As you attempt to spread the Gospel,
don’t promise people STUFF for following Jesus – health,
wealth, vanishing problems, or, actual STUFF! Don’t lure
people with STUFF to follow Jesus. He never did. He never
did. In the Gospels you never see Jesus promising ANYTHING to
ANYBODY to get them to follow Him. For following Him, He
promised us TROUBLE and DEATH. The trouble comes from
others. The death has to be self-inflicted.
Luke
9:23-24
Then he said to the crowd, “If
any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish
ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. 24 If
you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up
your life for my sake, you will save it. (NLT)
A
cross is an instrument of DEATH,
and when we take up our cross daily, we DIE
TO SELF DAILY.
It’s
wisely been said, “What
you win them with, you win them to.”
So, win them with Jesus - Jesus as revealed in the Bible, not some
“Jesus” that a human has concocted. We have a simple job as
Christians when it comes to fulfilling the Great Commission. (Notice
that I didn’t say fulfilling it is simple.) Our job is SIMPLY
to present Jesus and to let people make their own decision. We are
not to beg or coerce anyone to surrender to Jesus. Anything we can
talk a person into, someone else can talk them out of.
Don’t
try to get people to surrender to Jesus out of FEAR
OF HELL,
or for BLESSINGS
IN THIS LIFE,
or for anything else other than LOVE
for Jesus. A person might THINK
about Jesus because she’s scared of the alternative, but her fear
has to result in LOVE
FOR JESUS.
A person might THINK
about Jesus because he’s got mountains of problems and he’s tried
everything else, but his desperation has to result in LOVE
FOR JESUS.
Otherwise, people just come to Jesus for what they can get. They
don’t die to self.
Just
because you see some METHOD
in a book or from a church, it doesn’t mean it’s BIBLICAL.
Go to the only true source – the Bible - for your method, not some
man. Don’t let a MAN,
no matter how honored, praised, quoted, admired, watched, listened
to, read . . . by people be your SOURCE.
See, humans are very influenced by numbers, popularity, charisma,
“results,” etc., but the presence of ANY
OF THOSE THINGS
doesn’t automatically signify that it’s a work of God. God can
use anything for His glory, GOOD
or BAD.
And unfortunately, God has to use a lot BAD
21ST
CENTURY CHURCH STUFF
for His glory. It’s scary to think about the state of Christianity
in America today, but it’s EVEN
SCARIER
to think about the state of Christianity in America a couple
generations from now. Can it GET
any more SELF-FOCUSED
(instead of, uh, JESUS
FOCUSED!!!)?
Yes. Just watch.
You
may ask, “How can you say that? You’re JUDGING!”
Read Matthew
7
and not just verse 1. Read the entire New Testament. Christians,
are CALLED
to Judge. Judging isn’t the same thing as JUDGMENTALISM.
We’re supposed to call right right and wrong wrong. We’re
supposed to defend truth and oppose sin. That requires judgment.
And
here’s a bit of wisdom for anyone feeling called to some type of
pastoral ministry:
2
Timothy 2:15
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker
who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of
truth. (NIV)
That’s
right. Pastoral ministry requires PREPARATION.
From people who are smarter than you. From people wiser than you.
From people you may have a hard time understanding – at first.
Jesus trained His disciples for 3 years. Paul spent several years in
training before he became history’s greatest missionary – and he
already had more education than any of us will ever sniff at. I
spent most of the years from 1993-2010 in formal Bible education –
4 years full-time, the rest part-time. I was single all but 3 of
those years, so I used my time and money for education. That’s not
to say that everyone has to have FORMAL
EDUCATION
for ministry, BUT
PLEASE,
PLEASE
DON’T DISCOUNT IT.
If you don’t have the money for formal education, do a little
research and find out the curriculum of a Bible college degree and
start reading those books on your own. Ask older, wiser ministers
for help and seek one out to mentor you. Christian ministry isn’t
reading the latest book and implementing what it says. Christian
ministry depends on a correct understanding of Biblical BASICS,
as well as DEEPER
BIBLICAL TRUTHS.
If
a person attempts to serve in a pastoral position without training,
they’ll likely depend on human ideas, experiences, and opinions
instead of Biblical truth – simply because they don’t have a good
grasp of Biblical truth. And they’ll be prone to major errors.
Teachers are held to a higher standard than other Christians (James
3:1).
We’re accountable for what we teach – now and in eternity.
Notice,
I didn’t say a Christian pastor has to get a FORMAL
Bible education. BUT
HE BETTER GET A BIBLE EDUCATION.
Just because I play church softball, it doesn’t mean I’m
qualified to go manage the Braves.
