For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
-Romans 10:13-16 (King James Version)
Our society seems to measure the importance of things, the worth of things by numbers. For instance, Facebook currently has 1.11 billion users*. Pinterest currently has 48.7 million users*. Twitter has 500 million (although only 200 million are considered active) users*. Google plus has 343 million users.* Looking at this list, these sites would be considered important in our day to day lives. Be honest, how long has it really been since you checked your Facebook timeline??? But the question is, are these sites really any more important than the site that has just 100 users? In the world's eye, yes they are. But, what good is is to have 500 million users if less than half of them are regular, active users?
Today's Bible ready looks at a passage that we often associate with a call to ministry. Paul writes, in verse 13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." There is not much debate on this verse, it's pretty straightforward. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Just like whoever registers to use Facebook is counted as one of it's users. Verses 14-15 ask some important questions about calling on Jesus. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" How can the unsaved call on Jesus, if they've never heard of Him? How can I register to use Facebook if I've never heard of that site? So then, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, but how can you call on someone you've never heard of, and how will you hear about Him unless someone tells you about Him, and how can they tell us about Jesus if they are not sent?
The fact is, we are all sent (Matthew 28:19-20). But then, we get to the first part of verse 16, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel." So, someone was sent to tell others about Jesus, some people have heard the message, and then rejected it, rejected Jesus. How sad. As I was pondering that verse, I started to think back to my statistics I shared earlier. People put a lot of unnecessary emphasis on numbers, even judging the validity of churches and ministries. You may be diligently telling others about Jesus, but no one has obeyed the Gospel and called on the name of the Lord to be saved. Don't give up. Keep sharing the faith, keep proclaiming the news of Jesus. When we stand before God, He's not going to pull out our statistics to determine how many times we shared our faith, and how many people got saved. What's important is that you keep doing what God has told you to do. Be faithful, keep trusting.
It reminds me of a song by a southern Gospel trio named Greater Vision. They sing a song called "Faces." The story goes that a person died and went to Heaven. They felt their life was not important, that no one heeded the call for salvation. Then Jesus told him to turn around and see the faces that are there because of him, his ministry and his testimony. You may not lead anyone to Christ, but you may have planted the critical seed. Think About It.
No comments:
Post a Comment