5P's of Passion: Proclaim
Welcome to our final week of our 5P's! We have talked about prayer, ponder, praise, and pronounce. Today we're talking about how we can proclaim Christ to the world. When we proclaim Christ to the world it means we are making Him known to those around us.
In order to proclaim Christ to others; to make Him known to them, we must first know Him for ourselves. We come to know Christ when we accept Him as our Savior and begin living for Him. In Acts 4:12 we read:
"There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved."
And Acts 16:31 says:
"Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved..."
Have you made this proclamation over your life? Do you believe Jesus is God's own Son sent to take away the sin of the world, yours included? If not, will you today? All you have to do is tell God you believe and that you want a relationship with Him.
Passionately proclaiming Christ as our Lord and Savior shows the world His great love for sinful people.
Once we have proclaimed Christ as our Lord we need to get to know Him better and better so we are able to accurately proclaim Him to the world. How do we get to know Him? The same way we get to know anyone else; by spending time with Him.
My youngest child is a freshman in college this year. She is getting to know many new people through her classes, in her dorm, and in her BCM group. She is getting to know some of these people better than others because she is spending more time with them, talking with them, and listening to them. This is how friends are made.
The same is true in our relationship with Christ. We spend time with Him through prayer and Bible reading. In prayer we talk to Him and in Bible reading we listen to Him talk to us. As we get to know Christ better and better it becomes easier to proclaim Him to those around us each day.
Here are three ways we can passionately proclaim Christ to the world:
1) By loving them with God's agape love.
God's agape love is unconditional. Nothing we do can separate us from God's love if we are in Christ Jesus.
Paul said in Romans 8:38-39:
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus."
Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Most of us do a pretty good job of loving ourselves so we shouldn't have a hard time loving others! But how do we love others with God's agape love? We love others this way by accepting them just as they are, by truly listening to them even if we disagree with what they are saying, by being patient with them, and so many other ways.
Though we can't love with God's agape love perfectly as He does; we can work at it with each encounter we have with others. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 is always a good litmus test for how we are doing in loving others. From time to time I like to put my name in place of the word "love" in these verses to keep a check on how my love-life is!
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Loving others with God's agape love passionately proclaims Christ to the world by giving others a picture of His great love for them.
2) By generously giving aid to them.
Generosity is a virtue sorely lacking in our world today. We are so caught up in accumulating wealth for ourselves that we fail to look around us at the needs of others. We become so obsessed with having the next big gadget that we fail to see our neighbors need for the basic necessities of life.
Jesus tells the story of His return in Matthew 25:31-46. He says that we will all be gathered before God and He will separate us into two groups. To the group on His right He will say:
"Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me. The the righteous will reply, 'Lord, when did we see You...' The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.'" Matthew 25:31-40
When we help others it is as if we are helping God Himself.
How generous are you in giving aid to others? Do you look around and see others with God's eyes? Do you notice when someone around you is in need of food, drink, clothing? Do you notice when someone may just be lonely and need someone to spend time with them? Is someone you know homebound because of a sickness? Have you ever visited someone in prison?
When we generously use our time and resources to help others, we passionately proclaim Christ to the world by being His hands, feet, and face to them.
3) By forgiving the wrongs done toward us.
Sometimes its hard to forgive. But Jesus commands us to do so because He has forgiven us. In fact He goes as far as to say that His forgiveness of our sin hinges on how well we forgive others.
Matthew 6:14-15:
"For if you forgive other people when they have sinned against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive you yours."
Christ demonstrated this forgiveness as He hung on the cross. Before He had even gotten to the cross He had been beaten beyond recognition. Then as He hung there with huge spikes through His hands and feet, a crown of thorns on His head, His wounded back scraping against the wooden cross, He still thought of others as He cried out:
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Luke 23:34
If our dying Lord can forgive those who nailed Him to the cross as He was dying on it, then we should certainly be able to forgive those who have wronged us!
Forgiving others passionately proclaims Christ to the world by giving them a picture of His gracious forgiveness.
I hope you have enjoyed this look at 5P's of Passion to Portray Christ to the World! If you would like a beautiful copy of these 5P's subscribe to my email list and I'd be happy to send you a pdf copy you can print out and keep somewhere you can see it often to help you remember them! And if you would like more information on how to proclaim Christ as you personal Savior please email me, I'd love to share some verses with you to help you make that decision!
Thanks for stopping by! Come back next week as we begin a series on fear...it is October after all!
Until next time. God keep and bless you,
Jane
