Living the Gospel

Isaiah 52:11 – “…be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.”

If a Christian is to be effective in his witness for the Lord, it is essential that his life be consistent with his testimony. Spiritually speaking, one finds difficulty in pointing a sinner to the Savior if his own outward actions are constantly soiled by sin. The unsaved individual will see the believer’s filth much more quickly than he will the spotless Savior.

A devotional that I read some time ago includes the following story which illustrates the importance of a blameless Christian life: A jewelry salesman looked at his soiled hands and said, “This bothers me; they should be soft and clean. How distracting it must be to my customers when I display beautiful diamonds with such unappealing hands! They make a repulsive background for a piece of jewelry!” The article then concludes: “The Christian should have ‘clean hands’ which recommend the Lord Jesus and His salvation to the world. The Christian soulwinner should never be hindered because of the repulsive background of his own life. Every believer should be extremely careful to maintain consistency before others.

Isaiah the prophet wrote,”…be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” We must ask ourselves, “Are we fit channels for God to use to spread the Gospel?” If not, recognize the source of the contamination and determine not to dabble any longer in that which defiles. Claim the promise of 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Then with cleans hands you will be an effective ambassador for Christ.