Saint Francis said something to the effect -- Preach Jesus everywhere you go, and when necessary use words -- or -- Preach the Gospel; use words if necessary --. Does this mean to use words only if necessary? – NO! It means to edify Christ at every reasonable opportunity with words, but act CHRIST like in everything you do.
In today’s world, certainly more so than in St. Francis’ time, Christians go everywhere in the world, can they preach Gospel words at every encounter with another person(?) – NO! It’s not humanly possible, especially in today’s world with our modern travel. Can they present a Christ like demeanor everywhere they go(?) – YES! At the very least we are called to endeavor to do so, even if we fail sometimes.
Is St Francis' admonition limited to the actual physical places we go(?) – NO! In his day he was pretty much talking about the physical places Christian’s went. St Francis could go somewhere where he was not physically present by written word, or he could send word by way of another person. Today, Christian’s have many encounters with other people all around the world, by many means other than a physical encounter by physically being there or physically going there. The other day I called on my No. California, USA -- DSL service and got a service representative in India, I wasn’t physically there, but, within in the meaning of -- Preach Jesus everywhere I go --, I was there, and I had an obligation to conduct myself in a Christ like manner.
Now, you’d think that this would be easy to do, well, on the first call it was exceedingly easy to do, but, you see, there was nothing wrong with my DSL phone line service, and it was not until after several calls, over a few day, maybe 2 or 3 or 4 hours on the phone over several days, did I realize that it was not my DSL service at all, but rather, that my DSL modem was shot. You see, we live kinda out in the boonies, in a town of about 5,700, it had started to rain and when it rains we usually have trouble with our phone service, so when the DSL started to act up shortly thereafter I thought it was the DSL phone line and didn’t give it a thought that it might be my couple of years old DSL modem instead.
When I called the first time, it took 20 or 30 minutes to get our internet service up and running again, well, it didn’t last very long, and the internet was out again, and again, and again, etc. I called again, and we got it going again. This went on for several days (2 or 3 or 4, I didn’t keep track). After a few days of doing this, and several calls (8 to 10 perhaps) each time I’d unplug the modem and plug it in again to reset the modem the power light on the modem lit-up fine until near the end when it would barely light up, this was my first clue that the problem was probably caused by our hardware failure and not the phone company’s phone line service. I don’t think that I mortified Jesus with the tech-support people in India, but it was tough to be Christ like when I was angry at the phone company because of the lousy service they provided me because I live in the boonies (of course, in reality they had nothing to do with it). I went down and got a new modem and our internet service has been working fine ever since, the condition of the phone line (apparently good) notwithstanding.
For the purposes of Saint Francis’ admonition, you can look at it two ways, either I was in India with the tech-support people by my phone call, or they were here, either way, did I preach words(?) no, did I act Christ like, I tried and I hope that I did, if I didn’t, Jesus forgive me, Amen. Did they know that I was Christian, I don’t think so, did I have an opportunity to proselytize Jesus with spoken words to the tech-persons on the other end of the phone, not realistically, but I did have the opportunity to pray for those several persons over in India, did I take advantage of this opportunity, NO! In this I embarrassed Jesus, and missed my opportunity then to engage the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Please Jesus, work the miracle of preparing the hearts of the tech-people that I talked to a few weeks ago regarding my DSL service for salvation, then bring someone into their lives to preach with words the Gospel of eternal life with the Trinity, through Jesus alone. In Your name, Amen.
How many opportunities a day do we have to preach Jesus to people through prayer, ten, twenty, thirty(?), easily. As Christians we can pray, in a single prayer, for, in the neighborhood of, 4.5 to 5 billion lost souls around the world. Lead us to do it Jesus, Amen
I don't have any idea how many people I will reach with this blog, it is really up to the Holy Spirit of God Himself to cause this to happen. I believe that His Holy Spirit calls me to write this blog and turn the rest over to him, to His glory alone. "So, . . . whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." [bolding mine] 1 Cor. 10:31, NIV We Christians are called to never embarrass Jesus in everything we do.
Agape, Ric copyright 2011
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