To Save a Life: Sharing Jesus

Over the past three weeks, I have been sharing the process of First Southern's vision to share God's love by leading people to life-change in Jesus Christ. The process has three elements: worship, grow, and share. Every believer needs to be cultivating a life of worship that draws near to Jesus in worship and prayer. Believers also need to live a life of spiritual growth by involving themselves in Bible study individually as well as in small group settings. The third element of our strategy at First Southern is sharing Jesus Christ with our neighbors and nations. It is paramount that God's people share the gospel with a lost world.

This coming Sunday I will be touching upon the need for God's people grow spiritually. This will be followed by four weeks of understanding our call to share Jesus with the people around us. God wants to use his people to save lives and to change lives. My prayer is for God's people at First Southern to be involved with all three elements of our strategy on a consistent basis. This will enable our church to grow spiritually and numerically. Seek God on how you can get more involved with worship, grow, and share!

I Stand Corrected

I have been taught, and therefore, always believed that you can love a person without liking a person. Love is an action, not a feeling, or emotion. Consequently, I should be able to command my love, even when the object of my love is disliked. Today, I have been corrected.

In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 Paul says, "I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. _If I give away all I have, and _if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." What struck me about this passage is the fact that actions can be done without love, especially actions of giving to someone in need, or self-sacrifice. Therefore, love is more than an action. It does involve emotions and feelings.

One only has to look to Jesus for our example of love. The Bible tells us that Jesus died for us while we were his enemies. I can't imagine Jesus saying, "I don't like these people, but I am going to love them anyway." I believe, as D.A.Carson so eloquently stated, "Christ love for us is not grounded in our loveliness, but in his own character. His love is not merely sentimental, yet is charged with incalculable affection and warmth. It is resolute in its self-sacrifice, but never merely mechanical self-discipline."

My old way of thinking falls short of the example of Jesus. Dear Lord, help me to love others as you have loved me. Forgive me for the times that I have done actions without any love.

More than Conquerors!

I have been spending a great deal of my devotional time reading the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Israel did not believe the warnings of destruction from these prophets if they did not turn from their sin and turn back to God. They believed that God would never destroy Jerusalem or the temple. They found out that you can't hide unholy living behind holy things. God will bring judgment upon ungodliness. Even so, not all destruction that God's people face is on account of sin.

God's people will face suffering and tribulation even when they are being faithful to the Lord. Examples of this type of suffering are numerous throughout the Bible. One in particular has caught my attention. It is the innocent suffering of Israel from Psalm 44.

In this psalm, the author writes about suffering even though they were faithful to the Lord, "All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant" (Psalm 44:17). They were trying to make sense of their suffering. It is one thing to suffer because of sin, but to suffer when God's people are being faithful!

Like most of us, they respond questioning God, "Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?" These words are illustrated in the New Testament when the disciples and Jesus encounter a storm at sea, and Jesus is asleep. The disciples cry out, "Lord, don't you care that we are perishing?"

The reality of walking with Jesus is that we will suffer because we walk with Jesus. We will suffer for being faithful. It is interesting that the apostle Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 in Romans 8:36, "As it is written, 'For your sake, we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." What is encouraging is what Paul says in verse 37, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors."

God's people will suffer even when faithful to God because we live in a world that hates God.

Be encouraged! The suffering we face this side of heaven won't compare to our future glory.