Sally Lacy :- In the Gospels, Jesus calls for his name to be known to the ends of the earth. Such a command sounds daunting, and somewhat out of the realm of possibility in terms of our individual capabilities. How can each of us, though we have been forever marked by Christ, ignore our personal responsibilities at home and attempt to make Christ known to a socially and politically divided world?
Clearly, overt evangelism is a confusing and complex subject to understand, much less to act on. Despite the lack of clear instructions we may desire, however, the Bible provides another means of understanding Jesus’ command to make disciples of the world. Numerous authors in the New Testament and through Psalms devote significant space to praising the goodness and love exuded through God.
For example, Psalm 103: 1, 3-4 exclaims “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name…who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” Psalm 34: 8 additionally reads “taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.” God speaks of his righteous nature in the Old Testament as well, stating in Jeremiah 29:11: “I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
God affirms over and over throughout the Bible that his intentions for his people are good, and that his will for us stems from the deep love he feels for us. How could truly trusting and believing in this truth transform us as individuals? When we truly believe that ultimate goodness results from God’s intense love for us, joy and contentment inevitably becomes apparent in our personality, in the way we interact with others, and in the perspective we have on life itself. Romans 5: 1-2 states that “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
As Paul writes, when we have found peace with God, we can then exist in the living presence of Christ. We are testaments to his complete goodness simply by living out, in our daily lives, the praise we have for such a giving and loving God. In doing so, we learn to put God above all else, making our hope in the Lord obvious to everyone around us. People in our lives who are ready to hear God’s call will be naturally attracted to the hope and peace we display without even trying. “Making fishers of men,” as Jesus calls his disciples to do, is therefore not as confusing and difficult of a task as it initially appears. Therefore, first and foremost in all that we do, let us strive to answer the call in Philippians 2: 15-16 to “shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.”
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