Is Apathy the new drug of choice?

This was posted from a friend of mine who has been going out witnessing with me. God is stirring her heart…

http://blog.myspace.com/ashadetooblonde

Thursday, December 28, 2006
Is apathy the new drug of choice?

By the Grace of God, I have spent the past few weeks talking with random people about their belief systems (something I pray to continue to do). I will admit there is a huge fear that accompanies me each time I approach someone I don’t know and throw out the question of eternity. Originally my fear stemmed from the lie that upon hearing my questions people would fire back a bunch of religious rituals they believed were true. The fear with this is that I am not very knowledgeable in other religions and, ultimately, their fancy rituals and verbatim would upstage my Jesus is Salvation speech, leaving me in the dust. To my surprise, I have yet to run across these fancy speaking, religious folk; on the contrary, I have discovered a land of apathy. People just don’t care about where they will spend eternity let alone how they will get there. They just don’t care! And what disturbs me the most is that the apathy of the world has fully infiltrated the church.

When is the last time the Church (with a capital C) has delivered a message about evangelism? Where is the evangelism? Is it not important enough to talk about even though most of the new testament is Paul’s trail of evangilism? It’s not a spiritual gift some of us are anointed with, nor is it an option. We are all called to be witnesses. My guess is most of us are familiar with Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Are we doing this? The sad reality is that we are not. We (and oh I am guilty of this) have found comfort in our Christian bubbles. We go to church, small group, bible study, and participate in a ’serve’ project over the weekend, but are we really sharing Jesus? Sure Jesus did these things, but we’re missing a huge part. Jesus spoke truth into people’s lives. Jesus did kind acts (grace), but he also spoke truth where truth was needed and I think we can all agree the world needs the truth.

It used to be that when Christians arrived into town people would turn from them uttering, “Ugh, the Christians are here to cause trouble again.” Meaning they were there to ask provocative questions, they were there to convey the wrath of God. Now when Christians arrive to town so many people clap their hand with joy and say, “Yea, the Christians are here to help us clean up after our hurricane!” Or “Yea, the Christians are here to give us clothing and food.” What happened to the Christians that are willing to be thrown into jail for the strength of their message? What happened to Paul? Sure clothing donation, food distribution, and hurricane relief are all good things, but how does this distinguish us from the humanitarians of this world? If we don’t present the Gospel of Jesus Christ does God get any glory from our good works?

We say we care, but do we care enough to do something? If we feared God more than we feared the world we would care enough to do something? If we really feared God we would be standing on the street corner sharing His Son with everyone that passed us by. We are called to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” (Mark 16:15). Jesus says to us, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matt 4:4). Don’t you think when our Lord Jesus Christ speaks that we should pay attention, that we should be obedient to His words? The way I see it (and trust me this is not an original thought), we all have tickets to heaven in our pockets and when we stand in front of God someday do we want our pockets to be full or empty?

I pray the fog of apathy clears from our minds and is replaced by a desire of obedience to share our Savior.

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