When it comes to religious freedom, history has probably not seen a time as free as ours where faith-beliefs can just be discussed anytime and anywhere. Yes, there are still nations like Muslim countries where Christianity is banned, but we still can’t make a sweeping declaration that the Gospel has no way of penetrating the most ardent anti-Christianity social system. The internet has enabled us to bring the Good News to places which before, were virtually impossible to reach. But despite all the freedom that we have which we can use in heeding the call of The Great Commission, it seems that fewer and fewer Christians are really willing to involve themselves in evangelism. As to why this is the case, I submit three probable answers that were based on my personal observation of Christians around me.
First and foremost is the Gospel message that most in this generation have heard. I can’t see how a plain “Jesus loves you” message, without emphasis on the background of why Jesus demonstrated His love toward us (so that sinners like us can avoid our deserved punishment in Hell), can result to someone who cries at the thought of others plunging to Hell. Without a deep understanding of man’s sinfulness, a person will not look at the indulgence of others in sin as their ticket to eternal damnation. Add to that the fact that man is by nature, selfish, including most Christians, which makes him say, “Well, I found the way to get to heaven. I hope others will somehow find it also even with no assistance from me”. With these two ingredients together (little understanding of the nature of sin and man’s selfishness), what you will end up with is someone who has little or no concern at all for lost souls.
The second culprit is freedom itself. Here, we have a case where the blessings of liberty have been abused to the marrow. Christians of today are so busy with many things which result to either, a lack of time for evangelism involvement, or, them tainting their testimonies, which disqualifies them to preach the life-changing Gospel. The limit-less opportunities to amass wealth in our generation have taken so much of man’s time and energy. The reality is, most of us have placed our focus on materialism. Some Christians who are focused on gaining material wealth, in an effort to relieve themselves of some of the guilt for not witnessing to others, would give a small fraction of their wealth to ministries and mission programs and then declare, “This is God’s will for my life… to financially support ministries.” They fail to recognize that soul-winning is the duty of each and every Christian, regardless of whether you significantly support ministries financially or not.
Last of all, the reason why we have lesser Christians involved in evangelism is because very few Christian parents encourage their children to give their lives for this kind of work. Why? It’s either because, probably, they are not involved in soul-winning themselves, or, because they want their children to focus themselves in striving to have a more economically comfortable life in the future. They would tell their children to get involved in a few church ministries that will not be in conflict with their studies or their basketball games. “If your grades go down or if your basketball game average decreases, then that’s it with your church involvement”. How sad it is that instead of pushing children to get involved in ministries, parents tell their children that they don’t want them to be pastors or Christian workers in the future because they don’t want them to suffer the lack of money in Christian ministries. This results to children getting turned-off when it comes to service to the Lord. They do not realize that they are already telling their children that fame, wealth and power should be given more importance than those that have eternal value, like souls won for Christ.
Money or without money, fame or without fame, power or without power, all of us who have experienced the saving grace of God must involve ourselves in The Great Commission.
A few days ago, on our way home from a WOTM seminar we conducted, I started asking the Star Youth Ministries members about whether they think God is calling them to full-time Christian ministry in the future. I told them that because we are clearly in the end times, I believe that if God will raise up Christian soldiers for evangelism, He will choose those who have already had their feet wet when it comes to Christian work. Being members of Star Youth Ministries for more than a year now doing street evangelism and seminars that challenge the Body of Christ to be more involved in soul-winning, I strongly believe that God would want them to enlist in His army. Some of them tried to reason their way out of the call but to no avail simply because they can’t deny it. The call was so loud. All along the discussion of this topic, the male SYM members were the ones involved. The only female in the group at that time, Andrea Amor Franco (we call her AA for short), sat silently on her seat, listening to every bit of our discussion. When we did a stopover to have a quick dinner, AA walked with me to the restaurant and told me, “Sir, I really want to go to the mountains after I graduate from college and reach the children there for Christ.” What she told me made me so proud of her. Here was a young and beautiful girl with so much promise ahead of her should she decide to work in the secular world, telling me of her desire to surrender her life for the purpose of someday reaching children for Christ in one of the rural mountains of the Philippines. How I wish more of the people who call themselves “Christians” in our time will be as surrendered to Christ as AA.
First and foremost is the Gospel message that most in this generation have heard. I can’t see how a plain “Jesus loves you” message, without emphasis on the background of why Jesus demonstrated His love toward us (so that sinners like us can avoid our deserved punishment in Hell), can result to someone who cries at the thought of others plunging to Hell. Without a deep understanding of man’s sinfulness, a person will not look at the indulgence of others in sin as their ticket to eternal damnation. Add to that the fact that man is by nature, selfish, including most Christians, which makes him say, “Well, I found the way to get to heaven. I hope others will somehow find it also even with no assistance from me”. With these two ingredients together (little understanding of the nature of sin and man’s selfishness), what you will end up with is someone who has little or no concern at all for lost souls.
The second culprit is freedom itself. Here, we have a case where the blessings of liberty have been abused to the marrow. Christians of today are so busy with many things which result to either, a lack of time for evangelism involvement, or, them tainting their testimonies, which disqualifies them to preach the life-changing Gospel. The limit-less opportunities to amass wealth in our generation have taken so much of man’s time and energy. The reality is, most of us have placed our focus on materialism. Some Christians who are focused on gaining material wealth, in an effort to relieve themselves of some of the guilt for not witnessing to others, would give a small fraction of their wealth to ministries and mission programs and then declare, “This is God’s will for my life… to financially support ministries.” They fail to recognize that soul-winning is the duty of each and every Christian, regardless of whether you significantly support ministries financially or not.
Last of all, the reason why we have lesser Christians involved in evangelism is because very few Christian parents encourage their children to give their lives for this kind of work. Why? It’s either because, probably, they are not involved in soul-winning themselves, or, because they want their children to focus themselves in striving to have a more economically comfortable life in the future. They would tell their children to get involved in a few church ministries that will not be in conflict with their studies or their basketball games. “If your grades go down or if your basketball game average decreases, then that’s it with your church involvement”. How sad it is that instead of pushing children to get involved in ministries, parents tell their children that they don’t want them to be pastors or Christian workers in the future because they don’t want them to suffer the lack of money in Christian ministries. This results to children getting turned-off when it comes to service to the Lord. They do not realize that they are already telling their children that fame, wealth and power should be given more importance than those that have eternal value, like souls won for Christ.
Money or without money, fame or without fame, power or without power, all of us who have experienced the saving grace of God must involve ourselves in The Great Commission.
A few days ago, on our way home from a WOTM seminar we conducted, I started asking the Star Youth Ministries members about whether they think God is calling them to full-time Christian ministry in the future. I told them that because we are clearly in the end times, I believe that if God will raise up Christian soldiers for evangelism, He will choose those who have already had their feet wet when it comes to Christian work. Being members of Star Youth Ministries for more than a year now doing street evangelism and seminars that challenge the Body of Christ to be more involved in soul-winning, I strongly believe that God would want them to enlist in His army. Some of them tried to reason their way out of the call but to no avail simply because they can’t deny it. The call was so loud. All along the discussion of this topic, the male SYM members were the ones involved. The only female in the group at that time, Andrea Amor Franco (we call her AA for short), sat silently on her seat, listening to every bit of our discussion. When we did a stopover to have a quick dinner, AA walked with me to the restaurant and told me, “Sir, I really want to go to the mountains after I graduate from college and reach the children there for Christ.” What she told me made me so proud of her. Here was a young and beautiful girl with so much promise ahead of her should she decide to work in the secular world, telling me of her desire to surrender her life for the purpose of someday reaching children for Christ in one of the rural mountains of the Philippines. How I wish more of the people who call themselves “Christians” in our time will be as surrendered to Christ as AA.
