NowTHINK!AboutIt

Avoiding Hackneyed...Making Sense

Evangelizing the Religiously Hardened

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Jesus Breaks Sabbath Law
John 5

Jesus was not a religionist!

His spiritual devotions never involved habitual ceremony. He prescribed no rituals and there was nothing routine with His words or actions. Some responded to Him angrily, none yawned.

Any rituals He may have followed are not recorded for us. If anything, Jesus was religiously unpredictable.

  • He traveled to Jerusalem on many occasions but not once are we told He offered any sacrifices. He did, on the very odd occasion, tell someone to offer an appropriate sacrifice (Matthew 8:4) but we have no record of Him blessing those ceremonies with His presence.
  • Many of the things Jesus did and much of what He said was religiously disruptive: cleansing the Temple (once in John 2, a second time in Matthew 21*), claiming to be Messiah in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4) and healing on the Sabbath (John 5).
  • The people about whom He spoke His harshest words, the Pharisees, were excessively religious (Matthew 23).
  • It was the ultra religious who were the most instrumental in his execution (Mark 15:1-15).
  • Jesus rarely encouraged anyone to be religious.  He spoke of disciples as sacrificial not ritualistic.
  • Jesus evangelized the religiously hardened and did so by being religiously agitating.

I wouldn’t say that Jesus was anti-religion but I would say that He had no tolerance for religious nonsense. [Read more…] about Evangelizing the Religiously Hardened

Evangelizing The Antagonistic

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Lessons From Samaria – John 4

Christians talk a lot about evangelism. It is a primary topic. You aren’t living Christian if you aren’t evangelizing but popular efforts to evangelize don’t compare closely to Jesus’ results or His words. According to Him numbers do count (no pun intended).

Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear MUCH fruit; so shall you be my disciples.  John 15:8

No fruit, little fruit or occasional fruit equals no discipleship. Fruit is the acid test of your discipleship and lip service brings no glory to God.

By the way, personal growth and character development, which are types of fruit, are not what Jesus had in mind here. A few verses later He said…

I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit… (v. 16)

Very similar to:

  • Go and make disciples… Matt. 28:19
  • Go into all the world… Mark 16:15
  • Preach in every nation… Luke 24:47
  • I send you to remit sins… John 20:21 & 23
  • Be witnesses to the uttermost… Acts 1:8

And you don’t have to be sophisticated to be effective. Knowledgeable disciples are NOT more likely to bear fruit than beginners. The fact is God can use anyone anywhere to reach souls. I got saved when a lost person – my best friend – shared just a piece of salvation truth – all he knew. One thing he mentioned was hell. I was so concerned I had to learn more.

God used a lost man to bring me to salvation. Go figure. The most important qualities for an evangelist are humility and vulnerability. Jesus modeled both.

Besides, personal growth should happen concurrently while bringing others to Christ. Evangelism and growth catalyze each other. If one is NOT happening neither is the other. If one IS happening so is the other. [Read more…] about Evangelizing The Antagonistic

Many Goals One Purpose

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We often ask people, “What is your goal?” It’s a good question.

The answer helps us determine where the person is or better yet where they’re going. People with goals are considered switched on. They make reliable partners, usually.

But, a better question is “what is your purpose?” Goals, by nature, are temporary. We visualize and obtain many goals throughout life but once a goal is met what comes next?

Do we stop moving? Does life come to a halt? For some it does but for everyone else the question is, “what keeps you going?” The answer is “purpose.”.

One well-identified purpose can keep you reaching for many different goals over an entire lifetime. Having a purpose means we have restful pauses instead of depressions between goals.

We also must be careful when identifying a purpose or goal. Some things, like retirement, are inevitable and cannot qualify as either. Everyone eventually retires whether they want to or not, prepared or not. [Read more…] about Many Goals One Purpose

John 3 – Evangelism One On One

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Jesus Teaches Us That The Most Important Question Is Not
“What Do You Say To Enquirers?”
But Rather
“How Do You Get Them To Enquire?”

Is your Christian life so compelling that people go out of their way to approach you with questions about Christianity or must you, like so many other Christians, chase people with the Gospel? We are called light and salt and these are elements that hungry searching people are drawn to. Unfortunately, it is not very often people ask us about God. It should be. That happened with Jesus on several occasions. A study of John 3 helps us understand why.

In John chapter 3 a very interesting exchange occurred between a priest of the Pharisees (Nicodemus) and Jesus. In fact, the whole chapter – 39 verses – is dedicated to Nic’s confusion and Jesus’ response.

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What people don’t always point out is the fact that John chapters 2 and 3 go together. Both cover Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem for the Passover which means, of course, what happened in the 3rd chapter was influenced by events in the 2nd.

In chapter 2 Jesus did the appropriate but outlandish thing – He threw everyone and everything involved in commerce out of the Temple. With that action, plus the many miracles He performed, He had everyone guessing. In response many, the Bible says, believed. Everyone else was confused, challenged or chagrined.

What Jesus did was exactly what the common people wanted (I’m sure they cheered Him under their breath) but no one before Him had the courage to take action. Everyone, including the priests, was amazed or shaken. Some priests found Jesus aggravating and they dismissed Him. Others found Him compelling and were drawn to Him.

Enter Nicodemus. [Read more…] about John 3 – Evangelism One On One

The 10-90 Rule of Evangelism

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In the last half of John chapter 2 Jesus did some very unusual things. Nothing improper and definitely within the law but very much out of the ordinary. No one saw it coming. He threw everyone and everything involved in commercial activity out of the Temple. We usually say He “cleansed” the Temple but that is just a nice way to say He caused a ruckus.

Taking a homemade whip He drove out all the sacrificial animals and the people selling them. He also turned over the tables on which they were exchanging money and doing business.

At first glance His actions seem a little out of character for the One about whom children sing “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” but it was exactly what the situation called for and served an important purpose. Not only did He right some very serious wrongs but once done He had everyone’s attention. The only people unhappy about this were the religious leaders, who no doubt benefited from the business, but even they could not ignore Jesus after this sensational happening. I’m sure the crowds and the disciples waited with bated breath to see what came next.

And what did He do next? He performed miracles. We don’t know the number but we are told many people, seeing this, became believers.

The interesting thing is, the Bible says Jesus did not commit Himself to any of these new believers. That also seems a little bit out of the ordinary especially for One who was known for disciple making, but the fact is, He hadn’t yet committed Himself to anyone, including the already named disciples: Peter, Andrew, John and so on. It wasn’t till much later (Luke 5) that Jesus called the disciples into full time service and He didn’t appoint the twelve as Apostles until even later.

He waited until the more fractious moments had come and gone like the people of Nazareth attempting to throw Him off a cliff (Luke 4) before calling and appointing Apostles. By then they were beyond infatuation. He didn’t want anyone misunderstanding the call to service.

But, we learn a very important lesson about evangelism from what Jesus did here. Even though the time was not right for Him to commit to disciples the time was right for Him to call the masses to salvation, an exercise we usually refer to as evangelism. His approach to evangelism in this chapter is was I call the 10-90 rule of evangelism. Following explains why: [Read more…] about The 10-90 Rule of Evangelism