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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