A few weeks ago, I was in Target picking up a few things when a stranger approached me and started a conversation saying, “I like your shirt.” “Thanks,” I replied and hoped that was the end of it. It had been a long day and work and I was ready to get home. “Where did you get it,” he continued. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was genuinely interested in my shirt I told him. A minute later he was asking if he could tell me about an amazing company he was a part of. I let him know I wasn’t interested and walked away. I wasn’t shopping for any multi-level marketing companies that day.
Sometimes as Christians, I think we are trained to view people as “ministry opportunities.” We are taught to make relationships for the sole purpose of getting people saved. I have an issue with this because I don’t see where Jesus ever told us to do this. Yes, in the great commission, He told us to make disciples of the nations, but I don’t think He meant to befriend someone just to secretly hope to lead them to Christ one day. In John 13:34-35, Jesus said,
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
He simply told us to love people. That was it. Just love them. And by loving them, they would see that we are His disciples. But we have been trained to find those people that we think we can lead to Christ and then love them. Christianity has been turned into a multi-level marketing scheme.
So often, when people talk about church or witnessing, they talk about numbers. It’s all about how many new guests were at church on Sunday morning or how many people they talked to during the token church local mission day. I’m not saying that there is anything evil about these things. It is great to have new people at church and it is great to serve your community. The problem is when we start to care more about the numbers than the people.
Jesus tells us that the greatest love we can have is to lay down our life for one another (John 15:13). If I am viewing someone as a ministry opportunity, it’s not really love. That is more about me trying to hit my “quotas.” When I love people, just to love them, they will see Jesus in my life. The Bible tells us that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). I can just love people and let God do the rest. That takes so much pressure from me and when people experience the love of Christ it will be an everlasting change.
until next time…