Labels

I was with a dear lady in our church at our local hospital. They are always displaying art. Right now you see art displayed that represents different cultures. There is a piece of art for China, for India, for ASL, for Japan, and for many other different countries. Then there is a piece to represent the many different types of religion in our great city of Muncie! It represents, Christian, Muslims, Wicca, Jews, about 30 different religions. Then there is a piece of art with a great big rainbow balloon on it. Of course you know what that represents, LGBTIQ. That stands for Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersexual (whatever that means), and finally Queer and Questioning. For a country that wants equality and tolerance we sure have a lot of labels. What happened to just being people? I know we have different cultures but can we really call our "sexuality" a culture? Maybe I'm being too simple. People are people. People are sinners. Thankfully we had one Jesus who died for all of us, no matter our skin color, sexuality, how we pick our nose, what kind of food we eat, etc. You get the point, let's stop labeling people and just see them as God sees them, sinners in need of a Savior! We need to be telling people of this Jesus, no matter their culture, religion or sexuality. One thing that stuck with me from college all these years later is that we cannot tell the wrong person! Who have you told lately? Who can you tell? Write their name down and pray everyday that God will prepare their heart for the truth you want to share with them. Think about all the times we tell people things on purpose. Purpose to tell someone about Jesus today or this week! Pray about it and don't back down or get scared! You can do this! God will help you! Use a simple easy to remember plan of salvation. Make it your own, but keep it true. I use one taught in college with a few things picked up along the way. I no longer ask if they would like to know for sure if they died that they can go to heaven, because that is based on experience and who am I to tell you have or have not experienced something. I ask, "Has anyone ever taken God's word and shown you what it says about salvation?" I just introduced the bible as the authority, not my experience or theirs. Then I take them and show them God's word. I start with John 3:16 and show them how much God loves them. Then I take them Roman 3:23 and show them that there is a problem. We are all sinners and have come short of God's standard of holiness and glory. Then I take them to Romans 6:23 and show them that because of our sin, it has to be paid for with death. I tell them that we can pay for our sins . . . by dying and going to hell for eternity! I tell them that when I was younger I didn't want to pay that price. I tell them that I knew Romans 5:8 that God had died for my sins, but I had never accepted that free gift of salvation and a lady took me to Romans 10:9, 10, 13 and show me that if I prayed and accepted that gift of salvation God would save me! I bowed my head and asked Jesus to forgive me of my sin and accepted that I needed a Savior and asked Him to save me and boy did he! Now I have a new label, yeah I'm still a sinner, but I'm a sinner saved by grace! I think that's the best kind of label we can offer to anyone! This is so good we need to be telling people!!! Go offer some labels today! The kind that change lives for eternity!