Awakening Book Devotional By Matt BrownSample

"Look What Has Come to the World!"

Carl F. H. Henry stated, “The early Christians did not exclaim, ‘What has the world come to?’ Rather they proclaimed, 'Look what has come to the world!’” This is a fundamentally different way of thinking and acting as a Christian.

Instead of focusing so much on the negative, we are called to focus on the glory of the gospel and how Christ is still moving in the world today. Focusing on the good will make us much more influential in culture.

Christians have become known more for what they are against than what they are for. This is a problem, because we are not influential as Christians when we preach against the bad in culture. We are influential when we preach the good in Christ. Scripture calls us to focus on what is true, lovely, noble, and of good report (Phil. 4:8 NKJV). Psalm 33:5 tells us, “The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.” It’s important we realize that even though we encounter much pain and evil in our time on earth, it’s just as important to recognize the earth is also full of the love, mercy, and goodness of God. Some people only see the bad, and that can be incredibly disheartening.

While the early Christians challenged problems in the church, their consistent message was, “The gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world” (Col. 1:6). And this gospel is still growing and bearing fruit all over the world today.

Christians lose influence in our culture when we get sidetracked by secondary issues. When, and only when, we get back to the goodness, hope, joy, and love in the gospel and how God is using that gospel in the lives of people all around us will we have a powerful antidote for the deepest pains of our culture.