This month Impact Church is in a series called, Impact DNA. DNA stands for Developing the Needed Attributes.
The needed attributes for what? You say.
It’s all about the attributes common in the spiritual genes of any true Christ follower and vibrant Christ honoring church as well as the mission to which Christ has called us as a local body of believers.
At Impact, we use 5G’s to help us remember the five things we are called to do both as individuals and as a church body. They are;
Glorify
Go
Grow
Give
Gather
The first week we talked about Glorify and you can listen to the podcast on iTunes by looking up my name in the search box and clicking on the my picture that has “Impact Church Audio” written below it. Or, you could just click here.
This past week we talked about “Go” and this week I will write a couple posts with some additional thoughts on Go (evangelism).
First of all, the call to go out and reach a lost and dying world with the good news is an all inclusive call. No Christ follower gets to opt out for any reason—fishing for men (the lost) is the family business, and all beleivers are part of the family.
Next, God expects us all to show up for work—not for the heavy lifting of evangelism to only be done by your pastor or Billy Graham.
Then, Jesus expects us to be joyful about it. In fact, He often goes a step further in His commandments by insisting we love.
- Love Him
- Love Others
He doesn’t present it as a choice. Like I said, it’s a command.
So what are you going to do to start loving others this week?
I can already FEEL the panic in the air as some of you think,
“You can’t make me love someone! I have to feel it! How am I supposed to feel it when someone is barking orders at me?!”
Slow down. You are more capable of fulfilling this commandment than you think. Love is an action, not a feeling. Whenever I hear someone tell me they need to “FEEEEEEEEEEL IT” before they can act like it, I know they’ve spent time in the Hollywood Institute of Learning. The one that teaches us to wait for the butterflies in our stomach before loving.
May I suggest something. Try the School of the Bible. By commanding us to love Him and then others, God (Who cannot lie) isn’t giving us a hurdle we can’t jump over. He isn’t even giving us a hurdle. He’s simply telling us to breath, to eat, to drink. Love is an action.
Start acting like you love and the feeling will come.
Don’t care much for lost people right now?
Start acting like you do;
- Spend time with them
- Help them
- Invite them to Impact Church
- Listen to them
- Encourage them
- Love them
And before you know it you really will.