What Is Success In Evangelism?

In an age when true evangelism is considered passe or unsophisticated by its cultured despisers, may we believers never adopt such corrupt thinking.  In a retrograde culture where right is considered wrong, and God is said to be irrelevant, may we believers shine as lights in this present darkness.

     "What is success in evangelism?  Is it when the person you witness to comes to Christ?  Certainly that's what we want to happen.  But if this is success, are we failures whenever we share the gospel and people refuse to believe?  Was Jesus an "evangelistic failure" when people like the rich young ruler turned away from Him and His message?  Obviously not.  Then neither are we when we present Christ and His message and they turn away in unbelief.  We need to learn that sharing the gospel is successful evangelism.  We ought to have an obsession for souls, and tearfully plead with God to see more people converted, but conversions are the fruit that God alone can give. 
     In this regard we are like the postal service.  Success is measured by the careful an accurate delivery of the message, not by the response of the recipient.  Whenever we share the gospel (which includes the summons to repent and believe), we have succeeded.  In the truest sense, all biblical evangelism is successful evangelism, regardless of the results."

-from "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life" by Donald S. Whitney, p.103.

Just Another Dirty Forehead

 Drive By Ash Wednesday Blessing

Be sure not to value symbolism over substance.  Ashes on the forehead without repentance in the heart is just a dirty forehead.  "I gave up chocolate for Lent." What, exactly, does that get you?  I see much popular sentiment as an extension of New Year's Resolutions: often a nice idea, with somewhat less nice follow up or commitment. 

Repentance is a turning away from sin, disobedience, or rebellion and a turning back to God.  It is an act of turning around and going in the opposite direction.  In Luke 5:32 Jesus says, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  What does He mean here?  Who are the righteous?  Why can't they repent?

The righteous in this context are those who choose symbolism over substance.  They prefer to look righteous on the outside.  They have the Law without the Spirit.

The basic fact about people is that we are sinners! 

Repentance is a "godly sorrow" for sin, specifically and generally, and personally.  This leads to a profound "substantive" reality.  This leads to a fundamental change in a person's relationship to God. 

In the preaching of the New Testament Gospel, we hear John the Baptist say in Matthew 3:2, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  But in v.8 he also says, "Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance." Don't imagine that there is some other way to become righteous in God's sight, John says, by ethnicity or by culture.  Rather, one has to repent and then prove it. 

You see, the good news of salvation and repentance are inextricably linked.  Jesus preached the same way as John, as in Matthew 4:17 he says, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."  In Jesus' message we realize that repentance and faith are "two sides of the same coin."  Repentance is turning away from sin, faith is turning towards God. 

So this is it: repentance + faith = conversion = salvation. 

If you go to receive the ashes tomorrow (drive-by or otherwise!), be sure to carry the desire for true repentance with you.  That way you can have both the substance and the symbolism, and you'll end up with more than just a dirty forehead!

Why I Went On Mission To Jamaica

"...if we would not be infinitely parochial, and thus fail in true virtue, then our private life, our public life, and our global life must be driven not by a narrow, constricted, merely natural self-love, but by passion for the supremacy of God in all things--a passion created through supernatural new birth by the Holy Spirit, giving us a new spiritual taste for the glory of God--a passion sustained by the ongoing, sanctifying influences of the Word of God--and a passion bent on spreading itself through all of culture and all the nations until Christ comes."

John Piper, God's Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards, p.113, 1998

CT Learning to Count to One

Consider this timeless article from a few years back: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/februaryweb-only/learningcountone.html