Let Christ Be Preached!

The Apostle Paul said that there were those that preach Christ out of strife while he did it out of love. But he said that either way, whether Christ is preached out of love or out of strife, the important thing to him was that Christ was being preached.

Thanks to people like Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin who have not been shy about their faith, a lot of commentators have said a lot of things about God and Jesus and Christianity, most of it bad. There have been rude and downright insulting things said about them and Christ. However if we are to apply Paul’s statement here, then the important thing is not what they are saying about Jesus, but the fact that they are even speaking about Jesus. These are people who on a normal day would not even deign to talk about faith or Christianity but because people like Tim Tebow are not afraid to speak about Jesus, they also talk about Jesus. These are people who a lot of people listen to and even though they speak about God and Jesus derisively, in the end some of the people listening will take the step of wanting to know more about Jesus. I pray they find out the truth.

Paul prayed that God would help him not do anything that would bring shame on the name of Christ. We will all have an opportunity either today or sometime in the future, to speak about Jesus either verbally or by our actions. I think that should be the foremost thing on our minds. Not to do or say anything to bring shame to the name of Christ or to misrepresent him. This is because in the end, people will look at us and what we say or do and want to “preach” Christ. The least we can do is to put forward the truth so that people can make up their minds.  

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBow Press (www.westbowpress.com), a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal

The Big Picture

I remember buying the MercyMe album, Almost There with a sense of excitement. I had just discovered a love for Christian rock thanks to "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay. I loved the album (I still do) but I think the thing that touched me the most were the testimonies of people who were blessed by the songs on the album, especially by the song "I Can Only Imagine". Personally, I think that is one of the greatest songs ever written. I remember the story sent in by someone who said that her grandmother who was dying of cancer had the CD playing in her room with that particular song playing repeatedly. And she had a smile on her face. This was a 70-something year old woman who was supposed to be feeling sorry for herself because of what she was going through. Instead she was dying with a smile on her face. I will always remember that story. If only we could all face life the same way she faced death. With a smile.

It seems that we all get through life with an expectation of the worst happening. I remember reading Ted Dekker's The Slumber of Christianity and he was saying that we seem to be living joyless lives here on earth because we have lost sight of the joy that awaits us in Heaven. We seem to be living lives encumbered by the sheer hard work it is going through life here that we seem to have no time for joy. Everyday when we turn on the news, we are bombarded with stories about disasters. Disasters which though happen on a large scale, seem to mirror the chaos in our own lives. If only we could see the bigger picture like Jesus.

The Bible says that for the joy that was set before him, he despised the shame on the cross. I think the major problem we have is that we think that we are human beings with spirits who have a spiritual experience when we go to church or pray. However we need to understand that we are spiritual beings having an earthly experience. Life may be hard but we should rejoice that one day, we will go back home to our Father. The book of Proverbs says that we are pilgrims, travellers in this world and that one day we will all go back home. That is the bigger picture. That is our goal. The Bible says that God sees the end from the beginning. He sees the end and then He starts the process. We are more like him than we really know. We also need to see the bigger picture. Visualise the end from the beginning. And then run towards the end.


JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBow Press (www.westbowpress.com), a division of Thomas Nelson publishers. You can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal