Look anywhere around you and you see a world that is changing technologically at breakneck speed — and not particularly for the better.
Further, between pandemics at the micro level and geopolitical pandemonium at the macro level, it feels like someone has opened Pandora’s mythical box and set loose a fresh new wave of troubles to plague mankind.
Interestingly, things were not that much different 2,000 years ago when Jesus Christ arrived on the scene. He came into a world dominated by random violence, rampant illness, early death, widespread demon possession, state-sponsored slavery and a deeply discounted value of human life.
Even among Jesus’ own “brethren,” the chosen people, He found himself in unfriendly territory, as told in John 1:9-11:
“This was the true Light that, coming into the world, enlightens every person. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him.
Sad, but not unexpected, it was prophesied in Isaiah 53:3, hundreds of years before his birth: “He was despised and abandoned by men, a man of great pain and familiar with sickness; and like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.”
What people missed was that Jesus was “on assignment,” to be humiliated, afflicted, and eventually to carry away OUR spiritual sicknesses and sins. As foretold in Isaiah 53:4: “However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, and our pains that He carried; yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted, struck down by God, and humiliated.”
He did this for YOU. He did the hard part and made it comparatively easy for you and me to come into the good of it by faith and commitment. As noted in John 1:12-13:
“… as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.”
So, how can people today find the same Christ amid the deafening din? He can be found within every born-again spirit indwelt believer IF they’ll make themselves available.
Believers, it’s your turn to enter the arena and take sides with Jesus against the world. As written in Matthew 5:16: “Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
We don’t do it alone. According to Colossians 1:26-28, we get to walk in the power of Christ Himself:
“… the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles is, the mystery that is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every person and teaching every person with all wisdom, so that we may present every person complete in Christ.”
It’s your turn to wear your faith on your sleeve, take a few risks and step out in faith. If Christ “stepped out” for you by suffering a humiliating, unjust public execution on a criminal’s cross, is it not a comparatively small matter for you and me to break ranks with the silent and be numbered among the faithful?
What’s to lose, really?
Believer, did you know that you might be the only “Christ” someone gets to see today at the supermarket checkout stand, at your workplace, or wherever you go on your normal daily routines? What will they see? A frenzied pursuer of his own interests, or a faithful witness to the “hope that is in you?”
Why God chose to communicate His presence in the world through deeply flawed, distracted, flesh-and-blood humans like you and me, is a profound mystery. Could He not have done so by writing it across the sky, miraculous appearances of angels, or undeniable cosmic phenomena?
Not now, not in this dispensation — the miraculous stuff is scheduled for the last days, which are just around the corner. For now, it’s our job, or more correctly, our privilege.
How About You?
Is the Holy Spirit’s light shining out through you to a benighted world like a bright shining city on a hill — or, as described in Mark 4:18-20, is it hidden under the bucket of “the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things?”
“Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand — shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”
— Matthew 5:13-16
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.