Do our lives inspire others to follow Jesus?

Everyone gives thanks for God’s grace and mercy, but do our daily lives cause God to /facepalm or /fistbump? Paul wrote we are ambassadors for the gospel, and we should live as though God is making his appeal to the world through us, but what kind of message do our lives send others?

Battling Stereotypes, Stigmas, And Everything In Between

Regardless of their current spiritual affiliations, most people living in North America have been exposed to some form of Christianity during their lives

Unfortunately, due to what I will call “poor implementation”, Christianity does not have the best reputation out there

Like it or not, we see this in all the sex scandals, the corrupted financial empires, the tv preachers whose main focus seems to be asking for money, the generic “self-help” styled authors who could be writing about Christianity or a twelve-step program, “Bible Thumpers” who go around scaring people with dogmatic warnings of hell-fire and eternal damnation, etc…

All of these things contribute to obvious, hypocritical stereotypes that tarnish the general image of Christianity in the eyes of the world, and we often shake our heads because the extreme behaviors seem like such a distant reality from our own lives

Also, to be fair, all religions have their scandals, and leaders who do not accurately reflect their religion’s teachings, this is hardly breaking news, but since we cannot be blamed for the actions of others when it comes to representing Christianity, we must be able to look in the mirror and ask ourselves:

“Does my Christian walk inspire others to follow Jesus?”

The reality is, we have a huge responsibility when it comes to representing, and expressing, God’s love and righteousness while on earth, while every bad representation of the gospel has the potential of turning people away, and creating powerful stigmas that are difficult to overcome when witnessing

News Flash: God Does Not Make Himself Look Bad, Christians Do

Yep

You heard it here first

Write This One Down: What *Not* To Do

We all have people we want to witness to and see saved

But what if God asked you to write a letter to your best friend/family member/etc… on his behalf, inviting them into the kingdom–what would that letter say?

You would probably write about how amazing God’s love is, how Jesus paid for our sins and wants us to live in forgiveness and mercy, that we can be healed, overcome sin in our lives, and truly become new creations

Right?

Well, look at it like this, God *did* ask us to represent him in the world as living testimonies to the gospel, with our lives serving as that letter to our friends, family, co-workers, etc… on a daily basis

Paul wrote about this, and told us how we represent God to the point where it as if “God were making his appeal through us”

2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God

Uh…

So, if we were going to write the ideal “welcome” letter to someone, it probably would not talk about things like:

• How we first experienced God when we got saved, but got bored and drifted away
• The way we seek after money, popularity, entertainment, etc… first rather than God
• How we cannot be bothered to do anything charitable for others because our time watching re-runs and YouTube is beyond precious
• Dwelling in a world of unforgiveness, and bitterness towards the people who have hurt us in the past
• Living according to however we feel like it because God will forgive us no matter what
• Barely reading the Bible or applying it to our lives in a meaningful way on a daily basis

No…

I do not think people would write that kind of letter, but we live like this constantly

How Do We Best Reflect The Power Of The Gospel In Our Lives?

This one, thankfully, is simple: we just have to love and let go of sin in our lives

Simple right?

John 13:34-35
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another

Galatians 5:6
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love

John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him

Also, since we are all works in progress learning to let go of sin and love others, we are going to make mistakes along the way, and it is important to do our best to not “live out loud” when it comes to some types of sins, not that any sin is good, but some are more publicly visible to others and are really bad examples of the power of Jesus to overcome sin

For example, after becoming Christians, regardless of how crazy our lives were before, is it okay to:

• Ogle the opposite sex all the time, and join in on the “who do you think is hot” conversations at school or at the office
• Get drunk and make out with random strangers while out at a club
• Chase after material possessions and make them the most important parts of our conversations with others
• Be unforgiving, gossip, and/or condemn others for their faults
• Still listen to the same suggestive music or watch the same bad tv because it is “funny” and laugh about it with our friends to fit in

…hold on, thinking

I am pretty confident in saying most people in their ideal depiction of Christianity would not want to reflect any of these things, but, again, we do it all the time to various degrees

Even though we should strive for righteousness in our lives, we should also be aware of how our actions are seen by the people around us, as we may not be the pastor of a mega-church who got corrupt, but we are the best friend/co-worker/family/random stranger that has hopes to lead people to God through our personal example–it is difficult to offer someone something when we cannot discuss or live by its value

Acts 24:16
So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man

Leading by example is extremely important, but let’s look at what Paul wrote again about God “making his appeal through us”, as it was not just to tell people “God loves you!”, he said it was for us to become “a new creation” letting go of our old ways, and to be reconciled to God, so that we can literally “become the righteousness of God” as living examples of his power to love, and overcome sin, pain, etc… in our lives

2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God

Isn’t that amazing?

Paul was telling us to work on being reconciled to God in such a way that we are living examples of his righteousness, because he knew full well that God’s spirit has the power to be reflected in us to the point where we echo God’s very holiness, and purity. Just as much as we know this is not an instant process, we should God is our healer and restorer that can only do his work if we put our faith in him completely, embracing his promises *and* honoring them

We Cannot Win Everyone Over, But We Can Still Live A Good Message

Despite living amazing lives, not everyone is going to look at us, or hear the gospel, and become Christians on the spot, and we never know how our effort to win people over will play out in the end, so do not be discouraged–we should just focus on doing what we can, as God places it in front of us

1 Corinthians 3:7-9
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building

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