A few weeks ago, my wife and I had an incredible opportunity to sit down and talk with one of my co-workers about Christ. The young woman I work with was scrolling through her Facebook feed one day when she came across one of the articles I had shared from this blog: What Makes a Person a Christian? She contacted me shortly thereafter and asked if it would be possible to meet and talk more in person.
Now, even though I've been writing articles on Christianity
for almost three years, I have rarely engaged people in face-to-face
conversations about my faith. In fact, most of the conversations I have had in the past have mostly consisted of me listening to others explain why they don't believing in
"organized religion," and have therefore been very one-sided to say
the least. Suffice it to say, I initially interpreted this young woman's
interest with skepticism. However, I soon realized that she was indeed
interested, not only in asking questions about my faith, but also in listening
to what I had to say. (When a person arrives at a meeting with notes and
questions prepared ahead of time, you know they're interested!)
About halfway through what ended up being a three-hour
conversation, we began discussing the topic of salvation and what makes a
person right with God. I explained that the Bible teaches us that it isn't
about what we can do for God that makes us righteous, but rather what He has
done for us; that we are all sinners who can never be good enough to make
ourselves right with God, and that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus
Christ alone, not by being a good person or reading the bible or going church
on Sunday. We also talked about the Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-25) and how Christians are not saved by the way we
live, but rather live the way we do out of a grateful heart because we have
been saved. (We follow God out of love and therefore our lives change as a
result.)
After we had
discussed these things for about an hour or so she said something that really
struck me. She said: "This makes a
lot of sense … I feel like this is how things are supposed to be. But why
haven't I heard this before? I'm 26 years old and no one has ever explained it
(Christianity) to me like this. It's so simple! Why isn't anyone talking about
this?"
It was a very good question, and to be quite honest, it was
not one that I was prepared for. Here was a young woman who had grown up in
small town America, surrounded by churches and Christians, and yet had never
heard the Gospel—the Good News about Jesus Christ.
After thinking about it for a moment, I said at last, "I'm not sure ... I guess a lot of it has
to do with our culture. People assume that others don't want to talk about
religion, so often times we just keep it to ourselves."
Sadly, I feel that too often this is indeed the case. We who
have been entrusted with sharing the Good News about Jesus Christ to the whole
world fall silent when it comes to those closest to us. We feel that people
living in our culture today don't want to hear about God. But I now feel that
nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes, there will be those in our lives
who will oppose the truth. But there will also be those like this young woman
who not only want to talk about "religion," but also want to hear the
truth of what God has done for them. Like the Bible says:
"For it is by believing in your heart
that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that
you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never
be disgraced.' Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same
Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. For 'Everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord will be saved.'
"But how can they
call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe
in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him
unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being
sent? That is why the Scriptures say, 'How beautiful are the feet of messengers
who bring good news!'"
~Romans 10:10-15 New
Living Translation (NLT)
The greatest of missed opportunities is the opportunity
standing right in front of us—the unsaved people God has placed in our lives.
But be encouraged Christian; God is with us! His spirit is going before us to
prepare the way for His Gospel. The harvest is ripe, but the workers are few,
and we all need to be willing to go into the fields and do the work God has
planned for us. (Matthew 9:35-38)
