3/12/12 Danae, about 18
A
church brother named Eric and I met after work in order to go out and
initiate some gospel conversations. We know this can go against the
grain of our contemporary church culture which tells us that we should
politely wait until people ask us about our beliefs, invite people to
come to our Bible studies and special events, or at least hope and pray
they show up at church on Sunday mornings. But Jesus said "Go" - so we
went.
One person we talked to was a polite and fashionable
young lady named Danae. When asked about her religious beliefs she
really hadn't given it much thought. She had no religious upbringing
and hadn't thought about or pursued any religious path. She seemed,
basically, clueless about the things of God.
I've talked to a
lot of people like Danae who are caught up in their own private world
and day to day concerns, and it makes me wonder - outside of a move of
the Holy Spirit, usually through being prayed for and reached out to by
other people, how would a polite but clueless person like this have the
courage or confidence to ask us Christians about our faith? Would they
even know what questions to ask? Should we really expect them to reach
out by coming to us and to our meetings?
Since the Bible says
there is "no one who seeks God" (Romans 3:11) shouldn't the burden be on
us to go to them? Shouldn't we expect the Holy Spirit residing within
us to motivate us to take the initiative rather than an unbeliever? Why
do we think that it is somehow more "spiritual" if we wait until they
take the initiative?
But as a Christian it is only natural that
we want to share the good news of Jesus. The Holy Spirit who is sealed
within us (Eph. 4:30) compels us to do so, not just out of obedience to
the Lord but also out of love for the lost. Like Paul who said "Woe to
me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Cor. 9:16) it is also natural that
we will get impatient in waiting for those Spirit-led opportunities
that may seem to come our way only rarely.
However, I should be
the last to point fingers. Most of my life as a Christian was spent not
in reaching out in initiating Gospel conversations , but in forming
fancy excuses not to! I became quite good at it, to the point where
anytime I felt compelled to share the Gospel I had a whole arsenal of
excuses that would play like recording loops in my brain to talk myself
out of it. The constant cognitive dissonance between what I felt
compelled to do and what I tried to avoid fueled many strange and
contradictory beliefs and behaviors.
It wasn't until I set a
daily outreach goal that I began to overcome a lifetime of excuses and
habitual thinking. It has actually taken years and a lot of prayer for
those excuse-loops to quit playing in my head. Of course it doesn't
help to hear other Christians trying to talk me out of outreach because
they hear the same excuses too!
It does help to read words of
encouragement in response to my social-media posts. But imitation would
be so much better, since my goal is to help motivate other Christians
to see the opportunities all around us and to take the initiative to
reach out with the Gospel. And with that, I will share the resource
that has been most helpful in motivating me - Ray Comfort's evangelism
training ministry at www.LivingWaters.com.
If
you are new to his website, I recommend you listen to two recordings-
"Hell's Best-Kept Secret " and "True and False Conversion". They are
very eye-opening and if you are like me you will need to listen to them
multiple times. It takes time and multiple hearings just to digest all
the biblical truth they contain. These are hard truths that aren't
typically preached on Sunday mornings, and I've needed to hear them
repeatedly to keep from going back to habitual ways of thinking and
excuse-making.
Are you willing to hear some hard, biblical truths
that may just rock your world? I have to warn you, you will never be
the same, and there is no going back to the normal way of making excuses
rather than actually sharing the Gospel!
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