I spent January looking at scriptures about witnessing and these themes are consistently present in the scriptures:
• God works in and through difficulties to perform the miraculous so we may be a testimony to those today and those in the future of the power and goodness of God. Why? THAT THEY MAY KNOW GOD IS GOD. (Ex 10:1-2; Numb 10:29)
• When we praise God (be a witness of His goodness) to those around us God will bless us (Ps 67)
• To be a witness for God we must be a servant (Is 43:10; Is 49:5; Acts 26:16)
• To be a witness we must personally (intimately) know God; believe (trust) God; and understand that God is who He says He is. (Is 53:10)
• God does the revealing and saving (Is 43:12)….we are only an instrument He uses.
• To be a witness is to be obedient to God’s prompting whether those we witness to believe or not (Ez 3:11)• God takes no pleasure/delight when an unbeliever dies without Him…and our response should never be “they got what they deserved”. Truth be told, none of us get what we deserve but even when we were dead in our sin Christ died for us. This thought should hound us and catapult us to obedience when God wants us to speak to ANYONE. (Ez 33:11)
• When those we witness to advance beyond us in their love and witness of God (Jonah 3-4) let us rejoice with them, not sulk
• God’s Holy Spirit living within us will give us the words to speak…we must be tuned into His voice. (Matt 10:17)
• We cannot go in our strength (Acts 1:8)
• Expect God to move (Mk 16:15-20)
Bottom line: being a witness for God is about humility, desiring others before ourselves, being a servant to the lost. It is not about adding numbers to our churches but rather multiplying the character of Christ. His character within us will then be the motivating factor to share His Good News. HUMILITY…SUBMISSION…SERVANT…could the absence of these be the turn off to the term Christian today?
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the death—even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:5-8)
• God works in and through difficulties to perform the miraculous so we may be a testimony to those today and those in the future of the power and goodness of God. Why? THAT THEY MAY KNOW GOD IS GOD. (Ex 10:1-2; Numb 10:29)
• When we praise God (be a witness of His goodness) to those around us God will bless us (Ps 67)
• To be a witness for God we must be a servant (Is 43:10; Is 49:5; Acts 26:16)
• To be a witness we must personally (intimately) know God; believe (trust) God; and understand that God is who He says He is. (Is 53:10)
• God does the revealing and saving (Is 43:12)….we are only an instrument He uses.
• To be a witness is to be obedient to God’s prompting whether those we witness to believe or not (Ez 3:11)• God takes no pleasure/delight when an unbeliever dies without Him…and our response should never be “they got what they deserved”. Truth be told, none of us get what we deserve but even when we were dead in our sin Christ died for us. This thought should hound us and catapult us to obedience when God wants us to speak to ANYONE. (Ez 33:11)
• When those we witness to advance beyond us in their love and witness of God (Jonah 3-4) let us rejoice with them, not sulk
• God’s Holy Spirit living within us will give us the words to speak…we must be tuned into His voice. (Matt 10:17)
• We cannot go in our strength (Acts 1:8)
• Expect God to move (Mk 16:15-20)
Bottom line: being a witness for God is about humility, desiring others before ourselves, being a servant to the lost. It is not about adding numbers to our churches but rather multiplying the character of Christ. His character within us will then be the motivating factor to share His Good News. HUMILITY…SUBMISSION…SERVANT…could the absence of these be the turn off to the term Christian today?
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the death—even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:5-8)
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Amen! Great observations and insights. I really like this "It is not about adding numbers to our churches but rather multiplying the character of Christ."
ReplyDeleteHe must increas, we must decrease (as far as what is viewed to be the active power.) We have to do, but that doing is Jesus.