Pointing Others to Jesus

One of the greatest benefits of this time of year is the opportunity we are given to evaluate our progress of the past year and revitalize our goals for spiritual growth for the coming year. Amid all of the plans that are being in made in preparation for the year 2000, there needs to be time dedicated to making provisions for how we can better serve the Lord in the 21st Century. One of the best resolutions that you can make for the new year is the decision that you are going to be more active in showing others the way to Jesus Christ. You just can't bring someone to the feet of the Master without drawing nearer yourself.

Pointing others to Jesus makes you take a closer look at Him. I am convinced that there is no better way to get to know the Savior than to tell other people about Him. Since you want them to come to adore Him as you have, you will research and investigate like never before so that you can present His case in a persuasive and convicting manner. When you begin to describe His healings and mighty wonders, you have a better appreciation of His divinity. When you relate His temptations, sufferings, and tears, you have a greater grasp of His sympathy with the human race. When you explain His sweat that fell as drops of blood and the nails that were driven through His hands and feet, you have a more graphic picture of the destructive nature of sin. And when you tell of His glorious resurrection from the dead, you have an added anticipation of your own promised victory over the grave. Helping others to see Him through the eye of faith can only strengthen your vision of the unseen.

Pointing others to Jesus makes you take a closer look at the Scriptures. No matter how many times you have read Rom. 1:16, ""I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek"", these words will take on a new meaning when you witness the power of the gospel in action. Stone hearts are pierced and stubborn wills are broken by the message that Jesus saves. Hope is realized and lives are changed by the news that ""He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness"" (1 Pet. 2:24). When you observe the Scriptures at work in bringing someone under the condemnation of their sin and provoking their helpless response of ""what must I do to be saved?"", you'll find that the passages just come alive off of the page, like when Ananias said, ""arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord"" (Acts 22:16). And building a more intimate relationship with the message makes possible a more intimate relationship with the Messenger.

Pointing others to Jesus makes you take a closer look at yourself. The best sermons that will ever be preached in the kingdom are the consistent, constant godly lives of its citizens. If you want to point someone to Christ, then you let them see Him living in you (Gal. 2:20). Jesus Himself said, ""Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in heaven"" (Matt. 5:16). Who was more qualified to make that statement than He who practiced what He preached? Jesus was always preceded by His reputation, and He needs disciples who will follow in His steps of sincerity and integrity. You have no right to recommend a way of life that you are not willing to live yourself or to condemn another when you are still stained with the sins that nailed the Son of God to the cross. When explaining to other people what the Lord expects of them, the honest Christian will seek to improve his own shortcomings and weaknesses so that he can be a better example and bring glory to God. There is no better way to draw nearer to His throne than to be more like His Son.

""'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.' But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die"" (John 12:32-33). There is an unmistakable attraction about Jesus Christ, a drawing power that demands our attention and elicits our response. While His miracles and parables and other events of His life are certainly worthy of our consideration, it is His death that pays the wages for our sin and restores us to a right relationship with our Father. Though the cross is the most horrible and humiliating event of all history, we cannot draw near to God without it, for Jesus said ""no one comes to the Father, but through Me"" (John 14:6). Who will you point to Him in the new year?