This blog series was born out of pain, real life experience and a desire to share Jesus with people as though their very lives depended on it. This is a tough message to speak, one that I am only beginning to grasp, but here is what I’m learning from Adam’s tragic passing a few weeks ago:
I heard a profound quote recently from a secular source: “Disgust and resolve are two of the great emotions that lead to change” – Jim Rohn. This quote is significant because it reveals that unless something disgusts me enough to resolve to change it, I won’t. If Jesus is the most important thing in my life, then why is it so hard for me to share him with other people? To answer this question I need to ask you a question that the Lord recently asked me: How much does people dying apart from knowing Jesus and spending eternity in hell disgust you? Yikes – I almost cringe typing that…but that’s exactly how the Lord presented it to me.
Death, hell, people dying and going to hell…not exactly things that I like to think about. I’d much rather focus on things like eternal life, grace and love – after all the message Jesus proclaimed is ultimately good news. But what was it that Jesus saw when he encountered lost people that compelled him to proclaim this good news? “When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” Matthew 9:36 NIV. Some translations say Jesus was “deeply moved” or “his heart broke” or literally “his guts were wrenched” but obviously it affected Jesus deeply, it upset him – dare I say it disgusted him? Let me be clear, the disgust I reference has nothing to do with diminishing a person’s value or worth – quite the opposite…Jesus cares so much for the lost that it disgusts him or wrenches his guts to see them live and die in bondage to sin…ultimately blinded by Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4).
The Lord revealed to me that unless I am deeply moved and truly disgusted by people dying in their sin apart from the salvation Jesus offers them I will never be genuinely resolved to do anything about it. Let me state this another way: my resolve to share Jesus with lost people is directly related to how much I care about lost people. If lost people dying and going to hell doesn’t affect me the way it affected Jesus I need to start digging and asking God “why?” I’m being very vulnerable here, until recently I haven’t truly cared about lost people the way Jesus does and as a result my resolve to share the gospel was weak. In Adam’s case, it wasn’t that I didn’t care about his eternal destination, but that I believed I had more time with him. Ultimately, God is using this experience to convict and challenge me to see lost people as Jesus saw them: harassed, helpless and in urgently in need of rescue!
Before we go any further on how to share our faith I challenge you to get before the Lord on why you share your faith. Ask Jesus to let you see people the way He sees people. Let it deeply move you, disgust you, and then resolve with the Lord to do something about it.
