7/27/12 Pablo,
Alex mid 20's
One reason I write
these posts is to demonstrate that evangelism can and should take place during
the course of everyday living. Many
people associate "everyday evangelism" with simply waiting for evangelism
opportunities to come to us. But in my
experience, if I truly want to verbalize my faith every day, I need to take the
initiative to start conversations rather than just wait for them to
happen. If we understand that it is
really the Holy Spirit who moves us to share the Gospel, we will realize there
are Spirit-led, God-given opportunities all around us. We just need to step out of our comfort zones
on faith and reach out to others. For me
this takes a strange mix of spontaneity and planning ahead. For example, today I was out running errands
and realized I would be busy the rest of the day and probably have no chance to
have a witnessing conversation, which is a daily goal. So on my drive home I stopped for a walk around a random block, praying for whomever
God would put in my way and allow me to talk to. It turned out to be two brothers in their
20's, Pablo and Alex. They believe in
God and His judgment to determine their eternal fate, but thought that simply
apologizing for their sins would earn salvation. In effect, their faith is not in Jesus but in
the sincerity of their apology. Because
of this belief they were content to just live life and take their chances with
eternity. As I shared the Gospel and
tried to help them understand their need to trust in Jesus, Alex told me how he
trusts God to bless his dream of starting his own business. So I reasoned "You plan for your
temporary life here on Earth, but do you plan for your eternal future? Everyone will be sorry about their sins on
judgment day, but now is the time to prepare, to settle out of court, to get
into a right relationship with God"
An important aspect of evangelism is trying to help unbelievers focus on
eternity. What about those of us who
believe? Do we focus on that day when we
will give an account for what we did with our God-given opportunities while
here on Earth? Are we intentional about sharing
our faith with people all around us?
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