It's not my job to tell people what to think, it's my job to show them what I think and then pray for the harvest. We cannot force our religion on others, this is not loving, nor respectful. If God wanted to He could have forced everyone of us to believe in Him, but then we would be no better than robots. This was the purpose of free will; there is no true love without the freedom to chose. God wants us to chose Him over sin, it is because of this that we should not force our religion our morality onto others except that which is vital to the operation of a society (these are more like rules to live peacebly with others more than they are morality in the religious sense, another topic for another time). The old adage live and let live is a great example of this. It is not our responsibility to save people, it is only our responsibility to live in a way that points to Christ; God and only God does the saving.
When Jesus' disciples asked Him who can be saved, He replied, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible," (Matt. 19:26). That is why salvation rests in God alone by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9).
Psalm 3:8 (NASB)
8 [a]Salvation belongs to the Lord;
Your blessing [b]be upon Your people! Selah.
We should never forget, we are not saved by our own strength, by our own power this is impossible in our current human state to even want to turn from our sin..."But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." (1 Cor 2:14). It is because of this we need a Savior, it is because of this we need the Holy spirit. The Holy Spirit does the convicting (John 16:8), without this convicting we can never chose God. Because the sinner cannot come to God on his own, he must be convicted of his sin, and thus be made aware of his need for salvation. The conviction of sin is beyond our control. Because we cannot come to Christ on our own, we cannot expect the unsaved world to be swayed by our actions alone; we cannot put the same expectations of living right on them just because we say so. We must allow the Holy Spirit to work through us and the best way outside of living like Christ that we can do this is through prayer.
Prayer is an essential part of witnessing; it is what puts the Holy Spirit in motion. Without prayer our witness is essentially without it's greatest weapon. It is prayer that frees you to spread the Gospel as effectively as you want and to trust God to give the increase (1Cor. 3:6-7). It is through prayer that we ask God to send the Holy Spirit; ask Him to convict the world of sin and ask Him for the ability to say and do the right things. The work of the Holy Spirit is essential in salvation and is guided by our prayers.
Matt Slick of Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) sums up our position in regards to salvation like this: "When we sin, who do we sin against? God. Who forgives? God. Who pays? God! Did you get that? God pays! How does He do that? Simple. 2000 years ago on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem, He bore our sins in His body and died on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24). He took our punishment: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried... He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him..." (Isaiah 53:4-5).
God is just. God is merciful. God is gracious. In the justice of God, He took our place. In the mercy of God, we don't get punished. In the grace of God, He gives us eternal life.
Even though we are unworthy of salvation, even though we are unworthy of God's love, even though we are unworthy of mercy, even though we are worthy of wrath, God saved us. He did so not because of who we are, but because of who He is, not because of what we do, but because of what He did. God is love (1 John 4:16). God is holy (1 Peter 1:16). God is good (Psalm 34:8). We could never fathom the depths of His purity and kindness (Rom. 11:33). We could never, through our own efforts, attain Him. There is only one thing left for us. We must worship Him, love Him, and serve Him. He alone is worthy. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Did you read the theme here? It's all about God, what He did, what He is doing and what is going to happen. Because it's about God and because He is the one who saves, who does the harvest there is nothing we can do that on its own saves people. In a nutshell, we don't save people, all we do is witness to God's Glory; we do this through living like Christ and praying for those who need Him, that's it, nothing more, nothing less. This is the seed we plant, that is living a life that no human can live on their own, a life full of servitude, obedience, patience, Grace and love. It would be arrogant of us to say or do otherwise.
b777, M. S. (2017, October 16). Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry. Retrieved from
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