The issue now is whether we will have the conviction to confess what we believe and confess the name of Jesus alone as Savior and Lord.
The New Testament brims with the joy and the wonder of plain folks who have encountered the living Lord. They know who he is, what he has done for them, and are compelled — not by force but by joy — to go out and tell everyone they can find about him. Jesus Christ — who he is and what he has done — consumes them.
The church has gotten a bit timid about using the name of Jesus. Some believe it is offensive to people of other faiths. Others may have internal doubts about its universal truth, the result of the vast deconstruction effort that has gone on inside and outside of the church for decades. Yet others are frankly embarrassed by how some Christians have acted “in the name of Jesus.”
We must get over this timidity. If we do not bear witness to the gospel in every situation that we find ourselves, who will?
Honesty demands that Christians, by the very fact that they confess with Paul, “. . . it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians: 2:20), are by grace to live as witnesses in word and deed to the One who is Lord. We are to do so in a culture that will likely reject us for this witness. Yet not to say that word and live that deed is an offense against Christ and the gospel.
This is the third in a series of five editorials by Editor Robert H. Bullock Jr. The first is Jesus Christ: An Apology and the second is “A Testimony, the fourth is Life and the fifth is The Issue. .”
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