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The Daily Word of Righteousness
To Evangelize or To Make Proselytes? continued
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: (I Peter 3:15)
I was informed that I should "testify" to everyone I met, I was "saved to save others," that I should "burn out for Christ," willing to stagger with malaria across a rice paddy until I fell in and drowned if I could "bring one soul to Christ," that it would be worth it to crawl on my knees over broken glass from here to China to bring "one soul to Christ.'
I was also pressed to adhere strictly to the Bible (although the Bible said nothing about "having a passion for souls" or "testifying to everyone I meet."
One morning standing in chow line I turned to the Marine behind me and said, "I want to tell you what Christ has done for me."
He said, "What has Christ done for you?"
I couldn't think of one blessed thing. I had been saved for two weeks and did not have a blazing testimony. It was embarrassing!
In fact, I never repented when I got saved. I was seeking God on my own when I moved into a tent with a backslidden Baptist boy and begin to pump him about the Gospel. He told me about the atonement. I received the good news and he got back to the Lord. This was in Honolulu.
A night or so later I was born again listening to the chaplain in a Quonset hut. I know when I was born again. After the service a zealous Marine (bless him!) led me through the four steps of salvation. I took the steps in a hurry so I could get out of there and marvel at the love of God that came into my soul when the Chaplain was preaching from Ezekiel about how God was longing to be our God.
I carried this load on my back for two or three years—the obligation to tell everyone I met about Jesus. It reminds me of some of the things C. S. Lewis strained over.
One day I was wrestling with myself over this issue at a bus stop. (You can tell from all of this I do not have the gift of personal evangelism in spite of the supposed universality of this grace.) I got on the bus, went to the rear, and squeezed in next to a rather large lady. I put steel into my back, girded up the loins of my mind, and said, ‘I would like to tell you about Jesus."
Her response was something like "No hablo Ingles" (sic—I hope this is correct Spanish). "I do not speak English."
That did it! I said to myself, "This simply cannot be God!"
To be continued.