As of the end of May, there were an estimated 6,792,467,727 people on this earth. Of that number, 305,924,270 are estimated to live in the United States.
When you begin to really process that number, it can be a little bit overwhelming. That is a lot of people, and in the midst of that we can begin to feel like we are just one in a million. Numbers tend to dictate much of what we do. We have become about how many friends we have, how much money we have, how much stuff we own and the like. It seems in all of this we lose sight of the only number that matters. That number is 1.
Compared to the population of the world 1 seems very insignificant, but it actually holds more weight in reality. You can do many things with the number 1. It takes 1 person to begin to dream of new things and purse them, 1 person to lead a group of people to accomplish a goal, 1 person to create this amazing world we live in and 1 Savior to die for 1 person.
We tend to get stuck sometimes on the amount of people that are important to God. Sometimes we feel like God is happy when we share His message with just a few of them. It’s hard for us to grasp, but God cares about all of the people on this world on an individual level. Jesus Christ came to die for all 6,792,467,727 people. We should never try to hold back what we believe and be willing to reach people.
If Jesus Christ came to die for each of us, then why should we keep that gift silent from the rest of the world? Jesus did not die for a everyone to allow us to not share the gift of eternal life with the people around us. We as Christians, true followers of Jesus, hold the responsibility of sharing the message of Christ with the world! We have been given a gift that is meant to be shared not to be held inside of us.
There are many ways to share this message with the world, some more effective than others. One thing is clear throughout the bible and that is Jesus’ message of love. When we are sharing this means that we should not be preaching something that goes against this. This includes messages that breed fear into new believers and make others want to come to Christ for fire insurance. Christ never took that approach and we really don’t know what it will be like. Instead of teaching about something we don’t understand, let us begin to teach of the love of God.
Christ has given us the gift of mercy and grace from our past sins. He has given us life, true life! So many people are living, but have yet to really live. One of the most effective ideas about sharing this gift comes from the magician Penn Jillette. After a show a man came up to him and started a conversation with him about his show. The man really showed interest in Penn’s acts and after a while handed him a Bible. He told the Penn that he was concerned about his eternal salvation. In the video that Penn posted about this conversation, he said:
““How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?”
You can view the whole video by going to this youtube link. We would encourage you to take a few moments to watch this to grasp the whole idea that he is talking about.
Over the next few weeks we want to invite you to discover a new way to share your faith with others and some common pitfalls we all end up in. We can do much on our own with God, but we can reach so many more people when we unite for a common purpose.
This week we challenge you to search your heart and spend some time praying for those who you know do not know the Lord. Be sincere in your prayers and earnestly desire for their salvation. If you don’t know someone, then we suggest looking for people who you may know or have mutual friends with and begin to pray about them. Lets go change a nation!
Dive Deep,
KC
