How politics and social media are harming evangelism …

If you don’t know God, or don’t have a biblical understanding of God, then you may envision an angry deity hurling lightning bolts at humans He doesn’t like or is mad at.

Fortunately, that’s not the God of the Bible.

That doesn’t mean that God isn’t a just God, that God doesn’t get angry, or that there isn’t such a thing as the “wrath of God,” But it doesn’t take a scholarly exploration of scriptures to decipher a glaringly obvious thing about God, which is this:

God is FOR you!

He created you, and He loves you so much that He gave His one and only Son to die on a cross for you so that you can be reconciled to Him.

He is so FOR you that He poured out His wrath toward your sins on Jesus, when Christ bore our sins on the cross.

All of human history is a story of God working to save us because He is FOR us!

Why, then, do so many of His children have an “us against them” attitude?

Instead of imitating God’s love and devotion — His being FOR us — so many Christians demonstrate an attitude of being “against” those who are still outside the household of God.

Partly to blame for this horrendous attitude is how we have displaced our faith by infusing into our minds worldly political mindsets, and then using today’s technology to demonstrate that displacement in some very ugly ways.

Many Christians today use their online social media presence to battle AGAINST people who don’t think or live like them rather than to demonstrate they are FOR them.

That’s because these professing Christians aren’t FOR “them,” the lost of the world who think and act differently. That’s why we don’t evangelize, that’s why there’s little enthusiasm for making disciples.

Because we aren’t FOR others.

We pit ourselves AGAINST them via social media — and real world behavior — every day.

We have become the modern-day Jonah’s. God has called us to take His ministry and message of reconciliation to every person on Earth; we run the other way because we really aren’t for these people.

Jonah ran the other way because God gave Him a message to preach to the people of Nineveh in hopes they would repent rather than face the wrath of God. Jonah wasn’t FOR the people of that great city, God was. When Jonah finally obeyed, finally preached the message, and the city did repent, Jonah was angry when God changed His mind about destroying the city …

“This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to the Lord about it: ‘Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen,” Jonah 4:1-3.

Did you catch that last line?

“I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.”

Jonah most definitely was not FOR the people of Nineveh and his behavior demonstrated that attitude.

Likewise, so many professing Christians today are not FOR the people God has given us a message to preach to, and our behaviors demonstrate such attitudes.

We need to repent.

God has called us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Each day, we should be demonstrating to others that we are FOR them. We should be imitating that “FOR” attitude of God!

“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God,” Ephesians 5:1-2.

What attitude are you consistently demonstrating each day?

Scotty