As
Christians, our thinking is the world we live is deteriorating in terms of
culture, ethics, morality and basic humanness. We expect God should do
something about it in order to make things better so that our living is more
comfortable. In this connection the response of the Churches and Christians are
varied, ambiguous and at times erroneous too. There is a large group that
uses “Fortress approach” as their focal approach, where the world
is viewed as being bad and evil and suggests that one should by all means
protect oneself from it. People hardly relate with the people outside the
Church. The other daunting challenge is that majority of Christendom
believe that their responsibility ends with prayer. Therefore, they settle
with prayers organized by Churches/favorite organizers and give some
offerings to Churches and Christian organizations as and when it is required.
When it comes to influencing the nations with the Gospel and healing the nations, Jesus adopted a strategy. It comprises of choosing people, allowing them to observe Him demonstrate the Gospel and send them out to preach the Gospel. This was done in order to restore the brokenness of the people and influence the entire humanity. But unfortunately today, this is not the model most Churches and Christian organizations are following. The new converts who make it to Churches are ensured they stay with them forever, become faithful in their giving and adding number to the crowd either for credibility or for the sustenance of the Church in most cases. The Churches want them to grow in the Lord all their life without equipping them to go or sensitizing the congregation and warning them about the failure to obey Christ's Mandate. This is an alarming and a serious matter.
All their life people are taught that God watches the heart only, but fail to teach them God is interested in their feet too. Paul Rightly points the prophecy in Romans 10:9 “…How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.”. The outcome of the commitment one makes to Christ is the effective usage of his/her feet in carrying the Gospel to the dying world. The success of the ministry is unfortunately determined by the number of activities conducted, big budgets utilized and a big number that made it as participants. God is interested to see you going out as a carrier of His good news than to be like the lazy servant who preserved his one talent and did nothing about it (Matthew 25:24-25). Many are thinking they are preserving themselves for Christ, without being useful nor being part of Christ's mission. Some leaders misunderstand and hold on to what Paul said in Colossians, that his goal is to present each one holy faultless and blameless before God (Colossians1:22), which was one of the many goals Paul had and stick to it only.
Paul’s other goal was to preach good news where Christ is not named (Romans 15:20), to remember the poor and meet the needs of them (Galatians 2:10), to gladly spend and be spent for people (2 Corinthians 12:15), to be poured as drink offering (Philippians 2:17). The purpose of every Christians is not only to be pure and blameless but to attract others to Christ with the Gospel.
So, what is God’s direction? If humans are the focus of God’s redemptive work, we might find ourselves asking, “how does God move to restore humanity? There are two possibilities as we consider the direction in which God moves to restore us humans as narrated by J. Warner 1. Inside – Out movement (“Evangelical Gospel”). People are inherently fallen and our own personal sinfulness must be addressed before the larger society can be impacted. 2. Outside -In movement (“Social Gospel”). People are basically good but are corrupted by the fallen society. The ills of the society be addressed before individual can be impacted.
The second approach simply doesn’t work when it comes to impacting the transformation of lives. It has to be the first approach and we need every follower of Christ in his/her sphere of influence to present Christ correctly in response to the great Commission.
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