*Preface* - I must thank Jason Daily for being my friend (on FB and in real life), because of this I am able to see what he reads. When I saw the title of something he read recently, it caught my attention. The author of this "note" or "article" is a friend of both my brother, Dave and my friend, Jason ... sir John Motley. As I shared with John, "though my form of evangelism is not exactly going out on the boardwalk or leaving tracts, i do share about my relationship with Jesus and how Jesus loves an individual enough to want to be in relationship with them, regardless of their state ... and He loves people enough in their state, that He will move them towards transformation." I have passed out tracts here and there, had a conversation or two at a carnival fair and elsewhere to try it on for size, but the hat just didn't fit me. In response, John shared, "I personally don't believe there is a RIGHT way to evangelize. So by all means, communicate the gospel however you feel most comfortable/able so long as the full message is getting out there ...If your doing ANYTHING you are doing SOMETHING :-)" All that said, without any further adieu, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the written expressions of John Motley ...
"We, the Christians, know that we can be annoying sometimes. We are in your workplace, your schools, your classes, your beaches, your boardwalks, your streets, we are pretty much everywhere you could go and always talking about this "Jesus guy". You may not come from the same background or belief so you see/hear us and say to yourself "Ugh...its those Jesus freaks again".
I am not here writing to apologize on behalf of those Christians. In fact im proud to be one of them and i'll be at the Seaside Heights boardwalk August 15'th with a few hundred more of us for an evangelism event called Jersey Fire. Rather, I am here to explain to anyone who may be curious why we are always out there, always talking about Jesus, and always so darn fanatical about it.
I want to start by saying that we don't mean to be offensive with our message. NOT A SINGLE CHRISTIAN wants you to feel offended or hurt by our message. We do teach that we are ALL sinners (ourselves included) and that we do need to turn from our ways though. This message can be offensive to some and we don't mean to do that. Conviction is more of the word for what we go for.
We can also come off as arrogant because we believe our way is the only way. Jesus Himself said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) While we respect all other religions rights to believe whatever they wish, we believe that they are wrong in their ways. In the same way though, other religions think we have it wrong. Its simply the nature of things. However, we do base our message from what the Bible says and not because we want to be exclusive. Jesus Himself said that He is the ONLY way into heaven and that not everyone is going to be saved.
Lets talk about heaven for a second. The Bible describes it as a WONDERFUL place. It says that the streets themselves will be paved with gold...think about that for a second. We're going to be walking on gold as if its as worthless as gravel and tar!! There will be mansions, a massive feast, and food/water in absolute abundance! Best of all, we will be eternally in the presence of God. Doesn't sound so wonderful at first, but once you know who God is...there is nothing better.
WE WANT YOU TO GO THERE!! I want as many people as possible to be there and enjoy these wonderful things. How selfish do I have to be to want to keep this to myself and my small circle of friends. I was speaking to a friend of mine a few nights ago and I told him "One of the main reasons I keep bringing this stuff up is because I want nothing more than to chill with you in heaven bro." because I seriously think this kid could even make the angels laugh hysterically.
If I throw a party im not just going to invite one or two people, but anyone who has been to one of my 4'th of July bashes (there was none this year. You didn't get invited because there was none lol) you know that I invite ALL my friends! I want to enjoy the company of the people who mean most to me and celebrate. I want the same thing for heaven. I want to celebrate with as many people as I can!
Shifting gears for a moment, lets talk about hell. I think one of the worst things thats happened recently was the fantization of hell. Movies like "Little Nicky" portray hell as a massive party, other liteature claim hell is just a fairly meloncoly place, or even a state of mind. This is terrible because hell is a real place...and its a horrible place...
Jesus actually talked WAY more about hell than he talked about heaven. He described it as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, a lake of fire, a place of eternal seperation from God. The last point is particularly bad because the Bible says that God is the source of all things good...so hell is a speration from all good things, leaving nothing but terrible things to be experienced. It truly is a place of eternal suffering, and people are going there!
Pastor Chris Swansen from Calvary Chapel Chester Springs was once asked by his daughter how bad hell was. He said it was SO bad that God Himself left his throne in heaven and took on human form to be rejected, to suffer, and to take our punishment and die in our place on the cross and rise again three days later just so WE DON'T have to go there. Jesus literally went through hell and back just so that we don't have to...it's just that bad.
WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO GO THERE!!! This is one of the major reasons why we Christians can be so annoying but its of upmost importance. People are going to hell when they do not have to. What we're doing as Christians, by talking on the boardwalks, streets, offices, and leaving tracts and small Bibles in diners and restaurants is throwing a lifeline...
If you were on a cruise ship and someone fell overboard you would throw them the lifeline if you knew where it was right? In the same way people are in trouble and will perish unless SOMEONE throws them a lifeline. That lifeline is belief in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God who died for us to save us from our sins so that we can escape that terrible fate.
Christians may seem annoying but understand where we're coming from. We're only doing it because we're trying to throw you a lifeline so that you wouln't have to find out yourself how bad hell really is. I don't enjoy sacrificing time I would use to relax to awkwardly attempt to open a conversation about Jesus to a complete stranger. Nor do I get a kick out of asking you if you have put any thought into eternal things when we hang out when it would be more enjoyable to talk about music or video games.
Believe it or not, the star of the Penn/Teller show, a well known atheist, made the best case for why Christians should talk about their faith. He said roughly "If you believe that there is a hell and that people are going there, how can you NOT tell people about this and warn them? How much do you have to HATE someone not to talk about it?" Even though the guy has absolutely no faith in God, he knows that if you do believe and your not warning people of what might happen your doing a terrible thing!
So to summerize this whole article, there is a heaven and there is a hell. We believe when you die (which we all will eventaully) you go to one of those two places, there is no third option. We really want you to go to heaven and even if we barley know you, we don't want to see you go to hell. So if we come off as annoying/arrogant/weird...just know that the only reason we do it is because we're not selfish enough to keep the glory of heaven to ourselves and we don't hate you enough to let you go to hell without warning.
Im going to stop here...but if your curious about how to have eternal life and what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ PLEASE send me a message. I would love nothing more than to throw you that lifeline. I hope that if nothing else, after reading this you have a better understanding to why we Christians act the way we do. We do it for you..."
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