31 Days: Wrapping It Up

We have spent the last 30 days or so talking about ways to reach our worlds by meeting the felt-needs of the people around us, whether in our homes, our neighborhoods, our cities, or someplace on this planet that we may never visit in person.

There is one need that I recognize makes people twitchy when I bring it up, and makes those of us bringing it up kind of twitchy as well. But unless I do, I am only rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

In this generation of extreme political correctness in a country where all men and women are created equal, religious philosophy falls into that same category. We have this idea that all religion ultimately gets us to the same place. We are all circling the same base of the same mountain, and while we may take different routes to get there, we will all summit at the same place. We can all hug each other and coexist without offending anyone.

Except I would rather offend someone than not share the gospel with them. See, while we were all busy gathering sherpas and supplies for the trek to meet God at the top of the mountain, whatever that means for you, He came on down to meet us, to lead us home.

He sent Jesus, because He knew we could not get to the mountain top on our own, ever. And we can try to make it about following rules, being good, crossing t's and dotting i's, except that it isn't about any of those things.

It's about taking Jesus at His word, that no one comes to God except through Him (John 14:6), and that it is only by our faith in Him that we are saved (Ephesians 2:8). We need to realize that we will never be good enough to get to Heaven on our own or bad enough to be kept out (Romans 3:23, 8:38). It's about recognizing that even one sin can keep us from the presence of God, and knowing that Jesus paid the price that we could not.

If all I had done during this series was encourage you to make a casserole for your neighbor and you actually did it, that would be noteworthy. But if somewhere along the way you recognized a hunger for the Lord in your life, that would be awesome. Eternally life changing even.

I don't just want to reach the world for today or tomorrow. I want to reach it for eternity. Let me know if you want to sit down over a cup of coffee and talk about that.