Fight the Good Fight of Faith, English Edition

 • Fight the Good Fight of Faith: Playing Your Part in God’s Unfolding Drama

Furthermore, we have been made ambassadors for Christ, and God now makes his appeal to others through us. As we proclaim Jesus as Lord, and offer life in his name to all who believe, we can legitimize our message by the way we live, through our conduct, our speech, and our actions. Now, as his ambassadors, we are called to represent his interests, to speak his words, to behave differently than those who do not know him. Rather than imitating the rest of the world, we show ourselves to be a transformed people, a thankful people. We are Christ’s ambassadors. We turn our backs on a godless, sinful lifestyle and live a God-filled, God honoring life, sharing with others the life given to us in Jesus Christ, our God and our Savior. We are his workmanship, set apart by God in order to bring glory to him through a variety of good works that he has prepared for us to do. We are to love and serve others, tell his story, and invite others to join us, especially those in our network of family and friends. It is clear here that there can be no separation of the advancing of the Kingdom of God from compassion, mercy, and justice. From this biblical foundation we must move the church to initiatives of com passion, mercy and justice. Compassion represents the love of God in us and flowing through us, and it creates our passion for lost people and the desire to see them experience new life. Mercy is our attitude toward broken people and broken communities. This is what gets us past the mind set of blaming and judging people for where they are. Even when people are in bad situations because of their bad choices, mercy leads us to respond in a way that is beyond what they deserve. It is the way God looked on us through someone else when we were living lives away from God.

~ Efrem Smith. The Post Black & Post White Church: Becoming The Beloved Community in a Multi-ethnic World . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2012, page 59.

The Excellence We Show Lesson 5 Bible Study Read the following Scriptures and answer briefly the questions associated with each biblical teaching. 1. We are united to Jesus Christ as our life, and we bear fruit in our lives (living holy lives and sharing Christ’s love) because we are in communion with (relating constantly to) him. Read John 15.1-8 and answer the following.