Focus on the Person

I wrote about one business having a baptism on its parking lot in the article entitled “Where the Rubber Meets the Road.” There has been another business to promote a lunch Bible study one day weekly for the men from the Haskell Work Release Unit. Ashley Furniture Company, Bryant, Arkansas, located right there on the interstate, employs many men from the ADC unit. Eight men committed their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and wanted to be baptized. I was contacted and asked if I could bring my “baptistry” to the warehouse located in the back of the store. I said, “Absolutely.” So, I filled my six-foot-wide livestock watering tank and took the trailer it sits on and backed it into the warehouse. When the noon meal was over, each man was counseled personally by an established believer to make sure they understood what they were doing. Then right there in the warehouse, with a congregation of thirty or forty people, we had a time of songs and worship to God with guitar accompaniment, and personal ministry to the men. We baptized the eight men with shouts of hallelujahs and praises to God. Tears flowed down their faces from the presence of God. Not only were the men themselves blessed by the presence of God. We were all blessed. There is everything right about bringing the gospel into the work/business place. We are living in a time when new precedents are being restored to our country as in the beginning. This is the time for businesses to promote the gospel agenda—not some other agenda. It is time to encourage people in the truth. I like to say it like this: “Kick the walls out of the religious boxes! Let the Light shine! Don’t hide Him under a basket!”  Forget religious controversy and bickering and arguing over different beliefs and opinions. The Lord Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. The early church did not have all the different schools of religion. They were eyewitness to a person. They saw Him come on the scene and demonstrate the power of the Spirit in healing people and setting them free from sin. They saw Him go back up into heaven in bodily form with the promise that He was coming back the same way. Then, they were filled with the same Spirit that was upon Him. By that same Spirit, they presented Him to the world with power, setting multitudes free in every way. This was not dead religious ritual. This was living in the presence of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ by the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Forget your religion. Follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life. The doctrine of Christ is all you need. All the fullness of the Godhead bodily is in Him. The only way to know and have the presence of the Father is through total surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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