As Christians, why we need to spread gospel? (For Christians out there)

Attended Rev. Stephen Thong last night. For this very first service in year 2008, he preaches about why as Christians, we need to spread good news to non believers.

Firstly, it is due to this is the will for God. He mentioned about many people actually do not understand what is meant by the will of God, and they keep mentioning about the will of God. Only through the will of God to forgive, we are being forgiven. Only through the will of God to enable us understanding words of bible, thus we can understand. Even all people knelt down when receiving the commands from Emperor in ancient time, and Emperor is someone who would die. What more to say God, the creator of all the living things, who is eternal. Thus, it is a must to spread the gospel.

Secondly, it is the command from Jesus Christ. Before the persecution of Jesus Christ, He kept on preaching about the good news. Morever, He had two commands for us, of which one is internally and another one is externally. Internal command requires us to love one another, while the external command is to approach the people and spread the gospel to them.

Thirdly, there is the inspiration of love from Jesus Christ. We love Jesus Christ, because He loves us deeply first, that He is willing to sacrifice for us on the cross. It is not because we love Him then He starts to love us. Once the Holy Spirit is with us, we will be constrainted to spread the gospel. The difference between 'constraint' and 'compel' is, 'constraint' is the feeling to push us to spread gospel from internally (our own self), while 'compel' is from external source (being forced by others). It is the power of love within us
which constraints us to spread gospel, when we start to love Jesus Christ as our saviour.

Rev. Stephen Thong continued to give two examples of what is meant by a constraint which is from our own self. Take for example, we all have the experience of having stomach ache, it is so aching that we do not care what we are doing at that moment and how other people will think of us, even if we are attending a church service, or having a meeting, all we know is, going to the washroom and solving the stomach ache first. Nobody force us to go washroom, we want to go ourselves. The second example is for the women who want to give birth to babies. No women can bear the suffering and delay time to deliver the babies when the babies want to come out from the womb to see the world.

Fourthly, there is a need to spread the gospel. Paradoxically, human beings do not have to buy the most important thing in life, i.e. oxygen, but spend so much of their money to buy less important thing - food. We have to admit that according to the hierarchy of importance, oxygen is the most important one, following by water and food. However, the most expensive one is food, but the cheapest one is oxygen. In fact, we do not even need cash to buy oxygen. This is also similar with the need of gospel in human beings. We all need gospel desperately, but we choose to 'believe' that we do not need any gospel.

When Christians want to share gospel with non Christians, non Christians usually will close the door. It is because, they 'choose' to believe that they do not need gospel. As for many Chistians, they need the gospel most, and they agree on the truth that they need the gospel most, but they are also most reluctant and scare to commit themselves to spread gospel. Even some of the preachers are also feeling very pressured when having a gospel rally. In conclusion, we need gospel, just we react in the other way round, to console ourselves that we do not need it.

Fifthly, it is because of the feeling of in debt to the gospel. We always need to have the feeling of in debt to the gospel. Take for example, when we feel we are considerate, we are actually not, when we feel we are not considerate, we will try to improve ourselves more and become more considerate, and thus becoming a better person. When we have the feeling of in debt to the gospel, we will wish to preach the gospel more.

I find yesterday night is the night that i really learn a good lesson - why we have to share gospel to others. Hope this will help you too:)