Mar23

Greetings Everyone! In place of my daily devotion today, I would like to share with you a message from a brother and friend, John Naberhaus. My hope is that you will read this and than take a look at what you are doing in your life today in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. May your week-end be wonderfully blessed, as you remember: God puts each fresh morning, each new chance of life, into our hands as a gift, to see what we will do with it.
Love in Christ Jesus, Sandy

                 Witnessing, What I Think We Are To Do

In the first chapter of Acts we find Jesus telling the disciples to go into all the world and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. Writers of the Gospels, tell us that Jesus said   �if we �deny Him before men; He will deny us (or be ashamed of us) before the Father.�

If you ask the average church goer what is the definition of witnessing. He or she would say that witnessing is telling others about Jesus.   Is this witnessing or just a part of it? The answer is, it�s only a part of what we are to do. Sure we tell the lost about Jesus. But Jesus told us to do more than that. He told us to spread it to the ends of the earth. Are we to give up our jobs, families or friends to spread the Gospel to the world? Yes, sometimes, no other times. But still this is only a part of witnessing.

Jesus wanted the disciples to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. This means that Christians are to spread the gospel or evangelize the world. This is our �mission statement� as Christians.   How do we go about doing it?

Spread means to cover. The gospel says God loved us so much that He gave His only Son over to Satan to torment for three days so that those who believe could be saved. Jesus is the Son of God who came to save us from an eternal life in hell. He wants us to tell others what our belief in Jesus Christ means to us, and can mean to those that believe. But is believing enough?

No! Satan believes and is doing everything in his power to take as many people as he can with him to hell.   We are to go and tell that Jesus came to save us. We are to tell the lost that we were all lost and fell short of what God expected of us. But God had a plan to save us from an eternal life in hell. He sent His Son Jesus to earth to save us from the devil. We believe and tell others that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins. Our belief in who Jesus is leads to eternal life with God.

The lost are those that haven�t heard or don�t accept Jesus as the one who died for their sins. They don�t believe they will live in eternity with Him. They may be young or old, red, black, yellow, or white.   They may be an American, Chinese, Mexican, Japanese or any nationality. The lost could be your neighbor, friend, brother, sister, spouse, child, stranger or someone you don�t like. He or she may be a person you meet on the computer internet. God is a no respecter of persons. Is believing, going and telling enough?

No, but we are getting closer. What about supporting those who are in the mission field? Support is part of witnessing. Visitation is also a part of support witnessing. We support our missionaries through prayer and giving. We support those who are sick by visitation. People we help in time of need is a form of support witnessing.

Witnessing begins with believing that Jesus is who He says He is. He told us to go into the world and evangelize it, winning people to Jesus to save them from the eternal fire of hell. We are to go and tell the lost individuals that no matter how bad their sin or sins are, they are forgiven if they believe that Jesus died for their sins, and make Him Lord over their life from that day forward. We are to witness to everyone that does not know Jesus as their personal savior. By supporting missions and missionaries with prayer, giving of our time and money, we witness to the world. Eternal life is available to everyone who believes and accepts Jesus. This is witnessing!

John Naberhaus