10 Practical Ways Anyone Can Communicate Christ (part 2)

3. Be there for their good times.  Acknowledge and celebrate the good times like weddings, birthdays, accomplishments.

4. Show real interest in them.  Showing real interest in someone begins by listening.  Ask interesting questions.  As they come to trust you enough to share some of their life journey, you may find a natural opportunity to share some of yours, including the difference Jesus has made in that part of your life.

5. Pray wit h them.  We say to people going through tough times, “I’ll pray for you.”  Do more than say it.  Do it.  Ask permission first.  And if there are other people around you may want to wait for privacy.  But no one has ever said no to me when I’m sensitive to the situation and surroundings.

Rescue always requires involvement in the person’s life.  That’s why “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14).  Tragically, those who are already saved tend to spend most of their relationship time with others who are already in the lifeboat.  We will be in heaven with those folks forever.  But we have only a few years here on earth to help some people outside the lifeboat get to heaven (54).

 

Wow! Kids are maturing fast…

 

Jesus is WITH US!

I am exhausted.  Ran a marathon yesterday.  No, not a real one.  That would have killed me.  But I had “ministry tasks” all day including the funeral for Mr. Howard Montague (one of the greatest men I’ve been privileged to know and about whom I am sure I will post something soon) and a wedding.  Found this post from last year that describes exactly what God provided to me when I needed it.

One of the lynch pin verses of my ministry is the Great Commission that Jesus gives at the end of Matthew (28:18-20).  I believe it is our (the church’s) marching orders.  “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  Uhhh…seems cut and dry.  What’s our job?  Make disciples.

But what I love even more about this passage is what sandwiches it.  One day I was reading this and not really “with it” spiritually speaking.  Might I say I even had some doubts about what God’s purpose for my life was?  So maybe you need to pull out your Bibles out but look at this:  28:16-17, “Then the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”  What?  Some doubted?  After they saw Jesus raised from the dead they doubted?  Pretty much.  Isn’t that how I am sometimes?  God comes through again and again for me.  And yet, I sometimes doubt. 

But look what happens immediately after that phrase, “but some doubted.”  “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore….’”  In other words, we can only accomplish the mission Jesus set out for us because He is with us.  Moreover, we don’t have to doubt because Jesus is with us.  Surely Jesus isn’t with us 2,000 years later!  Yes, He is, because it ends in the same way, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Don’t you love God’s Word?

 

Help!

Psalm 121:3 says,

He will not let your foot be moved, He who keeps you will not slumber.

The One who helps you never sleeps.  He stays up all night, every night.  Do you need help?  I do.  Where do you look for help?

 

10 Practical Ways Anyone Can Communicate Christ (part 1)

One of the things that gets my heart racing is when God gives me a unique opportunity to share my faith.  The churchy word is evangelism.  I’m not an “in your face” kind of person with my faith.  I expect God to show me the best opportunities and then I have to be faithful to take the steps that I am able to take to communicate why I think God loves all of us and why Jesus saved us from our sins.  I get frustrated when I hear that other Christians never share their faith or look for opportunities. 

This is part 4 of a series of posts quoting a great book by Ron Hutchcraft called A Life That Matters.  Here’s a few things he said in his book on the matter I mentioned above.

It takes 2 compelling forces to get us to turn our lifeboat [Hutchcraft uses that metaphor as we seek to be faithful in helping people see how God can save them from their sin] around and begin to bring in as many as we can: the “want to” and the “how-to.” 

If you care about spiritually dying people, it is because God has given you “a new heart and put a new spirit in you”; He has removed from you a “heart of stone” and given you a “heart of flesh” (Exekiel 36:26). (46)

He goes on to share 10 practical ways anyone can communicate Christ:

1. Love them in their language.  They may resist your words but it will hard to resist our serving them.  Random acts of love and kindness are usually a bridge into even the hardest of hearts.  Serving them is their language.  Ask yourself, “What need does this person face in his/her life right now that I could help with?”

2. Be there for them during hard times.  People remember who was at the funeral, who comes to the hospital, who pitches in during an emergency.

 

Do Great Things

Blaise Pascal said,

Do great things as though they were small because of Jesus Christ and small things as though they were great because of Jesus Christ.

 

“He’s Not Been Descending Well At All”

That’s the comment made by the telecaster.  Uh…he descended pretty fast if you ask me.

 

Success and Hardship

We need the strengthening of Jesus in order to handle both success and hardship.  We need strength to handle the many wide swings of fortune, whether positive or negative.  On one side there is temptation to pride and on the other despair.  We can take things in stride because of the One who strides alongside us.

 

Priorities

 

Really!!??