Jesus and Amway
I read this story in the book Emerging Churches by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.
Christians must simply be the good news and not have an ulterior motive. Dieter Zander illustrates this point from personal experience. A strange couple lived down the street. He typified them with the comment, "I bet they sell Amway!" Indeed, at one point, they came over and sought to sell him Amway products. He replied with a firm no, and he hasn't had any further contact with them in four and a half years. God nudged him through that contact. How he felt about that couple is how most non-Christians feel about Christians. Zander faced the challenge, "How can we be friends with people so that they don't feel this way about us?" His new agenda is to do good, to bless others as the Abrahamic covenant commands. He wants to be good news to people consistently without another agenda.
Zander's experience struck me quite hard because I've been guilty of being kind to people primarily so that I could get an opportunity to share my faith with them. How inauthentic is that!?!?
The key is to shift our motivation to simply doing good in the name of Jesus so that Jesus can naturally draw people to Himself. This will most often give us the opportunity to share our faith, but our first agenda is simply to do good. Our faith must be a living faith that people will invite into their lives because they have experienced our Christlike goodness and not because we have manipulated them for our own hidden intentions.
Christians must simply be the good news and not have an ulterior motive. Dieter Zander illustrates this point from personal experience. A strange couple lived down the street. He typified them with the comment, "I bet they sell Amway!" Indeed, at one point, they came over and sought to sell him Amway products. He replied with a firm no, and he hasn't had any further contact with them in four and a half years. God nudged him through that contact. How he felt about that couple is how most non-Christians feel about Christians. Zander faced the challenge, "How can we be friends with people so that they don't feel this way about us?" His new agenda is to do good, to bless others as the Abrahamic covenant commands. He wants to be good news to people consistently without another agenda.
Zander's experience struck me quite hard because I've been guilty of being kind to people primarily so that I could get an opportunity to share my faith with them. How inauthentic is that!?!?
The key is to shift our motivation to simply doing good in the name of Jesus so that Jesus can naturally draw people to Himself. This will most often give us the opportunity to share our faith, but our first agenda is simply to do good. Our faith must be a living faith that people will invite into their lives because they have experienced our Christlike goodness and not because we have manipulated them for our own hidden intentions.
posted by Greg Nettle at 7:49 AM
1 Comments:
What you deem "inauthentic" I deem as "human". Precious little we do is motivated by pure love and total selflessness because in the end, we generally seek some reward, either physical, mental or spiritual. Thank God our Creator laid before us the ultimate reward: the promise of living forever in His presence.
Nevertheless, most people possess the capability to act selflessly. For example, what loving father would not give all, including his own life for his child? If only, like Jesus, we could attain the same level of selflessness for our neighbors, associates, or complete strangers. (Such a goal offers great rewards!)
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