As you can probably tell from the title of this blog, the idea of relevance has been on my mind a lot lately, or more importantly are we relevant? Don't get me wrong, we are extremely busy, busy to the point that our days are full to the brim and we continuously wonder why there aren't more hours in the day. What I wonder though is how often are the things we are filling our days with actually relevant to what we are here for?
Each of us, if we claim to be a follower of Christ have been given a commission to go into the world and make disciples. Christ has bestowed on us the responsibility to be ambassadors for him, to basically be Him to a world that is lost and dying. Jesus describes His followers as being salt and light, yet how well are we flavoring the world around us, or shining light in the darkened places? If you look at the cultural trends having to do with our society and the generation at hand, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that we are missing something somewhere, and I can't help but think that it's because Christians have portrayed the message that Christ is no longer relevant. We love to preach loudly to anyone who will listen the evils of abortion and gay marriage, but then we don't love those around us. Maybe our message has become irrelevant because we are yelling too loudly, and loving to sparingly. Now don't get me wrong, sin is still sin and we should stand up for what we believe, however Jesus was relevant to those he spoke to because He offered the down and outs something that no one else would, He loved them.
I wonder if we should stop trying to play the part of the Holy Spirit, stop trying to guilt people into repentance of their sins, and just start loving them because Christ loved them. I think that it's when we strive to do this that we will find our relevance once again, and people will actually begin to see Jesus.
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Thanks for starting a blog. I look forward to reading your comments on different topics. I just started reading The Great Evangelical Disaster by Francis Schaeffer. He has a lot to say about relevance. We lost our relevance when we stopped believing that the bible is the inerrant word of God. If we don't believe that God created the world in six days or that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish, them how can we trust that Jesus died and the cross and rose from the dead? Absolute truth has been watered down and we have no basis for our arguments. The second issue that makes us irrelavant is our love of sin. We look to Christ to save us from hell, but we fail to renounce sin. We claim to accept Jesus Christ as our savior, but we live the same sinful lives that we always lived. The so called Christian looks like every other secular person. My last point is love. I agree whole heartly that Christians need to be the leaders when it comes to loving others. We can have disagreements but, it is our love that makes us light to the world.
ReplyDeleteSteve
Amen on all points!
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