Lessons from II Corinthians 3:12-18.
Second, we remain living examples of Jesus, in Moody’s phrase, “the unsaved person’s Bible”, whose perception of Jesus is what they see in us. How can we positively and effectively relate Jesus to the unsaved? The reconciled must become reconcilers, and the saved witnesses, but how can it be done? In a post-modern culture that sees all religion as subjective experiences, with no objective basis? Like the lady in San Diego who rises early to exercise and meditate at La Jolla Shores. It’s just like church to her, she said. Just tell me it isn’t church, she said. OK. It isn’t just like church to exercise and meditate. How to relate Christianity to multiples like her, who consider self-induced relaxation equal to soul-shattering repentance? Who delight in creation but have no interest in the Creator? Or like the people we meet daily who can’t imagine why they need repentance and baptism. When someone asked David Thoreau if he had made peace with God, he replied, “I wasn’t aware that we had quarreled.” That’s the transcendalist/environmentalist view: god is nature, we love the environment, so we’re at peace with god. But since God isn’t the environment or anything in nature, we must repent and be baptized. How do we relate that fact to the lost? By being as Christ-like as possible in as many ways as possible in private and public. The only reason we would hide Christianity’s message from unbelievers is that it isn’t equal to the challenge of educating, convicting, converting and edifying them. But it is! The only reason to hide that message is that it’s just one of many such efforts to find our way to God. But it isn’t! Christianity is God’s absolute truth, without any lie; his absolute perfection, without any fault; his absolutely final revelation, with no more to come. Therefore, let us with transparent lives express the beauty of Christ. The only proof needed to motivate the lost to obey Jesus and the only evidence needed to convince them to do it now. Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, met President Lincoln on a peace mission February 1865. As he entered the ship’s cabin he removed his gloves, heavy overcoat, sweater and scarf. And there stood tiny, shriveled, emaciated Alexander Stephens, all five feet three inches, 100 pounds of him. Lincoln afterward said he had never seen such a small nubbin come from so much shuck. Yet, that’s all of us spiritually, if we peel our nature back layer by layer until we come to our core. But…if we peel back from Jesus Christ his miracles…his teachings…his example…his personality…his death…his resurrection…what’s left? The person of God, the FULLNESS of God; the glory of God in the face of Christ. A glory to be seen, not hidden, revealed, not covered, declared, not silenced! If we want to positively impact the unsaved, let Jesus live in us. It’s God’s way of assuring success for the church in every generation. Don’t apologize for your Christian faith. Don’t compromise your witness of it. Christ in us is the only hope the world has. Pray God to make us increasingly effective witnesses of his eternal glory. End Part V
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