"'Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God,' writes Paul in Romans 11:22. The crucial word here is 'and'.
The Christians at Rome are not to dwell on God's goodness alone, nor on His severity alone, but to contemplate both together. Both are attributes of God - aspects, that is, of His revealed character. Both must be acknowledged together if God is to be truly known." ( J.I. Packer; Knowing God )
When I share my faith with others, I've found people to be generally accepting of Jesus. As long as I'm focusing on his love, his easy teachings, his good deeds and miracles, the conversation usually runs along quite smoothly, for the most part.
It's when I get around to things like sin, the wrath of God, judgment, hell, and the difficult passages of the Old Testament that people begin to squirm or change the subject.
And yet, if we are not sharing these concepts, the bad along with the good, we are not sharing the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
Honestly, I used to work up a major sweat whenever I felt I should be sharing my faith with someone until I discovered the reason. When I began to peel back the fearful layers, the root revealed the hard fact that I didn't know the Gospel myself.
It's said that to truly understand the Gospel, we first must grasp the truth about ourselves, precisely that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Every other Gospel truth builds graciously upon this one.
The Good News is actually good, bad, and good:
God created us good in the beginning. Our first parents sinned - disobeyed the only rule they were given. This sin nature was passed to all of Adam's descendants. He was mankind's federal head. Not only do we all sin, but we are born sinners. That's the human condition.
A thrice Holy God can't allow sin to go unpunished or he wouldn't be good. ( If one of your children were brutally murdered would you seriously want the judge to let the killer off without penalty if they stood in court promising not to do it again?? No, we would cry out for justice. That judge allowing criminals to go free without punishment would not be a just judge. )
Sin has to be paid for if God is good. God's wrath demands it. The law must be fully obeyed in all points if we are to be deemed holy and acceptable to God, and no one can do that. ( Romans 3 )
But Jesus can and did.
Jesus became the new and better Adam.
The law shows us our sin, but the Gospel shows us our Savior.
The unfathomable debt must be absorbed, and the perfect life Jesus Christ lived and the punishment he received on the cross are imputed to us when we believe in him, trusting him as Lord and Savior. Colossians 2:14 mercifully tells us that "Christ canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross."
"Behold the goodness and severity of God." They can not be separated; we must hold them both in our hand together. ( Romans 11:22 ) And this is a good thing.
The more I read the Bible, the more I understood this amazing grace and the more comfortable I felt in sharing the true Gospel. The more I prayed, the bolder I got in sharing it because I was growing in my understanding of the grace and mercy Christ had on me and growing in my love and concern for others to know it too. And please be hopeful and not discouraged in your evangelism because this developed in me later in life. Learn from my mistakes.
We don't have to be renowned theologians to share our faith and explain the gospel; we need to be consistent students of the Word and people of prayer, and the desire to help others grows alongside of our faith by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Which brings me to my final point: We can't save anyone.
"What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." ( 1 Corinthians 5-9 ESV )
Don't you love all of the earthy metaphors used in Scripture?
I'm convinced it's because the good life God created began in a garden.
Now, go plant and water!
Happy Monday!
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