There were three occasions that I have vivid memories of leading someone to Christ or having played a part in it.
The first was when I was in the youth fellowship some 40 years ago. As a youth, we would be out at Parkway Parade after youth fellowship doing what is called street evangelism. I had very little understanding of the gospel back then, but we were armed with the 4 Spiritual Laws (a small booklet explaining the basics of the Christian faith) and were taught to find someone who would spare some time to listen to us.
After many rejections from passers-by, a guy called Michael actually said yes, allowing me to share the gospel with him. Page by page, we went through the 4SL, after which he said thank you, and we parted ways. He did not pray the sinners’ prayer with me.
But weeks later, he appeared in my church and said that I was the one who had led him to Christ. Imagine my surprise! He had brought the booklet home and read through it on his own, become convicted of the Truth, and decided to pray to receive Christ! Praise God!
Another poignant memory is from when I was in the mission field. Bank was one of the young people who was significantly impacted by the church's Sports Program. He would also regularly follow us to church on Sunday. Each Sunday, during lunch time, I would gather Bank and a few of the other young people together, and invite a team member or a Thai believer to come and share their testimony with them. My job was to facilitate sharing in the small group and give them an opportunity to accept Christ after each session.
Within the group, there were always many questions about religion and about Jesus, and Bank was always the one with the most engaging questions. Often there were no answers, but it was a fruitful and meaningful discussion. We knew that God was working in Bank's heart, and we prayed that he would say yes to Jesus one day.
It was about a year later when we offered the frequently-asked question, “If it was you in the story, would you have done the same thing (meaning to accept Jesus)?” Bank was finally ready to reply with a "Yes"! I invited the person who had shared the testimony to pray with him. God is good indeed.
My third encounter to share with you was with a guy called Marcus — and his story is the most interesting! Long before he ever made a decision to follow Jesus, Marcus had started to pray in Jesus’ name. God had divinely brought him into our team in the Sports Outreach Program. Every week, we would take turns to share our testimony and even repeat it because he asked to hear it again. We started to realize that he really wanted to know how God would answer our prayers and sensed that he wasn’t really interested in how to be "saved" per se. And every week when we prayed, we would join us to bring his own prayers before God and affirm the "Amen" aloud with us.
Instead of pushing him to make a decision prematurely, we chose to wait, and to keep praying for the Holy Spirit to convict his heart of the need for salvation. By God’s divine intervention, virtually every time we were led to pray for him, we would receive a call from him wanting to meet up!
After numerous testimonies and repeats of our testimonies, at the end of one of our team prayer times, Marcus suddenly called and said that he had something important to announce to us. When he turned up at the office, he announced that he had decided that he needed Jesus in his life, and that he wanted to follow Him! Again, all glory to God.
Evangelism is really the work of the Holy Spirit. It is also a collective effort of the body of Christ. We need to do our part of being faithful and diligent in sharing not just our salvation story but also our day-to-day encounters with God to those whom we meet. We are the links meant to point them to the final destination, and if we do not fulfil our role as those links, our loved ones may not ever have the chance to make that decision for Christ.
Brothers and sisters, may I encourage you never to give up or become discouraged in sharing the Good News. You are that crucial link for them. It could be you that is the final link before they pray that prayer to follow Jesus!
Yorumlar