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Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. 1 Peter 2:12 (NIV)
There’s something extraordinary happening here. Peter is talking about pagans glorifying God! That doesn’t happen. Pagans hate God. But God has called us to live in such a way that people who are deeply resistant to the good news of Jesus Christ will come to glorify God.
How are people who are deeply resistant to the gospel ever going to come to glorify God? The answer is through the good lives of believers living in Christian community.
There was a pastor in North India with a great burden to bring the gospel to a village where there was no gospel witness. He went there preaching, and a mob gathered and threw stones and drove him and those with him out of the village.
Later, however, the village leader personally apologized for the way the pastor and his friends had been treated, and he invited the pastor to begin a Christian ministry in the area and gave the group land for the building of a Christian hospital.
How did this extraordinary change happen in that community? Over a period of time, the acts of love, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and grace of Christian believers spoke volumes and made an entrance for their words.
As we offer ourselves to Christ in worship and service, God makes His presence known throughout our communities. When your soul is filled with a sense of wonder at what God has done for you in Jesus Christ, you will share a sense of this mission in your life: to live in such a way that people who are highly resistant to the claims of Jesus Christ will come to glorify God.
Can you identify one or two groups of people around you who are deeply resistant to the gospel?
