Full life - sinners welcome!

Since I received the invitation to share in that little seaside town what Christ has done in my life, I sensed that I was going to learn something good. The news of the visit of a group of Christians to that small town mobilized the local church. It is enough with the action of a few who have truly committed themselves for the cause of Christ for the Lord to delight in working in a place inhabited by a few thousand atheists and unbelievers whom God also loves. A humble church awaited us with joy and joy. In the small meeting room, a cross indicated the identity of the faithful and below it, carefully written, an evangelical sentence that shook my heart: Sinners accepted!

As the town in question is close to the sea, there are not a few who, according to the local pastor, come to the reading and suggest: –Pastor, the sign has a misspelling, the word sinners is missing one s; it is said pes-ca-do-res -. The pastor says that this evangelistic "strategy" has given him good results. His congregation is made up mostly of fishermen and their families, whom he has taught that they were not only fishermen, but sinners.

And the pastor adds: -Still this word is often misunderstood and explained. This is an opportunity to tell people, with love, the condition they are in without God's presence in their lives and to invite them, after clarifying what sin is and what it means, that there is hope for their lives if they repent and take a step of faith by receiving the Lord.

Beautiful lesson. To fish for men the Lord designs the nets and places them in our hands. Assume that there is no more effective bait to fish than a testimony that impacts the world because it comes from the filling of the Spirit. Jesus said: “But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1.8). He did not say: they will be my pastors, my teachers, deacons or evangelists, but witnesses, simply my witnesses. It comes from a root that means "repeat, do it again" (New Dictionary of the Bible).

The church must evolve and revolutionize to achieve God-sized goals. According to G. Barna, * analysts estimate that our culture reinvents itself every 3 to 5 years. This means that the church must constantly renew itself to be in tune with its surroundings because it is the only way we can influence secular culture and be effective witnesses. Of course, without compromising the message of salvation, which is the only thing that nothing or no one can ever change.

Let's start by putting a sign in our hearts: SINNERS ARE ACCEPTED! More evangelical? SINNERS WANTED! Ah! If someone comes interested in the announcement, explain that you are no longer a slave of sin and that you know how to confess and repent before God, that the only thing that has made you special is the love of Christ, which no longer has condemnation (Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, those who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Ro 8.1) and that the blood of Christ was sufficient to cleanse us and walk in the light (But If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 Jn 1.7).

We fish for men, of any condition and in any circumstance. The Lord's nets are woven with threads from heaven and bear the weight of every sinful condition in fishermen, engineers, artists, midwives, poets, and politicians. The strategy can change, the goal cannot. Christ came to call sinners to repentance, the witness to repeat what he has learned from the Lord and to do exactly what He did: call, invite, persuade - motivated exclusively by love for God and others - for others to believe. Prepare your poster and cry out to the Lord for a good network!

God bless you!