rl69
08-11-2016, 06:22 AM
Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love."—Revelation 2:4 (http://harvest.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=4f108f827aed8d503b5fca9fa&id=3db6b7b55f&e=3dd732485b)If you want to experience revival in your life, then hang out with a brand-new believer. It is the best thing you can do for your own spiritual health. A brand-new believer is fired up and has questions that will have you digging back into the Scriptures again. You stabilize that new Christian, and he or she reenergizes you. Everyone benefits.
On the other hand, if you hang around with jaded Christians, with those who have even become cynical, then you need some new friends. Sometimes people worry about new believers not changing quickly enough, but I am more concerned with older believers who have stopped changing altogether. They are settled in their ways. Maybe they have traded in old vices like immorality, drinking, drugs, or profanity and replaced them with new ones like pride, backbiting, gossip, or bitterness.
I find it interesting that 80 to 90 percent of the Christians who personally share their faith have been believers for two years or less. In other words, most people who come to Christ through personal evangelism have done so because someone young in the faith shared the gospel with them.
I think this is because new believers are still discovering what God has done for them. They are still excited about it. As we get older in the faith and have walked with the Lord for a time, we start taking these things for granted sometimes. That means we need revival. We need to be brought back to that place where we once were, where we realize how important it is to share with others what Jesus has done for us.
If we have no desire to share our faith, then we need personal revival. Revived people are evangelistic people because their evangelism is a result of a Christ-filled life.
On the other hand, if you hang around with jaded Christians, with those who have even become cynical, then you need some new friends. Sometimes people worry about new believers not changing quickly enough, but I am more concerned with older believers who have stopped changing altogether. They are settled in their ways. Maybe they have traded in old vices like immorality, drinking, drugs, or profanity and replaced them with new ones like pride, backbiting, gossip, or bitterness.
I find it interesting that 80 to 90 percent of the Christians who personally share their faith have been believers for two years or less. In other words, most people who come to Christ through personal evangelism have done so because someone young in the faith shared the gospel with them.
I think this is because new believers are still discovering what God has done for them. They are still excited about it. As we get older in the faith and have walked with the Lord for a time, we start taking these things for granted sometimes. That means we need revival. We need to be brought back to that place where we once were, where we realize how important it is to share with others what Jesus has done for us.
If we have no desire to share our faith, then we need personal revival. Revived people are evangelistic people because their evangelism is a result of a Christ-filled life.