Witnessing

Our Christian leadership, or Christians as a whole, have failed in their duty to present Christ to the world. Our society is overrun with sin. Practically everyone will agree that murder and theft are wrong, but adultery is acceptable. Homosexuality is rampant and anyone who disagrees with that lifestyle is deemed to be discriminatory. Homosexual marriage is now considered acceptable. God made male and female, and marriage is between a man and a woman. And there are those today that now claim that the gender identity issue is acceptable behavior, and if you are born a male but want to be a female, that is ok, and vice versa. If Christians speak against any type of sin, it is considered hate bashing. 

Let Jesus' words give us encouragement; 

Luke 6:22-23, “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” 

Homosexuality, why Scripture forbids it.

Romans 1:26-27, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

God's design for a natural sexual relationship is His model for His creation. Sadly, sin contorts the regular utilization of God's gifts. Sin frequently implies not just denying God, but additionally not accepting the way God made us. At the point when our general public says that any sex act is satisfactory inasmuch as no one gets injured, it is deluding itself. Over the long haul (and frequently in the short run), sin harms individuals, people, families, and entire social orders. How miserable it is that individuals who love the things God made rather than the Creator so frequently mutilate and obliterate the very things they alleged to esteem.

Homosexuality (to “change” or “leave the natural use” of sex) is totally taboo in Scripture (see Leviticus 18).

Leviticus 18:22, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

Homosexuality is viewed as a satisfactory practice by a larger number of people in our present day, even by some places of worship. In any case, society does not set the norm for God's Law. Numerous homosexual people accept that their cravings are ordinary and that they reserve an option to manifest them. Be that as it may, God does not commit nor urge us to satisfy our longings as a whole (even typical ones). Those wants that disregard God's regulations should be controlled.

Assuming any of us have these cravings, we can and should oppose following up on them. We ought to deliberately stay away from areas and actions that we realize will arouse enticements of this sort. We should not misjudge the force of Satan to entice us nor the potential for genuine damage if we give in to these allurements. We should recall that God is able and will excuse sexual sins similarly as He pardons different sins. We ought to give ourselves to the mercy and grace of God by requesting that he show us the exit from transgression and into His light of freedom and love. Bible study, prayer, and spiritual support in a Christian church can assist us with acquiring the ability to oppose these strong enticements. In the event that anybody is as of now profoundly associated with a homosexual lifestyle, they ought to look for help from a reliable, proficient, pastoral counselor.

 

1 Timothy 1:10, “For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;”

“Them that defile themselves with mankind” alludes to homosexual people. There are the people who endeavor to legitimize homosexuality as an adequate elective way of life. Indeed, even a few Christians say that individuals reserve a privilege to pick their sexual inclination. However, the Bible explicitly calls homosexual conduct sin (Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Nonetheless, we should be mindful so as to censure and disapprove of the custom and habit, as opposed to the individuals. The people who commit homosexual acts are not to be dreaded, disparaged, or loathed. God can forgive them, and their lives can be changed. The church congregation ought to be an asylum of absolution and mending for contrite homosexual people without undermining its position against the homosexual way of living.

 

Genesis 18:1 – 19:29 tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the three angels that visit Abraham, how Abraham prays for Sodom, and how God rescued Lot. Two angels came to visit Lot and take him away from Sodom before it was destroyed. God had vowed to save Sodom if by some chance ten righteous individuals lived there (Genesis 18:32). However, that was not the situation. Ten god-fearing individuals could not be found at all. Lot had lived for such a long time and tranquil among the ungodly individuals that he was not a successful witness for God. He had permitted his current circumstances to shape him as opposed to changing his current circumstances. Lot had compromised so much that he was practically futile for God's purposes. When he at long last stood his ground, no one would pay any attention to him.

 

Do the people who know us consider us to be a good witness for God or would we say we are simply one more face in the group? Have we become pointless to God since we are living a lot like our environment?

Effective witnessing is not measured by how many are witnessed to, but by what we overcome to witness and how we witness.

“The greatest problem of the world then, as it is now, is not that the Gospel is imperfectly preached, but that the Gospel is not preached at all,” Dr. H. L. Wilmington.