“God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. He does everything by his power that is working in us.” (Eph 3:20, NIrV)
The Lord is waiting to manifest through His people, His amazing grace and power. But He desires that people who engage in His service will keep their minds directed to His glory. If we have time to worry every day then every day we should have time for reading the Word of God and for prayer. . . .
Individually we are to walk and talk with God; as did the prophets of old, and then the sacred influence of the gospel of Christ in all its preciousness will appear in our lives.
There is an eloquence far more powerful than the eloquence of words in the quiet, consistent life of a pure, true Christian. What a person is has far more influence than what they say. Some of us Christians so love to polish up our little doctrines, pet beliefs, and mantras whereby we judge others by, but they all fall flat, if we cannot practice what we preach. If we cannot, or will not, live the same way we tell others.
The officers who were sent to Jesus came back with the report that never man spoke as He spoke. (John 7:46) But the reason for this was that there never was any person ever who lived as Jesus lived. Had His life been other than it was, He could not have spoken as He did.
His words bore with them a convincing power, because they came from a heart pure and holy, full of love and sympathy, benevolence and truth. The soldiers could have stated that they failed to arrest Christ because of the danger of the crowd but they did not. Instead, they reported that Jesus was not like anyone they had ever heard speak. Because NO ONE had ever lived like Him.
It is our own character and experience that determine our influence upon others. I see this all the time in the little town where I live. In order to convince others of the power of Christ’s grace, we must know its power in our own hearts and lives. The gospel we present for the saving of souls must be the exact same gospel by which our own souls are saved. Only through a living faith in Christ as a personal Savior AND Lord is it possible to make our influence felt in a skeptical world such as we live in today. If we would draw others out of the swift-running current, our own feet must be firmly set upon the Rock, Christ Jesus.
The Badge of Christianity is not an outward sign, not the wearing of a cross or a crown, but it is that which reveals the union of a person with God. By the power of His grace manifested in the transformation of character, the world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer. No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life. No one can be improved, saved, or helped, merely by intellect or argument alone. The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.