Leading Others to Choose God – EGP Blog post from January 19, 2013

If you read Ecclesiastes, you’ll see that everyone is chasing after the wind with some portion of their life…some ways are just more noticeable and some are more socially acceptable. As Christians, we must be very careful that we don’t become self-righteous in the areas that we’ve (at least somewhat) worked out with God. At the same time, it’s hard not to be passionate about spreading the truth to those being deceived and living in pain through situations from which has God has freed you.

We must realize that lost people are going act like lost people. They don’t see the path, but if they do, it looks like just another path…except narrower (Matthew 7). Jesus hung out the most with the “sinners” and those despised by society (), but they don’t care about a moral standard from a God they don’t believe in…and God doesn’t care about the “righteousness” of those without His Son. So, He didn’t sit around condemning them all day or trying to conform them to some Law-driven “moral standard” like the scribes and Pharisees (). Instead, He told them that there was more to this life (), but that it’s hard to see that when they cling so hard to this one and are blinded by Satan’s bondage (, ). When the moment was right, He’d tell them to stop living in sin and to choose God instead of this world (, ).

Then there are the religious. Pretty much every time the self-righteous came around, he’d get onto them. He’d show them how they were breaking the Law, no matter how well they thought they were obeying it (). Most of the time, that would just anger them and they’d leave…or try to kill Him (). But that doesn’t mean it was without effect. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the night to find out more (), and many Jews who helped Jesus get crucified converted after His death (, ).