What Would Jesus Do?
When Jesus came preaching the gospel to the hungry, he fed them not only with his word but with bread. After all, what would the bread of life discourse be without the feeding of the five-thousand? When he came preaching the gospel to those oppressed by evil spirits, what did he do? He exorcised the demons from their bodies. When he came preaching the gospel to those suffering from sicknesses and congenital defects and even death, what did he do? He healed their diseases and restored their limbs and opened their eyes and ears and mouths and called them from their tombs! When the king of the not-of-this-world kingdom comes, he brings his kingdom with him, and in so doing he reverses the effects of the fall—all of them! And this is precisely what we needed. For when we fell into sin it was not only our spirit that was affected, but our humanity in its totality: theologically, psychologically, socially, and physically. There is not a single aspect of our humanity that has been left unscathed by the ravages of the fall. Now then, if gospel ministry is kingdom ministry and if the coming of the kingdom in Jesus means the reverse of all the effects of the fall, then it follows that the body’s evangelistic enterprise must address sin in its totality. Let's put it like this, the scope of our evangelism must be at least as pervasive as the power of sin itself. Are you with me! .
Ministry News
What Must Our Evangelism Cover?
If the scope of our evangelism does not address all the effects of sin, we are in essence saying that our Lord Christ did not conquer sin on the cross; we are in essence saying Christ’s work at Calvary was not successful. May it never be! We need to see the body as an outpost of the kingdom of God. “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” And “He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.” Therefore if we fail to do the ministry of mercy to the fatherless, to the widow, to the prisoner, to the working poor, to the crack babies, the mentally ill and to those struggling with addiction within the body and without, then we are acting as if we are not such an outpost. We are operating contrary to our nature and in defiance of our calling to participate in God’s ministry of reconciliation. Join wth us to commit to pray about how we may extend our hand as the instrument of the Lord to help the helpless in our world. Join with us to commit to pray about the ways in which we may impact our community not only with the verbal message of the coming of the kingdom in Jesus Christ, but with the concrete manifestation of that kingdom in the lives of the needy right where they’re at.