Ouch! I knew that was going to hurt!

Just got done getting punched in the chest, hard, repeatedly, and I’m glad it happened.  I know what you’re thinking, “why are you glad about something like that?” you’re wondering.  Let me clarify.  I am not happy about the pain, but I am glad that I went through the experience that brought the pain.  This morning, evangelist and author, Bill Fay gave the sermon at my church, and then he spoke again this afternoon on the same topic; why believers are sinning against God by not evangelizing.  Mr. Fay is a teacher who would have probably gotten along well with Paul especially on the topic of sharing the Gospel.  He believes that we as Christians must do a better job of obediently sharing the Gospel with the world, starting with those in front of you.  He also teaches how to unapologetically go about doing it in such a way that we are able to overcome the normal fears that keep us from doing it.  He also practices what he preaches; he has shared the Gospel countless times and has stories of all kinds that show God’s guiding hand present when believers follow the direction of the Holy Spirit.

I mentioned pain earlier, but I feel that I must first give some vision to what I’m talking about.  In the last three posts I wrote about sharing the Gospel.  I wrote about it from several points of view, but all of them had one single focus; my dissatisfaction with the job I have been doing of evangelizing.  That sheet on my mirror that I mentioned has the number 3 on it.  3…… I shared Jesus with 3 people last year that actually prayed to receive salvation.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t lead those three people to Christ, the Holy Spirit did, I merely talked with them and allowed the Spirit to work through those discussions.  I talked with others about Jesus, but never took the chance to really get serious about the discussion; I was too casual.  All three were prisoners I met during a Bill Glass weekend this past year.  All three were led to the point of decision through the use of a tract written in large part by Bill Fay, so I know what he said tonight was not frosting on a cake.  The pain came from hear him so easily and casually disarm every excuse for not sharing Christ that was brought up during his discussion.  There were a dozen or more excuses voiced by audience members tonight.  Every one of them was heart-felt excuses given by people I know are people of faith.  Every one of them I have used myself, for good reason.  Every one of them he shot down, giving biblical reasons why we had been disobedient in our lack of sharing the Gospel.

So it looks like I knew this was coming.  The question is, what will I do with it?