B) The Trinity
(The love and grace of God)
The dictionary defines grace as a
favour, something that is not due but is given to someone freely. Of course the dictionary is quite limited
when it comes to the grace of God because who else but the Lord would want to
show grace to a humanity who, from its beginning, has disobeyed and has been
rebellious to His laws. Even early on in
the Garden of Eden, God wanted to show grace when He said to Adam :
« Where art thou? » Gen 3 :9. He knew
exactly where he was and what he had done; God wanted to show him grace but, no
Adam starts talking about his nudity and blaming God for the “woman whom Thou gavest to be with me”
Gen 3 :12. Talk about impudence and
rebellion; but, believe me, we are not any different from Adam.
Until God’s grace got a hold of us and His Spirit convicted us
of our impudence and rebellion; we were just like Adam, lost in our own
garden of sin. God not only gives us His
grace and shows us our sin, but He also gives us the opportunity to
repent.
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2 :25 :
“if God peradventure will give them
repentance”. Granted, this verse
speaks about our meekness toward those who oppose us, but the words “will give them” just further show us
and the opposition we may come up against in the world, that the God of the
Bible is truly a God of grace who provides every opportunity to come to
Him. Peter in his first letter states in
chapter 3 verse 15 : “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a
reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear”. God’s grace is not something to be kept
secret but, as Christians, we ought to cry out loud on the rooftops that the
grace of God is available to all who come to Him; “and to him that cometh to Me. I will in no
wise cast out”. (John 6 :37)
G) Evangelism
(How the lost react to evangelism)
The mandate that the Church received from the Saviour in Matthew
28 :19, 20 is, as we have seen, our raison
d’être. There is no other more important
task for us to accomplish here on earth except , of
course, to glorify God; but when people come to the Lord for their salvation,
God is glorified. In the years when I
did door-to-door evangelism, one thing had always remained true. No matter how
hard we tried and no matter what system we used (The 4 Spiritual Laws, a
survey, etc), God is the one who prepared the soil in which we sowed our
seeds. Often, I have seen people very
receptive to the Gospel at the outset, but manifest no real commitment to Christ.
The reverse is also true when much opposition is at first demonstrated but then
a true commitment in the way of repentance comes forth; only the Spirit of God
can do this. In the parable of the
sower, Jesus gave His disciples and us the best object lesson on evangelism any
where in the Bible. In Matthew 13 :1-24 there are six types of soil : three that
don’t commit to repentance and three that do. Our job is simple; we have to
speak to people about Jesus Christ and then, when a person reacts favourably to
the message, we are to disciple them in the ways of the Lord. We have no idea who is supposed to come to
the Lord so we cannot pick and choose whom we speak to. There are two types of people in the world : the saved and the unsaved; thank God that we
aren’t that ones who decide who is and who isn’t. There is an evangelism crusade coming up this
spring and summer; here is a great opportunity to see God at work in the hearts
of people. There is no greater joy for a
Christian than to see someone who we spoke to, come to the Lord.