If you serve Christ as your risen Lord and Savior, we all have the same battle campaign: Representing Christ to this lost and dying world so others will also be exempt from God’s wrath to come.
Some of us may only help bring a few souls to Christ over our lifetime, but we have no way of knowing how many souls we affected and made them ready for someone else to lead to the Lord. We are not all called to be a Billy Graham, who it’s estimated preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to 215 million people.
But what Billy did was show us how to keep it simple. His messages were not complex. At his last crusade in 2005, he said, “I have one message:
Jesus Christ came, he died on a cross, he rose again, and he asked us to repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Lord and Savior, and if we do, we have forgiveness of all of our sins”
This is how simple the gospel needs to be. We don’t need to make it complicated. All believers need to understand the Word of God as we journey on the road of discipleship, but that comes after salvation.
Look back and think of whether the bible made sense to you before you knew Christ. No! It seemed foolishness until we had the Holy Spirit to help illuminate His Word for us. That is because we were out of phase with God’s wisdom. We needed one message only:
We are sinners, lost without Christ and his gift of salvation.
The simple saying of St. Francis of Assisi’s is instructive of how we should go about our lives: “Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words!” While I like the sentiment that our actions will open the door, at some point we don’t do the saving, Jesus does through the Word. Our actions will tell those around us the sincerity of our beliefs, at times much more than words, and will often what opens the door for us to have that conversation to tell them how Christ changed our lives and how He can do the same for them.
Have God’s perspective on this world, and develop eyes for eternity in all you say and do.
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