Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Living Like Your Lost - It's Easier Than You Think



And I, if I am lifted up…will draw all peoples to Myself. —John 12:32

{CHAMBERS} “Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not “a little bit of love,” but major surgery. When you find yourself face to face with a person who is spiritually lost, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the cross. If that person can get to God in any other way, then the Cross of Christ is unnecessary. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way— not in a human way that ignores God. […] The calling of a New Testament worker is to expose sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Savior. Consequently, he cannot always be charming and friendly, but must be willing to be stern to accomplish major surgery. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful speeches. We must be willing to examine others as deeply as God has examined us. We must also be sharply intent on sensing those Scripture passages that will drive the truth home, and then not be afraid to apply them.”

{ELGIN}  I am an observer of people.  I watch how they interact with each other.  How they respond to life.  How they communicate with each other.  What they say and what they don’t say.  One thing I noticed recently is how we compartmentalize our lives.  There are aspects that are strictly spiritual and others that are natural … old nature things.  How people respond to the natural often times is with the natural in them.  If you are a Christian .. everything has a spiritual context.  Most contention between people has do to with the clashing of the natural – sin – with the spiritual.  But we don’t see it that way.  Chambers addressed how we should respond to the lost … but I am addressing to how we should respond to the saved.  The saved don’t need Jesus, they have Jesus.  Their problem is that they are living like they are lost.  They don’t love God with their all or they would do what His Word says to do, by the power of His Spirit and faith.  We typically don’t address wrong choices from a spiritual point of view.  We want to correct and redirect using all of our natural methods.  Rather, we should start by reminding others of who they are in Christ and what they are doing or saying does not honor God or bring Him glory .. which should be our and their primary objective in life.  But we slice out pieces of our lives and leave God out of them.  We just don’t see what that has to do with God.


OK … I will tell you … we have been bought with a price – the Cross.  We have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus.  We are newly created spiritually and the old things .. the natural … is behind us .. that is unless you stuck some in your pocket in case you needed it some day!  Everything has spiritual context.  And we need to be reminded .. because we forget in the heat of the moment or at the point of temptation.  We don’t see sin as sin, but simple choices that I have a right to make.  Uh ….. no you don’t.  You gave up your rights as a sinner when you were born again by faith in Jesus.  If you have a problem with seeing sin as sin .. and preferring to live in the natural it is because you have distanced yourself from the fundamentals of the faith.  Your heart has grown cold toward God .. no matter how often you go to church or what you tell other people.  Now if what I have described is not you, but you know someone that the “shoe” fits, then point them, lovingly, back to God. That is your responsibility as their Brother or Sister … as a disciple of Jesus … as a child of God. 

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