God Told You and You're Responsible

Today's blog post is exclusively for Christians.

Have you ever had a moment in life when you felt burdened for someone you know? What did you do with that burden?

There are typically only three things that you can do: Chase after that person and meet their need, ignore it and hope it goes away, or ask someone else to help them. Which do you think is the right choice to make?

The last two are what most Christians, especially in America, do. I'll admit, I've done all three to varying degrees. And, that would make me wrong about 2/3 of the time.

I've been involved in the church for nearly two decades, and one of the most consistent themes I have witnessed is the reluctance of believers to tell their friends about Jesus. Instead, the tendancy for believers is to hide behind the excuse of prayer (more on this in a moment), or pass their burden on to their church leaders.

Now, on the "excuse of prayer," don't misunderstand, praying for people is a vital part of reaching them for Jesus. However, if all we do is pray for them, but never actually tell them about Jesus, we are defeating the purpose. Sometimes, without meaning to, we make prayer the excuse for not physically telling our friends about Christ.

In the end, we either ignore or pray the burden away.

At other times, because sharing Christ can be tense and nerve-wracking, we tend to revert to the other other option of passing our burden to the church professionals.

We'll go to the pastor, youth pastor or small group leader and tell them about this person we know who needs Jesus. When we do this, we're essentially asking the "church professional" to take our burden from us and make it theirs. Typically, this is done by asking the pastor (or others) to go visit our friend.

I say all of that to lead up to pointing out that these two approaches are the wrong way to go about it. God burdens us with the people he was US to witness to. It is our burden and our duty to share Christ, not just ignore it until it goes away or hope our pastor will win them over.

Romans 10:14 says, "how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?"