It can feel frustrating, trying to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Jesus told us to do our job, then move on.
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”
Matthew 10:14 NIV
Jesus said most people will choose the broad, easy path to eternal destruction.
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”
Matthew 7:13 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
Jesus said the world is going to hate us.
Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
1 John 3:13 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
Jesus said most will let their love grow cold. Mine did, for awhile.
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”
Matthew 24:12 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
Complacency will destroy fools wholesale!
For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
Proverbs 1:32 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
A lot of people, especially commenters to internet posts, will waste our time pretending to listen. In reality, all they are doing is seeking a chance to spout what they think.
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.
Proverbs 18:2 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
Lots of people will refuse to read the signs of the times.
“You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”
Matthew 16:3 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
“Same old, same old,” they’ll say, because they heard something on CNN.
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
2 Peter 3:4 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
The Bible says people will seek professional liars to scratch their itchy ears.
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
2 Timothy 4:3 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
They’ll be totally into themselves and how much fun they can have.
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
We will meet people who are convinced they’re on the straight and narrow and will not hear otherwise, though we can tell by their fruit they’re in deep trouble.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Matthew 7:15-20 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
“Lord, Lord!” they will say someday, but they won’t listen now.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
Matthew 7:21-23 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
Those people who have decided to be bad, well, God’s letting them chase that bad decision all the way down the rabbit hole!
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:18-32 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
Mankind’s downward spiral is so bad everyone on earth would die if God himself didn’t come in and say, “Stop! Enough! I’m taking charge now!”
“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.”
Matthew 24:22 NIV
Shake the dust off your feet!
If we feel frustrated sometimes, think how Jesus must feel.
- He took a beating. For them.
- A crown of sharp thorns and spit. For them.
- Nails in his hands and feet and a spear in his side as he hung, cursed on the tree. For them.
- Dead three days, in the grave and hell. For them.
- He rose from the grave – for them.
- He ascended into heaven – for them.
- He offers eternal life, freely – for them.
- He did everything he could do — for them!
And most just blow him off. They decide they’re ok. They decide they don’t need a savior.
Shake the dust off your feet!
But, wait! Jesus tells us to look up!
“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”
John 4:35 KJV
We have a divine appointment to bear fruit! Fruit that will last forever!
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit–fruit that will last–and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
John 15:16 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
It is the Lord’s harvest! Some people will be saved!
He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Luke 10:2 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
Our work will succeed!
So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:11 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
Angels will rejoice!
“In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
Work, work while it is day! Night is coming!
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”
John 9:4 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
Lay up treasures in heaven!
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
Matthew 6:20 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
Shine, shine, shine!
“Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”
Daniel 12:3 NIV
Lift up your eyes!
Are you following God's plan for your life? You should. Your plan sucks. It really, really sucks. Suckage Maximus. Most people are WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Jesus is coming. Are you ready to meet Him? Give your life to Jesus Christ. Time is running out.
Lift Up Your Eyes! 