“Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Americans have been thinking a lot about God over the last month. Church attendance is up dramatically, as are the sale of Bibles. It seems that the battle between good and evil is beginning to reach the very soul of man, but then we’ve been told all along that there aren’t any atheists in foxholes.
The truth is there couldn’t be a better time to help others come to know the love of God. The problem is many of us don’t believe we are called to evangelize. I’ve even caught myself thinking the same thing, holding hard and fast to the notion that my calling is to disciple Christians after they accept Jesus, to write about everyday experiences and demonstrate how faith in God and the application of biblical principles lead to victorious living.
The problem is as a Christian, we are all called by the Lord Jesus to evangelize, to do what we can to spread the Gospel. Theologians refer to that charge as the Great Commission, but Jesus said it this way: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)
The strange twist of irony in all of this is our country has spent the last forty years taking God out of everything. It began when prayer was banned in public schools and has gotten so insidious that the Bible is banned from some public libraries. Imagine that. You can find a copy of the Koran and learn more about who “Allah” is, but have to look elsewhere to learn more about the God in whom we so proudly trust that we put it on our money.
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker recently made a striking observation about the consequences of all of this. “Our children,” she told USA Today readers, “must be awfully confused. Reared and educated in godless institutions that also scarcely acknowledge the importance of patriotism—watching adults sing songs they’ve never learned—they must wonder ‘wassup’. It’s as though America’s adults belong to a secret society to which their children have never been exposed.”
Parker makes a point that those of us pointing the way to Jesus must remember. Many of our friends and neighbors, especially those who are thirty and under, aren’t just unfamiliar with the words to songs like God Bless America, they’re not familiar with terms like repent, conviction, or saved either. In other words, when we notice them looking for meaning in their own lives, we’ve got to help them see what’s going on in a way that they can understand. Once they understand, I believe God will handle the rest. After all, the Bible admonishes me to “trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)
I don’t like what’s happening in our world right now. In fact, my wife and I realized the other night that the liberties we will experience in this new millennium will be very different from the liberties we enjoyed in the 1900’s. But every cloud has a silver lining. I believe God has presented us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell others about the freedom that comes from knowing Jesus and the victory that’s already been won for us. Given what’s going on right now, those are two words that anyone can understand.
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