Evangelism - Persistence and Patience

Give up on him! That's what the devil wants us to do. The Spirit of God would say, wait, stay steady, have patience.

Most of the people I have led to Jesus didn't respond and come the first time I probed to see if they were ready. Usually it took a crisis, a situation, a change, a special touch of the Holy Ghost to cause them to come to him.

We can see that in scripture. The jailer of Peter and Silas wasn't looking for Jesus. Not, that is, until the earthquake came. Read about it HERE.

Some people who are distant from God particularly in the Church need a fresh prod of the Spirit of God to get them off dead center. They are walking in the delusion of "Just Fine" regarding their relationship to God.

I experienced that on the most personal level possible. In 1981 after having been saved and born again a three years earlier I went thru a difficult time with my wife. We had attended a good Lutheran church. The one we had been married in. She was head of women's ministries with 900 women. I was involved teaching 6th grade and was superintendent of the Sunday school with 500 kids.

Life seemed normal, settled, "Just Fine". We did our normal little Sunday thing. We paid our tithe. We did what most of American Christians did, we put in our time. Of course both of us being Do-ers we found ourselves doing.

Then it happened. I was saved, seeking, hungry and starving in the Church. I sought out a friend of mine who was walking where I wanted to walk. He sold cars for a living. At his ministry I received a supernatural touch from God. The baptism of the Holy Ghost. The fullness of the Spirit. The overflow of Jesus in my Life. Personal Pentecost. The infilling until it came back out of my mouth as evidence and I spoke with other tongues. It changed me radically and eternally. That single experience broke the last straw of nominalism in my life.

I was turned on to Jesus. Huge. Irreversibly. Forever.

This caused difficulty in our marriage. We had come thru hard times recently. This didn't help. What’s worse, is I came to realize that for me to grow spiritually I had to leave the Lutheran Church we were attending. I was starving to death. There were other issues. This was an ALC church with fuzzy doctrine on Homosexuals and Abortion. I didn't want to go where they seemed to be headed. There were also a fair number of people attending this church who believed in Transcendental Meditation and Reincarnation. The Pastors were good men but weak. They didn't take on the HARD issues. It was a big church, several thousand people, and rather than purpose driven they were sadly checkbook driven. The checkbook driven church is an impotent church. If a church ever fears losing a member who tithes well it is saying to God, “I rely more on that man’s tithe than I do on your capacity to provide”. I was fired up in a house of fire extinguishers.

It almost ended our marriage. She went to the Lutheran Church and I went to a Spirit-Formed church. She liked the change she saw in me. I became more and more changed into the image of Jesus. The tension was she loved her spiritual comfort zone. She had been raised in the Lutheran Church like I had and it just seemed right. Not that it made much difference in her life. It hadn't in mine. This went on for 3 years. She would get angry. There were times when the pain was great. I wanted to have peace but not at the price of my intimacy with Jesus.

The temptation (even advice) was to capitulate and compromise just a little. Here was the truth; I was coming to the place where my love for Jesus exceeded my love for Peggy. She was number 2 in my life. If I had to make a choice she had to know where she would end up.

I was at wits end and then a man by the name of Chuck Rutherford gave me a prophetic word. He said, “I see the day coming when your wife will exceed you in passion for Jesus”. That word quickened in my spirit. I knew it was true. I knew that if I would just stay steady, not back down, not give in, that day would come.

Today it’s true. Peggy exceeds me in so many ways spiritually It’s hard to explain.

Here’s the rub. Some people would say, "you should have gone to church with her and waited for her to change". I would have died spiritually. I was young in these things and not ready to do that then. I loved her. I showed that love to her in many ways. But I never let my love for her or the pain between us compromise what Jesus called me to do. I still don’t. She doesn’t.

That’s the struggle of evangelism and spiritual leadership. Unless you have set your face like flint toward Him you will fail. If you look to circumstances, if you look to people you will fail. Anything less than sold out passion for Jesus without any consideration for anything else is the call of God in this hour.

If you have a friend, a loved one, a wife, a husband, a child who is not where they ought to be spiritually, Take it from one who risked it all for the cause of Christ. He’s worth it. Stay steady. Don’t back down. When the pressure comes turn up the heat. Run to Him, not from Him. It’s only under pressure that you know who you are in Jesus. Do you return to empty words and tradition as a hiding place or do you press into him harder and with more determination? I could have gone back to that nice Lutheran church with the nice people and lived out my life in spiritual mediocrity. I’m glad I didn’t. It was the light of Jesus in my life that drew her, and the same light that gives me access to lead others to him.

The day will come Jesus said when he will bring a sword. It will divide families, even husbands and wives. But the covenant is strong and if the wife in the family will follow the spiritual leadership of her husband in a scriptural way the unity will occur because they both seek God with all their heart. There is still some difficulty between me and other members of my family.

When persecution comes the decisions I have made in the past will make the ones I must make in the future easier. Pressures and persecution will seem trivial when compared to the Glory of Jesus. Even if I lose my life I will not deny Him.

What is most important in your witness, evangelistic work is passion. There is not light without fire. Following comfort zone course attracts no one. There is something that draws people when you sold out and abandoned? If you want to win the lost and lukewarm in your life you must do it by dogged pursuit of the Glory of God and his Son JESUS.

People flock to Caribbean Islands to bask in the light and heat of the Sun. People flock to those who radiate the light and heat of the SON.

Persistence and Patience win the day in winning the lost. Never Ever Ever Back Down! Let your light so shine before men.............