The Forcast Is Cloudy At Faith!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
Hebrews 12:1- 2a

When’s the last time you shared your faith with somebody?

• I don’t mean give a sermon
• I don’t mean whacking somebody over the head with a Bible
• I don’t mean yelling at somebody about eternal damnation and repentance
• I don’t mean exegete a passage of scripture from its original Greek in order to extrapolate great theological meaning (say what?)

What I mean is...

When’s the last time you simply mentioned something about God or Jesus or prayer, church or the Bible to a friend, family member or co-worker who you know does not have an active faith life or does not belong to a community of faith?
Heck, when’s the last time you talked with somebody at Faith (and I don’t count) about your personal faith; about your beliefs?

The Cloud of Witnesses this passage refers to is all those who have witnessed to their faith, who have shared what they believe in and trust in with others.
If we want to be an effective church, then we need to understand that we are part of this cloud. If we want to throw off the old things that hinder us from growing and thriving and instead fix our eyes on Jesus as we seek to follow God’s call to new things and new life – then we need to share our faith.
If we want to do what Jesus is calling us to do then we do need to fix our eyes on him who says things like “you’ve heard it said….but I say to you” (see the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 5ish to 7ish). We need to fix our eyes on Jesus as he tells us “you’ve been doing things one way…but I tell you…”
How do we fix ourselves on Jesus? One thing we must do is be each-others preachers and prophets – we need to be witnesses to Jesus Christ to each other. By sharing our faith we discover how Jesus is calling us together. And by sharing our faith with the rest of the world, we invite others into this kind of life-changing community of faith where they can find new life and direction and purpose.
And this time I don’t mean sharing faith in terms of doing. Yes, we display our faith with food pantry and stuff like that. But I mean TALKING about who we believe in! Let’s together fix our eyes on Jesus and speak the truth about Him to each other and to the world!