The world is more willing to receive the gospel than Christians are willing to give the gospel. – Tahir
Dispatches from the Front, by Tim Keesee
Last month, Marg featured a post on the hesitation Christians have in speaking about Jesus Christ and His good news.
Many of us, His followers, fail often to proclaim His greatness and goodness. We fail to spread, with the urgency of wildfire and with the compassion of a mother toward a sick child, the desperately needed news of Christ’ eternal rescue .
Onward Christian soldiers, we can gladly sing that great hymn but we are found guilty of disobeying the orders of the Captain we claim loudly to follow. When applying for jobs, we (hopefully) pray and (hopefully too) dream of having a great time sharing the gospel at the workplace. But then walks in the fear of people, and too often we find we have let our Lord down.
2 Timothy 1:7-8 tells us God has given us the Holy Spirit with power and love, so we can suffer as a true soldier for our beloved Master. Instead we worry if our reputation at the workplace will be destroyed if we speak the truth of God. Instead of dying to our selves & thus embracing life, we choose the sin of silence, the guilt of a silent witness.
The prophet Hosea experienced in micro-scale, the unfaithfulness of God’s bride, the church. We don’t wanna go there, because that might remind us of what we have been doing.
So what does God do about our hesitation to speak the gospel, our silent rebellion?
Like anyone wronged deeply, the King gets off His throne and prepares to act for justice, against this sin of His own people. The One before whom emperors & presidents are mere water-vapour, rises
and what does He do?
“Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”
(Philippians 2:6-8, NLT)
Like apostle Paul said “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. (1 Tim 1:15, NLT)
There is nothing worse than betraying the One who loved us & took away our infinite debt to God. But know that there is no need for you to prove anything to God or to justify yourself, or to justify yourself before people. If you have all your faith in Him, you are justified by grace. Without shame, we can joyfully find our refuge in Him and speak about Him. Let the consequences of such speech drive you to Him (Acts 4:29-30).
