Christian, the world doesn’t need your exasperation, it needs your evangelism …

There’s no need for me to poll my readers as to whether they have ever experienced exasperation. You’re all human, therefore, you have experienced it!

In that case, you can probably relate with the father in this story George MacDonald shared in his book, “Restoring Your Spiritual Passion”:

“It is said of one of the famous composers that he had a rebellious son who used to come in late at night after his father and mother had gone to bed. And before going to his own room, he would go to his father’s piano and slowly, as well as loudly, play a simple scale, all but the final note. Then leaving the scale uncompleted, he would retire to his room. Meanwhile the father, hearing the scale minus the final note, would writhe on his bed, his mind unable to relax because the scale was unresolved. Finally, in consternation, he would stumble down the stairs and hit the previously unstruck note. Only then would his mind surrender to sleep once again.”

Today it’s not uncommon for Christians who are exasperated with a world lost in sin to take to the keyboards of their favorite electronic devices and express their exasperation on a social media platform …

“This world needs Jesus!” they tap out with frustration.

I remember one message in particular from a professing Christian on Twitter: “When in the world are people going to wake up and realize they need Jesus?” was the message.

Did the person seriously mean when were spiritually dead people suddenly going to come to some spontaneous understanding that their sin had separated them from God and their single greatest need was to be reconciled to God?

I wanted to respond, “Maybe after you preach the Gospel to them!”

You see, the world really doesn’t need our exasperation, it needs our evangelism!

Oh, you might feel a twinge of momentarily relief venting your exasperation, but just venting does absolutely nothing to resolve the very real problem — but your evangelism does!

Occasional moments of exasperation are understandable, even Jesus experienced them. You can read the frustration in His words at times like this …

“Jesus said, ‘You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me,'” Matthew 17:17.

Fortunately for us, Jesus didn’t spend His days unloading on the crowds He drew about how exasperated He was with humankind. Instead, He poured Himself into serving them, preaching, teaching, healing, and otherwise loving them, all the way to the cross, to a grave, and to a victorious resurrection.

Jesus made Himself the answer to their needs!

As Christians, we’re supposed to keep that same work going as His ambassadors:

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

What are you doing as Christ’s ambassador to be part of the solution? Are you just venting your exasperation with the sin of the world, or are you actively preaching the Gospel to those you can reach so that you you’re actually doing something about the problem?

Scotty