We were traveling from home to home in Haiti. Our long term missionary friend Carrie has been helping the families there for a couple of years, every time telling them Jesus was the reason she was there. One woman rattled off one thing after another in Haitian Creole that Carrie has done for her. We had Marc Alain with us who could translate so Carrie got into deeper conversations with them about what they believed about God or their own forms of religion. She always told them that no matter what they believed, she would still help them. One woman expressed her beliefs something like this: she believed in Jesus because there is no other reason why someone like Carrie would come from the United States to help them. Jesus had to have sent Carrie. There could be no other explanation. To hear those words come (through our translator) from a Haitian woman’s mouth was so amazing.
It got me to wondering if anyone would ever believe in Jesus because of my actions. The better question might be, “Would anyone ever NOT believe in Jesus because of my actions?”
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul basically says it’s OK to eat food sacrificed to idols, because idols aren’t even real. But people who still believe in idols and see them as gods might be confused if you say you have a God (whom you know is the only, one true God) and those people don’t know any better so that when they see you eating the food sacrificed to idols they get confused and that becomes a stumbling block for them to come to Jesus.
In summary, we not only need to be concerned that our actions would be evidence of Jesus, but that our actions don’t contradict our words to the point of turning others away from Him.
Scott Knowlton's Blog 