their faith with others?
respond to it until many years later, when they encounter a crisis and call upon Christ to save them. Sometimes a person may have to hear the gospel ten or twenty times before he would ask the Lord to come into his heart. So if someone says to you "I've heard it before" don't stop, but tell him "It's good to hear it again. Some have to hear it many times before they are saved!" The timing of salvation and the results of our preaching are best left to the mysterious work in the heart by the Holy Spirit. Our success is measured not by the number of souls we win to Christ, but by how well we have used the opportunities given to us to share the gospel with people around us.
Even though at times we may find very little or no results at all from our efforts, remember this: No results are possible at all if we do not first seek the opportunity and use every means to witness to our colleagues and classmates. So let us keep doing our best and let God do the rest. For if we withhold the message of salvation from them, we will be hurting them.
Hudson Taylor was a pioneer missionary to China. Once he was asked by one of his first Chinese converts, "How long have you people in the west known this good news?" And Hudson had to reply, "We have had it for many centuries." On hearing this the Chinese convert looked painfully at Hudson and said in effect, "Do you mean to say that you Christians in the west had the truth for hundreds of years, but only now you have come to tell us about it?"
Let us not keep the truth to ourselves but make it known to the non-Christians who cross our paths everyday. Remember that we were once like them. They need the truth as much as we did. May the Lord help us to make Him known to them.
Discussion Questions
1. Why were the Christians in the early church so zealous to share their faith with others?
2. What barriers do you face in testifying for Christ at home?
109 A Christian in a Non-Christian World