With blessing comes responsibility. It’s not right for a person to have been cured of a disease and know what will cure others, and not tell them. It’s not right for us to have found water when we were dying of thirst and not tell others where to get that same water that will save their life. With blessing comes responsibility.
Someone cared enough about us to share Jesus and His wonderful salvation with us. They sacrificed their time and maybe even suffered along the way for their faithful efforts to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. It may have been a parent, bible class teacher, preacher, friend, business acquaintance, a caring stranger who knocked on your door, or someone you met while traveling. Those who truly appreciate what God has done for them in Christ feel a sense of accountability and responsibility to help others.
Jesus cared so much for us that He left the glory of heaven to save us. He loved us so much that He lay down His life for us that we might be saved. May we feel the compassionate love Jesus had for the lost that we will pray for them, sacrifice our time and resources, and go out on a limb and share Jesus with them. We know in advance that some are going to be irritated with us, try to embarrass and shame us, and maybe even judge us as one of those “Jesus freaks”. We don’t have to judge them – we just share Jesus because someone cared enough to share Jesus with us and we just want to pass on the gift of eternal life.
Really, how hard is it in this age of technology to email a friend, text a relative, Facebook everybody and his brother, or call a coworker and invite them to our church website to view a sermon? It’s not hard – it just requires the following ingredients in our hearts: love for the lost, concern for the souls of others, gratitude for our own salvation, and a sense of responsibility that spills over from personally being so blessed in Christ. When Isaiah was forgiven of his sins the first words out of his mouth were, “Here am I. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). May we have that spiritually-natural response to being forgiven. One of the stanzas in today’s song reads:
Let me not be blind with privilege – Give me eyes to see the pain
Let the blessing You’ve poured out on me – Not be spent on me in vain.
Read Isaiah 6:1-8 and Ezekiel 3:16-21. Then listen to I Will Go by Starfield. After that stick your neck out and invite everyone you can think of and continue to do so until Jesus comes.
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Ezekiel 3:16-21
At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.
“Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”