Being a witness for Christ means developing certain daily habits of thought and action and living them out in the world. These habits include:
Stewardship. Stewardship is part of what it means to be submitted
to God. All we have belongs to God when we have fully submitted to Him, so we
should view it all as being dedicated to serve Him.
The symbol of our financial surrender it tithing, or
percentage giving off the top. Ideally that means a minimum of ten percent, but
amount of the percentage does not matter as much as the principle of it. It is the symbolic “first fruits” of our
labors.
But tithing is not all that is meant by stewardship. The
rest of what we have belongs to God, too, and should be used in way that brings
glory to Him.
I have known people who felt led to give away all they own
to God’s work, and chose to lead a pauper’s existence. Many orders of monks and
nuns do this as part of their vows. Even
so for most people this is not what God has in mind. What He expects for most of us is something
much harder--to manage what we own in a way that it will all further the
kingdom of God. God has given each one of us authority over some small part of
the world, even if it is just the clothes on our back and the energy in our bodies.
Whatever is ours to control needs to be used to be a witness for Him.
In Matthew 25, Jesus told a parable about a man who gave
three servants piles of gold to invest.
Each one was to use that money to make more money. Two servants invested well and brought in a
substantial dividends. The third held his money back for fear of making bad
investments. The master took his money away, saying he was a poor steward
because he was more afraid of losing money than in displeasing his master. Fear or laziness kept him from completing his
task. Jesus told this story to remind us of our obligation to be a witness with
what God has given us, and to seek to bring greater glory to Him by investing
in the larger world.
This is true financially.
We should manage our investments in ways that bring the best yield, but also
be aware of the political and social ramifications of where we invest. The bottom line is not the only consideration. We should try to use our investments to do
good to the most people. It matters what companies we invest in, and how that
money will be spent.
It is even more so when we think of investing
our time, talents, and energy. We all
have a limited amount of each. Are we
managing them in ways that furthers God’s kingdom, or are we just spending them
on ourselves? It is true that we all need
rest and recreation, because it helps us to be productive. But do we work so we
can rest, or do we rest so we can work? we to have the right priorities.
Helping. Helping others is a deeply ingrained habit in people
of faith. When we see a need, it is our natural reaction to help, because that
is what Christ would do.
Christ’s healing and miracles were signs of His power and
divinity. But He never did them to show off His power. He preached, taught,
healed and delivered because He could not bear to look on human suffering
without doing what He could to help. He
would heal Gentiles and sinners, even though it was not His current job. He was called to minister first to the Jews,
but when a hurting Gentile came to Him, He stopped to help. He would heal people and tell them to keep it
quiet. There was no attempt to us miracles as advertisements for His
ministry. He helped others both publicly
and anonymously because He cared about them. It was His habit to help when He could.
To follow Jesus is to experience compassion for those who
are hurting, and try to help. We don’t always do the right thing even when we
help. Sometimes we are mistaken. We do
not always see a difference in people’s lives. But the habit of caring helps us
become more like Jesus, even when our help doesn’t make things better. It teaches us how to be more like Christ,
which in the long run will make us instruments of blessing to the world around
us.
Faith sharing the stewardship of our experience. Our
relationship with God is not meant to be kept ourselves. We were intended to share our testimony with
others. We need to learn to boldly say what
is on our minds and hearts.
But sharing our faith takes more than words. Trevor Hudson
in his book Discovering our Spiritual
Identity suggest that to be a witness, we should occasionally undertake a deliberate
“fast” from too many words. He suggest that we live close to unbelievers, be a
friend to them and seek to bless them, but wait to share our testimony until
they ask. “There is a strong tendency among Christ-followers” he writes “to
emphasize the role of talking. Yet
verbal witness can go wrong when it neglects the silent dimension.”[i] This is not to saw we should never boldly
share the faith—we certainly should! But if it is hard to be a verbal witness, it is even harder to live with such love for
others that they will want to hear what we have to say.
Even so, we should actively
work to share our faith and seek ways talk to others about it..
Peacemaking. The
church, often uses warlike imagery to describe its mission---campaigns. crusades,
victory, conquest. The Bible does occasionally use these terms, but more often
it uses the language of peace—proclamation, reconciliation, unity, grace, and
forgiveness. The purpose of the Gospel
is to bring the world into peace with God and with each other.
Jesus said “Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. “ Matthew
5:9.
Paul said in Romans 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
Also, in I Corinthians 5:18-19 “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to
himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that
is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
Peacemaking is one of the most dangerous occupations in the
world. Look at the list of famous peacemakers who have been martyred. To be a
peacemaker is to put oneself deliberately in the gap between two warring factions, which means
that we always take fire from both sides. Peacemakers fail more than they succeed. But
in the end, peacemaking is a witness to Christ, brought us to peace with God.
The ministry of peacemaking in our lives isn’t a call to
mark for disarmament, or even mainly to
make peace between nations, but to bring
peace into our small part of the world,
into families, work places, and neighborhoods.
Families have their own version of war. With divorce rates over fifty
percent, children estranged from families, and neighborhoods where people live
side by side for years and never know each other, peacemakers are needed to
reunite fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives. The church frequently needs peacemakers to
keep peace between ourselves. The church today is a disjointed array of individual
congregations and individuals who see themselves as purely independent. We need carpenters to unite it together in
love.
Activism.
Christians should be involved in making their world better. We don’t have to
agree on what “better” looks like. There
are committed Christians one all sides
of every political and social movement. We
frequently disagree about politics and economics. But the main concern we all
share is that Christ wants us to improve the conditions of the world around
us. Christian commitment to improve the
world has brought great improvements in life. This has occurred, not only
through breaking down immoral social structures, but also through modifying and
improving society to make it less cruel and exploitative. Christian capitalists
care about their workers and are interested in their employees’
well-being. Christian kings sought to
rule fairly and justly. In the days of slavery, Christian slaves became witnesses
to their masters, and sometimes won them over to Christ. While they were doing
this, other Christians were seeking to
abolish absolute monarchies and slavery.
Christians within and without the system, by living our Christ’s commands
were doing good where they were.
The key to being a successful witness in all areas of life
is to realize that witness isn’t something we do. It is something we are. It’s not about joining movements or upending
society, but about being an honest, loving representation of Christ where we
are today. Then, when God opens up an
opportunity to do good, doing it with all our hearts.
Where do you live out your faith in the world? How do you keep in the habit of being a
witness to others? I would love to hear
from you about it. Send me your comments and thoughts. While your at it, sharing this blog and subscribing to it would be very much appreciated.
[i][i] Trevor
Hudson Discovering Spiritual Identity: Practices for God’s Beloved, IVP,
Formatio Press, Downers Grove, Ill. 2010,
p. 128.
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