Gospel Engagement
A compilation
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“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”—Romans 10:141
When it comes to Christian service, it is always God working in us and through us who will accomplish the task He has called us to do. But we don’t sit back passively. God requires our commitment, both spiritually and physically.
The first thing God requires is our willingness and availability to Him, and the first part of our anatomy He requires is our feet. Our feet take us where God wants us to be. In Ephesians 6:15, Paul refers to them as “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” When we’re in the right place, God requires our eyes. Jesus said to His disciples, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.”2 This was after the disciples had shrugged off the woman of Samaria; married five times, living in sin, and shunned by her community, but thirsting for what only God could give her.
There are many people who are ripe for the Word of God, but our eyes have to be opened to see them.
God also requires our ears. In Jeremiah 23:22, God says, “If they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people.” Of vital importance is taking time alone with God and listening for what He places in our hearts. Isaiah writes, “He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.”3
Once we hear God, He requires our tongues. In the same verse, Isaiah says, “The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.” There is little more satisfying than listening to an instructed tongue in the things of God, and little more frustrating than listening to an uninstructed tongue. The Holy Spirit reveals the truths of God, and we need to present them with conviction, accuracy, and kindness.
We are workers together with God, and He will use our feet to put us in the right place at the right time, our eyes to see what is to be done, our ears to know what He tells us, and our tongues to say what He has placed in our hearts. It will be a divinely directed work that will almost certainly see hurdles and setbacks, but in the end, result in dynamic work.
God is the empowerment, and He says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.”4 There isn’t a higher calling we’ll ever have than to climb that mountain with God.—Charles Price
You are God’s representative
It’s been said that the only Bible the world reads is the one bound in shoe leather: you and me. When people see His miracle-working power at work in our lives, it serves as genuine living proof that it can happen to them. Your body is the vehicle that His Spirit is traveling in and your tongue is the instrument that gives them the truth.
But why do we have to tell them? Why doesn’t the Lord just send around some angels and let them tell them? Instead God uses us—fallible, sinful human beings just like them—to reach them. He knows we will have patience, love, and mercy on them because we have faced the same challenges and struggles that they have. Can you see God’s logic in using other human beings to be His witnesses? You’re His proof!
Someone once said, “You can’t prove God exists. You can’t put God in a test tube and prove to me that God is.” He’s put Himself in you, and you are the living, visible proof that there is a God, just as His creation is visible proof of His existence. Your love, the light in your eyes and on your faces and the wonderful spirit that people feel from you, not only proves that there’s a God but that God loves them.
Not everybody in the world has heard the gospel. They may have heard of Jesus, but they don’t always understand who He is or what He did. You’ve got the tough job of trying to get people to believe though having not seen. They may not realize it, but they’re seeing the living proof right now when they look into your eyes and your face and they hear your words. They see and feel and hear Jesus through you. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”5
You represent not only Jesus, but the Word of God. You become like a walking, talking Bible—the living Word of God. Most of the unsaved are not going to be reading the Bible. The only real proof many of them are going to see is you. All the rest has to be by faith. And God even plants that seed of faith in their hearts to help them to believe.
You’re the living proof of salvation through Jesus Christ.—David Brandt Berg
The beautiful gospel
What did Paul the apostle really mean when he wrote, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?” Let us examine several aspects that will help people appreciate the value, worth, and power of those who are involved in the preaching of the gospel.
1. The gospel is beautiful because of its author, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is beautiful in His character, in His love, and in the truth that He personified in every aspect of His life. ... Christ authored the gospel so that the world could come out of the ugliness of their sin, depravation and bondage into a relationship with a God who is beautiful beyond description. A life of forgiveness, purpose, and privilege is truly beautiful in all aspects. When one gains an intimate appreciation of the beauty of the Lord Jesus, one is compelled to want to share His beautiful holiness, truth and joy with others who struggle through the mire of sin’s ugliness. It is truly beautiful to be around people who characterize the fruits of the gospel of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Only the gospel delivers people from the ugliness of hate, envy, jealousy, wrath, evil speaking, slander, divisions, and immorality.
2. The gospel givers are beautiful because they take on the identity of Jesus Christ. We all tend to become more and more like the people we associate ourselves with. When we involve ourselves in the giving of the gospel we gain a closer identification with Jesus Christ. Those who identify with Christ are known by the beautiful service that they render to those who are suffering in the ugliness of sin’s self-destruction.
3. The feet of the gospel givers are considered beautiful because they bring a message of peace, hope, and eternal life. Everything in this world is ultimately vain, so those who bring the gospel offer deliverance from emptiness and meaninglessness. There is great delight when a sinner turns away from sin’s turmoil and pain. Many people may not recognize the beauty of gospel messengers at the time, but God delights in those who share the message of eternal life with a world that is dying in their sin…
The bringers of good news provide a message that gives peace within and without. They lift hearts to eternal promises of a lasting peace. How beautiful God considers those who are involved in disseminating this message to all 6.2 billion people on the planet...
The gospel gives all people a key to the door of eternal beauty through a personal relationship with God, who transforms them more and more into His likeness through the sanctifying power of the Spirit.6—Paul Fritz7
Published on Anchor June 2020. Read by Simon Peterson.
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