Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday July 28, 2010

Twenty years ago one of the battles raging within biblical Christianity was between the schools of thought identifying themselves as favoring "Lifestyle Evangelism" and 'Confrontational Evangelism." The supposed difference being one group believed that living a demonstration of the life of Christ within was sufficient to reach the world and the other the idea of aggressively presenting a personal witness to the masses and individuals. I remember getting some rather severe criticism from each side due to my "idiotic" statement that each plan put together would equate to true evangelism as taught by the scripture, one being fundamentally flawed without the other.

On the one side you have the quiet unassuming ritual of the life worth living and on the other, quite often much talk and no walk. Certainly the Bible plainly teaches that we are to name Christ and act like our faith in His name has wrought a change in our heart. To "Go Tell It On The Mountain" is part and parcel of our faith. Like the old song, a godly life and loving to tell how it came to be, expressed as "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, you can't have one without the other."

A young woman once talked with Joyce and I and for awhile the conversation turned serious and the woman said, near fighting back a tear, "I wish preachers would quit fighting so among themselves because what they hurt each so bad over doesn't amount to a hill of beans." Her family has suffered unbelievably over such squabbling. I think she is on to something. Paul suggested that we should cut it out in his statement in Galatians 5:15:

But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

For many years I preached daily on several radio stations attempting to reach and help people with the message of the angels concerning Christ. A group within our church constantly had fits due to their fear that "Lilly is going to get a net full of the unelect." I thought; this is really scary. Truth be known the giant whom they in their ignorance thought they emulated had no such fear and he regularly "risked" catching such "unelected." Notice his statement on the subject:

"Since no man is excluded from calling upon God the gate of salvation is open to all. There is nothing else to hinder us from entering, but our own unbelief."

This statement, according to "Brainy Quotes," is from the pen of a man who organized door to door visitation in "his" city, the French Theologian, John Calvin.

If, as the Bible says we are to preach/witness to every creature, then it makes sense that while we are talking the talk, we should be walking the walk. This is very easy to say.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2010 Use with credit.

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