The Church's Mission

In discussing the nature of the one church, I was recently asked, “If you truly believe that the church of Christ is the only church that has salvation correct, why is the church of Christ not doing more to save people?” As the church of Christ is the only church Jesus established, then surely it is the only one that teaches how to be saved. The question he posed though is the one that is hard to deal with. If we know we are teaching what the Bible teaches, why are we not doing more to save people?

In his book, Preachers, Wake Up!, brother J.J. Turner notes that “[t]he mission of the church has been devalued. Instead of going into the world to preach the gospel (Mark 16:15), the world must be brought to the church.” This is surely a great delineation from the mission of Christ. Jesus came to SEEK and save the lost (Luke 19:10). Jesus did more searching for people than letting people search for Him.

It’s easy to say, “Well I invited him to church, and he didn’t show up,” to ease the guilt we all share in our lack of evangelism, but we will still be responsible for what we fail to do. We can always be more evangelistic and there will always be missed opportunities, but saying, “Well you should come to services” is not real evangelism. We need to be active in preaching and teaching the Gospel, engaging people in Biblical discussions and studying the Bible with them, not throwing out an invitation and hoping it sticks. Let us follow the mission of Jesus to SEEK and save the lost. If we don’t do it, who will?

The Bible and Self-Esteem

For many, the concept of self-esteem might be something that seems unimportant in our Christian life, or at least not a top priority. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Granted, the Christian’s self-esteem should not be based on worldly popularity, appearance, education or any other temporal issue, though certainly these things still trouble the earthly nature of man, but the Bible does speak about man having a good self-image of himself.

The Christ commanded that each one of us “love your neighbor as yourself.” This would first imply that I love myself and who I am. God expects us to have a healthy self-image so that we can also treat others properly. Surely we all know that how we feel about ourselves affects our actions. When we feel depressed about who we are, we’d much rather hide in a room than be out and active.

Godly self-esteem can be gained through remembering that if we have obeyed the Gospel we have been forgiven of sins and are reconciled with God. One should also remember that we are made in God’s image and though we are lowly, He give us His attention and blessings.

If we are right with God, we have no reason to dislike ourselves. Negative feelings toward ourselves will only have a negative impact on work in the Lord’s kingdom. Let’s remember His love, and love ourselves as we serve God in all things.