Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Don’t Be Evangelistic Girlie-Men

Don’t Be Evangelistic Girlie-Men

Arnold made a great point last night saying there is power in perspective. We can choose to see America as falling behind and failing or we can be optimists and show courageous enthusiasm for America and the economy and the war America is fighting. Pessimism is a “girlie-men” attitude.

So true in the church. The reformed view of the end times and the role of the church in the world has always been one of the kingdom advancing and the “Sovereign Lord” having His way in all things. The devil is God’s devil. God is great and His enemies are but a drop in the bucket.

Are we like Joshua and Caleb when we look out on the world and our mission or are we kingdom girlie-men. Our eschatology is actually an important part of this equation and our kingdom theology is important to this equation. The expectation of the new testament believing believers was that the Lord would stretch out His to heal and perform miraculous signs”. The Lord would be the one to support the glory of His name in a community and the enemies of God cannot stop it. Even Gamaliel gave this basic argument in Acts 5 by saying, “If God is with these guys, there is no stopping them. But if God isn’t with them they will fade away.” Well, God is with us in all our endeavors to Glorify the name of Jesus. We will succeed in the war and in the battles when we take to the streets and proclaim His reign. The church is called to always see the cup 100% full and be evangelistic “manly-men”. Positive and filled with courage, expecting the Lord to “be with us always, even to the end of the age”. We do not believe in a weak and limping church in the end times. We believe in Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today and forever. The reformers never expected anything less than the continual advancing of the Kingdom and the rise of true religion.

This being true, we have no excuses for failure and we cannot ever say, it wasn’t God’s plan for us to prevail. That is a faithless and unbelieving perspective of God’s love and compassion and the purpose of the kingdom. Anything short of faith and hope is being “evangelistic girlie-men”.

passthebread

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