Heavenbound:
"Don't you think our family should be a living testimony BEFORE we can reach the lost for Christ?"
In a word, "No!"
Since when did you have to get your life perfect before you can tell someone how to be rescued? If we had such a requirement not ONE of us would EVER be preaching.
Remember, it matters NOT AT ALL what
your life is like but whether what is being said is
TRUE!
And I would say we would all like that convenient excuse of needing to "be right" in our family life before we can preach the truth ( I say this only as in the flesh, not in the spirit).
My friend the very flaws we have show we STILL NEED JESUS EVERY DAY. Not only are we saved from Sin but we are also changed from day to day from glory to glory.
If Paul had to have all his life straightened out
before he went out preaching he would have never preached. But what happened when he was converted? Paul went to Asia and preached, being taught by the Spirit as he went! And Paul said at the END of his life that he had not yet reached the goal of being holy, even then! How can we ever measure up to what Paul considered an unworthy state?
No, we cannot use such an excuse that our lives are not perfect in holiness and God glorifying in every area to not save a dieing soul from Hell. No, no, we are being made Holy, shade by shade and it is to Y'Shua for glory that we are being made so. Let us
not use this an excuse for
disobedience. I have heard this argument from my own flesh as well and it is best left ignored as so much rattling of bones.
Indeed it is the very preaching of the Gospel of Our LORD Jesus, The Messiah, that delivers preachers from struggles they have had! I am not saying preachers sin willingly. No. I am saying we all have our baggage we must work out, before Yahweh. And when our sin is exposed we must confess it and be free of it, growing daily into the man and woman Yahweh desires us to become as we are willing to obey, daily.
We must be growing in holiness, to be sure. If you see no such growth then you must rework the first steps to be sure you are in the faith! (See James for this).
So when some sinner sees in me what should not be and tells me I glorify God and thank him for showing me the truth and declare it to the sinner how he was right and how God is faithful to use even a donkey to discipline me! But do they change their ways over the preacher admitting his sins? No (though there is a softening when they see you do not consider yourself better! Indeed a sinner is very glad to see a preacher is not some perfect thing they must attain to. God's mercy is not burdensome but gracious and joyful. Even His disciplines are gentle as any loving father's is.).
So it is not the testimony of a man's changed life, for the change may not be evident to those who did not know him before. It is not that which wins souls but the mercy of God in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, as the preacher uses the Law to prepare the hearts of the lost for God's grace, that saves souls. The preacher is merely a clay pot not worthy of the task and you can ALWAYS find flaws in him or her if you look hard enough.
If any of us claims to have no sin we are liars and the Truth is not in us. I do not speak of that Sin that required the death of our LORD Jesus to free us from Hell, but rather of sin, as Paul identified the difference; the differentiation between that which is a mortal Sin and that which is not. For when we do sin (not Sin) we have a mediator who pleads for us and makes intercession that we may have forgiveness and redemption in His Mercy, as a loving Father to a son.
There are some of the faith that hold men must be free of all sin, that there is no difference between that which is unto death and that which is not. As a member of the body of Christ I look to Paul as my example of the veracity of that ideal and know in my own self that I have no hope of such a state until Christ comes to kill off the rest of this death I carry about. So as the Spirit of God shows us our failings we must be faithful to confess them as sin, knowing the Mercy of Yahweh is ours through Jesus.
Let there be no mistake: a man must be made new; he must be a new creation in Christ or he is not His. And our new Spirit ever wars with this corruptable flesh until we are free of it but that is not ever unto death fro the Believer. For, a Child of God would not ever go so far. You cannot be un-born again, ever. I speak of the Life in the Spirit and if this confuses you He will need to explain it further.
But, HeavenBound, it seems almost that your idea of preaching is a pointing of bony fingers at the lost in judgment, and that no one can do such preaching unless they are somehow 'righteous enough' to do so!?! My dear friend NO ONE
IS ABLE if that is your aim! Only Jesus could have done so and yet did not. NO NO! None can judge another that has not already judged himself with the same gage. And even then we must plead with sinners as a dear brother, desiring the salvation of his wayward sibling, knowing they are but deceived in their self destruction and need only understand to be saved. As Y'Shua, the Messiah of all who would repent and trust in His blood to save them, has said from His Cross, "Father forgive them they know not what they do." And the same LORD and Messiah Jesus also has said, "Unless you repent you will perish also."
So then, the choice is the sinner's, whether he shall believe Yahweh and live, not whether the preacher lives up to the sinner's expectations.
How then shall we hold back so great a faith from those who so desperately need it? Shall we do so out of a fear of being called hypocrite? No! Better to be called so than to refuse to speak life to the dieing.
Patrick Burwell/OnlyJesusSaves.com