Wednesday, September 26, 2007
1 Corinthians 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
WITNESSING CHRIST: IN LOVE
If we had an opportunity to witness the name of Jesus Christ to anyone in this world, would we first fill our mouth with a handful of marbles? Of course not. If that were the case, even though we might have all kinds of good and wonderful things to say, the person listening would probably struggle to make out one or two words. When it comes to witnessing Christ to others, we want to be heard! This is a matter that is just too important to risk that the message is not heard or understood for any reason.
Our text for today reminds us how important it is for the words that we speak (and all that we do) to be framed with love. This is especially important when as we seek to be witnesses to Christ in this world. We would not fill our mouths with marbles and expect anyone to understand what we are saying, nor should our hearts be filled with anything other than love when witnessing Christ, otherwise there is a good chance our witness will not be heard.
This is especially important to remember when we aren't necessarily thinking about our witness for Christ. As Christians our whole lives are a witness for Christ. If someone knows that we are Christians on the one hand, but sees lovelessness in our words and actions on the other hand, we can damage our personal witness to Christ. The power of salvation is still to be found in Christ and in His gospel message, unfortunately a person just might not get that important message from us if our love grows cold.
Jesus died for the people of the world to bring us forgiveness of sin and eternal life. This is the message that that whole world needs to hear. Thankfully, our sins of lovelessness are also covered by the blood of Christ. May our prayer be that through this forgiveness the Holy Spirit would enable us to daily walk in the loving example of our precious Savior, proclaiming His name to all whom we can.
