The world is huge. There are 6 billion people here and each and every single one of them is vastly different, yet God made them all so that He could love us and we could love Him back. As we all know, most of these people have never know Jesus or refuse to know Him. BUT, God has not given up on us. He will never give up on us because He is so madly in love with us. The Christians who do know Him have the duty of trying to show His light and power and love to this world that does not know Him. We have many different strategies and styles of reaching out to those around us. There are books galore that tell us the best way to “do mission” and to make disciples. These resources are extremely helpful, but they are merely sign posts that point us to the true answer to all our prayers.
God’s Holy Spirit speaks into our lives, if we let Him and He guides our every step on this broken world. If we truly listen to Him, He will give what we need to know when it comes to reaching out to our neighbor and showing them the love of Christ that dwells in us. There is no best way, no formula, no amount of prayer or Scriptural study that can reveal to us how to make our fellow man submit to Christ, because every single one of us has been made fearfully and wonderfully in His image. He knows us, and He can tell us “the way” to reach out to our neighbor. Sometimes its picture perfect right out of a book, and other times it is something that could only work for this one particular person, and no other. God knows what He is doing, we just have to give Him the reins.
Tank you
Zach
Eventually there comes a point when books are no longer enough. Here in the west we love being able to read and obtain knowledge in the hopes of becoming more efficient at what we do. However, at some point we simply have to put ourselves out there, feel the pain, experience joy, and live life for God in the midst of the messiness of life. Thanks for that reminder!
Thanks Zach.
I like the sign-posts analogy. First of all, it makes sense because of what Rob said about the church being the sign-post for the kingdom. I also want to thank you for bringing up the idea of resources as sign-posts, as well. I get frustrated sometimes with all of the words, instructions, and “books books books,” but it’s a helpful reminder that they do have a purpose, even though the purpose is not clear-cut.