Are you Prepared?

This morning as I headed out to a meeting I had the radio on. Being a short commute, I only briefly heard what they were talking about, but it did catch my attention. An older woman was talking about when and how she was saved. She explained that some evangelicals had come around and shared the Gospel with her. It was because of the inerrant Word of God that she was saved. She continued to mention the "Emergent Church" and "Social Gospel" that seems to be growing in popularity today. It was obvious that this was a deep concern to her because without the truth of the Gospel, she would not have accepted Christ as her personal Savior. 

As soon as she brought up her concern, my thoughts flew back to yesterday's blog. In it, I said this: 

Here in the states, we not only have the freedom to pray, we can openly share God's love. If you are uncomfortable with starting a conversation, take it to another level. Show God's love with your actions. People don't really want to be preached to anyway. They want to see you living out your faith.

Taken as just that paragraph, it seems to appear that I may be endorsing a social gospel. Indeed, I am not! One of the biggest doctrinal differences here is that I do not want to concentrate on a social message taking precedence over the importance of being able to share the life saving message of the Gospel.

I did mention being uncomfortable starting a conversation. That is because initiating a conversation and being able to answer questions are two completely different things!1 Peter 3:15-16 tells us to "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, ¹⁶ keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander."

Today is yet another day that we were told the world was supposed to end. If someone asked you about the end of the world, what would you say? Do you have an idea? Are you prepared? Can you effectively share with someone the deep love of Christ giving His only Son to die for our sins? Our God is amazing! The very least we can do is to be prepared and willing to share His incredible gift with all around us! If you are not able to do that, I would be happy to talk to you one on one.

If you are able to effectively share God's love, I have another challenge for you. Are you living each moment of every day in a way that is pleasing to God? I don't know about you or anyone else, but what I do know is that the more time I spend with the Word of God, the more He convicts me that I have some work to do! The book of James has been working on me this week! And the more I take time to think about it, the more I see how much I need God to help me. I can't do this all on my own.

   

James 1:19-27

¹⁹ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. ²¹ Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

 ²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

 ²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.