59. The Gospel — A Living Force
Today’s reading: “The Ministry of Healing” pp. 99.
Yesterday we finished with the power of personal witness and service, today we see the mechanism behind that power. We see the method of reaching our non-believing neighbours. And it isn't what I used to think!
Too often we take from this story that we need to go out to secular people (the swine herders and Gentiles — with a very different worldview to us) and tell them what Jesus has done for us. Wrong!
Yes, for sure we are to give our testimony. But who do we give it to? Jesus told the healed demoniacs’
Go back home to your own people, and report to them…
So the principle is that we give our testimony to people like us, our family, our friends. They may reject Christ Himself, but to us “they (will) not refuse to listen” (p. 98).
Read the story carefully in light of Luke 10:2 when Jesus commissioned the 70 evangelistic medical missionaries, who were to prepare the way for Him.
He told them: “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.
So the first job of workers for Christ is to pray for labourers and workers who are able to reach people we can’t.
The order of presenting the gospel is:
- Stay in one place long enough to find people to “heal” (Luke 10:7–9). People who responds to our message that they can change and that God loves them.
- Let these “healed” people go “into the camp of the disloyal” with their living testimony on God’s mercy on the most unworthy and His transforming power.
- Then, when they are ready (and there may be thousands) we can present the gospel. Obviously in light of the testimony, the gospel is a living force to change the life. We emphasise the gospel’s 3 “R”s:
- Reclaimed — salvation, sozo
- Restored — a Christlike character (p.17)
- Reinstated — to the “holy privileges of (God’s) sons and daughters”
