Everyday Evangelism-Good People Who Believe In Jesus

Dealing With All Kinds of People-Good People Who Believe In Jesus

Tuesday, April 20th 2010, 4:17 PM 5 1

It seems to go in spells. For a while, I met a few Jewish people that I tried to share the Gospel with. Most of them didn't get it, at least while I was talking with them. Then for a while, I ran into quite a few Catholics, who were trusting in their Catholicism for their salvation. They didn't really want to talk either. Now I do talk to a lot of Catholics still, and some of them seem to understand the Gospel after talking with them. Catholics seem to be the predominant group of people I end up talking to. Then, for a while, I would run into people who were resistant because they believed that the Bible was written by men. So we worked through that time period (and I learned a lot, because of the study it required). But now I am running into people who, for the most part, think they are good people, and will listen to the Gospel. By the time I get finished, they already know the Gospel and claim to be believers already. On Saturday, I talked with a man named Eric. He was familiar with the 10 Commandments and claimed to do his best. I asked him if he were a 'good' person and he said he definitely was. So I took him through some of the Commandments. He readily admitted to breaking them. He understood that he was a sinner, and when I asked him what he thought God did so that he could be forgiven of his sins, he knew exactly what to say. He claimed to be a believer in the Lord. But how can that happen? He just told me he was a good person, even good enough for heaven. Before this conversation, I talked with a woman who came from the Caribbean. She was very kind to talk to. Another person who was evangelizing with us, was talking to the husband at the same time. We both got the same story. They were extremely nice people, but they were 'good' people. The woman had a religious upbringing (Catholic) and she did trust in God. But there again, something was missing. I didn't sense that she really understood the Gospel. She knew that Jesus had died for her, and said she trusted in Him. I don't remember who I asked, but I asked someone who was thinking like this if they were born again, and they said that they were. I feel like I am on tricky ground here. It's hard to figure out the next step when conversing with these people. It seems like if I encourage them to grow in the Lord, then I am assuming that they are truly saved, when they might not be. If I keep questioning them to probe so that they will see that they really aren't saved, it appears like I am judging them. They have all the right answers (not just 'yes' or 'no') but there doesn't seem to be the connection between their breaking the Commandments, and their seeing themselves as sinful. Anyone else notice this trend?

Everyday Evangelism- Tracts Again

Today was a good tracting day. Although I didn't get into any deep conversations with anyone, people were very receptive to the tracts I was giving out to them. The first man reminded me of Bill Cosby. I gave him a tract at Walmart this morning, and he told me that he got one about a month ago. He gave it to his grandson and has it hanging up and wanted another one for himself. When I was at the dry cleaners later on in the day, I gave one to a lady who was sitting in her car. She was so thankful for the tract. When I came back to my car, she wanted to have another one for someone else. At another store, I was looking for some make up and there were 2 workers at the counter trying to help me find what I was looking for. When we were finished I asked them if they had ever received the tract. They both had one from me, and the man told me that his is hanging on the wall at home. Then he took another one to bring home. He also thanked me for doing what I was doing and felt that it was very important thing to be doing. I explained to them that eternity doesn't end and that people need to know the Gospel. I also learned that the time has finally come when I give someone a tract, that they may have already received one, probably from me, but could have been from someone else. Maybe it is time to look into using a new tract. For the past 5 years, I've been giving this tract away, and rarely do I have someone tell me that they already got one. But it is happening now. That is good. I would love to saturate the town with tracts, but what is better is if the tracts provide an ice breaker to preach the Gospel to someone who has already received one. Or, if they haven't, then I can explain to them what it is, and then lead up to the Gospel. God is faithful and His word will not come back empty! Let's pray for creative ways to get the Gospel out in print, and that God would give us opportunities to speak the words of life to a lost and dying world.

Everyday Evangelism- Winter Park Art Festival-03-20-10

"My job is to put a pebble in your shoe." says Greg Koukl. Today a group of us went to the Winter Park Art Festival on Park Avenue, and there were a lot of people there. The weather was great and I managed to put label stickers on 125 tracts this week, so I was ready. We prayed before we left to find a parking place somewhere out there. Well, it was interesting because for all the people we saw out there, there were only a few people who were interested in talking to us about the things of God. A couple of times, while I was talking with someone (and I could tell they really weren't into the conversation), they would just walk away. Just when I was getting to the good part about the 10 Commandments! And it happened more than once. I am guilty of prejudging people that I think would take the tract, as well as those who I would have thought would reject the tract. Only the opposite happened today. Many older men and women took the tracts gladly, and the ones I thought would take them didn't want them. I was able to share the Gospel with 2 men, but I could tell there wasn't a deep desire to stay in the conversation. And, of course, there is always one who will be nasty. I got her too. I offered her the tract and she asked what it was, so I told her. Then she told me to leave her alone, with which I left her the following; you need to think about eternity! I believe that today was ordained by God and we did not fail because there were no fish to catch out of all of those people, but, I can see that we sowed a lot of seeds. We were able to talk a little about eternity to people who, at this moment, were dull of hearing. Tomorrow or next week they might not be. Many took the tracts home and trustingly, someone in the home will read the tract and it will spark a thought about eternity, God, heaven and hell in their minds. So, even if no one was interested today, we trust that we were able to "put a pebble in each shoe" of the person we encountered, even the nasty lady.

Everyday Evangelism- Walmart Again

"I know that God sent you to talk to me today" was the words that I heard from a man yesterday whose name was Kyle. When I approached him, and offered him a tract, he said that he got one just like it while he was at work. Somehow it seemed as if his heart was being prepared for this day. As I talked to Kyle, I could see he was hungry for hearing the truth. After I shared the Gospel with him, he told me he was agnostic, but he did believe some parts of the Bible. He said there were parts that he didn't understand so he couldn't believe them. He also said that he had a lot of questions he wanted to have answers for. He seemed to understand the Gospel, and appreciated what I was doing. And it was amazing that he really believed that God sent me to talk to him that day. Please pray for him as he took the tract home with him, that he will consider the Gospel and think about eternity. Also, pray that someone else will share the Gospel with him again. God's word is at work in his heart and I hope to see him again, if not here on earth, one day in heaven.

Here is the tract I used called "Giant Money" https://www.livingwaters.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=100&category_id=8&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=199&lang=en

It has a little quiz on it and that is what I tell people when I give it out.

Everyday Evangelism- Is Jesus Really God?

I am amazed at the thinking of people and trying to figure out where they are coming from. For example, you can talk to a Muslim, and they will tell you that Jesus is a good prophet, but that He is not God in the flesh. Jesus is in their Quran, but their understanding of His death and resurrection are way off. Mormons believe Jesus was God that became a man, possibly in the way that they believe human beings will become a god. That is why the terminology of Jesus becoming a man can be misleading. It would probably be better to say that Jesus is God who took on flesh. Then there are the Jehovah's Witnesses who believe that Jesus is a god, according to their own New World Translation, which was supposedly translated by Greek scholars. Both Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but they do not believe He is God in the flesh. Well, how do we remedy this problem? There are a lot of Bible verses that are very clear about Jesus being God in the flesh, or equal to God. The problem that we have on hand is that many people today do not take a whole section of Scripture to get the meaning of a Bible verse. They take a particular verse and build a doctrine (usually false) on it. A common example of this would be, and I have heard this from both Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, quoting a verse that says "Faith without works is dead", implying that we are saved by our works. The whole chapter in the book of James has to do with our living out the Christian live and having the evidences of faith shown by the way we live. People do this with the deity of Christ. They say things like, "Jesus didn't even know the time when he will return" or Jesus said, "My Father is greater than I". They miss the whole point of what that part of the Bible is telling us, because they think they have found a verse that proves their doctrine (and religion) right! Well, I have written this all to say that I am on a hunt to find sections in the Bible that will clearly indicate the deity of Christ. So, one that came to mind this week is this; in Mark 13:31 Jesus said that His words will never pass away. I thought that was interesting because in Isaiah 40:8, it says that God's word abides forever. So, it appears that Jesus' words has the same characteristics as God's does. Of course, we need to know the full context of both settings to appreciate what the Bible is saying to us. But I did think that was interesting. There have been studies put out that have verses to refute the doctrines of the Mormons and JWs, in particular, because they claim to have the same Bible (essentially, though we know that the NWT is twisted, and the Mormons use other books as well and on the same level as the Bible). Over time, these groups have learned how to refute those Bible verses that we give them. So, it is time we come up with concepts to deal with their error, concepts out of the Scripture. We need to have a clear, biblical understanding of who God is, who we are in our fallen state, what the problem is, and what the remedy is. Any comments or insights on this would be appreciated.

Everyday Evangelism-Evangelizing from your home

I once read somewhere (but can't remember where) that a man who loved to do evangelism, became unable to leave his house, therefore wasn't able to share the Gospel with people anymore. What is a person to do in such a case? He prayed for God to bring people to his house, and God listened. People continually were coming to his house asking for directions to where they wanted to go. Now I remember reading that story with amazement because I'm sure it was true, even though I have no idea where I read it from.

What about us today? Is there a way for people to do evangelism from there own homes? Well, I'm glad to report that there are ways to evangelize from your computer and phone. Also, I have heard of people using the postal system to share the good news. So the good news for shut ins and people who can't get out is that you can preach the Gospel right there in your own home.

First of all, be in prayer about it. God may show you other ways you can do evangelism from your home. If you have a computer with Internet access, you can sign up for Face Book and go into some of the applications available there. Two of the applications that lend themselves well to preaching the Gospel are 'Yoville' and 'Castaway'. Yoville is a virtual town where you create a character and get an apartment to start off with. From there you can work at the factory and do various things to make money. When you make money, you can buy houses, furniture, clothing, food, pets, and many other things. While the goal of the game is to live in a virtual city, the goal for us is to preach the Gospel. There are areas in Yoville a person can go to and find groups of people developing conversations. I'll admit that the people on Yoville, many times, are harder to talk to than people on the streets, but there are those who listen. It is worth any obstacles to go through to minister to the ones that are just listening on the side lines. I've had people want to become my friend because of the posts I put out there about God. Also, you can design white boards and put messages on them, then put them on a wall in your house and as your new friends tour your house(s), they can see what you put up there. God's word can minister to their hearts through that.

Another program Face Book has is called, Castaway. It is a program in which you can write a message and put it in a bottle that goes out into a virtual sea. You could put a Bible verse out, or write out the whole Gospel message. I have gotten some interesting responses from my message bottles. In both my bottles, I have the question asking how well the person thinks he or she is doing in keeping the 10 Commandments. Sometimes people send back a number. Other times, people are hostile to hearing the message. I had a dialog with an Atheist about a month ago. Very interesting and good practice for me.

If you have an I-phone, there is an app you can download for 99 cents. It is called, "Balloons", and it works on the same idea as the 'Castaway' program in Facebook. You download the app, then pick out a balloon, write the message that goes on your balloon, and then launch it. Someone who also has the Balloons app can receive your balloon, then opens it up (pops it) and reads the message you put in there. I've sent out three of them and all three were popped. The recipients weren't open to the Gospel, but the Gospel is exactly what they need to hear. How else will they know the Truth?

Finally, you can wait for your telephone in your house to ring, and pick it up, talk to the sales person or survey taker, then ask him or her the important questions. I've had some excellent conversations sharing the Gospel over the telephone with people either taking a survey or supporting a political candidate.

So, if you are home bound and can't get out, don't despair! Always be in prayer, and wait for that phone to ring. If you can get an I-phone, get one and find some of the apps that you can put out the Gospel message in, especially the Balloons one. There are probably other means of putting the Gospel out by using such means and I would love to have new suggestions of how this can be done. I'm sure this is not limited to Face Book or the I-phone. Please send any comments to me if you have a way to communicate the Gospel from your home.

Everyday Evangelism-Beautiful Balloons

Up, Up, and Away goes my beautiful balloon. Balloons can be beautiful. Here is the reason why; because they can carry the Gospel message wherever they are taken by the wind. In North Korea, people launch balloons that have the Gospel of Mark on them. They also carry lots of tracts on them and the tracts are distributed wherever they are taken by the balloons. There is another way that the Gospel can be carried around in a virtual sky. It is an I-phone app that is called, "Balloons". It costs 99 cents to download it to your I-phone if you have one. Then you can open the program up and launch your own balloon. You can put a message on it and send it out. I did this last week. After I downloaded the app, I opened the program up on my I-phone and typed in this saying, "Are you good enough for Heaven? How good do you have to be? Go to www.thegoodtest.net and take the test to see." I have checked periodically and no one had caught my balloon, until this morning, when I checked its tracking. Someone had popped it and responded like this, "Don't go there its wrong way. Go to www.kuran.gen.tr... if you know what "really" Jesus said then you become a muslim, but you changed it". Now to learn to help people involved in Islam. God loves them and wants them to know Him also. Pray for me to have wisdom in responding to this person. I don't know yet how to work with this 'balloon' program, or if I can respond, but I will look at it later.