As Christians we are called to be bold in our Christianity
| By: Rudy Burns |
We have been given a great gift from God in his grace. As believers or Christ followers we have been given the gift of eternal salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior have also gone through a transformation in their life because there is no way you can ask Jesus into your heart without it changing you as a person.
As Christians we tend to keep our faith to ourselves and try not to stray too far from other Christians. We do this because it is comfortable to keep it to ourselves . It is safe. We will not face any ridicule or rejection from non believers. If we just keep it to ourselves and only let other Christians know our true identity we think we can create some kind of safe retreat from the world where we will not be harmed. I have to say that I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to this. I tend to hang with people who identify as Christians. I have other non believer friends as well but I have been guilty of not sharing my conversion experience with them. I may hint at it at times. I may let others know that I went to church on Sunday but this does not necessarily tell anyone that I am a believer as there are people who go to church who are not believers. If someone wants to approach me, then I am fine and feel comfortable talking about my faith with them because if they ask me, it takes away some of the potential for rejection. We are called to be bold in our Christianity and belief in the Gospel message. We are called to be like the Apostle Paul. Talk about conversion experience and being transformed. Paul went from persecuting Christians to being a great evangelist who through his travels and assistance from the Holy Spirit was able to transform the lives of many people. When I think of being bold, I think of Paul. The books of Acts frequently points out the boldness of Paul. Acts 28:30-31 says "30He lived there two whole years at his own expense,[b] and(E) welcomed all who came to him,31(F) proclaiming(G) the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ(H) with all boldness and(I) without hindrance. This is just one example in the book of Acts where it speaks of Pauls boldness. Why is it that if we watch a great movie we do not hesitate to tell everyone about how great it was but when our lives are changed and renewed through Jesus we fail at being bold and telling others about the good news of the Gospel that Jesus died for our sins on the cross because of his infinite love for us. That is a question I may never be able to answer but there are things we can do. We may not be called to be great evangelists and preachers but we can let others know our identity as a Christian. We can do this in the way we treat other people loving them as Jesus loves us. |
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