We are a spiritually fat people. The United States is one of the most fruitful places to live in the entire world. We have more things here than about anywhere else. We have been a very blessed country.
The church in the US has been feeding people for 100's of years. Every week people flock to church, listen to a sermon, and go home. Most people go to church at least two times a week, the more tradional churches meet on Wed. and Sunday. Imagine all the sermons that go into people's minds on a weekly basis. You have two messages a week times 52 weeks times people living to be around 70-75, that's a lot!
The statistics say that only about 2% of the church actually shares their faith. 2%. This is mind boggling to me. I'm not saying I am free and clear of this, and I have my own struggles in sharing my faith, but I still try. In Blue Like Jazz, the author, Donald Miller talks about a friend of his. His friend told him that the things you do reveal what you really believe. What a simple but profound point. You can say that you believe people w/o Christ are condemned, but if you don't act on what you know, do you really believe it? Belief must come first. If you do not believe, you will never "do." But "doing" must accompany belief. They are partners. You cannot separate the two. We probably know more about the Bible than many Christians around the world because of our resources here, but we fall so far behind in acting them out. What in the world. Are we that self absorbed? Do we really care? If only 2% of the church shares their faith, the answer cannot be 'yes.'
I really like Andew's witness in the beginning of John. As SOON as Andrew heard about Jesus through John, what did he do? He did the hardest thing imaginable to Christians today. He went and told his brother. As SOON as he found out, he went and told his brother. Amazing to me. We can go on mission trips in the middle of Africa, sit in the streets of Atlanta and talk to strangers about Jesus, but we never go tell the most important people in our life. That's selfish, we are selfish, and we need to lose some spiritual weight!
John 1 :40 Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter[10] ).
I will return the soap box to the closet. DISCLAIMER: This blog was written to me. I'm a fat Christian.
1 comment:
You are so right. I am simply too self-centered to care with my actions rather than just mentally. Talking about my faith is not as hard as I make it out to be. People are usually open to talking about spiritual things, even if they dont agree with me in the end.
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