE A LOAD OFF!

"God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, . . . has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ" (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

Very few professing Christians are actually engaged in consistent, intentional evangelism. Explanations are endless: fear of confrontation and rejection, insufficient biblical knowledge, busyness, lack of training, no confidence, extreme shyness, and void of spiritual giftedness just to name a few. Yet, what if the real reason has more to do with wrong expectations and misplaced burdens?

No doubt Jesus called his followers to evangelize others. Speaking to the townspeople of Lystra, Paul and Barnabas said, "We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them" (Acts 14:15). Solomon exhorted, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who is wise wins souls" (Prov. 11:30).

The problem, however, is not is recognizing the call to evangelize others; it is in perceiving the true definition of evangelism. Christians do not have the ability to "save" anyone. Jesus himself said definitively, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day" (Jn. 6:44). Clearly, Jesus is the one who saves. However, professing Christians engaged in witnessing often burden themselves, perhaps unintentionally, with "securing the decision." Nothing less, in other words, is success except making sure the person prays to receive Christ as Lord. Although genuine repentance of sin, belief in the atoning death and resurrection of Christ, and complete surrender to Jesus is certainly the goal of evangelism, the misguided pressure to say the right words and make sure a person "gets saved" is a foolish, unnecessary, and heavy burden that Jesus never called his followers to carry.

Evangelism is a cooperative work. With love, sincerity, and passion, the follower of Jesus engages in the ministry of reconciliation by bearing witness to the person and work of Christ (Acts 1:8). He or she shares the gospel of salvation (Rom. 1:16). The nature and law of God, sin and condemnation of man, sacrificial death and miracle resurrection of Jesus, and the redemption and new life of the sinner frame the conversation. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, convinces the unsaved person of the truth being shared by the witness and then brings conviction of sin and persuasion of the need for salvation. The grace of God enables the sinner to believe, repent, and surrender his or her life to Jesus as Lord. If a person willfully and knowingly resists and rejects the grace of God that would save him, he is not rejecting the witness; he is rejecting Jesus (Jn. 3:18).

Consequently, the Christian's responsibility is to bear witness. Jesus' responsibility is to save. After Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, he ascended back to heaven. Prior to leaving, he left his disciples definite instructions: "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mat. 28:18-20). Why would Jesus say he would be with his disciples always? Because they had no power in themselves to save any person. Their job was to disciple (lead) people to Christ by bearing witness and then teach those who become followers of Jesus how to live faithfully to Jesus. Jesus, present with his disciples always, would hold them accountable to being his witnesses and then do the regenerating work of salvation in those who believe the message of reconciliation spoken by his disciples.

So, Christian, take that foolish, unnecessary, and heavy load off your shoulders and simply go into the world, bear witness of the gospel, and depend of Jesus to save all who believe (Jn. 3:16).

MOTIVE MAKES MASTERY

How silly we often prove ourselves to be! How? By reading a Bible verse, passage, chapter, or book and, along the way, appraising the text as right or wrong, relevant or irrelavent. Professing Christians are called to ...scholarship: "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15, KJV).

This biblical command not only means we are to do our best as led by, enlightened by, and enabled by the Holy Spirit to master scripture intellectually but also to become skilled at obeying and living according to scripture. Ask yourself an important question: Do I read the Bible as its pundit or as its pupil? Pundits are critics and faultfinders; whereas, pupils are learners and apprentices.

In his book "The Knowledge of the Holy," A. W. Tozer said,

The scholar has a vitally important task to perform within a carefully prescribed precinct. His task is to guarantee the purity of the text, to get as close as possible to the Word as originally given. He may compare Scripture with Scripture until he has discovered the true meaning of the text. But right there his authority ends. He must never sit in judgment upon what is written. He dare not bring the meaning of the Word before the bar of his reason. He dare not commend or condemn the Word as reasonable or unreasonable, scientific or unscientific. After the meaning is discovered, that meaning judges him; never does he judge it (29).

The writer of Hebrews, declaring the absolute, infinite, unrestricted power of the Bible over the human being, said definitively, "The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Heb. 4:12, NIV). Therefore, sitting down to the Bible as its self-appointed assessor and magistrate is moronic; moreover, it's an act of personal irresponsibility.

What kind of Bible scholar have you been? Moreover, what adjustments do you need to make and steps do you need to take to become the Bible scholar God commands you to be?

WHEN HUMAN REASONING REAPS HEINOUS IDOLATRY

"No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Mat. 11:27).

 

Who is God? What is God like? These are among the most dangerous questions people can contemplate when their full intention is to answer from their own mental capacity, ability, imagination, and reasoning. To begin with, God is infinite and man is finite. Then there is the matter of humanity's innate sinfulness. The human mind being finite and sinful, therefore, possesses absolutely no ability in and of itself to accurately describe or define God. Decades ago A. W. Tozer said rightly, "A god begotten in the shadows of a fallen heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God."

 

Yet, is this not exactly what many contemporary professing Christians have habitually done in an attempt to have God and church the way they want both? To justify one hour services or less, they propose that God is well satisfied with their church tradition. To rationalize lack of personal evangelism and witness, they explain that God knows these are not their talents and gifts. To feel good about sleeping in on the Lord's day, they suggest that God sympathizes with their need for rest on their only day off from work. Skipping Sunday evening services and Wednesday prayer meetings are simply a matter of God knowing his or her need for "family time." To perpetuate an ever-growing addiction to "social" drinking, some professing Christians arrogantly tout, "Well, Jesus turned water into wine!" Adulterous affairs are often passed off as justifiable because, as the offender explains, "God wants me to be happy." To console their grieving heart over the death of relative who never showed any real concern for God while alive, a person will insist that "God is a God of love and wouldn't send his or her loved one to hell." Every era of time has had its share of professing Christians who are experts at fashioning for themselves a god that is not the true God, thereby, shamefully proving themselves to be idolaters.

So, then, how do we correct this hideous idolatrous thinking and behavior? Moreover, how can we come to know our incomprehensible God? First, we must make sure we are truly Christian by having genuinely repented of our sins and trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Second, we must give up all silly, sinful notions of having God and church the way you want them. Third, we must go to the source, the Bible. Jesus said, "No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Mat. 11:27). In the scriptures, we find that God has revealed himself through his written word and the living word, Jesus Christ. Study the whole Bible and, especially, the person and work of Christ. You'll discover God's attributes, God's character, and God's will. This is the way God has chosen specifically to reveal himself to his true children.

Tozer also said, "Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear." Determine to know God and love God as he truly is and not as your imagination says he is or as your sinful desires want him to be.

WRONG BELIEF ABOUT GOD

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Ps. 46:10).
 

We are living in perilous times characterized by the generally low and loathful view of God in the culture. Everything from the celebrity and television preacher's prosperity gospel to the casual, almost flippant, at...titude of many church goers reeks with the stench of false religion. Frightfully little has changed in the recent decades. A. W. Tozer, in his book "The Knowledge of the Holy," said, "The Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to consitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity."

Christians in the early centuries after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ through the reformation of the sixteenth century up to and including the awakenings in the American colonies would never have tolerated today's casual acceptance of a "so called" faith that demands a guarantee of heaven while simultaneously resisting any obligation to God.

Materialism has generated a strange kind of human being indeed: the person who believes he or she is too good to be damned to hell when the Bible and human experience plainly teaches that every person before experiencing the Holy Spirit's life-transforming, regenerating work of salvation is nothing more than a rebel against God.

More than six decades ago Tozer summarized today's need perfectly when he wrote:

The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long; but even if the multiple burdens of time may be lifted from him, the one mighty single burden of eternity begins to press down upon him with a weight more crushing than all the woes of the world piled one upon another. That mighty burden is his obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him acceptably. And when the man's laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the heavens, the inner pressure of self-accusation may become too heavy to bear.

 Tozer, offering the solution, said,

The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.

Haven't we learned the hard way that a high view of self with a low view of God leads to a myriad of wrecked lives and a sin-soaked culture? Our only hope is an immediate return to a low (humble) view of self with a high (exalted) view of God and of the gospel of Jesus Christ; may it begin with you and me.

TRUE CHRISTIAN OR FALSE CONVERT

"We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away" (Heb. 2:1).
 

Picture an empty boat on a lake drifting in every direction but going nowhere in particular. Okay, at some point in your life, you prayed a sinner's prayer, received baptism, and placed your membership in a ...local church. Question, and be honest: Does your life within your church and outside your church indicated that you are steadily drifting away from Jesus or surely growing closer to Jesus? (Heb. 2:1-4).

Many professing Christians are trusting their prayer, baptism, and church membership to get them to heaven while, by all indications, their lives reflect an overpowering motivation to please themselves and to have life as close to the way they want it as possible. In truth, they are and have been drifting away from spiritual things because they've never really been committed to following hard after Christ and to paying careful attention to biblical truth. The only difference between this person and someone who cares nothing for Christ is he or she attends church from time to time.

True saving faith results in a resolute determination to grow steadily in spiritual maturity. The Christian will deliberately practice the biblical spiritual disciplines, wholeheartedly practice purity and holiness, and bravely practice the presence of God in the moments of life.

So, are you steadily drifting away from Jesus or surely growing closer to Jesus? The honest answer indicates the true condition of your heart and the truthfulness of your profession of faith in Christ.

HOW CAN I REALLY GROW IN MY CHRISTIAN FAITH?

Are you interested in steady, measured spiritual growth? In the first chapter of his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney said, "The Spiritual Disciplines are the God-given means we are to use in the Spirit-filled pursuit of Godliness."

Begin to practice daily just three of the premiere spiritual disciplines that have been used and found fruitful by followers of Christ since the early years of Christianity: Bible study, meditation (holy contemplation of scripture), and prayer.

The early Puritan preacher and writer Thomas Manton wrote, "Meditation is a middle sort of duty between the word and prayer, and hath respect to both. The word feedeth meditation, and meditation feedeth prayer. These duties must always go hand in hand; meditation must follow hearing and precede prayer. To hear and not meditate is unfruitful. . . . What we take in by word we digest by meditation and let out by prayer. These three duties must be ordered that one may not jostle out the other. Men are barren, dry, and sapless in their prayers for want of exercising themselves in holy thoughts" [Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 73].

Make time each day for serious Bible study, meditation, and prayer and you will soon discover that the Holy Spirit is growing you in the grace and knowledge of Christ. As an extra incentive not to procrastinate, consider the advice of an anonymous writer, "You have to do what others won't to achieve what others don't." Add to that encouragement the wisdom of R. Collier found below, and get started immediately.

LOST AND FOUND

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it" (Mk. 8:35).

At the age of six, his family migrated from Norway to America. In 1904, they settled on a 320-acre homestead in North Dakota and took up farming. By the time Johan Jonsen was a teenager, he had developed such a disgust for the farming life that he looked for any way out. He found it in a friendship with a notorious outlaw and gunslinger named Bert Dekler. Under Bert's tuterlage, Johan learned to handle a pistol and committed his first crime, a bank robbery, at age 17. Three years in the Montana State Prison did nothing to reform the young man, and he went right back to a life of crime upon his release. By the age of 32, Johan had become a hermit living in a cabin somewhere along the Rat River in the northeastern section of the Canadian Yukon. He trapped to eat but never gave up his thievery. Other trappers accused him of pilfering their traps which got the attention of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In December 1931, he shot a mounted police officer which began a man-hunt to arrest the "Mad Trapper of Rat River," as he became known. After a 45-day manhunt the mounties trapped Johan on a frozen river. He resisted arrest by firing on the officers. They returned fire and killed the "Mad Trapper," thus ending the life of man who had already wasted his life (Read his story here).
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America must have seemed like the land of freedom for that Norwegian family, a place where they could start fresh and have a chance at a decent life. However, what looked like a opportunity turned into a nightmare when Johan chose an unrighteous life. God offers every single person an opportunity for real life through repentance of sin and belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. For every person who will believe the gospel and surrender to Christ, effectively choose the righteous life that God offers, God will order the events of his or her life (Jeremiah 29:11).
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Ironically, Johan believed he was losing his life spending it as a farmer, so he went in search of his life only to lose it. Jesus told us what would happen: "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it" (Mark 8:35). ​​Consequently, the Christian's life becomes one of great hope, lasting meaning, and infinite purpose. Moreover, after the earthly life of the Christian is over and eternal life has begun, God will make sure that the life he or she lived on the earth continues to bring him glory.