Evangelism, discipleship, Christianity. All words integral to each other, and practiced so seldom. Through the endless relationships and interactions across our days, limitless are the opportunities to point one another towards Christ. How might our interactions with others draw them nearer to the Spirit, or how could the way we model ourselves draw the attention of those we bear witness to? So frequently, we discount the attention others pay to our actions and diminish the capability of our actions. Is this mere ignorance of the capabilities of the social human, or is it removing the responsibility of our Acts 1:8 Commission? Likely, it is both.
Being a social creature, designed to respond based on those we are around, people respond to the difference that is the Living Spirit, just as they responded to the light that was Jesus Christ when He walked the Earth, just as they are invoked by the Logosโwhich persists both living and active. The humankind, called as ambassadors to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), bears witness to the Kingdom of Man, battling against the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2), yet through their daily walk, fall prey to the lie of monotony, the repetitive walk of a repeating world, believing their impact is not a cause for daily concern. This lie, that our life is called to mere survival, to handle the blows of this world, to walk in our day-to-day jobs, scrape by, perhaps have a family, and whither to dust with the legacy that we hobbled into a church service weekly, distracted by the concerns of the following week, is brought forth from the lies of the principalities (Eph. 6:12) creating a blinding to the daily calling of the Spirit.
What effect can mankind have? The call of the Lord, as ambassadors to this Kingdom not our own, is to bring forth the decree of the King: The Gospel of Christ, the Fall of Man, and the Will of the Lord. The role of an ambassador is not to relentlessly focus on their own pursuits, but on the orders of the kingdom’s rulerโAdonai. What bearing does this result have for the daily function of the Christ follower?
Daily, man’s pursuit must be on the people. Man’s actions model towards other men, presenting a framework contrary to that of this world’s set, one that will draw the attention of the lost and unlost world alike; it will create cause for question, for curiosity. Man’s interactions with others should point towards Christ and never cower behind the fears of rejection and the order of the world. Finally, man’s relationship with others should relentlessly present the case for Christ, never hiding the truth of His Gospel.
Our goal in our daily walk should be to make disciples for the Kingdom. This necessitates the Christians witnessing in their daily walk, in their recreation and occupation, in their family and assembly. They must point towards Heaven, showing the Light of the Holy Spirit that directs people to the living will of God, a natural desire men suppress. Through this constant pursuit, they will find both those receptive to His Word and those who radically oppose it, they will plant seeds and win converts, they will disciple these, and they will connect them with disciplemakers. Through our pursuits, we will find Christians in need, those who are begging for a home and the spiritual family God commanded we create and that the modern Christian rejects relentlessly.
The command of God is not single-fold, to make disciples, but tri-fold. To make disciples (Acts 1:8), to grow disciples (Matt. 28:20), and to be the Family of God (Gal. 6:2; Heb. 10:24-25).
Thus, the framework of God requires us to bear witness to those in every act we make, in every walk we take, directly to them and indirectly in how we bear the Spirit and Light of the Father; it demands we find these converts and strengthen their walk with God, taking them through the Word of God, as shepherds and mentors; it requires we see the Christians around us and to bear their burdens, to carry out the one-anothering modeled by the Christ, to sharpen iron on iron, and guide each other in the collective family of God as the Early Church represented through the New Testament of the Bible.
Again, the opportunities for this are never-ending. While we have relationships with those we love, we represent the Lord’s model to others, and they take notice. We have interactions with countless people with whom we can share the love and Gospel of Christ. We have numerous relationships with whom we have the command to share the Lord’s will and salvation. Around us are many Christians surviving alone, with whom we ought to bring back into the collective family of God. We ought to be the church, and surely more so, we must be.