We used to have a neighbor, Richard, whom we adopted as our \u201cgrandfather.\u201d We\u2019d have him over for dinner, bake him cookies, take him to dialysis, and help him maneuver around his house when he was bed-ridden. He joined us for Thanksgiving a couple years, and he occasionally attended our church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard wanted to believe in Jesus but had a hard time believing it could be so \u201ceasy.\u201d He\u2019d done a lot of terrible things in his life and didn\u2019t think he could get off the \u201chook\u201d so easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, we loved him and showed him Jesus until his last dying day when I prayed with him as he was lying unresponsive in his hospital bed. Before he passed, he asked me to officiate his funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When my family and I showed up to the funeral home, it was packed with no empty seats. Though he was an old divorcee who was crotchety at times, he\u2019d made a lot of friends over his long life. I gently preached my heart out, talking about the Jesus Richard wanted to believe in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nParticipating in evangelism is an all-of-life, fully embodied exercise.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
As I was reflecting on the experience later, I realized I\u2019d led probably the cheapest and most \u201csuccessful\u201d evangelistic meeting ever. There wasn\u2019t a single Adventist in the room, besides my family, and the vast majority weren\u2019t Christians at all. Many spoke to me after, sharing how they were so touched by the message, with a few starting to attend my church on occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Participating in evangelism is an all-of-life, fully embodied exercise. It\u2019s not simply something we preach, talking about propositional ideas. Preaching is good, but we never fully communicate the gospel apart from embodying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s why John 3:16 doesn\u2019t<\/em> say that when God loved the world, He sent a tract or handbill or YouTube sermon. He sent His Son<\/em>\u2014fully embodied, fully enfleshed. It\u2019s why John also records that Jesus \u201cbecame flesh\u201d and \u201cmoved into the neighborhood,\u201d as The Message<\/em> puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We wouldn\u2019t be able to fully understand God unless we encountered Him in the flesh. And God wouldn\u2019t have been able to save us simply by preaching<\/em>; it required an embodied act<\/em>\u2014the death of Jesus\u2014to secure our salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We must be people who not only verbally share \u201ctruth\u201d via evangelistic proclamation. We must live truth out as well if people are going to fully<\/em> encounter God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We used to have a neighbor, Richard, whom we adopted as our \u201cgrandfather.\u201d We\u2019d have him over for dinner, bake him cookies,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/blog-mu2306-devotional.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paAh8r-3De","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13964"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15455,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13964\/revisions\/15455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}