October 4th daily blog devotional by Keith Wayne Edwards
Read:
Ephesians 5:2
2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Also Read:
1 Corinthians 3:11
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
One day while I was at work some Jehovah's witnesses came to my home. My wife was unloading her car when they approached her. They asked if they could talk with her for a while about what they believed, but my wife said, "no, I'm a Christian, but my husband would love to talk with you..lol. My wife set me up. She wanted me to convert them. She set a time for Monday, and I thought this would be a good time just to listen to what they had to say and see where they were coming from. I made some coffee and here they came right on time. He was in a wheelchair and was pulling himself up on to my porch and to my front door. I reached down to help him but he insisted that he was alright and he would make it by himself. He had a young convert with him who was probably in his early twenty's. I pulled a couple of chairs out in our dining room for them, and got them something to drink while I sat there and just listened to him talk. Being in Bible college I studied all of the different types of other religions, cults, etc. and was prepared. They came to my house for about a month, and after hearing him talk for that whole month, he asked me if I had any questions? As I took another sip of my coffee, I said, "Yes, I have a few questions. First of all, I want to bring to the table who Charles Taze Russell was, and how the prophecy of 1914 which claimed that Jesus would personally establish His kingdom then never came to pass as the prophecy claimed it would. While still in his teens and without formal theological education, Russell organized a Bible class whose members eventually made him "pastor." Before 1914, the Watchtower was predicting that God's Kingdom was to be set up on earth (not in heaven) in 1914! He said, " I'll have to look that up. Any other questions? Yes! Also, why did the Jehovah's witnesses take out the word God in John 1:1 and insert "a god" in there? He didn't want to answer me, and that young kid was so confused as to what to say. He looked at me with such hurt and said, "You protestant Christians are not who you claim to be! He began to proceed by telling me how he lost his legs. He told me that when he was in his teens, he got involved in a train accident and lost both of his legs. He told me that not one Christian from his church came to visit him, but one day he heard a knock on the door, and there stood the Jehovah's witnesses extending their love to him. I was deeply touched by what he said and told him that I am so sorry that this happened. I did pray with the two of them in Jesus name, and I told him that I understand your hurt, but there are Christians out there that do extend the love of Christ to the hurting. He got upset and told his convert to pack up and get out of here. I helped him out the door. Crippled love? How many of us as Christians reach out to a hurting generation. I know that I need to do more of this, and it's a shame for us to let the hurting reach out to crippled religions because they are doing more than we are concerning this. I want to exhort us today to reach out to the hurting. They are all around, and we can find ministry in a million places if we just open our eyes.
Prayer:
Lord forgive us. As Christians, we've done all but walk in love to a hurting generation. Help us to walk in love and show forth your heart to those around us. We long to be the church that you desire for us to be. Turn our crippled love to a pure love in your name we pray. Amen.
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