7777777777777 “Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”
good news with me repeatedly throughout my search. “We’re all sinners,” he might have said, “destined for eternal hell to pay for our sins against an eternal God. But Jesus paid our penalty on the cross, so we can be clothed in His righteousness and enter heaven. And it’s free! To receive it, we need simply to repent and make Him our Lord and Savior.” That high-level message would have provided me with the perfect foundation on which to build my understanding of God’s truth.
STEP #7: PRAY SOME MORE It’s important to continue praying for those we’ve
witnessed to—and to pray for the right things. For instance, emotions play a role in every spiri- tual journey. We need to ask the Lord to meet people at both the head and heart levels, doing whatever it takes to bring them safely into the fold. We also need to ask Him to help us walk worthy before them. I’ve heard of many hard-headed intel- lectuals who came to the Lord only after witnessing the difference that the indwelling Holy Spirit makes in a believer’s life.
COUNT THE COST
Like anything worth doing, there can be a steep cost to witnessing to intellectuals.
There’s nothing risky about telling such a seeker that you “just believe.” It’s simply a statement of fact: You believe. So what?
But there is great risk to saying that you believe because of these specifi c evidences—especially when those evidences contradict conventional wisdom. It has happened to me more than once. I have
been laughed at, yelled at, mocked, and shunned by more “friends” than I care to count. That’s a small price to pay, however, when we consider what Jesus did for us. Perhaps that’s why He said, “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, and slander your name as evil, because of the Son of Man” (Luke 6:22).
ANTICIPATE JOY
If the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts, we won’t mind. We know that the only trea- sure worth pursuing is eternal life. And if we truly love others, the most pressing matter on our hearts will be seeing them in heaven.
Even if we don’t see any evidence of progress today, it may be there next week or next year, or whenever His perfect timing commands it. In the meantime, we can do our best to be faith- ful witnesses—sowing the seeds of faith in seekers’ hearts, and helping them discover, in Christ, the absolute and fully rational Truth they are hungering for. OM
Kitty Foth-Regner is a Waukesha, Wisconsin, freelance writer and the author of Heaven Without Her: A Desperate Daughter’s Search for the Heart of Her Mother’s Faith (Thomas Nelson, 2008).
ACTION ITEM:
If you have a friend who’s having trouble accepting the claims of Christ, visit
www.4truth.net for insight and resources to help them on their journey.
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