Sunday, May 9, 2010
The Gospel and being a big black dude!
Sometimes I can forget that I look very intimidating to people. Especially when I have that wooly mammoth that I been rocking the last 5 months. Trying to share the gospel can scare people off as what I think happened on Friday. I would post the details but I am actually going to share the story in my sermon Sunday. Some of you heard this Friday night. But by the grace of God I will have a story to tell by next Friday. Anyone else got to share the gospel last week?
3 comments:
I also tried but wasn't able to this week.
Before my music theory class we were talking about WWII and then Hitler and my teacher started talking about how it was so interesting that Hitler started out as just an ordinary person--just a thug, and then ended up so powerful and in the end a mass-murderer. Then my teacher made a remark that "I don't think I have an evil bone in my body" so I asked what he thought had made Hitler able to do that. He gave some answer and I asked
"so you don't think that you could ever get there? why not?" He said that he absolutely didn't think he could ever get to a place of such wickedness and said, "this is all I'm going to say about it, but I think my faith would keep me from it. My faith as a catholic." so I asked him (conveniently ignoring that he had just said he wouldn't talk about it) "So you don't think you have anything inside you that's wicked? what about your faith would keep you from that--is it God? Is God opposed to such evil?" and he responded with, "I'm not going to talk about that in theory class." Lol, i innocently responded with "oh, ok!"
I was talking with another Christian kid in my class afterwards and he said, "you could see it in his eyes--he knew exactly where you were going. He knew you were going for original sin. And he just didn't want to talk about it."
That is awesome, Anna! I am sure that you left him with something to think over. :)
For me, this week I have been realizing what a hypocrite I am! I am always praying for opportunities to share Jesus with others and the Lord SHOWERS me with perfect situations time and time again, but sometimes I don't recognize them until it's too late because I wasn't feeling in "the mood" to talk to anyone. This week, however, on campus I was able to talk with a few people about the reality of Christ's work on the cross. People always say it's a good idea to surround yourself with people you want to emulate. A few days ago I saw Maritza on campus talking to a couple of students. I went over to say hi with the intention to stay for maybe 5 minutes and then going to eat my lunch and read. We began talking and Maritza had to leave, but encouraged me to stay and talk with the people along with another Christian friend I had met, Chavia. At first, I was hesitant and begrudgingly sat down, but the the Lord eventually revealed to me how stupid I was being! The opportunity was just slapping me in the face! Chavia and I were able to draw out the two atheists with us and were soon joined by two other atheists who just randomly heard us talking. We were able to share our views, even though they did not seem to be very open. By the end of the conversation, though, one of the girls seemed to have some further interest and was, hesitantly, asking more sincere questions. Now all I can do is pray and remember that the Lord does the work!
p.s. I would appreciate prayers, that, in talking to people I would be able to focus on the Gospel and not get distracted by the random comments and arguments that people pull out from who knows where...it can get confusing!
I was able to start drawing out an older guy that I have been working with last week. He was humming the tune of 'Amazing Grace' and so I just started commenting about that song and used it as a way to start talking about the Lord. Found out that he has read the Bible many times and used to go to church but has decided not to believe the message of the Bible for various reasons he came up with. One of those reasons was how could a good God send people to heaven. I gave him a few thoughts to think about from a different perspective, like how could God be a just God if he doesn't punish our willingly turning out backs on him. I asked him if he thought Hitler should be punished for what he did.
He had a lot of difficult questions to answer in general. I didn't even pretend like I could answer them all. I told him I'd like to talk about stuff more and he was open to that. Next time I hope to ask him more thought provoking questions... keep this relationship in prayer!
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