Posts Tagged ‘Bible’

Imagine that you are dying of terminal cancer. A doctor shows up, opens a bottle of medicine, feeds you a spoonful that cures you instantly, hands you the bottle and tells you to offer it to the others in the neighborhood who are also dying of terminal cancer.

Witnessing for Christ – telling our neighbors about that doctor, what He did for us and offering them His death-defying cure – is a responsibility and privilege of every Christian, not some “gift” or role that can be outsourced to pastors and missionaries by supporting them financially. Yet the percentage of self-declared Christians who regularly witness is a shameful 2-5%.

What if I get ridiculed?

“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26)

What if I don’t know what to say?

This brings us to the latter responsibility. God wrote to us a love letter that we call, “bible”, and it is also a responsibility and privilege of every Christian to read and understand it for themselves so that they can obey it and to know what to say when witnessing, as well as to recognize when others are saying or doing things that are unbiblical.

Sadly, most Christians end up paying their pastors to read the love letter for them and to tell them what God wrote. They have become paying consumers instead of the loving bride and disciples of Christ. As a result, not only do they not know what to say to their unsaved neighbors, they also can’t tell when their pastor’s message or conduct stray from the bible.

What should be done?

1. Christians must take ownership of their relationship with God through His word. Instead of the bible being understood through sermons, the bible must qualify sermons. And to enable that, every Christian must read and understand the bible on their own. The destiny of your soul is too important to be outsourced to another human being, pastor or otherwise.

2. Every Christian must witness.

3.Every Christian is also given at least one “gift” by the Holy Spirit that must be used to serve and edify the body of Christ.

* “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
* “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
* “In reply Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again’” (John 3:3).
* “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6).
* “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame’” (Romans 10:9).
* “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” (2 Corinthians 5:15).
* “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).