According to Matthew 16:16-18 the gates of hell can not stand, prevail, or over power the church, and since the word of God is true and perfect - I have a question – why is it that the church has a tendency to be passive about reaching the lost and be aggressive about things that really make no difference.
In my life time I have seen the church take a stand against Disney, video poker, and several other causes. Yet for the most part we sit in our pews, thinking that people who do not have a relationship with Jesus will just walk through the doors of our church, sit down, listen to a sermon and have a life changing experience. Now before I get a hail storm of e-mails – I realize that some people have had a life changing experience just that way. But my opinion is that sitting around waiting for someone to join our church is a poor way of reaching a lost and dieing world. If we believe the Bible, then we should believe that the gates of hell itself can not stop the church from pushing forward. God has given His church a mission – to carry the Gospel to the world around us – and we should be about that mission aggressively.
Instead of sitting around waiting for someone to walk into our church, why aren’t we aggressively seeking new and exciting ways to reach the lost where they are – in the market place of life. Instead of standing in protest against Disney – why not show Disney what the Lord of life was willing to sacrifice for each and every one of its employees. Instead of trying to pass laws to have prayer re-instated back into schools – why not aggressively seek to take our campuses back one changed life at a time. If we pour enough Jesus into the school system – there will be prayer in our schools again. All of the drug, alcohol, promiscuity problems will disappear when our students stand up for what they believe, live as a child of God, and they aggressively force those problems off their campuses.
The most aggressive way that we can influence this lost and dieing world around us is to live our faith out loud and seek the lost where they are – we need to take the church to the people. This aggressiveness will cost us money, time, effort, comfort and even cause us to do things in a different way than we have ever done them before. But that is ok. We would never be a fan of a passive ball team. If the football team that you pull for walked onto the field and every time the opposing team ran the ball your team just got out of their way, we would have a major problem with our team’s concept of the game. God did not call us to sit in our churches and be spectators two or three time a week. God put us on mission to meet people where they are.
Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and get in the game.
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