**And I would actually dearly love to be shown wrong by your actual actions.**
Well, I have some favorite testamonies, but will use what is probably my oldest, and is about one of my best friends. He was from the inner city of Pittsburgh, and 41 yrs ago, in Aug 72, we were freshmen on a small college football team. We were placed, alphabetically, next to each other at the lockers. He made it apparent to me that he hated whites (meaning, don’t try to be his friend).
So, I didn’t try to be his friend, I just lived the ol’ golden rule. We hardly spoke to each other. After a couple of weeks, he said, “you hate me, admit it”. I responded, “I haven’t got any reason to hate you. Besides, you’re the first black person I’ve ever had a conversation with”. He was speechless for a few minutes, then said, “don’t try to be my friend” (he told me years later that my response just blew his concept of racial hate to pieces). By the end of football season, we were friends.
That thanksgiving, I invited him to come home to our farm, since it was a financial hardship for him to go ‘back to the burgh’ (as he put it). At the time I wasn’t born again, but simply lived by some of God’s guidelines.
After he graduated from college, he taught in grade school a few years. In the meantime, thank God, my wife and I had become born again. He came to visit us, saw the change in me, visited church with us, and left knowing he too wanted to live for God. He soon had a dramatic conversion, and a couple of years later became a prison chaplain. He eventually became head of all the chaplains in the prison system of Ohio.
He likes to tell people that I saved his life. When he trys to tell me that, I respond that God has used several people to save his life, the first of course being Jesus.
Back to the topic of the thread (Mr Robertson’s witness of the Word concerning sinful lifestyles). He answered knowing that some would be offended, but was faithful to God in doing so.
You felt that ‘toughness’ should be a quality found in men witnessing for the Lord. I mentioned some extreme examples from the Word, which certainly required a toughness, knowing the offended could get violent. The witness of the Lord to the woman at the well is a good example of a relaxed, easy, exchange that really doesn’t require a ‘toughness’ (you used that word first).
It would be nice if they all were that way. The woman at the well, and the prostitute, are like many people that know they are not living for God, and want a changed life. As such, they are not offended by the witness that reaches out to help them. The offended are those that feel that they have not sinned, and react negatively when the light of God shines on them.
Does Acts 2:38 offend you?
Why should Acts 2:38 offend me? You want me to say “heaven.” Which if course is the right answer.
What you are not saying is the CONTENT of heaven. Generic “salvation” says virtually nothing.
You fail to point out all the things that are “in the middle.” And some of them could need great patience. It’s real easy for lazy Christians to holler hellfire today (and has been for decades) knowing that the most likely response is a NON violent encounter, and they meantime feel really proud of having done it. That’s the point I am getting at. In fact one biblical invitation to salvation said be saved FROM THIS PERVERSE GENERATION not from hell.
Don’t be afraid to adjust your worldview rather than stubbornly standing up for defending your past. The cross defended your past. The lessons, however, will continue until you die
I hope you were humble enough to firmly disclaim that you, personally, had “saved your friend’s life.” Or had even been the chief witness.
And anyhow, a decent worldly life isn’t all that embracing heaven gets you. If your own thinking is on that level you need to adjust.
Thanks for your beautiful testimony.