So I was in Wal-Mart the other day buying diapers and a lady came up to me and asked if I wanted to ‘receive Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior…’ I told her I already knew and loved Jesus. I walked away thinking… ‘Wow, that’s NEVER happened to me before.’ Either all the Christians who are evangelizing already think I’m a Christian or there aren’t any Christians evangelizing. Hmm… truly the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few! I’m not saying I evangelize and no one else does… I don’t! I’m confessing my terrible fear of man. I heard once from a reliable source that one of the top things that witches and warlocks ‘pray’ is for Christians to have a fear of man… seems to be working. Let’s REBUKE that curse and put on the full armor. I sometimes think about my high school experience- I remember thinking in high school (before I was saved), that I would just dabble in sin now and return to God at a more convenient time- this WAS my mindset. I remember feeling so empty and actually pondering… ‘if I die today would I go to heaven?’ But it was always- ‘I’ll think about it later’. If someone would have just come and presented the Gospel to me I would have received it in an instant. How many people are out there right now who are just like how I was? I’ve been asking the Lord to have these types cross paths with me. We need to be listening to the Spirit when He says to witness to someone. Pretty sure the Lord is going to test me in this now that I just wrote that…
Well more on a family note… we are all going to Myrtle Beach this week! Our first vacation with Zuriah! Me and Z are flying and Ben and his dad, sister and brother are all driving. Pray for a SAFE trip. I’ll probably be posting pictures of the little bug at the ocean soon! We will be gone from the 2nd through the 9th.
I think that there are actually a lot of people out there who are like how you were then. Something you forgot to mention was how hungry you were to know that God was real and active, or, “personal” as this evangelist put it, and that it was seeing the Holy Spirit manifested in tongues and prophesying and healing that really brought you to your knees. In *that* way, you were once like many are today. We’re living in a post-modern society (whether they are consciously aware of that or not), and so evangelizing today must involve displaying the power of God, as the lost are widely looking to experience Jesus, and not just hear about Him. If God is going to test you in this as you say (and I agree that He will), then He will go with You, making Himself known through you. I love you!
We need to pray for more “harvesters”. We need more people doing the work of the evangelist. Some people just need to jump out and do it, but I know something that helped me was to learn an evangelism program. I know some people don’t like those, but it really helped me. I have gone through Share Jesus Without Fear, The Way of the Master, and FAITH Evangelism. Find a good program and this can really help you move past your fear of man by putting tools in your hand.