Gospel Truth in a Digital Age

In Isaiah 45, we can read a beautiful passage that points to Jesus our Savior and His desire to communicate His truth throughout the entire world:
(21) there is no other God besides Me, A just God and a Savior; There is none besides Me. 22 "Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. 23 I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath. 24 He shall say, 'Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him.

And, we have essentially at our fingertips to ability to touch people all around the world - through our computers.  With Internet Evangelism Day approaching on Sunday, it gives us a chance to contemplate the tools that God has given to us. 

But, typing on a computer or sending a link or retweeting a message does not exempt us from sharing personally what God has done in our lives.   Each of us has a responsibility to display His character to the people with whom we connect, and I believe we are called to develop a mindset of readiness at all times to verbalize our relationship with Christ and be ready to present the powerful message of salvation through Him.

Romans 3 offers a passage that shows us our need for a Savior and the significance of His death and resurrection for us:
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus...

In 2005, a consortium of ministries began what is known as Internet Evangelism Day, giving Christians, churches, various ministries, and small groups the chance to set aside time to concentrate on how to communicate the message of Christ through the Internet and to help others to see the incredible outreach potential that is there.

NRB.com  reports that according to the latest figures from Internet World Stats, updated in June of 2012, over 2.4 billion people around the world have access to the Internet. Just four years ago, that figure was around 1.6 billion. At the end of 2000, the number of Internet users was only 360 million.

The website, internetevangelismday.com, has free resources, including short skits, effective strategies, and other tools and references designed to get people thinking about the subject of Internet evangelism.

The Christian Post relates information about a "Gospel Tweeting Contest" several years ago, sponsored by the Acts 29 Network, encouraging participants toexplain the gospel in 140 characters or less.

Here are some of the entries:

Jesus lived the life we couldn't live and died the death we should have died. Anyone who repents and believes in Jesus will be saved

God created, man corrupted, Christ redeems, reigns, and will come again.

God made man perfect, but man failed God and sinned. So God sent his Son to die for those sins and pay the debt we could never pay.

Jesus Saves Sinners. He takes our sin and we get His righteousness. We are now to follow Him and teach others what He teaches us.

Knowing our need, God became a man, seeking to die and rise again to save us from ourselves and give us new life to His glory.

I think this is a reminder that we have all sorts of methods to transmit the message, but we have to be so careful that our message is right.   These are examples of brief, Twitter-sized summaries of the gospel message - and we can be challenged to be able to share the essence of the gospel message; truth that is timeless and powerful and that does not change.  

It's so vital that we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Savior of the World.   And, that we are capable to share with others the meaning of the message - that sin has separated humanity from God and that we need a Savior, we cannot save ourselves.  And, the good news that we have a Savior!

And, God gives us plenty of ways to share that life-changing message, so that people can experience the life-giving Savior.  Internet Evangelism Day can be a motivating tool to hone our message and look for opportunities to share - digitally, and of course, personally.

The IE Day website has a variety of resources that you can use to share Christ.    Sometimes merely sharing a thought or content item can be effective.   The popular Internet memes that provide visual depictions of truth make a statement on Facebook or Pinterest.   Or, you can even blog and share what God is doing in your life.   The Billy Graham Association developed peacewithgod.net, which can provide answers to life's questions, and we have a link from our website at faithradio.org.   Global Media Outreach has a number of pages that are revealed in search engines in order to point people to truth.   Their website has some real-time statistics on how people are accessing their site www.globalmediaoutreach.com and many are being saved.    The most powerful message in the world can be communicated through an incredible number of online methods.