Evangelism Video Clip

Have y'all seen this? It's about 4 minutes long, but I think it'll be worth your time. You may find it to be very convicting, and the ending is quite suprising.

Fear, Love, and Evangelism

2 Corinthians 5:11 says, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Modern Christianity has watered down the gospel and in doing so we have lost the understanding of a righteous, holy, just God who must punish sin. We now fear people more than we fear God. We care more about "fitting in" than warning people of the judgment to come. Many times we don't share the gospel because we are afraid of what people will think.

According to 1 John 4:18, the remedy for this is love. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love." If we love others, we will be more concerned about their souls than about our own comfort. If we love God, we will care more about obeying, pleasing and glorifying Him, than about what other people will think. He is a holy, righteous God who loves His character more than anything. We marred that image, marring infinite glory, deserves infinite punishment. And those who do not repent will face eternal damnation, because they have marred the one thing that God loves more than anything else. Jesus came and took God's wrath upon Himself on our behalf, but there are still millions of people who have not accepted Christ's sacrifice on their behalf. "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men" If we truly love the world, as Jesus commanded us to, how can we possibly do anything else?

It's so hard when the opportunity actually comes to put into practice what we know in our head, but if we really want to see revival in our world, we need to let it start with us. It's easy to point out where other generations have failed, but it's harder to look at my own life and actually change my practices. However when God commands us to do something, He always enables us to do it. As Believers, we have Christ's help to do this. There are times it's really hard. I don't want to look out of place, but it's really not about me. It's about others and their need. It's about Christ and His glory. We know the terror of the Lord, now let's go persuade men!

Spend the first three hours in prayer!

We arrived home last night about 8 pm after a lovely visit with Papa and Grandma. This morning I woke up and thought about everything I need to do today: listen to all the messages customers left and return their calls, catching up on laundry, meeting with a young lady at the library, answering letters & writing a couple papers. As I listened to the messages I discovered I also have an appointment with the ophthalmologist. It reminded me of a quote I read several years ago. Martin Luther said “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” Jesus said, “without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) When life is overwhelmingly busy it’s so easy to just get up and get busy, but this morning served as a good reminder. Without Christ I can’t do anything. More than anything else, I need to spend time with Him. Then I can just trust Him to help me do what He desires me to do, and not worry about the rest of it.