Originally Posted by Esaias
Nothing I have said or suggested neglects Calvary!
Here's what I am saying: When the Gospel is presented to people, it must include the idea of discipleship. The Gospel is not the gospel of 'get your ticket punched so you can die and go to heaven.' That is 'easy believism', whether we say 'repeat this prayer and that's what will get you heaven' or whether we say 'come and get baptised and filled with the Holy Ghost, that's what will get you to heaven.' When we take that approach, we create self centered professors of religion who more often than not fall away rather quickly.
The Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. It has a Message: God is King, you have broken the laws of His Kingdom, and as a rebel you will be punished, but Christ has died for you and rose again so that you can have your sins blotted out and you can become a fine, upstanding citizen of His Kingdom, meaning you can be justified and declared righteous.
If when we present the gospel to people we make it clear we are talking about them getting involved in something bigger than themselves, bigger than you or me, that the call to follow Jesus is the call to be a part of the Kingdom of God which is eternal, if we make it plain that the call to follow Jesus is a call to be a part of what He is doing in this earth, a call to come out from among the world and become one of the Lord's people, to become part of the family of God, then people will understand that being baptised into the name of the Lord is not all about them and them alone. But that it's about being adopted into the family of God, being made part of the 'commonwealth of Israel', that it's about being made part of the Bride and Church of Christ.
In John's Gospel we read about people being baptised. In ch 3 and 4 it talks about those who were becoming disciples of Jesus, they were being baptised. Becoming a disciple, following the Master, joining in with the community of the faithful (the church), is inseperable from being baptised.
Christ died to redeem a people unto himself. Not just individuals, but A PEOPLE. As individuals we are saved and are made part of a community, an ekklesia (church) which is a gathering TOGETHER of people called out from the world.
When people are ready to be baptised, to make a commitment to SERVE AND FOLLOW JESUS, they ought to have counted the cost first, just like Jesus said to do. The cost is to die to oneself. To die to one's own personal plans, schemes, and dreams for oneself. Jesus said we have to be willing to forsake it all, to hate mother, father, sister, brother, yea and our own life also, in order to be his disciple. And anyone putting their hand to the plow and looking back is not fit for his kingdom.
That's a pretty serious commitment. Committing to Jesus is the single most serious and important commitment a human being can possibly make. Yet, many people put far more thought into what they will have for dinner than they do into what their ETERNAL destiny will be. Because they think of their eternal destiny as a destinATION instead of a WAY, and a LIFE.
And the fault is almost certainly in the lap of whoever is presenting the gospel to them.
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