Regardless of your physical preferences in participating in community during the last 10-12 months, whether you’re scared, guarded, cautious, carefree or reckless, whether you believe we’re in the last days or just the lost days, how have you redeemed the time? How have you leveraged who you are and what you’ve been given to reach your neighbors, your city and your world with the Gospel — so others may hear…and live?
We live in a time where the Gospel has either been shelved for personal safety or it gets used more as a weapon than a healing salve. Do you think the great commitment (total surrender to Jesus) to the great commandment (love God by loving others) and the great commission (go and make disciples) has been set aside by God for our personal safety and care and or has the urgency been intensified by worldwide fear, panic and chaos among those who have eternal hope and peace that passes understanding?
What are you doing to live a life saturated by the Gospel, sharing the GOOD NEWS of who Jesus is and what He’s done so that those who are hopelessly lost might find the hope of eternity? Are you going into the highways and hedges, in person or virtually, and compelling them to come to Jesus or are you waiting for them to come to you? If so, why would they?
This is a great post from a friend, fleshing out the question “How have you leveraged who you are and what you’ve been given to reach your neighbors, your city and your world with the Gospel — so others may hear…AND live?”
It is difficult for those who cannot confront their own mortality to share a country with those who can.
When the focus is on the present, as if it is eternal, and the assumption is a permanent continuation of circumstances, you make a lot of bad personal choices and a lot of bad policy choices.
The heroes of faith counted the sacrifice of their lives as nothing but gain in pursuit of the glorious object of their contest.
The words of Paul ring clearly on this subject – “…to live is Christ, to die is gain…” The exceeding shortness of mortal life, when weighed against the never-ending eternity, meant that no sacrifice would be “too much” in the service of God’s Kingdom.
Similarly, the patriots at Bunker Hill, Trenton, Yorktown, and the dozens of other battles of the Revolution knew that their lives and fortunes might be forfeit but that their sacrifice was the only means by which to gain freedom for themselves and to secure the “…fate of unborn millions…”
I don’t mean to compare the two in terms of ultimate value but only in terms of mechanism – some things cannot be gained by a single person in a single lifetime. Some might have to lay down the immediate comfort and benefit and take up the pain and suffering so that the nameless and unknown in the future might enjoy the blessing.
It was by faith that the Apostles braved the fire and the lions of Rome, knowing that the result of their testimony in the face of persecution unto death would be great reward in Heaven and an expanded Kingdom of God on Earth.
It was by faith in their righteous cause before the Almighty that the patriots of the Revolution bravely placed their lives and fortunes in jeopardy. Many knew they would not live to see the fruits of their sacrifice in this life.
The point is succinctly summed up in this phrase – “If you don’t know what you’d die for, you can’t know what you are living for.”
–Jacey Buckles
Minimizing me...making much of Jesus 