(part 8) THE AUTHENTIC DISCIPLE AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO THE WORLD John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The unconverted world has an “unholy revulsion” for the biblical Jesus and His terms! He is far too “narrow-minded” for their”broad road” tastes! The lost world also regarded the apostles as fools, for singularly following the Lord Jesus Christ, with their message and methods! So if the people of the world like the contemporary church’s “worldly methods and self-centered messages”, it may be because that church is acting more like the world, than they are truly emulating the Lord of the church! When a “professing” disciple’s methods and message are conformed to the world, then he truly has nothing to offer the world, of any eternal value or spiritual significance. For this peddler is not offering the true message; he is offering a delusion instead! The means that God has given us to reach the lost world, is to keep ourselves unspotted from the defilement of the world system! While at the same time, we are to be demonstrating a “christlike” love and compassion for the citizens of the world system. Then we must be “involving ourselves in evangelistic intercession” for the conversion of those sinners. And then, we must take opportunities and make opportunities to proclaim a “Jesus-focused” Gospel message to those sinners. We must plead with them to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, we must prayerfully wait for God to accomplish what only the Holy Spirit can accomplish, in His timing! And that is transform a dead, blind, enslaved and worldly rebel into a citizen of Heaven and a follower of Jesus! When the church is full of disciples of Jesus, who are using those “God- ordained” means to carry out God’s great mission, we will not need to resort to worldly techniques and tactics. I am submitting that, “this obsession to be using the schemes and strategies that have been originally invented by the citizens of the world”, will never be employed by God to truly reach the world! These humanly invented gimmicks, gadgets and manipulations will only be used by the “god of this age” to give sinners false religious experiences; and to populate the wide gate of counterfeit conversion; and lead people down the broad road of religious deception; and to fill the churches with false disciples! Friends, for a disciple’s “evangelism” to be conformed to this world is the abhorrence of Heaven and the laughter of hell! A disciple of Jesus should never expect anything good to come from “trying to use the gimmicks and gadgets” of the world! Remember that “he who is a friend of this world, makes himself an enemy of God”! So he who is a friend of God should never expect anything of eternal value to come from a fallen world system, that is at enmity with God! The god of this world system is satan. You will never advance the kingdom of Heaven in the hearts of men, by using the agendas, schemes and strategies of a “deceiver”! We must make a corporate commitment to “return to the instructional manual”; and learn afresh and anew, how to do God’s work of evangelism, using God’s ordained means and God’s ordained message!
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 21:15:59 +0000
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