Soldier For Lord Jesus Christ
| Online Christian Witnessing Guide |
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| “Online Witnessing Vs. Young Angry Generation & Wolves in Sheep's Clothing” (Updated 22 May 2011) (New paragraphs will be marked in BOLD) Introduction Why Am I Sharing My Witnessing Notes? Honestly, I don’t fully understand why the Lord has me putting my notes together into a logical order to share—I wish I did. I have nothing to gain by it, want nothing, and expect nothing. Plus, there's nothing special about me. The feeling I get from His Holy Spirit is that sharing my experience is meant to motivate believers to further the Father’s kingdom. I’m feeling that many of my brothers and sisters in Christ need to see faith in action before they decide to join the Lord's fight against the evils in this world. Why He’s using an unimportant sinner like myself to show you what He can do through those with faith in Him has me mystified. If you have come to know me at all, then you also know I boast of nothing I do and I always give our Father credit and glory for anything good that happens through me. Any boast from me will be about the Father or about the gracious gifts the Lord has given me. On my own I’m ordinary, and there’s nothing special about me at all. I’m a hard-nosed military man who's stubborn, sarcastic, and I have a pessimistic view about most everything related to this alien world in which I’m stuck. I’m absolutely capable of zero good and zero righteousness without my Savior Christ Jesus. Furthermore, I want to make one other thing understood; we're justified only by the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ—through His shed blood on the cross! We’re sanctified only by our believing faith in Christ Jesus as our sole source of salvation. I only do the will of my Father to show Him alone of my love, faith, and appreciation for the love He first showed me—and that's all... The works I do have nothing to do with me getting into heaven. The only other thing my works are good for is so you can know who I am. You know by what you see Christ do through me and by my words that I belong to Jesus—my fruits. If you’re not familiar with Fruits of the Spirit or the differences in Faith, Salvation, Sanctification, Justification, or Works then Pastor Gil Rugh from Sound Words gives an outstanding sermon on this which is titled "Pursuing Holiness" dated 20 Mar 11. Another great sermon on repentance and faith is by Pastor Mike Fabarez from Focal Point Radio Ministries titled “Drink Your Milk Part 1” dated 23 Mar 11. Both of these sermons can be heard at www.oneplace.com. Why Believers Must Act to Save Souls It’s decision time for those who claim Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior! What “End Times Church” are you a member of? Why does the Lord’s sheep sit on the sidelines watching the lost being consumed by evil? Where are the Lord’s servants who claim faith in Christ Jesus? These are the pressing questions the Lord has placed on the heart? These questions are for you alone, and are between you and the Lord alone. I need not know your answers. I will add this; true faith will drive the Father’s children to further His kingdom—to save the lost by pulling them from the fires of Hell. They're the walking dead, and they're not going to see that unless our few brave and bold believers tell them the truth. True faith demands loving your neighbor and will compel a Christian to intervene in the lives of those whom are lost around you. You can play it safe and chance becoming a lukewarm believer…or you can do the Father’s work He has prepared in advanced for you to do. My greatest fear would be to reach heaven and not hear the Lord say to me, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Have you ever had a member of your family or someone close tell you over and over they love you but that same person made your life miserable? Did you think to yourself, “If they truly loved me they would act like they do.” Are they still in your life today or have you distanced yourself from them? It’s time to show your love for the Lord your God—not just speak empty words! We must reach out and communicate, to seek out the lost, and to understand those we're dealing with; there's no way around that, but I hope you can use what the Lord has tough me in order to improve your witnessing techniques and to also keep you safe from the confusion the wolves can cause. Further more, you should understand that witnessing online will test your own heart and loyalty towards the Lord and His will in your life. Guarding your heart from sarcasm, anger, spitefulness, and many other evils isn't easy when you're sharing the Gospel in order to save those whom don't want to be saved. My prayer for you is that these notes will prepare you for the battle against Satan in these Last Days, in Christ Jesus name I ask, amen. Who You’re Witnessing to Online While struggling to share the Lord's Gospel online over the last several years, I've been forced to learn and deal with many different personality types which I’ve categorize as: Lost Seekers (Simple), Angry Scorners (Scorner), Hostile Fools (Fool), and the Hell Hunters (Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing). This categorizing helps me prioritize my time and focus. Once I learn enough about the individuals I'm witnessing to, I'm then able to decide who’s most likely to be led to Christ if I focus my time and attention on them. There are many variables when determining who may or may not be more likely to listen to the Gospel, and I’ll get into this more as we go along. Another thing you have to determine are the motives of each person you’re witnessing to. The questions I ask myself or information I keep in mind about each person are these: 1. How did I come into contact with this person? * If they contacted me then the chances of leading them to Christ are good unless they’re only making contact to vent anger over the Gospel. If you contacted them then the possibility is vary bad that you’ll get them saved because instantly they'll be defensive and will tune out the Gospel. 2. Are they communicating with me to ask an honest question, to justify their actions, or to correct me or witness to me? * If you have an individual that has contacted you in order to witness to you, then something is probably wrong with them and their Gospel—that is, as long as you're understanding of the scripture is correct and it's not really a pastor trying to set you back on the right path. If that does happen then listen good to them. There's no room for pride in this war against evil. The tricky part is finding the angle that the Hell Hunters (false prophets) are tying to use on you. Jehovah Witnesses (JW's) are the most dangerous false prophets in the United States because they straight up claim to be “Christian” solely to lead Christians away from Christ as their sole source of salvation. Our society is bent on this idea that all religions fall under the "Christian" category, so it doesn't really mean much anymore. I get blamed all the time for the mass murders and persecution that took place during the Catholic Crusades. This is one of the reasons why I tell people I'm not a Christian, but that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ instead. So to the world, the term "Christian" means Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Mormon, you name it. This massive mix up allows the Jehovah Witnesses to fit in easily—and anyone else for that matter who's looking to deceive a believer in the one true God and Father of our Lord Christ Jesus. J.W.'s deceitfully strive to make Christians believe they love Christ, but you have to almost force their arms behind their backs to get them to admit they don’t believe Christ is the Son of God our Father and the only Lord and Savior for mans' sins. So for your protection, if you’re preaching the true Gospel of Christ and a “Christian” starts to witness to you—close them down right away! Don’t talk to them at all until you’ve searched their social network pages, websites, published works, and anything else that's available until you find out how they’re twisting the Lord’s Gospel. Once you know that, then you know whether or not you’re dealing with a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.” Afterwards, if you’re knowledgeable of the Gospel and your foundation in Christ is strong…then you can try to save that person by sharing the Good News of Salvation through Christ. But be warned! These dedicated Hell Hunters who seek out Christian believers are brilliant, and their masters of their evil trade!!! Note: I think it’s important to provide an example of how the Jehovah’s Witnesses are using our own Gospel and faith in Christ against us. Example of JW Deception: "Why not learn more about Jesus Christ and see how “the love the Christ has compels us” to imitate him (2 Corinthians 5:14). Jehovah’s Witnesses will be happy to help you." * Yeah, happy to help you right in to Hell is more like it—if they can get you to deny your faith in Christ as Savior—especially by using handouts like the one I got this example from. Here’s the same scripture close enough in context for you to understand what it's true meaning: "14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." * The Jehovah Witness will not tell you Christ is Lord, or that He's the only Son of God our Father in Heaven like I've stated. Instead they take bits & pieces and just make Jesus sound like a really Godly man who was a prophet to win your confidence. This is their hook! You believe in Christ as Lord, and they make themselves sound like they believe the same thing. Those who aren’t knowledgeable of the real Gospel truth get fooled into believing their twisted lies. Eventually, they're able to convince a new believers or "Simple Seekers" that Christ was only giving an example of how people should live, but really, it's only our good works that get us into Heaven. The more knowledgeable you are, the more time it takes to completely fool you—the less you know, the less time it takes to reserve your eternal resting place in Hell. This is only one example—and talking to a Jehovah's Witness one-on- one is the worst possible choice a baby Christian could make! Before you take on a JW, you need to become familiar with their beliefs in order to understand exactly how they twist Scripture around to change it's meaning so it suites their beliefs. Once you've learned this then you can combat their lies by presenting to them the true Gospel and it's meaning. 3. Is the individual assertive towards you when revealing their beliefs to you, or are they making fun of you or just being flat out hostile, vulgar, or accusing you of forcing your Christian beliefs on them? * You’ll usually know up front whether an individual is asking an honest question because they’re polite, appear interested, or are mild mannered, and usually without much knowledge of the Gospel. These types of inquires have the best success and are categorized as Simple. Not Simple because they’re dumb, but simple because they’re not much for religion and they don’t know much about any religion in general. They’re open to instruction and can be lead to Christ, even though they’re still very much attached to the world. These lost souls get priority over all others. Don’t give up on the others…but get back to the Lost Seekers asap if you’re sifting through a large volume of comments or messages. If you’re a car salesman you already know this I’m sure because you’ve learned to read characteristics/ behaviors of people who are most likely to buy a vehicle. You also know who’ve got to be on your game because if you’re not they may “get away”. That one day is usually your only shot to sale the care am I correct? So what happens if you have two or three possible buyers at the same time and you’re the only salesman on the lot? You’ve got to decide fast which one is most likely to buy a car. You look each one over—and drawling from your experience you choose to greet the first of the three based on appearance and behavior. Then, during your brief exchange of words with each set of possible buyers you then narrow down to who you believe will buy that day. Now this is when you have to have all the answers and counter the buyer’s negative comments with a positive reply. If you’re good…you’ll probably sale the car, and if you’re not then they’ll get away. Witnessing online works similar except that, the person you’re talking to isn’t right there in front of you to apply pressure tactics. I don’t like salesmen pressure tactics myself, but I’m not against using pressure tactics to save somebody’s soul from Hell. After all, our Lord Himself spoke much of Hell. My best guess as to why He spoke so much of Hell was to get people thinking about the horrors waiting in Hell, the eternity there, and the separation from God it causes. I consider that a pressure tactic. Getting lost people online to stop and think real hard about Hell is really about the only scare tactic we have. It’s been said: "When the church does not clearly teach the doctrine of Hell, society loses an important anchor. In a sense, hell gives meaning to our lives. It tells us that the moral choices we make day-by-day give eternal significance to that— that our behavior has consequences lasting to eternity and that God Himself takes our choices seriously” (Dr. Paul Johnson). Sharing the Biblical doctrine of Hell must be a priority once again—though it’s not popular and may cause many to turn away from you or your church; however, it will also causes us to win many more believes over to Christ than we're currently winning today. Once Christians begin to preach the full message of Christ, which heavily includes Hell, anger will stir up against God's children, and we will see the real persecution against our Lord’s chosen ones begin. However, this is our calling in Christ Jesus. We're to pick up our cross and follow our Lord as Christ's Apostle did and as the Apostle Paul. Without our own essential sacrifices for the Lord's chosen elect the church will grow lukewarm and lost souls may be unnecessarily lost. This is coming. If we do not begin to live our daily lives according to the examples and instructions given to us in the Lord's Gospel then we're not doing our Father's will. We come to salvation through our Lord Christ Jesus, then we come to learn and understand the Gospel from our teachers, and then they are to send us out to share what we've learned with the sick (lost unbelievers). We're not to be sent out to the to share with the believer next door or on our email distribution list. We have examples of this: Jesus breaking bread with tax collectors, Jewish leaders, little guys handing in trees, you name it. If they were lost then those are the people Jesus wanted to get close to. We see how Jesus taught His Apostles and then sent them out to share Christ's message of salvation. What you didn't see Jesus do was teach them then send them out to a churches small group. I know you're hearing me and I know the Lord is convicting you right now, and it saddens me to know some of you still won't join the fight. Some of you will justify keeping your most learned pupils leading the small groups instead of sending them out to people who've never heard the Gospel. Many of you will misunderstand what I'm trying to say here and that I can't help. The Lord made me a straight talking country boy so I have nothing to apologize for. I will say I love to be around my brothers and sisters in Christ and small groups are a good idea—any gathering in the name of Jesus is a good thing but our primary mission objective is clear...Save the lost! What I don't like is going to church on Sunday only to hear a sermon designed to make me feel good about or think better about myself. I'm wicked sinner with murder in my heart who's saved by the shed blood of Christ, and if you are also, then what are you worried about? You're not going to reach out to lost sinners if you've convinced yourself your better than those who are lost, mean, sick, hateful, angry, etc... You'll do just the opposite by avoiding or ignoring them if this is your thinking after only listening to feel good sermons. We're not counted among the lost but we use to be before the Lord chose us, so you're no longer among the sick Christ was talking about when He said, "but I have come to heel the sick." These are the type of thing we need to hear about and focus on! I want to hear about Jesus! I want to hear about Jesus some more after that, and after that, then more about Jesus. I want to learn how Christ did things...I want to learn what He did that made such an awesome impact on our world in under three years. Now, I understand a sermon on tithing here and there, but you know you're in to deep if you're preaching every month about tithing. I'm just saying...Might be a good time to make some cut backs and focus on how better to use your money to send out your pupils to the real sick people which are going to Hell after this life. If this isn't the primary motive of your church and isn't the goal of church events then your church is suspect. If you're a pastor of a suspect church then I'm thankful not to be you. Examine yourself for the Hour is at hand and you will be required to provide answers to Christ Who's going to bring your motives into the light for judgment. "Lead my sheep! So saith the Lord." Time is short brothers and sister whether you realize that or not. The hour is near and times are getting bad! Join the Lord's fight...and fight that good fight the way He intended you to! That is of course, if you truly love your Lord and Savior and want to show your appreciation for the sacrifice He didn't have to make, then you will pick up your cross and lead the flock your Lord gives to you. * Like I was saying earlier however; you should still work on sharing the Gospel with the scorners and fools and not just write them off since all things are possible through Christ our Lord. To help in sharing the Gospel, Matthew 13:3-9 provides insight on what can occur when witnessing to these different types of individuals, and the Lord provides more Scripture insight about how to understand who we're communicating with online which deals with mans' heart. You must also remember those whom are wolves in sheep clothing. These are dangerous people who blend in with us but really they're secret double agents working for Satan! They're smart and not to be taken lightly. Once you're able to place a person into this category leave them alone if you’re limited still in Gospel knowledge! I don’t recommend that the “Baby Christian” debate with Hell Hunters at all. They know the Lord’s Gospel well enough to warp it until it sounds convincing…so for them, knowledgeable Christians should get in quick to tell them the true Gospel and then get right back out. The Lord will deal with the Hell Hunters in His own way and in His own time if they refuse to listen. If you shared the true Gospel with them you’ve done your part, and their blood is no longer on your hands. Your Opposition You should understand that Satan will not let your challenge go unanswered. Prepare for a direct attach from all angles—mentally and physically. I've been tempted by money, relationships, anger, health, any many others. Know that each test of temptation you pass gives glory to our Father in heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ. We aren't perfect like our Lord so understand you're going to stumble once and awhile. Satan is much more intelligent than we are and his snares are tricky. He knows my pet peeves, what I enjoy, how to push my buttons...heck, he knows more about me than I do and understands more about me and our nature. We're sick people who have sin in our hearts. Our love for Jesus can overcome our own hearts and temptations however. It's like when Jesus asked Peter three times if Peter loved Him. If you love Jesus—then you will lead His sheep. So, the bottom line here is, we must love Jesus, and those who truly do love Jesus will take care of His sheep (John. 21:14-16). If you don't believe that then you can stop reading here. However, like I've explained to others in the past that were dealing with emotional issues—love isn't an emotion. Love is a verb, and when you believe you love a person and you tell them you love them, well...those are empty words until your actions towards them are loving. Our Lord Jesus gave examples of this all during His ministry on Earth. Paul explain this same physical love all through his letters, and James 2:17 clearly tells us, "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." Satan has two numbers of mine dialed in pretty good, and he strikes at me with them often: they are my lack of patience and my health. In each case, Satan's goal is continue both of these campaigns against me until I eventually give up or even to slow me down. If I'm able to stand strong and hold my ground, then Satan mixes it up by throwing a marital problem into the mix or maybe an unexpected bill—anything to throw my balance off center enough for him to gain solid ground and disrupt the work the Lord does through me. Some days he gains higher ground and some days he loses ground. On days he gains ground it can have a lasting negative impact if not handled according to the Lord's Scripture. You see, for those who love Jesus—Satan has no hold. All he can do is punish us while here on earth. Remember that, because he’s going to strike at your emotions. For Satan's war against God's children, emotions are everything to him. We're adapted to making quick decisions based off our emotions. For example: on certain days I receive a lot of video comments from a type of people I categorize as Hostiles. They're hostile to our faith in Christ for no reason. We know why and understand, however they're clueless. The objectives behind a hostile's angry email, comment, or post are to get you to respond back in an unrighteous way, confuse you so you'll slip up and say or quote something incorrectly, to try and convert you to Atheism, or to influence anyone else who's reading the comments that are going back and forth between you and them. The majority of the time they'll try and get you to do this in a public forum like a YouTube video's comment page--this way they're able to spread their sickness for loving evil and immorality. This best way to handle these aggressive hostiles is to block them if possible from whatever social network you're using. This way they can't influence anyone else that may be frequently visiting your pages in honest search for truth. Like I already said, you don't have to instantly count these hostiles as a total loss. You should still be able to send them a personal message in response to their comment, just know before hand that they're likely to reply back in a vulgar and hateful manner. Also, understand that if they do reply back and you're able to keep some sort of dialog going with them, their objective is still going to be to psychologically tare you apart by any means possible or to get you to accept their Godless point of view. If you have learned any psychology/counseling skills at all, then this one on one with the hostile is where it comes in most useful. You need to have an expert understanding of human behavior so you can effectively predict the types of automatic responses for the choice of words you use with them. Now...because I have a big lack of patients with anyone who talks bad of my Lord Jesus Christ, I sometimes have to force myself to wait a couple of days depending on the level of vulgarity they used before I contact a hostile. It's a chess game for their eternal life and you must remember not to respond with emotion. Our goal is to plant God's seed in them. We can do nothing on our own. We're not the one who can save a hostile or anyone else. The word of God is everything here, and that is the only ammo we have that will penetrate the cold hard outer layer of a hardened heart. The Word! The word was in the beginning, and the word was with God, and the word was God (Jn. 1:1). The word holds all we see and know together. We haven't begun to understand the power and authority of God's word, but I can tell you that God will allow His word to work on that hostile individual if that's His will. Besides the most important of knowing God's word, witnessing online calls for an expert understanding of an evil worldly behavior in order to watch and keep safe from Satan's evil snares. The devil's people are not dumb; blinded by greed, selfishness, and pride? Yes, but not dumb. The most common snare, and one that's been adopted by the devil as standard practice, is to of course get people to at least consider his point of view. WRONG! Your witnessing pages are not a new channel. You don't need to permit any worldly views or consider their points. In fact, don't! Otherwise you risk the chance of giving in here and there, and may eventually begins to consider the devil's point of view in everything. Be closed minded all the time. You only need to know about the devil's tricks in order to be as wise as serpents; however, only permit the things of God to be as gentle as a lamb. As for the choice of words you first use to get the lines of communication opened up, well, you'll need to learn a thing or two about what drives human behavior--the motives, and how these motives are likely going to determine the type of response your words might invoke. In the Good Book, Proverbs 15:1 tells us, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Keep that one in mind because it's true! Especially if you're already dealing with an angry hostile who's just looking for a reason to cuss you out anyway. They may have seen something you posted about the Lord and instantly they got mad and responded in anger. You'll see everyday and eventually get used to being cussed out:-) The real reason they're angry is a mystery to them like I said, so be aware they're going to act out of instinct just as we once did before the Lord chose us. Their personal views and opinions are valuable to them whether there right or wrong. Online, you can't just call them out as a sinner who's already condemned to Hell for not accepting Christ. You've got to break that communications barrier and first tear down that wall of defense they use to protect their opinions. Hostile's don't care about you, your ideas, your point of view, your proof...they just don't care, and they're not going to listen to a Christian Bible thumper! We're selfish to the core without Christ in the lead. So you've got to get a dialog going somehow. And that's really the trick huh! Responding with love and gentleness works best to get a dialog going. Is it easy? No, not at first and not all the time. It's the same as asking a girl to dance. When you first start going out hoping to meet a special lady, you've got to open your mouth and start talking or you'll be that guy holding up the wall all night. Eventually you work up the nerve to ask a girl to dance, but when you walk out on to the dance floor and open your mouth, she shoots you a look of disgust and speedily walks off the floor in the opposite direction of you. What do you do then? First, you look straight at the girls standing there looking and laughing at you and say loudly, "What's that all about? I just tried to help by telling her she's got a run in her hose." Secondly, you suck up that embarrassing dis-missile and immediately try again. By the end of the night you've either danced a few times or you've learned that next time you're going to bring that smooth talking friend of yours along. How do I know this? Most of us begin the race at the same starting point. I did my share of holding up the walls until I learned better. In time I became the smooth talker. That just means you're not scared of getting shot down anymore. All your buddy see's is that you're dancing most the night. It's all a numbers game. Keep pressing forward with the hostiles. Sometimes you'll be left out on the dance floor, but God is good so there are many times when you'll get to dance. Fight The Good Fight Satan likes to hit me hard some days with Hostiles because he knows my patience wares quickly. Next thing I know I'm replying back in a sarcastic manner. I'm sure some of you have already noticed. I don't let that stop me though because it's expected. It's un-wanted but I know I'm going to slip sometimes, and my mission is still the same either way--to keep pressing forward to gain ground for the kingdom of God and His glory. If I let my emotions play any part of what I decide to do for the Lord each day then I'm going to react to Satan's attack just as he would like. I already know I'm a sinner and worthy of hell—there's no question about that. Satan loves to remind us about that though because our emotion will tell us to give up. Fight the good fight and keep pressing forward! You might be young in the faith but ready to charge out and save souls and be asking, "How do we fight the good fight against these evil unseen forces that manipulate our lives and the lives of others?" Or maybe you're not sure what it means to fight. Fighting a good fight of our faith is not giving up by loosing faith in Christ's power and authority over the sin in this world. We place our trust in Christ alone for our salvation! The constant attacks by the devil with sin and temptation can wear us down in time causing this trust we've put in our Savior to become weakened. This is when the devil begins to gain an edge over our behaviors. When we take our focus off Jesus and turn it on troubling events occurring in our lives, then our behaviors and actions will follow. One minute we're sharing the good news of the Gospel but stumble from a sin along the way, and then the next minute we're focused on that sin we just committed and become upset and frustrated with ourselves so now we've lost the motivation to jump right back in to witnessing mode because we're focused on the bad instead of the good that's in Christ. Even if you know how this works and are experienced at dealing with it, it can still be a big hurdle because it's so frequent. The devil wares with repetition, and because we're physical beings, we're very much susceptible to this sort of evil bombardment. The fuel used to counter these attacks is your trust in Christ—keep focused on the mission objective which is to become more like Jesus—and learning God's word so you become strong in the faith (trust), knowledge, and wisdom of our Father in heaven. Understand—there are a lot of Scriptures needed to put these three steps together, and I'm not teaching anything new here. You have to study on your own time to fight a good fight—not just learn a small portion at church each Sunday then expect to grow in the knowledge and wisdom God has stored up for each of His children. Another important item to mention is that we need to have a good grasp of the meaning of faith in Christ. A poor understanding of faith can lead to a mountain of problems—feelings of not being saved, convincing yourself that your efforts are useless, or even trying to build your faith up. You see, Christ's entire message of salvation was that you only need to believe in Him—that He is who He said He was. Faith on the other-hand, is believing that Christ can accomplish all things, that He's able to do whatever it is that He wants, that He has the complete power and authority to keep each and every promise He made to us. Faith is not the level in which we believe in Christ, it's knowing He has all power, authority, and dominion in heaven and on earth to accomplish His will. Followers of Christ get that mixed up regularly. An example so you understand what I mean: Obviously we've all prayed for something in particular and things didn't turn out in the way we had asked God for them to turn out. So, in trying to understand why God didn't answer the prayer the way we had hoped, we may begin to think it was because "our" faith was weak. That's the wrong focus of faith. The focus of faith is in Christ our Lord, not us. If you faith is weak, it's because you don't have faith that Christ has the power to accomplish His will. "Ye of little faith" the Lord once said. He was talking to believers when He said that, so we know they were already saved. He was implying that His disciples had not learned to trust in the power and authority that our Father in heaven had given Him. You can see how this confusion could affect the work Christ our Lord wants to accomplish through you. Keep it straight and keep pressing forward... Also, realize that just as our Lord Christ is righteous and holy, the hearts of men are dark and evil. The only other difference between a believer in Christ and an unbeliever, other than the obvious salvation through Christ, is that we know our hearts are dark and evil. I'm no better than the guy or gal I'm trying to share the Gospel to. Christ is the only one righteous in my world. I've got no rules I'm aware of telling me I'm not allowed to initiate a conversation with an unholy hateful person. Given a chance, I'd even stop in and watch a football game with one. Whatever it take for me to make a positive Christian impact on that individual is what I want to do. I know many Christians who think that's an abomination. Either they're worried about what others may think of them if caught associating with individuals considered undesirable by Christian peers, or they've flat out come to believe they're better than unholy, unruly, poor, or angry unbelievers. We're not! The only difference is you believe in the only Son of God who is righteous, and until the Lord returns and we're all changed, you're suck with the same sickly sin infested heart that an unbeliever has got. If you think I'm wrong then search your own heart and ask yourself why is it that even though you're a believer, why do we still continue to sin though we don't want to and try so hard not to? If you don't understand this concept and accept it then odds are you're not going to reach out to anyone other than another believer. Is that doing the Lord's work? Is that sharing the only medicine which is meant to heal the sick and lost? I can't tell you how many brothers and sisters who add me to some Christian Facebook group just because I'm a fellow believer. Is that stepping out and taking a risk for the Lord of Salvation? In my play book it's called playing it safe, and it's not doing what the Lord has called us to do. Though it's a nice gesture and I appreciate the thought, add that friend who's an unbeliever to the Christian Facebook group. They're the ones who need it, and that would be a good start for you in sharing the Lord's saving message! Besides, if you're a brother or sister in Christ, then I'd rather hear from you by receiving a personal email or phone call...not a cellphone text message--phone...call...:-) Back to Top (working on completing this as time allows) |
