A Divine Invitation
Have you ever found yourself complaining about the moral fabric of today’s society? You turn on the news and another black male has been arrested for a tragic crime; you switch channels to try and find a movie only to see sexual immorality promoted in every other scene; you flip the remote again and this time you see a comedian mocking, belittling, and vilifying Christians with hundreds of people laughing in the audience all in the name of humor. If you watch any amount of television for any amount of time, you can see day in and day out that many in our society seem to have forgotten God or do not know God altogether. But can you do anything about this widespread moral decline?
Yes you can!! Yes YOU! What you can do is get up off the couch and teach people about the love and forgiveness of God, give people the gospel, help out others in the name of Jesus. Instead of bemoaning and wailing over the sad state of our prison systems, our schools, our neighborhoods and communities, we have to stop just talking the talk as Christians, and also walk the walk. We have to be willing to let our lights shine to those in darkness. My motto has become “Each one reach one,” (or maybe two, or three, or four….). If everyone were to personally try to reach one person or more with the gospel of Jesus Christ, what a change, what a difference we would be making for the Kingdom of God! Then in time, those people we influenced with the gospel would touch other people, who would touch other people and so on and so on. That’s how the gospel gets spread. It’s one person, choosing to get off their couch and go out and take the truth of God’s word to the street. It’s you making a conscious decision that Yes! I will work for Christ! It’s you deciding that what you can do, you will do!
In Matthew 9, Jesus sees the crowds of peoples as he goes throughout the cities. The Bible says, “he had compassion for them [the people], because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd.” (v.36) We as Christians must be more like Jesus. We must look on those who are lost, with compassion. We must see their helplessness as they struggle through life without Christ. We must point them to the Good Shepherd (John 10), Jesus. Jesus told the disciples after he saw the moral plight of the people, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (9:37). Isn’t that amazing? Jesus says the harvest is plentiful, there is plenty of work to be done and plenty of work to do, yet there are only a few laborers. The Kingdom of God has room for all the people who want to partner with God in the work He is doing on this earth, and that includes plenty of work for you! Won’t you accept his invitation? Won’t you have compassion? Won’t you go out into the harvest field and reach those who are lost, who are suffering, who are harassed and helpless and in need of the Shepherd? (Ps. 23) Remember, someone took the time with you. . .