Post date: Apr 01, 2014 3:24:33 PM
The Shepherd’s Call is a call upon those who claim Christ, to prove it by obeying His Word and being Мαρτυρες for Him; being His witnesses, in other words, to this dark world.
Does this mean going to distant lands and laying your life on the line for Him? Rather, it means opening your doors and your hearts, laying your lives on the line for Him.
The heathens are your own neighbors: the obnoxious neighbor who has bolted their heart down, lock and key, because of the abuse they have suffered in their past; the neighbor who tries to drown out that still, small voice of God in their life by constantly blasting loud music because they know that they are living wickedly and see no hope of changing to obey the call upon their life to live for Christ, so they don't want to hear it because they have convinced themselves they can't do it; the neighbor who thinks they are good enough to go to heaven; the neighbor who thinks it's possible to be good enough to go to heaven; the neighbor who is contemplating suicide because they know they are evil and think God hates them because the little church down the way carries around signs of hatred instead of the Light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the neighbor that is living, as though espoused, but without having committed themselves, heart, soul, and very life, to the one with whom they carouse; The neighbor who is too timid, or even terrified, to even speak to you because they see how righteously you live and that you would never want to know one such as them, never knowing that you have been through your Isaiah 6 moments often enough to know that it is you who deserve to die, but have been saved by the blood of the Lamb!
How, then, can you not share this with your own neighbors?
“Go, therefore, and be witnesses for Me, in your own neighborhood, and ever outward, even unto the remotest parts.”