We have many dear friends in Christianity or in the world, and when we first came into the church we damaged many of them by sharing in a wrong way. As you say, we do need to pray and go to the Word, but I still would like some practical help as to what to do for these whom we have damaged.
The best way to heal this situation is to pray for the ones you damaged. Do not initiate anything. Contact the Lord and follow Him. As you do so, you will know His mind. He may lead you to go to some of them, not only to become reconciled but also to say a word about God’s economy to them. If the Lord leads, you go. If not, do not go.
Do not feel that because you did some damage, you must try to set matters right. Do not initiate anything with that in mind. Simply follow the Lord’s leading. Do not go to others with the intention of correcting some damage you may have caused. To do so is to play politics. If you go, you do so because you are led of the Lord. You have no choice but to be one with Him. You do not care for the result but simply follow Him because you are one with Him.
This should be your attitude regardless of how many you have damaged. All the past is under the blood and is gone. Now is a new day. As the Lord moves, you move. What He does you do. You are one with Him. The past is over. The future you do not know. You have only today. We Christians do not live in tomorrow nor in yesterday. We have only today.
There are two schools of thought on preaching the gospel. One is to be burdened, pray, and go as the Lord leads. The other is to be instant in season and out of season. Could you say something about this?
These two are one. If you keep contacting the Lord, you will find that you are preaching all the time. But if you neglect contacting the Lord and take up the exhortation to be instant in season and out of season (2 Tim. 4:2), you will be keeping a regulation. This would be religious; that is, you would be doing something for God without Christ’s leading. When we keep contacting the Lord and live with Him, we shall spontaneously preach the gospel. The Lord says, “He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit” (John 15:5). If you abide, surely you will bear fruit. If you do not bear fruit, it means you are not abiding. Yet if you try to bear fruit without abiding, that is your doing and becomes religious.
God’s economy is a matter of life. You may compare it to the physical body. For a person to breathe, he has to be living. If you try to breathe yet you do not have life, you are seeking to fulfill a requirement. But when you are living, you breathe unconsciously, whatever else you are doing. You may be busy and not notice that you are breathing, but nonetheless the breathing goes on. In the same way, if you abide in the Lord (have life), you will bear fruit (breathe).
There is no point in talking about someone’s physical problems if he is no longer alive. Doctors prescribe medication based upon the fact of your being alive. Once you are dead, they can do nothing to help. Medication has no effect if you are dead. Surgery too would be useless. Many times a surgeon will not operate if the patient is weak. Even if the surgery was well done, without the support of the patient’s life, it would be in vain.
Life is what matters in the church life too. Christianity may maneuver, arrange, and organize, but in the Lord’s recovery we have seen that where there is life, there is no need for so many plans and schedules. The body does not plan what it will do and say during the day. As long as it is alive, all its members function spontaneously in a good coordination. In our life with the Lord, we contact Him by reading His Word and praying and by being one with Him all day long. We do not need to anticipate anything nor regulate ourselves. Let us simply live Christ the way the branches abide in the vine.
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