I posted this on Facebook from an article Peter Dowker sent me.

Penn Jillette, the atheist illusionist and comedian said, "I don't respect people who don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.... How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?"

Comments like these should cause every Christian to examine his conscience to see if he truly believes that Jesus is, as he claimed, "the way, the truth, and the life."

Here is another chilling statement:

Condemned killer, Charlie Peace, it is said, made the following statement to the priest he was walking behind on his way to the gallows: “Sir,” addressing the preacher, “If I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it a worthwhile living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!"

Sometimes we can feel so alone in our own sphere of influence that we become timid about giving God opportunity to open doors for us to share what we believe with those around us. We feel like Elijah, that we are alone as God's emissaries and that our lives are at risk because we believe in Jesus. Remember, it was RIGHT AFTER God demonstrated His mighty power on Mt. Carmel that Elijah's was put on Jezebel's "hit list" with a 24 hour warning. 

He had just seen God move with power, and now threatened by the pagan queen, he ran for his life. How could he forget? How could Israel complain after seeing God open the Red Sea? How can we remain silent when we know who Jesus Christ is?

If Jesus is indeed who He has declared Himself to be and has demonstrated that by His death and Resurrection, then there should be a concerted effort by us, as often as God's makes a way for us, to share it in every way that God gives it to us to share. It is as though we were given the cure for all forms of cancer, but are afraid to tell someone lest we offend them by telling them that they are terminal and we know where they can be cured. 

Actually, what we know is even greater than such a temporal cure. We know that life goes on beyond the grave. We know that the condition of sin that is endemic in humanity will (unless God's provision is received as the gift it is) cause men, women and children of every race, tribe and ethnic group to be separated from all goodness, all hope, all beauty for all eternity.

We know that there is one one means of restoring humanity back to the Relationship and Life it was created to know and experience. Only God, Himself, could rescue us from the self-inflicted terminal disease of sin. Rebellion runs DNA deep in all people. We have all gone our own way and any student of history will tell you that our way is NOT working.

God does not want to condemn or destroy us, but to rescue and restore us to Himself now. Jesus came, lived, died and rose again so we might experience His life working in us in the "here &now" and then to enter into it in utter fullness when the physicality of human existence comes to an end.

There is no other way to be restored to God, to be restored to the Life we were intended to live. Everyone knows something is wrong. We all rage that things are not supposed to be as they are: despair, starvation, hatred, abuse, war, famine, genocide, resentment, unforgiveness, sickness and death. There is a real, existent "echo of Eden" in every human heart, a longing for home, to be known, to belong, to have meaning. There is no other relationship that can offer all that and actually come through with it except that singular relationship with Jesus Christ that anyone can enter by believing God. 

God has made a way for anyone to say, "Yes." and "Thank you." It has nothing to do with what we do, and everything to do with what God has done for us without the slightest reference to our worthiness or performance in life. That is such good news it almost seems impossible. Truth is, left to us, it is impossible. But with God, it is not only possible, it's a promise to all who will believe Him.

I believe that is worth sharing with everyone you know.