Getting It Backwards

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”   

                                                                                                                              Matthew 4:17

There are issues in the lives of people we care about who do not know Jesus that are clearly against God's design and desires for their lives.  To put it in blunt moral terms, they are wrong.  All sin is wrong in God's sight if we want to use the term wrong.  That is a definition of sin, going against what is right.

There are some who seem to believe that we can't speak to our loved ones about Jesus or witness to them in any way because to do so means we have to tell them how wrong their behavior is.  That is backwards.  They are living out their sinful nature just as we did before we were transformed by Jesus.  We can't expect anything else.  And to them that is normal and "right."  

If anyone had the right to preach at people and tell them they were wrong, it was Jesus when He was here on earth.  But that is not what He taught.  He called people to repent because the Kingdom of Heaven had come near.  Even when He conversed with people who were living in terribly sinful lifestyles, He didn't condemn them about their lifestyle.  He spoke to them about their need of quenching the thirst they had inside them.  Or coming out from under the cloud of shame or guilt.  Or for Peter raising his vision from catching fish to catching men.  Or for Nicodemus moving him from being a son of Abraham and religiously validated to being a son of God and finding true transformation in life.  

We must be careful not to get the cart before the horse.  We don't have to tell people they are wrong.  In reality, most of them already know they are.  What they need is to know that there is a way to get from where they are to where God intended for them to be.  They won't say that.  They may not know it.  They only know the need inside them.  And the only way for that need to be met is for them to come into the Kingdom of God.  That is what we have to share with them.  

Don't become confused or deceived.  It is God who has already declared what is wrong and right.  And all of us apart from a personal relationship with Jesus are in the wrong.  So declare the Kingdom of Heaven and give hope to those who are away from Him.  Tell them how the Lord has worked in your life.  It is His job to convict them of their sin and draw them to Himself.