Sharing the Light and Love of God

to a Dark World

Paul tells us that it is time to get right with God. Yes, if there ever was a time in this world that we should draw closer to God, it is now.

“We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2)

My friend, please listen to God speaking to your heart and draw closer to Him. God is telling me that unless we are walking close to God we will not make it during these dark days.

“There is a kingdom. The King lives in a palace on a hill. He can only maintain or expand the boundaries of his kingdom if he has an army to fight on his behalf. In the kingdom there are a number of large military bases. They spend hours singing praises of their king. A large number of soldiers spend their time telling the children of the king’s exploits in the past. The senior officers bustle around looking extremely busy. Some even move from base to base encouraging the troops. The bases are well equipped with provisions and regular newsletters are published. People are regularly recruited, because the bases are exciting places to be, but no one actually goes out to fight.

The Soldiers are so busy on their bases that they do not realize that enemy armies are invading the kingdom. Occasionally, someone comes down off the watchtower and raises an alarm. The soldiers respond by getting busy in their training activities.

Sometimes a soldier fires a gun in the direction of one invading army, but because the shot is misdirected and fired in fear, it has no impact.

One day the army wakes up and finds that their camps are totally surrounded by enemy soldiers. The training camps have not been designed for defense, so they will have no alternative but to surrender.

Many will have expected the king to come out of his castle on the hill, and deliver the people from the enemy, with a new miraculous weapon. This is vain hope. The king remains in his palace where he belongs.

If the army is to retake the kingdom for the king, the soldiers will be forced out into the towns and the countryside to form guerrilla units. By forming small cohesive units that can exist under domination by the enemy army, they will eventually drive out the enemy armies and retake the kingdom.” (John & Paula Sandford – Elijah House)

Amos 6:1 says, Woe to you who are at ease in Zion. Then in 6:3 he says, Woe to you who put far off the day of doom. I believe that God is speaking to us today. He is saying, “Church be on guard for I am coming soon and you must be ready. Are you ready?

We are asleep. We don’t realize that we are being attacked. We are not fulfilling our Christian mandate.

“Then God blessed them and said to them, ‘be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

Our mandate is “be fruitful and multiply” means to develop the social world – the second phase “to subdue the earth” means to harness the nature world – plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music. Our mandate is to control the world.

What does mandate mean? “To entrust, an authorization to act given to a representative.” This is what God has done to us He has entrusted the world to us so that we can take care of everything. The fall did not destroy our original calling, but only made it more difficult. (Genesis 3:16-17)

Being a Christian means embarking on a life-long process of growth in grace, both in our personal lives and in our vocations.

If we are going to win souls for Jesus and bring the healing to the hurting, we must understand what a worldview is and what the secular worldview is. We must understand that Satan is out to get us and that we need to be aware of all the ways that Satan will try to defeat us.

“The tragedy of our situation today is that men and women are being fundamentally affected by the new way of looking at truth and yet they have never even analyzed the drift which has taken place. Young people from Christian homes are brought up in the old framework of truth. Then they are subjected to the modern framework. In time they become confused because they do not understand the alternatives with which they are being presented. Confusion becomes bewilderment, and before long they are overwhelmed. This is not only true of young people, but of many pastors, Christian educators, evangelists and missionaries as well.” (Francis A. Schaeffer)

I attended Bible College at a small Nazarene college in Colorado Spring, Colorado. I was still a young Christian when I started to school. When I started I had such a misconception of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I think that it has taken twenty years to just start heading in the right direction. I had such doubts and this was not a bad thing. It was, as I know now a very good thing. I think that if we don’t have doubts we do not do enough searching for God that we should.  We do not find where God wants us to be in His great plan. We take other people’s view of what we need to do for God. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ takes doing what God wants you to do and only that, not being like anyone else.

So many people that are leaders in the church today think that if you are called to the ministry, you must be a pastor or work in the church. This is not God’s calling on some people’s lives. It was not my calling. My calling is to work in the world and be connected with as many people as possible so that we can reach more people for Jesus.

Being a follower of Jesus Christ is not just a thing we do on Sunday. It is something that must be a way of life that penetrates all areas of our life. There is no getting away form God and our Christian walk.

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.  And who is sufficient for these things.” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

Part of our mission is to tell people about Jesus. Another part is to tell people unconsciously about Jesus. Paul is telling us that wherever God leads us we are to take the aroma of Jesus with us. This is the Spirit that everyone can see around us and know that there is something different about us and let them want what we have.  The peace of Jesus Christ is in our lives. Remember that no matter what we do or where we go people need to know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ. Living our life out in the world, loving God and following Christ as best we can is the most powerful tool we have to send out the gospel. No matter at what stage you are in your walk with Christ, putting Christ on display, and people will react to you on what they see of Him in you.

“And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:4-5)

We must realize that we cannot live this life that I am writing about in our flesh. We must have the Holy Spirit working in our lives and helping us everyday. No, every second of the day. We must realize that we can do nothing without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

“Does the church have a future in our generation? I believe the church is in real danger. It is in for a rough day. We are facing present pressures and a present and future manipulation which will be so overwhelming in the days to come that they will make the battles of the last forty years look like child’s play.” (Francis Schaeffer in The Church at the End of the 20th Century)

This book was written in 1970 and we see every year that the battle for our faith is getting worse. We must learn what has happened to our church and how we can get back to the work of our Christian Mandate.