August 01st, 2019

ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN

“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the]knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.  As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine....”  
​Ephesians 4:13-14 NASB

The more we grow up in love, the less we will allow winds off doctrine to blow us apart.  We will settle down securely on the basic truths the Bible teaches and we won’t run away from people just because they don’t agree with us.  We will stop saying things like, “I can’t fellowship with the people in that church.  Our doctrinal differences are just too great.”  Instead, we will go visit them to receive the insights God has given them that are good, and to share with them what God has given us.

To do anything less than that is childish.

I don’t know about that, someone might say.  We sure don’t want to start associating with everyone.  Some of those groups don’t even believe in Jesus.”

I know they don’t.  That’s why we need to reach out to them!  Obviously, we can’t fellowship with them closely like we do our brothers and sisters in The LORD, but we can’t win them to Him by staying totally away from them, either.  We can’t tell them Jesus loves them if we won’t have anything to do with them. That’s why we haven’t been able to reach people like the Muslims and New Age folks.  We’ve hidden from them.  We’ve been afraid that if we get around them, their ungodly beliefs will rub off on us and taint us.

That could happen if we’re so immature and ignorant of the Bible that we don’t know why we believe what we believe.  But we shouldn’t be that immature.  We ought to get so strong in faith and in The WORD that we don’t have to perpetually protect ourselves from everyone else. What’s more, we need to grow up in love so that we care enough about them too risk their rejection, and tell them about Jesus.

That’s the attitude the Apostle Paul had.  He didn’t run away from people who were different from him.  He sought them out and said, “I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews….  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law….  I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19-22 NIV).

Love doesn’t run away and hide.  Love reaches out.  Love inspires us to become all things to all men, so that we can bring as many as possible into the kingdom of God.