Living overseas for ten years was a daily process of learning how to share the Gospel more and more clearly with people.
One of those people was Mitchell. He was an English major student in one of my classes, where I taught at a college. He was also the most intelligent student that I have ever taught! Sometimes his questions and comments were a little intimidating (even for the teacher) because he was so smart.
Each day during the week, I hosted “office hours” so that my students could come to my home to practice speaking English outside of class.
Mitchell asked me a tons of questions during these office hours. But if I could boil all of his questions down into only one single question, it would be: “If you are an American who has a master’s degree and teaches at a prestigious university, how can you also believe in God?”
While he was growing up, his parents and teachers told him that you can’t be intelligent and still believe in God. He was told repeatedly that “Believing in God is just a crutch” and that “Only old people, children, and the stupid believe in God.”
But I was excited about the questions that he was asking because they left me with an impression that he was starting to think things through for himself.
But when I told my American friends that I was talking to Mitchell about God, they said, “We’ve already spent time with Mitchell. Don’t waste your time on him! He doesn't have any interest in the Gospel!”
However, years before, I had learned something from the book Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, by Henry Blackaby. He said that if someone is asking questions about God, the Bible, or other things of a spiritual nature, you can be sure that God is at work in that person’s heart!
It also said that spiritual questions are God’s invitation for you to join Him in the work that He is doing in this person’s life.
One day, Mitchell asked me to meet with him at a coffee shop because he needed my help with a school project for another class.
Sometime during that conversation, he mentioned out-of-the-blue that he felt like his heart was dirty. He said it was because of all the bad things that he had done in his life, and he said that he just couldn’t find a way to make his heart clean again.
Mitchell’s comments made me realize that there was a good chance that he might respond to the Gospel, if I would just keep sharing it with him.
Somewhere along the way, someone had mentioned to me that people can't understand that they need to be saved, unless they FIRST realize that they have a problem with sin!
This helped me to realize that if Mitchell was aware that he had a problem caused by his sin, then perhaps he would be open to learning about the solution to sin.
So I shared the Gospel with him during our conversation, and then asked if he would be interested in reading the Bible to learn more. He said that he was! So that afternoon, I gave him a Bible.
It was several weeks before Mitchell said anything more about our conversation, or told me whether or not he had been reading his Bible.
Finally, one day during office hours, he pulled me off to the side and told me that not only had he been reading the Bible, but also when he was alone in his dorm room, he opened the door of his heart to Jesus Christ and invited HIM to come into his life!
Praise God for the work that He does in human hearts!
Looking back at my friends’ response about Mitchell reminds me of a ministry illustration about an onion:
A person’s heart is like an onion. When a Christian shares the Gospel with someone who is lost, it’s like unwrapping one layer of the onion.
Then when someone else comes along and shares the Gospel with that person as well, another layer of the onion is peeled off.
God keeps bringing Christians into the person’s life, one after another, to share the Gospel with him again and again. Then eventually, he comes to realize that he has a sin problem that is separating him from God, and realizes that he needs someone to save him!
My American friends had shared the Gospel with Mitchell over and over until they “gave up” (their words, not mine). Meanwhile, each time they were sharing the Gospel with him, yet another layer of the onion was being peeled away, making his heart softer and more prepared to accept Jesus into his life.
Subsequently, once I came along and kept sharing the Gospel with him, he finally became ready to accept Jesus.
My friends’ work of sharing the Gospel with Mitchell had a profound impact on him, that they couldn’t see - it happened each and every time they had shared it with him!
The process that God takes someone through also reminds me of the “Lost and Found” principle: A person first needs to realize that they are lost in order to know that they need to be found.
For Mitchell, it was apparently important for him to first understand that his heart was dirty, before he could come to realize that he needed Someone to come in and make him clean.
Whenever you’re talking to someone who isn’t yet a Christian, ask yourself these questions:
#1 - Is this person asking questions of a spiritual nature?
If so, allow this to alert you: God is working in their heart!
Try to answer their questions. If there are some questions that you can't answer, just tell them that you don’t know, but that you can try to find out the answers and get back with them later.
#2 - Does this person acknowledge that they have sinned? Are they saying something like Mitchell did, when he said that he knew that his heart was dirty?
Or maybe they are asking something else, like “I know I need to get my life right with God, but I’m not sure how” or “I don’t know if God can forgive me for the things that I’ve done.”
Your goal is to share the Gospel with them again and again, anytime you have the opportunity to share!
Your patience and perseverance can help them to learn how very much Jesus loves them, and that He is willing to forgive them, once they finally put their faith in Him!
That all may know,
- Lori Lyn
