Thought For today; I want us to look at 9 Excuses people give for not witnessing to others about the Lord…. I am going to be transparent here, for years I struggled with witnessing…. And I was Mr. Excuse personified… Thank the Lord he has patience with me… it’s not that I didn’t love the Lord… I just came to the conclusion I gave out on Sunday’s and that was enough… if you are one like me who believed that, I am not here to condemn you but to challenge you to an even more challenging walk with God and with His presence as you share Him with total strangers… My family laughs because they say I am a lot like my grandmother who never met a stranger… yet I struggled with opening my mouth to them about the most precious Gift I have ever been given and that is the Message of the Cross and that there is hope and life in Jesus. So if you know me you may be sitting there going …whaaaat? Surely not… Yep, I was guilty… notice the was… I have found it a joy to share the Lord with people and now look for the opportunity…. So don’t be hard on yourself but just challenge yourself to change… habits once formed are hard to break, but I know the habit breaker, His name is Jesus… If you take up this challenge you can be assured of this you will encounter people who are needing to hear you share your faith with them, and how you came to know Jesus… Look at it this way… I love to tell people how I met my wife because she is precious to me, we should be the same way with Jesus… It is actually a blast….Trust me… So lets get into the Thought for today; 1. Fear of being rejected We all have to face this one; even I have had to face it down… I don’t like not being liked by other people. But the Lord has been teaching me something powerful and freeing. They rejected Him and His message so there will be those who will reject you and the message I have given you to share. But I do not have to live in fear… For God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind… People will reject you even when you are not talking about the Lord… so that is an issue we have to just face down and don’t believe the lie of the enemy… Philippians 1:21 Galatians 1:10 2. Don’t know how to Acts 17 Paul brought in something that they at that time were doing and that was worshiping the “Unknown God,” Think of an event around you that might involve death, use it to spark a conversation about eternity… John 4 we find the woman at the well Jesus used the situation to begin a conversation with her and peak her interest… You may be at the water cooler or coffee pot getting something to drink and someone may just be there standing, it is an open door to begin a conversation about the Lord 3. Fear of losing a friend What kind of friendship do you really have if you go to heaven when you die, but, your friend would go to hell? If you are friends 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 or 60 years then separated for 800 million years, and that would just be the finite mind trying to wrap itself around eternity, but I think you get the picture…What kind of friendship is that? If you are not eternal friends, are you really friends at all? To lose someone for eternity would be a travesty, when you hold the key to opening their understanding about who Jesus is and what he has done for them and yet say nothing.... 4. They have already heard It’s important to in mind that repetition is very aluable in witnessing… I read recently that it takes an average of 7.6 times for people to really hear the Gospel before they commit their lives to Jesus. Interestingly enough you won’t know if your conversation is going to be number 1, 3, 5, 6, or even 75! 1 Corinthians 3:6 God knows their circumstances that is going on in their lives and sends you and I to “send the light!” How shall they hear without a preacher, someone who testifies of who Jesus is and what he has done in their lives… 5. I am just lazy How do you think God feels when we say we are lazy, while multitudes of people die and go to hell every single day… Does this sound like the New Testament Church? Who had so much zeal for the Lord that they were willing to die to share the Message of the Cross… Probably the reason most people don’t share their faith is that they don’t have any to share. It does not have to be that way at all… When God has done something for you that is so undeserving still it is given freely the least we could do is pass it on… 6. Friendship Evangelism Many of us want the lost to simply look at our lives and be able to see their need for Jesus just by looking at our love for Him. John 2:6 John 4 Romans 1:16 Sometimes we don’t want to talk about our faith, because in some weird way satan has gotten us to believe that we should be ashamed of what people might think or even say if we dare open our mouths and speak truth lovingly. Romans 10:13-17 7. I don’t know enough If knowing is everything is a prerequisite for us to share our faith, I am afraid none of us could witness. When you can’t answer someone’s questions it drives to the Word of God to study and seek God for the answers, praying that He would reveal, illuminate and give us Revelation of His word so that you can understand your relationship with Him and better share it with others. 1 Corinthians 2:12 You can comprehend spiritual truths that a lost person cannot, because as a believer you have the Holy Spirit living inside you. 8. They won’t want to talk about it I think this is a slick way of saying, “I don’t want to talk about it about my relationship with God…” I think you would be amazed at just how open the lost are to having a dialogue or conversation with you then you realize. Sometimes they are going through circumstances and are wide open to talking because they are searching and they don’t know what they are searching for…They would love to hear some good news… that there is actually hope… but it going to take you and I breaking free of being bound to secrecy by the our insecurities… Yet, when you let God bust a move in your life and you see that person who is hurting, and hopeless and you dare to come out of your shell and Proclaim Jesus to them… And you see that face of hopelessness change into a face of hope and helplessness to a face of being helped, unlovable yet not someone has taken the time to talk to them…and you see the tears roll down their face of Joy… something happens to you, you realize that you were once that person too till someone dared to tell you about Jesus… 9. I can’t answer their Questions Some may really worry about this, that you might look foolish if you can’t answer their questions… God tells us this found in Psalm 14:1 Just because you don’t have the answer now to that or those questions doesn’t make you a fool… The fool is the one who doesn’t believe in God… I am not trying to be rude at all… I have been here and I still don’t have all the answers and probably never will and I am okay with that… shoot I am doing a series on Heaven and I have so many question from people and I don’t have all the answers, sometimes I feel very inadequate, but I have really come to be at peace with that… It’s alright that I don’t have all the answers, cause I really enjoy the challenge of digging into the word of God and finding them also… I normally just say that is a good question you given me… would you like an answer? Most of the times people say …”Yes” and so I will ask them for email address, phone number to call or text them back… Make sure to follow through, because has given you an open door with that person and their eternity could be in your hands… Just Plant the seed… for that is a win, win, win situation…
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:05:35 +0000
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