I wanted to review a portion of this article because connecting people with Jesus, the Great Commission, and my own desire to be a willing servant for Jesus in this area I see this in church circles today. So I copied a couple of key paragraphs below after which are some comments and thoughts.
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., serves as the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary-the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. Dr. Mohler has been recognized by such influential publications as Time and Christianity Today as a leader among American evangelicals. In fact, Time.com called him the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S”.
The most dangerous trend may be found in the pews of evangelical churches, where more and more Christians are willing to reject or compromise the uniqueness of Christ and His atonement, citing the apparent “sincerity” of those who worship other gods, or no god at all.
Where will the Church stand? A recent report indicates that at a recent Urbana missions conference (bringing together thousands of college-age evangelicals), only a third of the participants indicated their belief that “a person who does not hear the gospel is eternally lost.” As one missionary veteran responded: “If two-thirds of the most missions-minded young people in America do not affirm the lostness of mankind, the Great Commission is in serious trouble!” Should these trends spread within the Southern Baptist Convention, we will be in serious trouble indeed.
Let us make our convictions clear. We stand for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has atonement for our sins. We believe in justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. This is the sum and substance of the genuine gospel.
The missionary impulse logically follows, for we are called to bear witness and to make disciples of all nations. (end quote)
Beyond the SBC I have friends at other denominations and they share the same concerns as well. For those who have made it this far my passion for witnessing supersedes my denominational affiliation and you know my heart for sharing the God News about God! If we become insensitive to the essentials of the faith and allow the truth of our “lost-ness” and separation from God to lose its impact shame on us!
As most of you know my Dad was a pastor for over 50 years, and surrendered to the ministry as a young man (17). One of the fondest memories I have and keep coming back too are the number of people who followed the Holy Spirit’s leading and they surrendered to the call for God’s service. When I was a young man I disobeyed that clarion call out of the rebellion and folly of my own sinful life. Not to elaborate the result was years spent living the consequence of God’s 2nd best for my personal life. I know and acknowledge God’s awesome forgiveness and accept the consequence that goes with rebellion as well. Moving on my point a healthy church and Godly people will have evidence of that health in several areas in my opinion. I have been a member of healthy churches and sick ones as well. One of the more reoccurring evidences of faith is the un-churched coming to know the Lord, baptisms and the call to ministry and missions. I want to take a minute on the last part.
The call to ministry and missions would show the church in full bloom and meeting the requirements of Great Commission.
(Mat 28:1920 HCSB) Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
While making disciples meets the spreading of the Gospel to a lost and dying world. The last part of that command is to teach them and how do we teach without those who surrender to that task. This area of teaching has changed to more how to relieve ourselves of whatever aliment, lack of material prosperity, or lack of personal fulfillment we have.
The first question that comes to my mind: “how did we become so selfish and focused on our own need for whatever?” I am just as guilty of seeking my own comfort first as anyone and battle daily in my prayer life over this.
Second: What happened to the premise of sin being taught in the church? Most of my life I have taken notes when Pastor’s are preaching, and studying from literature that was prepared for the SS Classes. As of late it seems more focused on a positive self help/positive faith message in general. Please don’t misunderstand we should be the most positive of the entire human race because of Calvary and the empty tomb! Buried in that is the real message of God’s wrath and judgment of his creature’s because of sin. We should be the most sorrowful in another sense because of the vast number of people who are destined to an eternity in Hell. A literal woeful terrible torment of Hell!
Each of us as believers who escaped that terrible awful judgment without any hesitation and with a great expectation: need to pray, study the word, read, train and share the Gospel of redemption with a lost and dead world with the leading of the Holy Spirit. This may sound heretical to some but part of our lack of creditability and influence in the world is this acceptance and almost fanaticism concerning ignorance of the Bible, philosophy, art, music, and the culture we exist in. The church has over the centuries had several major blunders that have allowed the enemy to use our weapons against us. Let me give some examples and please by all means challenge me if I am wrong.
The truth is the world hating us?
(Joh 15:1721 HCSB) This is what I command you: love one another. “If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of My name, because they don’t know the One who sent Me.
Christian thought relating to the truth. Martin Luther’s thoughts on the matter:
You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.
I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.
Ravi Zacharias: The danger of a simple faith is simplistic answers. An informed mind can and ought to bring a proportionate response.
Secular thought: Don Marquis:
If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you: but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.
Anonymous: Am I being told what to believe or believing what I am being told?
That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.
Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.
The truth are we really exhibiting love to a lost and dying world?
(1Co 13:1-7 HCSB) If I speak the languages of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind. Love does not envy; is not boastful; is not conceited; does not act improperly; is not selfish; is not provoked; does not keep a record of wrongs; finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
If the Lord should bring a wicked man to heaven, heaven would be hell to him; for he who loves not grace upon earth will never love it in heaven.
“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God”
This is our calling, not only to exhibit something substantially real to a watching world, but to enjoy it ourselves. I am called to love the God who is there with all my heart and soul and mind, and I am called to love my neighbor as myself: each person involved in the proper circle and in the proper relationship. If we who have become God’s children do not show Him to be personal in our lives, then in practice we are denying His existence. All too often evangelicals are paper people. The Christian system (what is taught in the whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation speaks as one voice) is a unity of thought. Christianity is not just bits and pieces with a few moral truths thrown in for good measure. There is a beginning and an end, a whole system of truth and this system is the only system that stands up to all the questions that are presented to us as we face the reality of existence. Man cannot account for a personal creator God who is there that created us with a personality that is uniquely different to each living human creature he has created. No one not physics, science, or philosophy can explain personality. The work of the Holy Spirit should never be minimized, but nowhere in the Scriptures do we find the work of the Holy Spirit an excuse for laziness and lack of love on the part of those with Christian responsibility. Nor is the Holy Spirit ever old-fashioned in the bad meaning of the word. Mature Christians and those of us in places of responsibility must summon the courage to distinguish, under the authority of the Holy Spirit between unchangeable biblical truth and the things which have merely become comfortable for us. We often hear of the “simple Gospel” when in reality they may not care enough to face what preaching the simple Gospel may mean in a changing and complex situation. Or out of development of an intellectual and cultural snobbishness or elitism.
Hotrodhell's Blog 