Coexist

I sat in a coffee shop one morning and saw a “Coexist” bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot. As a radical committed Christian who has spent years in Muslim evangelism, I fully agree with the concept of "coexist", of accepting others the way they are. We should definitely do that.

When we were in Pakistan, it was not my responsibility to turn Muslims into Christians. If I had spent my time telling Afghan and Pakistani Muslims to stop doing their prayers, stop going to the mosque, don't go on a hajj, I would have gotten nowhere except to an early grave.

See, a Muslim's problem is not that he is a Muslim, but that he doesn't know Jesus. A Hindu is not lost because he practices Hinduism. He is lost because he doesn't know Jesus. Similarly, the average unsaved American is not condemned by his sins, but because he is a sinner.

Last Sunday we heard from two Gen Z young men. They told us that a common complaint of Gen-Z’ers is that our generation tells them how to behave—we try to set rules for them. "Do this, don't do that." And they are right. Gen-Z’ers don't need more rules, they need Jesus.

In an earlier post, I wrote, "We do not become sinners by sinning. We sin because we are sinners." And as Christians we have neither the ability nor the authority to forgive sins (see Mark 2:7). It is not our responsibility to clean people up and teach them to behave like Christians. Our only responsibility is to tell them about Jesus and to demonstrate the love of Jesus to the lost. To coexist.

But does coexist mean to be silent?

Let's see. I like to get up early in the morning, but I have a neighbor who stays up late and likes to sleep in 'till noon. To be a good neighbor, to coexist, I try to be quiet in the morning so he can sleep. But say one morning I wake at six and see that his house is on fire. Should I “coexist”, keep quiet, and let him enjoy his slumber or disturb his sleep to warn him of impending danger?

We have so many around us whose spiritual houses are on fire. They are headed for certain destruction. This is not the time to coexist in silence. This is the time to wake them from their slumber, to snatch them from impending judgment.

"Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire;" (Jude 22 & 23)