Skip to main content

sharing with neighbors

One of the hardest things I've realized in my Christian walk is when I come home to my family and see that our neighbors are still lost, we are the ones to share with them. The week before school started, God laid it on my heart to pray for my neighbors for an oppurtunity to share the Gospel with them. I prayed that God would allow it and sure enough, that same day my neighbor calls and says she needs me to come help her change her air filter. She has a son who in high school and a daughter in college. I went over there and my mom decided to go too. After I changed the air filter, I went up to hang out with the high school boy. We played video games for a few hours and just talked about stuff. Finally, I got up the courage to ask him...."If you died tonight, where would you go?" he said that he hoped Heaven, but wasn't sure. After that, I got to share the clear Gospel with him and he understood that he needed to turn from his sin to Jesus in order to be made righteous in God's sight. I tried to knock on my other neighbor's door three different times that day, but they didn't answer. Just a few nights ago, I was home again for labor day weekend and we get a knock at the door.....guess who it is....my neighbor who wasn't there before. He is a senior and high school and had brought beer over to my dad because his mom found it in the house and said to get rid of it. My brother and I invited him into the sunroom and we talked about what he was doing now with his life. He explained how he was into all this trouble with the law and loved partying and drinking and had done some drugs and had a filthy mouth. My brother and him got to talking about people they both knew and I could tell the conversation wasn't leading to Spiritual things. I went to the bathroom and got on my knees in prayer that God would speak through me to share the Gospel with him that night. I went back down and sure enough, I noticed a bridge to take and took it. I got to share the Gospel with him that night and asked him where he would go if he died.....he said Hell. I said, that concerns you right? He said yeah. I told him that we all must repent (turn from sin to the Savior) and trust in Jesus in order to be saved from God's wrath. He said he wanted to do that before he went to bed. After this, we talked about different things, but at the end he said thank you for telling me this. He went back home and I prayed with my mom and sister later that the seed would be watered and that God would provide the increase. Then, last night.....my uncle came to the house, who doesn't seem to be pursuing the Lord with his life. My family sat and talked with him about different things, but no one took the conversation to spiritual....I backed down like a fool, though I had the chance. After he left, I talked with my mom and sister again about the urgency of the situation and how we must reach our lost family members for the Lord. We prayed that night that God would use us to reach them and if we back down, that He would use someone else. I pray that God will work in each of our hearts to love all of our family members to the point of telling them about eternity and God's judging of them. God is good and is paving the way for all of our family members and freinds to know Him personally.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

7 Steps to the Pulpit

Many times I’ve sat on the front pew just prior to the sermon time looking at the steps to the pulpit. In these moments each Sunday morning I’m reminded of the great task with which I have been entrusted and my own weakness to perform it. After hours of painstaking study and prayerful preparation, I still stare at those steps and feel under qualified, knowing I’ve only scratched the surface of the message. There is a certain holy trembling a preacher feels before climbing those steps to proclaim God’s eternal Word. In centuries past, preachers like Charles Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones had to climb winding staircases to reach the “sacred desk”, but many pulpits today are just a few steps above the floor. Whether you have many steps or none at all, it is an other-worldly task we have been given. The following are a few practical steps preachers can take before climbing the real ones on Sunday morning... 1. Get in the Word We must immerse ourselves in the text at the outset o

Pastors & Spider-Man

The other night my wife and I decided to watch one of the Spiderman movies we owned at the house. During the movie, I felt an odd connection with Peter Parker and his Spiderman persona. It was then that I started thinking about all the ways pastors and Spiderman have a very similar calling. First, like Spiderman, pastors are urged to serve because of the serious need they see around them and the unique calling given them. Whereas Peter Parker is urged by the screams of people who are in danger, we are urged by the lostness around us. When Paul was at Athens, his spirit was provoked when he saw the idols they worshiped (Acts 17:16ff). As pastors, we must never stop seeing the spiritual desperation in people’s lives. All believers are called to serve others for the sake of Christ, but pastors have a unique calling to shepherd their souls as well. Second, both pastors and Spiderman share the struggle of their calling with one woman (our wives, except in the case of Peter Parker).

The Gospel Never Retreats

There sat the world’s most outspoken Christian evangelist, chained to two Roman prison guards behind a locked jail cell. If most of us found ourselves in Paul’s shoes in this cell, we’d have thought for sure this was a sad day for the gospel. “Poor gospel”, we’d think. “Your days of victorious spreading have now come to a screeching halt. I guess I might as well just retreat to the cold recesses of this cell and silently go over some memory verses to reassure me. There’s no point trying to preach now.” Yet the Apostle Paul knew better than all this. He wrote to the church of Philippi, " I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear " (Php. 1:12-14). We may be tempted to