Thursday, August 10, 2017

Don't Wait to Share the Gospel


This is how it happened… or maybe I should go back just a bit…
I cringe, I hate it, makes me puke whenever someone says you should wait before you share the Gospel with someone.  Inevitably, they say “it’s all about relationship.” Or if they want to double down, they say, “St Francis said you should preach the Gospel, use words only if necessary.” First, don’t slander Francis by suggesting he would ever say that, beause he didn’t.  And second, hardly anyone TALKED about Jesus more than Francis!
So yesterday was one of those days where I was very distracted by a lot of things that had to get done but were not hugely important.  The urgent was crowding out the important.  On top of that, it was a hard day to be a pastor and a dad—a lot of pain going around.  About 11:30 I said to myself I better spend some real time in the Word and in prayer, or this day will get out of control.
About 3 o’clock, same thing.  So I cut thru the hospital on the way to church.  I felt like I wanted to sit at a bench outside the hospital.  I have never sat there before or thought about it, so why today?  I opened the Bible, was reading Psalm 34.  I was struck by the title, “When David pretended to be insane before Abimelech.”  A few minutes later out comes a guy pushing an IV pole.  There are many other places to sit, but he made a bee-line for me.  He asked, “are you a pastor?”
He proceeded to ask for prayer.  I asked him if he was a believer in Jesus.  No, but he needed prayer.  I told him more than prayer he needed salvation in Jesus’ name.  He proceeded to tell me a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t just confess to people.  Under 5 minutes after the conversation started, I had shared with him the wonderful love, forgiveness and sacrifice of Jesus for him, and he believed in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. “I haven’t felt peace like this before,” he said.
So there you go.  God gives everyone divine appointments like this.  You need to be ready because people are waiting for you to tell them the Good News!!