What are we doing about it?

The world is falling apart. It seems like every week we hear of some new disaster, more devastation, pain, hurt, death, destruction. We watch, relieved it hasn’t happened to us. We think of what we can do: Is praying enough? Do we raise money? Do we go and help?

Then the shock slowly fades and we go back to hearing the odd report on disasters and get on with our lives.

I think it’s a reality check to see so many lives taken in only a few moments. Just think for a minute that many of these people may never have heard about jesus, may never experienced His love, never thought about god in their lives.

What if devastation hit Ireland? What if a freak wave, sea monster or nuclear disaster hit our nation? How would we react? I think the more important question is: How would we prepare? Would we as followers of Jesus Christ be more urgent in our quest to make jesus famous, to see lives changed? Would we bake more cakes for our neighbours and tell them about Jesus, would we go to places filled with people and share our faith? Would we be kept awake at night crying for the children of our nation? Would we start as many good News clubs as we possibly could? Set up work bible studies? Will we run into our communities as if it was a matter of life or death? It is a matter of life or death. What are we doing about it?

The world is in turmoil, financially, physically, politically, we don’t know what’s around the corner and yet we look after number one, we make sure we are sorted and safe. We give an hour or two on a Sunday for God and maybe an hour during the week, we pray for people for as long as we can, for some of us that’s maybe an hour over the whole week. Is it enough? Do we see a dying world in need of a saviour now or have we lost the urgency and passion to see God impact and change lives the way he’s changed ours?

We can be hard on ourselves, we can ignore the cries of the lost and dying or we can do something now. What can we do about it? What are we going to do? there is no point on waiting for the disaster to happen and then being distraught that we did nothing before hand when we could have saved so many lives.

God has challenged me and I am uncomfortable in my safety and apathy. the world is in turmoil, people need Jesus now, what am I doing about it? What are you doing about it?

Lazy…

Some one said to me lately that it is easy for people in full time Christian ministry to get lazy. I would go further and say that it easy for Christians to get lazy and apathetic about their faith and the need to share their faith with others. Passion in Christian circles is seen as a breath of fresh air, as something that happens now and again. In the early church passion was the norm, believers were passionate about Jesus Christ and His gospel, they took every opportunity to preach the Gospel and thousands of lives were changed.

We live in a society swamped by apathy and a “that’ll do mentality”. Excellence is a word that isn’t used as much as it used to be, passionate people are hard to find unless they are the CEO’s of major companies, the companies that are the most successful. This apathetic mentality has leaked into every aspect of society and Christians are not exempt from it’s impact. We find ourselves safe and comfortable doing as little as we can for God.

Maybe we’re running out of time, we don’t know what’s around the corner, where we’re going to be in a month, a year or 5 years. We don’t know what freedom we will have to talk freely about our faith, we don’t know the day or the hour of Jesus return. The early church were convinced that Jesus was coming soon and they were not going to miss their opportunity to tell the world about Jesus, it was their obligation, their privilege and their love and passion for the lost that drove them to preach the truth of the Gospel. Do we have this passion, this urgency to preach the Gospel? This is not a rant against churches or Christians or missionaries it is a call to live a passionate existence, understanding the urgent need to tell this world about Jesus.

In John 9:4  Jesus said: “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.”

Maybe it would be a good idea to take a leaf out of Jesus’ book and work now while we can, and see this world changed for the glory of Jesus christ.