Christian Living

---

Have a look around next time you are downtown. How many Christians do you see giving out tracts, or preaching on the street corner? Back at home, how many have come knocking on your door lately? The cults do. Why not Christians?

Surely there are more timid believers now than ever before. How many stickers proclaiming Jesus do you see on cars in your church carpark? Many are too afraid to do even that. At the same time suicide bombers blow themselves up daily in Iraq for what they believe. Yes, they are misled but are prepared to die for their cause. Likewise, Japanese fighter pilots killed themselves by deliberately smashing their planes into US ships in WW2. We don’t have to go that far, but come on, let’s show a bit of courage!

One can only speculate re Christian timidity. Is it weak preaching; not reading the Word; too many church social events; forsaking of the basics such as communal prayer; people responding to altar calls when there is no explanation of the blood, the cross, sin, hell, repentance, taking up your cross daily? Is the church weak today because of the lack of a proper Biblical foundation in its members?

Maybe we are all too easily led: too dependent on the pastor when we should be checking out the scriptures for ourselves. The truth is we will all be responsible to God individually in the end (Romans 14:12). Accordingly, we cannot blame the pastor or the church leadership for our shortcomings in not doing all Jesus said to do.

So what is the answer? The Bible. Read it, believe it, act upon it. Hebrews 11 is a good place to start if you want more faith and courage. The people described there never budged from their belief in spite of great hardship and difficulty. Life is easy right now for Christians in the western world, but all that may change soon. Then, the legal opportunities available now for spreading the gospel will be gone. Do it then - and you’ll likely be put in jail. It’s a tragedy for the body of Christ to be wasting the current opportunities.

These are the end times. When crunch time comes, as it surely will, we need to be people of substance, of faith, of guts.

We need to hold fast to the Word no matter what. We need to be like David taking on Goliath; Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego going into the flames; Daniel in the lions’ den. All of them kept their focus on God and His promises, not on the circumstances they physically saw.

Abraham obeyed God: even when about to bring down the knife to kill his son Isaac, he was confident God would restore the lad. He trusted the Lord to the enth degree. God knew Abraham’s heart, and intervened.

That’s the kind of faith that will revolutionize our Christianity, and this world. The only way to obtain faith is to read the Word, memorize it, act upon it. “So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). If we read a promise made by God in the Bible we should consider it a done deal. Start with 2 Timothy 1:7.

[I'm not in Private Messenger. Contact me at [email protected]]

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE