We Christians are not hazy on this fact. It is the deep, abiding, constant responsibility of all believers to make Jesus known. We have a variety of responsibilities in our service to God -- pray, go to church, the "one anothers" of the Bible, and so on -- but one we all know and all acknowledge with our lips is "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." (Mark 16:15) We are all supposed to be reflections of Christ in this world to the glory of God (Matt 5:14-16). And the vast majority of us genuine believers just don't do it. Not regularly; not as a general rule. We clam up. We keep quiet. We either don't let people know we know Jesus or we do it carefully, privately, "on the sly." "Psst, buddy. You know, we're good enough friends ... I have a confession to make. I'm a Christian."
Why is that? Oh, sure, it's an overgeneralization and, oh, sure, there are believers that are not like that, but surely you have to admit that there is far more than 50% of believers that remain pretty quiet about their faith to those outside the faith. Why? Most of us are not knocking on our neighbors' doors. "Hey! I have really great news! You need Jesus!" Most of us aren't declaring it to our work mates. We aren't shouting it to our family members. If we have a hot tip for the stock market or a sincere political agenda, we might be passing that around to everyone who will listen, but Jesus? Oh, no, not Him. Why?
There are lots of reasons, of course. We just don't know how to do it. We're busy with everyday life. We're embarrassed about God's justice in judging sinners. We're afraid of what others might think or of the very real consequences such actions might bring. Underlying it all is the two-sided coin, I'm not as concerned about their eternal state (one side) as I am about my personal concerns and comfort (the other side). We may have a list of personal concerns and comfort issues, from noble to trivial, but it appears that they clearly outweigh the very real concern for the spiritual condition of our friends, family, neighbors, or coworkers if they cause us to keep quiet about Christ. Nor does our love for Christ outweigh our love of self.
I think we need a heart transplant. Okay, that's not accurate. I think we need to be more in tune with the new heart given to those who are born of God. We need to be less attentive to the pleasures and concerns of the world and more enthralled with Christ. So enthralled that keeping Him to ourselves wouldn't be an option. Everyone needs to hear about Him. And if my aim is to share Christ (as opposed to "make converts") with everyone, then how can I fail? If "born again" is a product of God's work, not mine, it seems as if a love for my Savior and for my fellow humans would demand that I set aside personal concerns and pursuits to share Him with them. I suspect the obstruction here is me, and that's a problem, isn't it?
3 comments:
I think that too many of us have bought into the "preach Jesus all the time, if necessary use words" ethic and think that we are doing a great job of modeling Jesus and waiting for people to ask us about it.
Oh, that's sad. While we certainly need to model Jesus ...
1. Nowhere do we find "if necessary use words" in Scripture. (We're not even sure where the quote came from.)
2. We are commanded to preach the gospel
3. We're fooling ourselves if we think that we're doing a great job of modeling Jesus with or without words.
1. You are correct. It's one of those things that sounds like it's good, without being as good as it sounds. Especially as it relies on us accurately evaluating our own behavior and comparing it to Jesus.
2. Yes we are. I'd argue for a broad understanding of preach that included any sort of verbal communication intended to communicate the gospel.
3. Yes we are. Even when we think we're doing it well, we're not doing as well as we think we are.
This is why I question the point of christians who engage in the social gospel without actually ever mentioning Jesus or anything that would remotely point people to Him.
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