How can it
be that so many people do not know about the benefits of Salvation and how to
gain it? How can so many people have heard of Salvation Testimony yet rejected this most valuable gift? Paul reminds us in the
Bible verses from Ephesians 6:11-12 that receiving Salvation is opposed by the
enemy who is in the world. As a result, you can expect opposition to helping
others learn about, appreciate, and accept Salvation. Despite such opposition,
you know that God can do anything. When you put on His holy armor to do His
will as Ephesians 6 encourages Christians to do, you can resist all opposition!
Surveys show that a tiny percentage of Christians have ever helped lead anyone
other than a family member into receiving Salvation. That observation suggests
that the ways in which most Christians share or
practice their faith outside their families isn’t what God intended if everyone
is to be saved. Obviously, then, you need to change what you are doing in
sharing your faith and to teach others to do the same. If Witnessing Made Easy:
Yes, You Can Make a Difference you don’t, unsaved people will suffer without
hope on Earth and their souls will be lost for all eternity. It’s as simple as
that. Naturally, you have a direct responsibility to help nurture the lives and
souls of your grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, children, cousins,
grandchildren, and other family relations. Keep praying for and encouraging
these people to come to the Lord.
However, don’t limit your efforts to
just those people, even if there is more work to be done with them. Billions of
people are mired in unbelief or belief in false gods; they need your help, as
well. Some are friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. Some work next to you as colleagues.
Some serve you at the grocery store; others take away your trash. Some will be
new acquaintances and play tennis with you today.One reason that God placed you
where you are is to help those people around you to come to Him.Many lost
people live thousands of miles away and are strangers to you. In the past, just
a small percentage of Christians were called to be missionaries in faraway
places. With today’s inexpensive mass communications, you can easily reach
beyond your family,community, work, shopping, and interests to touch lives on
all continents by sending your written Christian Testimony Book through the mail and over the Internet. Your written
testimony can help save more souls in other nations than a mid-twentieth-century
foreign missionary could ever hope to reach. What a great opportunity God has
given you!
God has truly blessed us with this
amazing opportunity to share His goodness by helping lost souls wherever they
can be found. As a result, your responsibility to share your faith is much
greater than in previous generations. Mass communications also make it easy to
teach other Christians to do the same. What’s missing for this great
opportunity to be fulfilled? All Christians need to gather more courage and
overcome any fears and indecision that stand in the way of helping souls to
join with the Lord.
In this chapter, we address common
fears about witnessing and how to overcome those fears so that you and others
you share this book with can know how to become complete, continual witnesses.
How many Christians are hobbled by such fears and indecision? Few Christians
write their testimonies. Some of that can be due to Put on God’s Spiritual
Armor Every Day ignorance, but you can get a sense of the role that fear may
play by observing that many people who agree to write their testimonies never do.
Opposition from the enemy who is in the world has either paralyzed or
neutralized the wills of these believers. After writing a testimony, an even
smaller percentage of Christians then continually hand out what they have
written. A tinier percentage of Christians who pass out their testimonies also
have conversations with lost people about what’s in those testimonies. For each
type of witnessing activity,the enemy constructs new doubts and fears to snag,
delay, and distract potential witnesses from doing what unsaved people need. Fear
is a powerful weapon for the enemy who is in the world to use against
Christians to discourage witnessing. Fear can turn an intelligent, caring
person into a paralyzed statue so overcome with confusion as to become
inactive.
Authorities on fear report that most people
while afraid:
• cannot think clearly.
• don’t appreciate when substantial
risks are present.
• put off making decisions.
• look for someone else to save them.
• find it difficult to take action
after choosing what to do.
• take actions slowly.
• are extra courteous and shy while
acting, sometimes to the point of ineffectiveness.
Those who are slightly afraid become
less decisive. When fear leads to indecision, concerns about possible negative
consequences make it hard for fearful people to pick a direction and act on
it.Let’s look more closely at common fears about witnessing and how to overcome
them so that you and others you share these lessons with can become complete,
continual witnesses.
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