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"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the Gospel to the poor. . ."
(Luke 4:18)
Continuing yesterday's devotion, here are the other two spiritual conversations I had recently on my trip to Tennessee.
The atheist was not as open to talking. He was a medical doctor, a brilliant guy, and he chuckled when I told him that every time I fly, I pray for the obvious reason of safety. Then I said I ask the Lord to place me beside a person I can share the Gospel with. Try praying this prayer, by the way. You may protest and say, "God might answer the prayer and put me next to an atheist! No thanks!" Do not discount yourself. If God leads you to a situation, He will also lead you to be effective. Telling others about Christ, or as Jesus said it, "to preach the Gospel to the poor", is such a wonderful spiritual endeavor. My new atheist friend was not as open to spiritual matters, but I showed kindness to him and really enjoyed getting to know him. At the end of the conversation, his girlfriend said they really enjoyed speaking with me. On the spiritual receptivity scale, with 1 being no interest at all and 10 being ready to accept Christ as Lord and Savior, perhaps my atheist doctor friend went from a 1 to a 2. I would have loved to share the Gospel, but when someone does not want to talk about spiritual matters, if you press ahead anyway, you can do more harm than good.
My last witnessing encounter was with a New Age lady, and that was very interesting. We showed mutual interest and respect for each other and had a very good conversation. I listened carefully, though I disagreed with much of what she said. She made the comment that God is within all of us, and I circled back around to that comment and said that He is in those who invite Him in. It was a privilege to share Jesus with her.
Each encounter was very different because each of these individuals is very unique. An important truth I discovered when studying the evangelism of Jesus was how He never dealt with or shared with any two people in the same way. God loves people more than anything. He sent Jesus to rescue us from sin and eternal separation from the Father. As you walk through your day today, be sensitive to the people you meet. God could very well be leading you to speak to them about the good news of Jesus and change their lives forever.
The great evangelist George Whitefield said he will not go 15 minutes into a conversation without bringing up Christ. You may not have 15 minutes, so try this: when you engage in a conversation with someone, lovingly listen to them, then introduce Christ and spiritual matters into the dialogue and see how God leads.
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