Rewind

I was reviewing some old writings I had done in the past and came across this one from 2010. Sometimes I see myself as “corny” in these but, it was an interesting thought and I wanted to share it. Some of these thoughts and ideas come from Dare2Share and I should give them the credit!

“No Brainiacs Required”

As I was reading the story about young David and that giant, Goliath, I couldn’t help but think what that must have looked like to the Israelites. Here they were shaking in their boots and up comes this teenager (see 1 Samuel 17:33) who questions the more experienced soldiers as to why Goliath was still out there talking. Here we see s great example of youth in action. This ties in with what we learned in THE Cause last night. David understood that God was the provider, all he had to do was be faithful. King Saul tried to outfit David with his own armor. Imagine what that must have looked like. David couldn’t even move in that oversized outfit. (if you really ponder that for a moment, it had to be pretty funny) The point is, we often listen to the world telling how we should go about “sharing our faith”. We are to be solely dependent on God for our strength.  So, how should we go about evangelizing our friends and classmates?

Remember first that our battle is with Satan, not the unbeliever. Too often, well-meaning people target the sinner and beat them up instead hating the sin. If we follow the example of Jesus, we never see this attitude.

The act of evangelism is both destructive and constructive.

Five strongholds we identified;

• Emotional
• Perception
• Intellectual
• Religious
• Sociological
• All these are satanic strongholds (2 Corinthians 4:3,4)

So, how do we combat these? Simple, we don’t. God provides us secret weapons. We are to be dependent on Him.

• Every person’s inner knowledge of God. (Romans 1:18-22)
• Every person’s conscience. (Romans 2:14-15)
• The power of God’s Word. (Hebrews 4:12-13, Isaiah 55:11)
• The power of the Gospel. (Romans 1:16)
• The power of prayer. (Colossians 4:3)
• A life of doing good. (Matthew 5:15-16)
• Your love for other Christians. (John 13:35)

So what do I do now? Think about David again. He discarded what was considered the correct way to attack the stronghold in front of him. He leaned on God, even announced to Goliath what was about to happen.

First, we need to relax. As Greg Stier states, we don’t need to be smarter, wittier or more intelligent than the lost. (Philippians 1:28)

Second, we need to release the seven weapons to destroy strongholds as the Spirit leads. (Ephesians 6:18)

Finally, realize that evangelism is not fair. (John 12:32)

Are you ready to release the gospel on a lost world?

More to come!!

Scott