The Fumble

You were nervous. You shifted your weight from one leg to the other as you began to speak.

“Uh, fellows,” you started.

We turned and looked up at you.

“I, uh, I just wanted, uh, to invite . . .”

You were way out of your comfort zone. I had no idea what you might be about to say, but I knew that it had nothing to do with work.

“I just wanted to tell you that, uh, our church is having a service tonight and, uh . . .”

”What?” I couldn’t believe it. “He’s talking church? Out here? With us?”

“I wanted to invite any of you to come along.”

Silence. Screaming silence.

****

Have you been there?

You were uncomfortable and perhaps after your fumbling attempt you thought of what a mess you made of the whole situation. You re-think and analyze what you said and did. You apologize to God for your “failure” at witnessing. You are embarrassed for presenting “church” instead of Jesus.

Wait a minute! God is sovereign and is not hampered by our humanity. God used this man’s apparent failed attempt to invite construction workers to church. Max Lucado was laying pipe that summer and was with the workmen on their lunch break. Five years later, he remembered this man and gave his life over to Christ.

Your efforts may have seemed insignificant or even like they were wasted. God sees the bigger picture, however. You don’t know what God will do. Just be available to Him.

NOTE: The above excerpt is from Max Lucado’s testimony in Chapter Seven of In the Eye of the Storm. Read the entire story online on Google Books.. Search for “Thanks for the Bread” which will take you to the chapter heading.

No Fear

The next time you are fearful about sharing your faith, remember this 92-year-old woman.

The Lived Out Gospel by Judy Douglass

The young woman who would be my seatmate on a flight from Ghana had a very heavy carry-on bag. The overhead bin seemed full, but the coat of the man in front of us was taking up half of it. He told her that her bag was too big and that was his space. He was rude. She was bewildered. I spoke up, reminding him calmly but firmly that the bin was shared space and his coat could go on top of the suitcase. He grumbled as he lifted his coat out. I helped her lift her bag.

Later the young woman turned to me and said, “Why are you so different? Why did you do that for me?” We had a wonderful conversation about our Lord. This is evidence of the lived out gospel. (I wish I always lived it out well.)

When we share Christ with someone who doesn’t know us, God can use the combined power of the truth of the gospel and His grace to open a heart to repentance and salvation even using imperfect vessels like us to communicate His message. But often winning takes time and relationship, especially in a generation where relationship is supreme. We must live out the gospel before them even as we tell them the truth.

What does the lived out gospel look like? God gives us many characteristics of the Spirit-filled life as evidence of this. Three stand out to me as key.

Without question, the first is love. The Lord Jesus Himself said the first commandment is to love God, then others. He even said we are to love as He loved, which was to lay down his life. Are we to lay down our lives for others? Some of us may be asked to make that sacrifice. But most of us give our lives to people in love by giving of our time, our abilities, our finances. Sometimes love is just being there. Other times we love by listening, encouraging, praying. Sometimes we give the shirts off our backs, or buy a meal or provide shelter.

This lived out love that gives is a powerful witness.

A second witness is grace. Grace is often an unclear or vague concept for us, so here are a few synonyms to help us grasp the meaning of this essential truth: mercy, forgiveness, benevolence, charity, clemency, compassion, favor, forbearance, generosity, good will, goodness, indulgence, kindliness, kindness, leniency, pardon, reprieve, responsiveness, tenderness.

Grace doesn’t hold a grudge, or refuse to forgive, or demand what’s due or insist on its own way. Grace does overlook an offense, extend time or help, speak kindly when verbally attacked, believe the best about another.

Lived out grace is also a powerful witness.

A third evidence of walking with God is authenticity. How many times have you heard someone say something about “hypocrites in the church”? Authenticity means we speak truth in a generation with no absolutes, we live what we say as much as possible, we wear no masks. We consider the impact our words and actions have on those watching. We are even willing to be vulnerable. Those are risky actions. We could be misunderstood, disapproved of, even shunned—or taken advantage of. But we wouldn’t be hypocrites. We would be true, real—authentic.

And lived out authenticity is a powerful witness.

My prayer for you and for myself is that we will live out the gospel so that people actually see Jesus in us.

Used by permission from Judy Douglass

The Sower and His Seed

I learned a lot from Joe Jack Dement. Since the excellent video on the Parable of The Sower, featured in the last post, is only on the web temporarily, I am posting some thoughts I gleaned from this 80-year-old wheat farmer. Jesus explains the seeds and the meaning behind the birds, the footpath, and the other parallels in His parable. Mr. Dement’s knowledge of wheat farming adds to our understanding of the parable.

WHEN and WHERE
Just as the farmer casts the seed away from him, we can drop a little word about Jesus, a Bible verse, or a Scriptural truth as we interact with people every day. For instance, one day last week, I ran errands to five different stores. What normally would be drudgery for me was a joy as I shared a little conversation and tracts with nine people! My perspective was sowing, not shopping, as I went about my work.

WHO
We do not choose who gets to hear God’s message. God wants everyone to hear. God promises His Word will be active in a person’s life, even if we don’t see it. The seed becomes a fruitful plant over time and under the right conditions.

According to Mr. Dement, birds gather around the farmer, waiting for the seed sown on the path. Pray for the people who are not open to God’s Word to retain even a little bit of what you have sown. You do not need to fear that “the enemy” knows you are sowing. Pray for those who need to hear what you have to share with them. They are really the ones under attack!

Shallow soil means the plant will have no resistance and will dry up and die before maturity. To grow in Christ, people need to grow in their knowledge of the Word. As much as you possibly can, help this person get into the Word and into fellowship with believers. Even so, they may still have trouble when their faith hits the bedrock in their soul, so again, prayer is needed.

The seed growing in a weedy area was competing with a huge weed and did not yield fruit. Many people, rich or poor, are worried about their things and other financial concerns. When I share my faith I may even find that the Christians that I meet have not dealt with the weeds in their life and bear very little fruit for God. I suspect a lot of Americans are in the weedy category. Perhaps God will use the current economic woes to bring more people to follow him wholly.

I was very fascinated with the seed planted in good soil. One seed resulted in twelve plants, each with its own head of seed. I could not help but think of Jesus’s twelve disciples with their disciples. Farmer Dement said that 85% is a good, and a typical, yield. What if EACH Christian could leave a legacy of 85 mature Christians who are also telling others about Christ?

WHAT, HOW, and WHY
I named this blog The Sower because I envision that my Christian readers will be encouraged to speak about Christ frequently and everywhere. Thank you for visiting and please come back for more stories and answers to your questions to help you share your faith.

The Amazing Ministry of an “Ordinary Man”

I hope you will take a few minutes to watch this encouraging video.

Frank Jenner may have seemed ordinary on the outside, but spiritually, he was extraordinary!

Frank Jenner spoke just a two-sentence witness to ten people daily on George Street in Sydney, Australia. He may have spoken to over 100,000 people in the twenty-eight years of his ministry. For sixteen of those years he never knew if these brief conversations with strangers ever bore any fruit.

God arranged for him to learn that countless people from all over the world had not only responded to the Gospel, but went on to lead many others to Christ as well.

Whatever God calls you to do, even if it seems simple and even if you may never know the impact of your message, remain faithful and know that God is making an eternal harvest come from the seed you planted in someone’s life.

The Moral Choice

“Are you reading the Bible?” I asked as I sat at the kitchen table with a friend of our son’s, Aadesh.

“Yes,” he replied. Aadesh had asked for a Bible earlier this summer after I had told him that the Bible had a lot to say about financial principles.

“What are you reading?”

“Romans,” he replied.

Wow! I thought. What a deep book of the Bible to start in!

Aadesh explained that some other people had recommended Romans as a good place to start with to learn what God says about finances.

He was very interested and seemed to agree with me as I explained how Jesus’ resurrection validated His claims to be God. I had never talked to Aadesh before about his spiritual background and was not surprised to learn he comes from a strong Hindu background.

Aadesh is leaving for Oxford in a few months and feels he needs to make a decision about his faith now because he knows he will face moral and ethical decisions as a neurosurgeon. I was really impressed with his humility in recognizing this need. He was willing to take a book from me called Choosing Your Faith by Mark Mittelberg which I had purchased with him in mind.

Our conversation went very well, but I later realized, because of his background, Aadesh views Jesus as one god among many. He is exploring which god to choose and I was really not on the same wavelength as he was. In the future, I will need to write to him about Jesus’ claims to be the only way to God.

Today, I am sending him a narrative version of The Roman Road and am trusting God to speak to Aadesh through His living Word.

The Christian’s Secret of . . . Service

I am reading an abridged version of Hanna Whitall Smith’s The Christian Secret of a Happy Life. Her advice in her chapter, “Service”, is very encouraging.

If you think you have to meet every need and help in every ministry opportunity, or you are unsure about what directions to take in ministry, she advises:

“The life of trust also delivers us by reminding us no individual is responsible for all the work in the world, only for a small share. I may have five, or two, or only one talent. I am to do that which I am called to do, nothing more.

“A young Christian, sent to speak a message to one soul she met on a walk, supposed she must speak to everyone she met while walking, a perpetual obligation and an impossible task. A friend told her to put herself under the Lord’s guidance and trust Him to point out each particular person to whom He would have her speak. He assured her He never puts forth His sheep without going before them… This freed her from bondage, and she was able to do much blessed work for her Master without worry or care.”

If you trust God to use you in others’ lives, but you find yourself taking credit for the ministry God does through you, or you blame yourself for mistakes, such as not speaking up, or saying the “wrong thing” when witnessing, Mrs. Smith assures us that the work is God’s, not ours:

“Years ago, I ran across this sentence in an old book: ‘Never indulge, at the close of an action, in . . . self-congratulation or self-despair. Forget the things that are behind, the moment they are past, leaving them with God.’ To sum it all up, put your work into the Lord’s hands and leave it there. Even in the midst of a life of ceaseless activity, you shall ‘find rest to your soul’ and be an ‘instrument of righteousness.’”

The Olympics

The two young men carried on with their conversation and ignored me, even though I was just three feet away from them.

You’ve been there before, too. You stand in a grocery line and the bagger and the cashier chat with each other while they work. This situation makes it harder to connect with them, but I still try to talk, even briefly, and give them the Gospel in a tract they can read during their break or at home. The natural time in this case is when they are finished working and the cashier asks for my payment.

After I swiped my card and signed, I handed each of them a tract.

“This is for you, if you would like it,” I said. “It’s about Jesus.”

This is the minimum conversation I hold with cashiers, especially when I did not get to chat with them while they worked and when people are waiting behind me.

I did not run off this time, though.

“Did you guys watch the Opening Ceremonies last night?” I asked.

The three of us agreed that the drummers were awesome.

As I left the store, I remembered that the Olympics is a great conversation starter, so I have put some thoughts together on the Sower Tools site on how to use the Olympics to communicate the Gospel to others.

A Complete Story of Why Jesus Came to This Earth

I thought I was a Christian. When I was twenty years old I learned that I was not a Christian because I went to a church. After all, I did not turn into a car when I walked in our garage! I am so grateful that someone explained to me about how to have a vital relationship with our living and holy God. I hope the following short videos will help you make that decision, too.

If you have any questions, please write to me.

Part One

Part Two

For more information on using this presentation, see The Four Circles.

The Verbal Bombshell

Two VERY young boys, maybe ten and twelve-years old, walked up to me.

“Is it okay if we give you this literature?”

“No, it isn’t,” I replied. I stood up from my weeding project. “Jesus is fully God, guys. Seek the truth.”

They turned and left right away. I looked across the street to see two young girls also strolling up to our neighbor’s house. The girls were in their teens.

I know I did not handle that well. I probably missed a chance to have more of an impact in their lives, even briefly.

So, I pondered how I should have reflected a loving Christ to them. I could have given them a bit of my time and sympathized with how hard going door to door is in June. Being considerate and loving would have communicated more than dropping a verbal bombshell on them!

More help for reaching Jehovah’s Witnesses.