Playing to our Strengths
Our son was one of the most naturally gifted athletes I have ever known. Even at a young age, his advanced speed, quickness, agility and athleticism were obvious to anyone who watched him play. I recall one particular elementary school basketball game he competed in. With the game on the line and only seconds left, our coach called a time-out and drew up a play which featured Chris’s ball-handling ability and would also give him the final shot, making a comment to the effect that, “If they’re going to beat us, they’re going to have to stop our best player.” Smart coach. Not because he featured our son, but because he played to our strengths; he featured that which was the best of what we had to offer. That’s what good, insightful, successful and winning coaches and people do – they emphasize and play to their strengths, instead of allowing the competition to dictate what they do.
The Gospel Truth is your greatest strength. Not some gimmick.
This is why we, as members of the Lord’s church, must not reduce ourselves to simply just inviting others to church the way so many other competing religious groups do, but must instead, consistently utilize that which is our unique and greatest strength. We must find or create every opportunity possible, to engage people in an ongoing and in-depth personal Bible study, precisely because the word of God is our greatest strength and attraction for a lost world. Let’s face it, what other church can be proven by Scripture, to be the one the Lord established and Peter opened on the Day of Pentecost just as Jesus promised (Mt. 16:13-19; Acts 2:22-47)? What other churches can honestly claim to comprise the one, unique, exclusive, undivided and undenominated body or church of Christ which the Lord’s very own hand-picked apostles worked and worshipped in during the post-resurrection first century (Ro. 16:16; Eph. 1:22-23, 4:4-6)? What other church preaches and teaches that a lost person is cleansed, forgiven, saved, and added to the Lord’s church, in exactly the same way as our Lord’s apostles taught (Acts 2:38-47, 22:16; Ro. 6:1-6; Col. 2:12-13; 2 Ptr. 3:21)?
As evidenced above, the word of God proves every one of these points unequivocally. No man-made and founded denomination coming along centuries later can ever legitimately lay claim to any of these things. No judgement, just fact: The Catholic (circa 330 A.D.), Lutheran (1517), Baptist (1607), and so many other man-made churches which lost folks are so often invited to, are never once seen or named in Scripture – but the churches of Christ (33 A.D.) and their faith and doctrine are (Ro. 16:16-17; Jude 3; Eph. 4:11-14; 1 Tim. 4:1-6, 6:3-5; 2 Tim. 3:16-4:4; 2 Jn. 1:9-11). Our greatest strength, is that we go solely by Scripture. Want to win the war for a lost soul? Play to your strength. Get them into the Bible (Jn. 8:31-32)!