It is God’s desire that all people come to faith in Christ. Second Peter 3:9 states, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” We are to be His instrument to bring this about.
At Washington Christian Center, our emphasis was designed to provide a model for the unbeliever to see what a relationship to Christ produces. While the unbeliever was drawn by what he saw, what he saw should have been the Christ in us. The Christ in us should have been so evident that it drew him to the Savior.
If we proclaimed that Christ was the answer to life’s problems, the unbeliever should have been able to see the truth of this in real-life, everyday examples within our Christian community.
God has given us the ministry of reconciliation. He expects the believer to be His representative in the earth, bringing sinners to repentance and faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. We are to be the “Light of the World” and the “Salt of the Earth.” Our light is to shine before others so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.
Doing the work of the ministry is the process of reconciling lost people to Christ. This was our reason for being. But we understood that we could not be effective in this if we were not being brought to maturity ourselves.
We were to be examples of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. Doing the work of the ministry was an outgrowth of that maturing process. We had to be ready to give an answer to every person who asked us a reason for the hope that was in us.
We became less concerned with the number of programs we had and more concerned with allowing God to use us where He had placed us to win others to Christ, while remaining committed to the programs in place to evangelize the lost.
The church needs to show the world that Christians are people of character and integrity. Jesus has charged us to be His witnesses. Our desire was that others would see Christ in us and be drawn to Him.
