Hey, Christian, #thread for you -

When was the last time you shared a meal with the tax collector (versus yelling at them in the tree and calling it evangelism) or met the woman at the well (versus writing a post on the importance of marriage)?

It is important to preach the gospel using words.

But if you're filling your head with rhetoric and knowledge to spit out later, pouring over books to add to your repertoire, only to look down on the lost with it and expect it to click with them if you say it just right -

... that ain't it, chief.

Jesus came and established the kingdom.

The sermon on the mount tells us how the kingdom looks.

You live in a posture of mercy, righteousness, meekness, grief, peace,

while you are telling people about this kingdom that restores all creation.

Your social media preaching and witty retort isn't going to break bread over the table with the tax collector.

It's not going to heal the crippled man at the pool.

It's not going to have the effect of meeting someone trapped in legalism under the cloak of night for personal conversation about being born again, or looking in to the eyes of the one who is considered shameful to acknowledge.

Knowledge will pass away.

That doesn't mean it's not important.

But it does mean that it is a seasonal blossom on a tree that needs to be firmly rooted, and needs to be viewed as such.

If I speak in the tongues of MacArthur, Luther, Augustine, Calvin, Spurgeon, Luther, Washer, Sproul, Peter, or Paul, but have not love,

I am nothing.

Show people that Jesus didn't simply come to inform and correct them. Loving with heart, soul, mind, and strength goes beyond programming.

Show them He came to show love and restore them.

Be light.

(See Matthew 5:14-16.)