Subtitle: Ambassadors are found in places where their views are not always welcome but they must navigate the waters without compromising loyalty to their leader.

Excerpt: Ambassadors are found in places where their views are not always welcome but they must navigate the waters without compromising loyalty to their leader.

Author: Jeff Hilles

One of the most impactful verses in Scripture is….

Mark 12:30-31 – And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no other commandment greater than these.

If God says, “There is no other commandment greater than these,” we need to pay attention. To make the point even clearer, He repeats this command in Luke 10:27 and Matthew 22:37-39.

Over the course of the last few years, on our various platforms, I have used this verse hundreds of times to defend the importance of God’s unchanging laws over mankind’s social and moral deterioration. I have personally responded to almost 10k messages on our Medium.com blog site alone, many of which were elicited by anti-Christians who see our faith (i.e. our theology and consequently our actions) as antethetical to “loving our neighbor.” My response has been that, as Biblical Christians, we need show our ‘love for God’ by following His commands…

1 John 5:3 – For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

Of course, His commands are “not burdensome” only because He will never leave us nor forsake us” (Hebrews 13:5), and not because His commands will always be easy (2 Timothy 3:12).

Somehow, someway we, as born-again believers, need to simultaneously (1) reject our own temptation to sin, (2) not imply that God accepts the sins of others, (3) be an outward light of the gospel, not hidden under a basket, and, (4) share the Good News to all who will listen.

We are to be Ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Websters definition of an Ambassador is….

“A diplomatic agent of the highest rank accredited to a foreign government or sovereign as the resident representative of his or her own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and often temporary diplomatic assignment.”

Ambassador… what a perfect term for one who has to thread the needle between acknowledging God’s commands and loving one’s neighbor in order to share the gospel. As born-again ambassadors, Christians should not see ourselves in a cushy environment cloistered among our believing friends. We are to be found in foreign places where our words cary the weight of our Savior as a compassionate caregiver for the downtrodden, and a staunch support of our Lord against the forces of evil and human opposition.

We are God’s “diplomatic agent” of “high rank,” accredited by the Holy Spirit who is “sovereign” over the universe. We are temporary “residents” of Earth, bound for Heaven (Philippians 3:20), but on a very “special and temporary diplomatic assignment.”

God bless those of you who are Biblical Christians as you minister to a lost and dying world under the challenges suggested above.