A few years ago sharing a bible passage with an unbeliever was a wonderful idea. Though that person may not have walked with the Lord, they had an awe or reverence for God and so accepted this as a kind gesture. Now day’s things are changing. More and more people are beginning to not like God and more specifically, the God of the bible.
God is seen as unloving because he doesn’t accept all beliefs. He’s a homophobe. He sits back when evil and injustice happens all around the world. Too many people believe God is a legalistic, outdated figment of our imagination that does not belong in a world where we have freedom. Ironically, the world has created a gospel message that they are not afraid to preach. Their message is simple, “Christianity is not relevant”.
We’re seeing the result of this ‘gospel’ all around us. People are rejoicing over the new laws in homosexuality and even going as far as calling it, ‘liberation’. People are fighting to remove Christianity from Schools as they no longer respect it as a belief which teaches good morals. Facebook shows people want to choose their own gender, and speaking of Social Media, when was the last time you saw a biblical response in a discussion that the forum respected?
In all of this, where are the Christians?
Most of us are sitting at home… praying if we are lucky. I’ve been reflecting on the Great Commission this week and one thing that has really struck me is how Jesus calls his disciples to ‘baptise in the name of the Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19). For those who don’t know, the Great Commission took place just before Jesus left his disciples to be with his father in heaven. He had been teaching them for three years, he had died to defeat sin, had risen again and was now giving his parting thoughts before sending them off into the world. What intrigued me was the words ‘the name’. Why would they go to all the world baptising ‘in the name’ of God. Could they not have left out that word in the bible and done their ministry in, for or with God?
The reason is because God’s reputation is in his name. God is concerned about how people view him. He doesn’t just want this baptism done as a mere action, he wants it done with people knowing that the loving, all powerful, all caring, creator who died for his people is the one in whose name they are being baptised in. Knowing this, I thought about how much I care for God’s reputation? Here the disciples are being told to go out into the world with God’s name as their number 1 concern, yet I go out with my name as my number 1 concern. I’m not the only Christian who does this. When was the last time you asked a Christian, ‘How are you?’ and God’s reputation came in the list of all their concerns? We rightfully created #menaretrash because women are abused. We rightfully cry to the Lord when we see falling economies, corrupt governments and starving children… why aren’t we crying out now when God’s reputation is being abused?
We need to live sacrificial lives
The correct response is NOT to run out smacking everyone with a bible and shouting ‘believe, believe, believe’. We definitely need to show people the God of the bible, but it needs to be done strategically as there is a lot of deep seated emotion. People hate God, they are angry at Christians, they think most wars are attributed to God and they feel the world has been enslaved to a belief in him for many years… saying, ‘Read this book and believe in the Jesus who loves you’ is simply not going to cut it.
The early church is an example we need to look at. They did not only teach what they believed, but they lived it out. There are countless stories of people putting God’s reputation before their own lives and their own health. Read this extract on the early church from an article I used in my research for this blog (Click here to view the original blog):
“Instead of fear and self-preservation, Christians quickly invaded the city and cared for the poor, sick, and dying at great risk to their own lives. What they understood was simple: God loved humanity, and so to love God back, one was supposed to love and care for others just as Jesus did. During this time period, Christians not only buried their own, but also pagans who had died without proper funds for burial. Reports estimate some churches fed 3,000 people daily. Once the plague hit Alexandria, the Christians there risked their lives performing simple deeds of washing the sick, offering food and water, and consoling the dying. Rome tried to even emulate this model, but it failed because for Christians it was done out of love, not duty. Romans began to marvel and often whispered in the streets “look how they love one another.”
We need to defend what we believe
Having the world calling Christianity irrelevant is a form of persecution. We are being mocked for our faith and I fear it will only get worse. When persecution happens, it has an incredible way of showing our hearts. Many who claim to be Christians fall away from the Lord under trial and Mark chapter 4 says it’s because they don’t hold on to the Word of God. Or as Matthew says it, their heart is not where their treasure is (Matthew 6). Holding onto the Word doesn’t just mean reading it religiously. It means grappling with it.
We need to become people who ‘fight the text’. We need to be reading, asking what does the text mean? Questioning what we believe and why we believe it. The reason for doing this is simple, if you don’t have a clear reason to believe what you do, the moment you face persecution, you will have no reason to stay believing. If you are a Christian because you were ‘born into a Christian family’, ‘because it’s your culture’ or for any reason other than the Gospel defined in the word of God, you will not stand when persecution hits. It’s impossible to defend someone you don’t know. When questioned on why he allows suffering, you won’t know the answer, when questioned on his choices on homosexuality, you won’t know what to say. If anything, you will resort to an image of God in your head, which is not the God of the bible.
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