Are you sharing the Good News?
Chester is a small city in the Northwest of the United Kingdom, an hour from Manchester and on the boarder of North Wales. The city is enclosed in Roman walls and even boasts its own coliseum! If you walk round the city on the walls at the moment you will encounter various pieces of penned graffiti: “It’s not over”, “There is hope,” “IGWT” “God is in Control” and the sign of the cross. Someone is trying to get the attention of the wall walkers… God!
Although I don’t encourage you to deface your city, sometimes it only takes a simple message, or a small question to make someone think, seek, and encounter Jesus. A “God bless you”, as you walk past a stranger. A deep question, in any conversation or just to a passer by, “Where does your hope come from?”. A cross, as a gift to anyone. At our church we have holding crosses and a gospel packaged together for people to give out to any and all.
THE message of Jesus is the most important and powerful we can ever tell. But there always seems to be something holding us back. Spreading the Good News is costly.
Chester still has Roman soldiers! They take school children on tours of the city and do battle reenactments. Recently, I stood on the edge of the Coliseum watching the ‘Roman’ soldiers fighting, getting ready for battle.
Are you ready?
As I stood watching, my thoughts were drawn back to the early church, coliseums were not strange places to the followers of The Way. Nearly all of Jesus’ disciples were martyred for sharing the Gospel.
In our increasing hostile world, the cost is growing. All over the world Christians continue to be martyred and heavily persecuted. In the West we pray for the persecuted church in other places and will continue to do so. But we are also becoming the persecuted church. Preaching the Gospel and standing for Truth can cost you everything. More and more we are hearing of stories of those whose lives are being torn apart. Even if you don’t read news in the United Kingdom, look around in your neighbourhood. There is division and destruction in and by the world, but it is in the Body of Christ, the Church, too.
We may lose everything in this life, including our lives, but “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Matthew 8.35 (ESV)
Is God worth your everything?
What is holding you back from sharing the Gospel of Good News?
Tabitha is an Inspire Missioner in the UK.
