It is important that all Christians take a look ahead to the challenge of the Gospel work in our time. We cannot do anything about the failures of the past. Clear vision is needed to fulfill the work before us. Many are saying there is no reason to continue preaching the Gospel. People are not listening. Is this what the problem is, or is it that we are not talking? Maybe we are not speaking about what is important to us in the right way and in the right places. People around us are not impressed if the things I say are not consistent with what I do.
Whatever the situation, we cannot ignore the need of lost souls and blame our age as the problem of indifference toward the God we love. The early church did not have Bibles to read and preach from. They would have had to speak from personal experience and what they learned from those who did have the scriptures or had passed on what they knew first hand. As generations passed we finally got the Word of God in our own language. Most people today never read it or have the desire to read it. They are still looking at believers to see what real Christianity is.
The relationship between people is not something unique only to the Lord’s people. There is a bonding or lack of it between employers and employees, between nations and between businesses. However, the relationships of believers involves eternal consequences. That which binds believers in an assembly together is the Gospel. The manner of life of those in the fellowship of an assembly is an assembly matter. We do not act independently without accountability to others. The call to unity and harmony in word and deed keeps us striving together for the same common objective – the faith of the Gospel.
