Being The Christ In Somebody's Life

What do evil motives produce?

From what I can gather in James 2:1-4 and James 2:1-10, evil motives can produce, but are not limited to...

*Fighting

*Quarreling

*Ignoring our neighbor in need

*A hardened heart

*Selfish motives

*A “Me” attitude (everything I do should be for my own benefit)

In James 2:1-13, we are to be a light in this world by treating our neighbors as Christ Jesus taught us to treat them. That is with the motive of “loving our neighbor as yourself.” We obviously love ourselves enough to have those moments when we say, “I can’t do that.” Why? Maybe it’s a health issue, it’s a moral issue, or we just don’t want to do it. Now we can have self loathing tendencies, but that’s another lesson. Clearly in some shape or form we love ourselves. So are we to love our neighbors. And evil motives do not produce that type of love.

So what we find in James 4:1-10 is that evil motives also causes us to be a friend to the world. What does being a friend to the world even mean?

In the simplest form, it means that we become like the world, which in biblical terms usually, if always, means evil. The world has natural evil motives. No one ever had to teach you or me to do menacing things when we were little. It came very naturally. J

So when we think of being friends with the world, imagine blending into a crowd in a room. There are two groups in this crowd we can blend into: Christian and non-Christian. Based on how we talk, treat others, and go about our day, if we blend into the Christian groups, then we are true believers in Christ; we have good motives in what we do. If we blend into the non-Christian group, we are walking a fine line as Christians; we have evil motives. And we know what those evil motives look like. Just look back at James 2:1-13 and James 4:1-10.

The question now is “how do we witness to a lost world if we cannot become a part of it or be friends with it? No one is going to listen to us, are they?” The answer is yes and no.

Go to 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12.

In this passage, we learn that living a holy life is noticed by God, and can you believe it: Non-Christians.

“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

I strongly believe looking blameless in front of the world is going to gain a lot more appeal and respect than the Christian on the platform. The world relates to what they recognize as truth.

It’s okay to share Scripture and try to encourage someone who is not a Christian. It’s just a lot harder because they don’t have that mentality or mindset on the hope within us. Just recently, a friend of mine said that he had a lady from his parents’ church tell him she was praying for him. He told me, “I don’t know what that means.” And I really didn’t blame him. When someone tells me they are praying for me, as Christian, I find that amazing, and I am so thankful for it. For someone who doesn’t believe in the power of our God, it’s not so much a compliment or anything for that matter.

See God’s word can do a lot of things. It can discipline us. It can encourage us. It can guide us. It can also convict non-Christians (just like we all once were) to turn to Christ. Thing is, when we look at some parts of the Bible, some of it is meant for Christians to hear and understand, not non-believers.

I mean it isn’t a secret that the Bible says gay marriage is wrong or instructions on how masters should treat their slaves were discussed. Thing is, it isn’t really until we know God that we can understand why he set things into place or had the writers of Scripture discuss such topics. Something like slavery was discussed not because God believed it was right, but because he wanted to make sure that if the culture was going to do it, to at least treat their slaves with mercy and respect. To put a blanket over issues in the world, God would be ignoring people who so desperately needed him, and we know from Scripture that is not a part of his ways.

All this said, 1 Corinthians 2:14 teaches us that non-Christians are not going to see the truth of God. Therefore telling nonbelievers what God says in his word, or even trying to convey reasoning sometimes doesn’t go well because of the blindness nonbelievers have. So first off, I want to say don't be discouraged. God can use whatever you say to someone no matter how they react at the moment. Sometimes people do not feel like speaking to us afterwards, but that's alright. Even Jesus offended people with the truth. Secondly, try to study Scripture as much as your can. It's important to know what we are talking about, as well as being able to explain the hope within us. Sometimes I think we get carried away in explaining something (I am guilty of this) that we are not speaking from a biblical perspective, but from our own biases and opinions. If I don't know what to say at the moment, I try to swallow my pride and tell the person I can get back to them. Sometimes it's not the right time to say something. All that said, grow deeper in God, and when the time comes for us to speak up (whether from a conversation with somebody or a question from them), we can speak truth, and not manipulate anything to just be throwing pearls to swine. (Matthew 7:6)

But when it's all said and done, I think what it comes down to is that non-believers see various things from the Bible that are either intimidating or seem unfair.

Our job as believers is to show that there is nothing intimidating or cruel about being a Christian; that is knowing our God.

Recall 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12.

First we have to make the gospel of Christ appealing by proving to others that our lives are transformed for the good by knowing Jesus Christ. If we are not living according to the word (not always being joyful, not loving our neighbors, not seeking the good of others before our own), how is the gospel of Christ going to be seen to a non-believer? It’s not going to look good, let alone realistic to live by.

Going back to the James passages, where evil motives distract us from doing what God says, we have to remember that our testimonies as Christians give a purpose and appeal to believing in Jesus. This should kind of motivate us to have good motives in our lives. To win others to Christ.

We can show non-Christians how wonderful it is to know our savior by being blameless. Living for his glory. Being obedient to him. Living in a manner that anyone could respect. And ultimately being the Christ in people’s lives who do not know him. The world may not recognize Christ right away in us. But what they hopefully will recognize is integrity. The purity in us. The honorable behavior we keep.

And as you may recall, Jesus went into ministry late in life. His life before was spent building a reputation of integrity. One that was so solid that the only way people could really tear him down was to lie about him or misinterpret his sayings. This is how it should be for us as believers. Honorable reputations that no one should be able to point out the evil motives within us.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mind you, this is one way to keep a firm testimony to others. I would like to share more of what I have either discovered or thought about soon. I just would like to study more. It's always a blessing to be able to talk to people about our faith. Don't you agree? The key I find is to be open to hear whatever comes out of a person's mouth. Being offended or turning the conversation into a debate or argument is not going to let someone see Christ. If anything, listen to what they say, and see what truth lies within those person's words. Most often I see someone who had a bad church experience to know who Christ was or I see bitterness towards God translated into the church body. Keep an open mind, but protect yourself with God's truth and a support system. What you believe is the most important thing. Not what someone believes. If you cannot handle witnessing to a person, God will know this, and surely send someone else to be a messenger to that person. Just trust in him every step of the way.