Our Approach Needs to Change

[Guest VisionLife]

A couple of weeks ago I was at Auraria campus here in Denver, Colo. and I was listening to this young man as he talked about the truth of the Bible in a very judgemental, condescending manner. He was basically telling other young adult college students that they were going to hell if they didn't change there ways and that God's judgement would be swift and just. I have a problem with this approach. I was brought up in a very legalistic environment. My father is a former Independent Baptist minister. His approach to evangelizing is of the fire and brimstone genre. The way I see it is completely different. We live in a hurting, dying world. There is sickness of the mind and body all around us. I've taken the time and opportunity to show God's love to others through acts of kindness. I see a world that is in dire need of God's love, mercy and grace. The same love, mercy and grace we have received through Jesus Christ. It pains me to see street preachers and supposed evangelists spout their 'holier than thou' jargon at a world that is sick and tired of hearing the former. I have personally known God's unconditional love through selfless acts of His people. We are not here to be God's instruments of judgement. It brings me to tears when I think of the people out there who are dying inside, much the same way I was before I came to Christ. While churches grapple over theological differences and ministries go bankrupt because of unsavory financial practices single mothers and other disenfranchised people in our world are suffering and dying because of our selfishness. We worry about and protect those around us that we love and shun those we do not know. At church many of us ignore new visitors or people we consider unsavory. Well it's time to wake up and smell the coffee people. Heaven is not a popularity contest and God is no respecter of persons. From the bottom of my heart I'm asking everyone who reads this post to search deep within yourselves and ask God what sacrifice(s) he wants you to make in your life. Who does God want me to help? Who does God want you to reach out to? Please take the time to care.

[Botz]

Hi VisionLife.

The Gospel is often a 'horses for courses' presentation...in other words the Holy Ghost is the one who leads on the way the Truth is shared with people. One can be fairly severe and uncompromising in some instances as long as your heart is pure and your motives right and everything is truely done out of a sacrificial love....but I would say this is the rarity.

Sometimes people are so keen to present the Gospel and to tell people that they are going to Hell...that their witness is destroyed as soon as the words come out of their mouth and they have forgotten to 'love their neighbour as themselves'...what they say may very well be the 'truth'...but the way they have said it disqualifies their words.

Proverbs 12:18 There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.

Well it's time to wake up and smell the coffee people. Heaven is not a popularity contest and God is no respecter of persons. From the bottom of my heart I'm asking everyone who reads this post to search deep within yourselves and ask God what sacrifice(s) he wants you to make in your life. Who does God want me to help? Who does God want you to reach out to? Please take the time to care.

Like you say...None of us should be 'respecters of persons' and should regard everyman as an equal... we should constantly take time to reflect on our attitudes and to allow G-d to show us our weaknesses...especially how we relate to our fellow man....May G-d continually break us free from our 'comfort zones' that we may be the more effective in all that we do.

In Messiah. Botz.

[OneAccord]

VisionLife

That was a very beautiful post! You have blessed me today! We need more christians out there like you!

I have a rebellious teenage daughter who I have been trying to love with Jesus love as best as I am able. One day we went to visit a woman at a nursing home and she talked to my daughter about Jesus and she actually went to church with us that Sunday, and not only that but stood up for the altar call. Well, she confessed with her mouth but maybe not with her heart, backslid into the old behaviour very soon after. We went to visit the woman in the nursing home again and this woman started cursing her and yelling at ther that she was going to hell, very scary. My daughter turned away from anything that looks like a church and never looked back.

Jesus never saved anybody by screaming at them that they are going to hell. He draws them with His beautiful love, goodness, truth and mercy.

Canned speeches and a mass marketing approach to evangelism don't get it either, IMO.

Acts of love and works of mercy are the ultimate witness.

And while we were yet enemies He died for us.

[Leonard]

The Gospel message is that God would do ANYTHING--even go to the cross-to make you His friend again!

[Work in Progress]

Great post, Vision!

[Gerioke]

Let's keep this one at the top of the heap

[Khristeeanos]

I see what you are trying to say, but I also must direct you to the fact that if you tell someone that God is only love, they won't have a proper fear of God that is required.

Ray Comfort put it in the terms of telling someone in a plane about to crash that a pararchute would enchance their ride instead of saving them from certain destruction.

We need to find the ballance between love and judgment. We need to account for the entire personality of God, not just the love and compassion.

[Botz]

Dime...

We need to find the balance between love and judgment. We need to account for the entire personality of God, not just the love and compassion

.

Absolutely!

2Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

All of us have different personalities and we will present the Gospel accordingly...but each of us has a responsibility to use the talents we have to the best possible use...especially when longing to see men and women loosened from the gravitational pull of sin and set free to become disciples of Jesus our Messiah.

Mark 9:50 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

[Gerioke]

Every thing in balance

[Khristeeanos]

Dime...

We need to find the balance between love and judgment. We need to account for the entire personality of God, not just the love and compassion

.

Absolutely!

2Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

All of us have different personalities and we will present the Gospel accordingly...but each of us has a responsibility to use the talents we have to the best possible use...especially when longing to see men and women loosened from the gravitational pull of sin and set free to become disciples of Jesus our Messiah.

Mark 9:50 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

VisionLife, don't get me wrong here. I think your point is valid.

All I am saying is that just like your father preached too much on hell and judgment, it is also possible to preach too much on just the love of God.

God will judge all people, but loves them so much He provided a way for all to be saved.