"No. I don't need Jesus, because I've got my own mind."
When I hear that, I realize that I am talking with someone who has fallen asleep to reality. I can understand that a person might say to me, "R.C., I don't want Jesus." But when they say to me, "R.C., I don't need Jesus," I ask, "Have you lost your mind? Do you hear what you are saying?"
If there is no God, of course you don't need Jesus. If there is a God, and he is holy and you are holy, you don't need Jesus. But if God is, and God is holy, and you are not holy, there is nothing in this universe you need more desperately than Jesus.
If God is, and God is holy, and you are not holy, there is nothing in this universe you need more desperately than Jesus.____R.C. Sproul
Quoted from Ligonier Ministries' video series, Choosing My Religion. Available from http://www.ligonier.org/
"Somebody said once that evangelism, true evangelism, is only this - one beggar telling another beggar how to find bread. There's nothing that should make me boastful about my faith. I recognize that my faith is the result of the grace of God. And so we must understand that when we're talking to people, we're called to be gracious and kind. The fruit of the Spirit that the New Testament calls us to exhibit includes gentleness, meekness, patience, and love. That's the spirit in which we are called to communicate to people.
"Even though we are gracious, kind, patient, friendly, and sensitive to people's dignity, we cannot remove altogether what the New Testament calls the offense of the gospel because the gospel does call people to repentance, and people are threatened by that. But it is important that we not add unnecessarily to the offence that built into the message of sin and redemption. Sometimes people reject us and what we say because they're rejecting Christ - and we suffer unjustly. But many more times people get angry not because they're offended by Christ but they're offended by our insensitivity toward them as people."
