MY DESIRE TO PROCLAIM JESUS CHRIST
PART 3
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
This is the last writing pertaining someone’s question to me, who asked the following question:
“How can I, without appearing to be fanatic, easily talk to people about Jesus?
I burn with the desire to talk to people about Jesus but I never know how to begin.”
I want to begin by saying:
One thing I must state very clearly –
Someone who has a true loving relationship with Jesus Christ, following my understanding of the Word, can never but never be a passive follower of Jesus.
Maybe you cannot speak well but you can possibly become involve in your congregation or with one or other Christian charity organisation and in doing so help to spread the Gospel of Jesus. Or, and I say this with a smile on my face –
Maybe you can only write a cheque. Make a good ‘job’ of that.
Subsequently I also share with you the following with all what you have read in the previous two writings to confirm from the Word what I have already said and still saying:
1 PE 3:14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.”
1 PE 3:15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
ROM 10:9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
ROM 10:10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Why do you and I have this burning desire in our hearts to testify about our God and our Redeemer Jesus Christ?
Because we truly love our Lord and we know:
JOHN 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
JOHN 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
With this knowledge in mind, it makes good sense for us, Jesus’s followers, to reason this way:
ROM 10:13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
ROM 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
I just want to mention the following again:
There are many intelligent people who have some or other clever theories and want to explain this or that in Christianity.
You and I do not have to try to be clever, or whatever you want to call it.
Make sure that you are familiar with the following 7 points that I have already shared with you, and leave the rest up to the Holy Spirit.
Believe me –
If the Holy Spirit wants you to know more complicated things, He will make sure you know what you need to know and when you need to know that what you must know.
For now, tell the people:
That God the Father sent His only begotten Son to earth to save mankind:
JOHN 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
That Jesus Christ was born of a virgin:
MAT 1:23 The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”.)
That He died on the cross for our sins:
1 PE 2:24 He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
1 PE 2:25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls..
That He rose from the dead:
ROM 14:9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
That He ascended into Heaven:
ACTS 1:9-11
9 After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
That Jesus will return:
ACTS 1:11 “… This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
That Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father and to Eternal Life:
JOHN 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
If they want to know more, or they ask you what they must do to become part of this great truth, you must say to them:
ACTS 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So my friends –
Remember do this always in the love of Jesus and under the guidance of the wisdom the Holy Spirit gives us:
2 TIMOTHY 4:1-5
1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:
2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Greetings,
Sakkie