From time to time, I toil with the questions of what this faith I adhere to is really about. Is just being in love with the Lord enough? What about when there's still garbage in our lives? Garbage isn't beautiful, it certainly isn't pure and so, obviously, not attractive! I've spent pretty much my entire life in the Church, and let me tell you there are plenty of people spewing a lot of garbage who profess to be image-bearers of Christ.
My spiritual gift is not evangelism; rather, I should say it's not my most prominent. I'm someone who thinks if you don't want to hear it, all I'm going to do is more damage than good. But I'm also skeptical that "loving" the Lord and just being a good person is the point. Yet, I think that we can put evangelizing on a pedestal as our primary life goal, and I don't think that's it, either. Somehow the great commission has been emphasized so strongly that we miss so much else that Jesus taught and the big picture of what it's about. So I'm somewhere in thinking, I need to sift some stuff out of myself, still. I still have stuff come out of me that's not very Jesus. (My new favorite phrase, "That's not very Jesus!")
I fall somewhere between a few groups of thinkers that I see among Christians, about what our focus is. I used to think it is different for everyone, and I think it will look different for everyone, but I also think there's some things God wants in our lives and our limitations and over-simplifications can put Him in a box. And sometimes that box goes on a shelf, maybe collects dust until we need to pull it out as an identifier.
What I mean to exemplify is that I think there is a balance between the two common grooves we fall into, and I think both are really integral to this faith. To expound upon something my pastor put very well a few weeks ago when speaking on James 2:14-20, knowing God's love should produce natural good fruit. If we really know Jesus, that should be what comes out of us on the regular. That doesn't mean saying loudly from a ladder on a street corner that fornicators will go to hell. It doesn't mean accentuating someone else's shortfalls because from our high and lofty perch of righteousness and loving the Lord, we see these sore thumb. Enter my new favorite phrase: what about that is Jesus?
To be an image-bearer of Jesus; a reflection of Him, you have to know Him and what He's about. (Again, I speak this just as much to myself to consider, ponder, and internalize as I do to anyone else.) Unless I've been totally misguided in my understanding of the Bible, Jesus was about reconciliation, healing, love, mercy, and freedom...not condemnation, oppression, hate, and perpetuating brokenness. The only people Jesus ever publicly called out were the Pharisees; the religious people who weren't truly living godly lives.
To ever attract someone to Jesus, we should be like Him. Loving the Lord is enough if it actually bears fruit in your life. If all it means is you go to church and worship...I'm not God, but I'm guessing He wants more for your life! Believe me, I am in the category of being awe-inspired by God, but then what does that awe do? And if there's still junk coming from you, it might be time to stop loudly professing your love for the Lord until you figure out what that really means for you. Part of what I think it means is that you know something so good, so sweet, and so life-changing; heart-changing, that when the time comes to speak of it you're not in doubt and you're not afraid; your heart will leap from knowing the answer, and from the hope that someone else will know it.
A truth with which one could argue and we all know is: but no one is perfect. Yes, we have a sinful nature, but as Paul says in Romans, "Should we then go on sinning that grace may abound? No!" Also, in Philippians I think this is part of what he refers to as forgetting what's behind and pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of us; to be made holy! We're not yet holy, but being made holy. Our unholiness, our sin is what separated us from God. The cross tore the veil, brought us back! Enabled us to come close to God again.
Without the implication of working our way to salvation, I believe there is some truth to needing to keep ourselves in check. It's like swimming against the current. Our nature wants to take us back, and wants to set back the work God has done in our lives - and that's where the lie is; it cannot be undone! Though, that doesn't mean that we don't have to turn away our sinful nature, and press on.
So we may need to weed some things out of our life to be more like Christ. We can be inspired by the beauty and grace of God to tears, but we still have to decide what that means in and for our lives. A rotten tree does not bear good and lasting fruit.
The great commission is...great, but the greatest command is to love the Lord, the second being to love your neighbor as yourself. Our love needs to be for the Lord and from the Lord, in order for our evangelism - a fancy, sometimes scary word for sharing the message of God's love and goodness - to have impact. We need to know what we have and that it's good, and live it, in order to share it. That's what Christianity is, no two ways about it.
