Weekly Bresee Article

I want to draw your attention to a specific line from the third paragraph.

"When Jesus calls us to be alognside Him in His Father's redemptive involvement He calls us to be salt and light."

It is very true that the church continues the work of Jesus in a redemptive involvement. Too often it seems that the church is reluctant to recognize their lives as participating in God. Most are content with a superimposed grace-from-beyond that leaves their lives the same. They wait for another time while remaining bound to the powers of this age. The Kingdom of God is irrupting in space and time. We have only to receive it and reflect it. This is our redemptive involvement.

From My Heart
By Rick Savage

In all of our efforts to be faithful to Jesus and to reach people for Jesus and His Church there is one overwhelming truth to which we must ever cling. It is this: Christ planned to attract people to himself through the transformed lives of his people.

I fear that too often the Church has turned being church into a glorified sales-pitch for God, laying out the bait, setting the hook and reeling in the fish. Isn't that just about the most demeaning thing you can imagine? And, it is very far from what Jesus had in mind when He said, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men" (Mark 1:17).

When Jesus calls us to be alongside Him in His Father's redemptive involvement He calls us to be light and salt. He calls us to be a fragrant aroma of Christ. By a wondrous and marvelous grace He calls us to Himself and transforms our lives by the impact of His grace in us. Then, He calls us to go forth and to live transformed.

Long before people know what we believe, hopefully they are seeing how we live. In fact, they are seeing how we life -- good or bad. Let's make it good.

If we talk about being transformed but don't live transformed our words are empty and do more harm than good. Long before people come to know what we think they experience who we are, and if who we are is less than our talk, we build insurmountable obstacles over which people most likely will not climb in their search for God.

If it is true that Christ planned to attract people to Himself through me, I must ask how appealing or attractive my life really is. Do I make God look good or do I embarrass Him? May God help us all to live the grace we have received. Let's live so as to make God look good.