"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5: 13-16 )
We can see from this teaching of Jesus that Christians should actively participate in daily life and influence other people with a positive attitude towards life. When people see good behavior of Christians, they would see the glory of god.
However, many Christians who are willing to serve in the church couldn't resist the temptations of the secular world. They were caught in a dilemma where they were not able to do what they want. They couldn't change the dilemma, let alone influence the society.
Pastor Fan from a church in Henan thinks that before changing the society, Christians should overcome the weakness of themselves and resist the temptations of the world.
On the one hand, nowadays our society develops so fast that Christians are faced with great challenges. Just as the Bible says, the lust for sex and the aspiration for success are the main factors against God. These factors have a continuous bad influence on the development of the church and Christians; on the other hand, Christians are well protected in the church. However, after they leave the church, they will lose themselves in the real world because they fail to apply their faith into life.
How can Christians overcome the weakness of themselves and resist the temptations of the real world?
The church should guide the believers and care about their life, work and study. Nowadays most churches can't give every believer personal care. They seldom organize activities for communication and encouragement between believers.
To carry out our faith, we should not only worship God on Sunday. The church should also organize activities where believers can practice their faith. Now a lot of white collars have no time to visit the places like orphanages or nursing homes on weekdays. They prefer to spend their weekends and holidays having fun. The church hasn't paid much attention to the church activities so it is natural that believers would ignore this.
The believers should also do as follows to grow themselves:
1.We should know the love of god. Believers already know a lot about therapy and heard a lot about the gospel. However, it is difficult to apply the faith into practice.
When we pray, we would tell God I have done something wrong. However, we may still make the same mistake when we return to the real world. The main reason is that we haven't understood the love of God thoroughly.
We think that we have entered the external home of God and we are saved. However, we haven't entered the world of God's deep love.
We still rely on our eyes or parents in the real world. When we truly realize God's love, we will be determined to commit everything to God and follow him.
2. We should apply our faith into practice. Nowadays the Internet is developing rapidly. People could get global information and resources without leaving home.
However, the convenient Internet has also brought about temptations. We are easy to be influenced. Christians should be alert and practice our faith every day. We should combine spiritual life with real life.
Let's form the habits of reading the Bible, listening to the gospel and praying to God every day. When these habits become an important part of our life, our heart will be strong and we would say no to any temptation.
3. We should learn to sacrifice ourselves. Jesus said to his disciples that anyone who wants to follow him should sacrifice himself and carry his cross. When we have the heart of self-denial, we will be willing to give up anything we have in the world and only look up at God.
When Christians grow and become mature, they would have good behavior and influence people around. Gradually they would change the society. Pastor Fan thinks that believers should grow their own spiritual life. Without a spiritual life, believers won't impress others with a Christian image in the society.
Christians should return to the real world. Some Christians become far away from their original friends. They think that they are "holy" and should have no contact with non-Christians. It is definitely wrong.
Jesus told his disciples when he was dying: " I'm not asking you to make people leave the real world. I just want you to keep them away from the evil. "
Christians should enter the real world and preach the gospel to the crowd. We should influence them and make them see the glory of God.
Translated By: Emma Ma
