One of my classes this semester is Church Evangelism. Pretty straight-forward, right? Well something I realized tonight as I scrolled through my 400+ contacts in my phone is just how few non-believers I have relationship with. My first assignment for the class was to interview a lost person. This was strictly an assignment to ask questions about their belief, not to convert or debate them. But I literally racked my brain for someone to talk to and kept coming up short. That's such a bad sign, right?!
So as I contemplated going down the street to the Chevron, I realized that I have never even taken the time to meet my neighbors in the apartment complex. I don't know their names, except one girl who stands outside to smoke. But for all I know, every single neighbor could be lost and I've just been hiding in my living room, playing with my puppy, and panicking about who to talk to. So I asked for courage, and walked downstairs to introduce myself to our Tom Haverford look-alike neighbor.
Turns out his name isn't Tom, and he's actually a really nice guy... but didn't seem to know much about the Gospel. He deferred a lot of questions to his roommate, a pastor's kid, and I wondered mostly about how to engage him specifically in the questions since I was sensing that He didn't have relationship with Jesus.
Today I spent the afternoon in a missions training for an upcoming mission trip to Paris. But then I came home and racked my brain for who I could possibly share the Good News with. And there he was, just sitting a floor beneath me, as obvious as could be. Just makes me wonder who I see daily, yet keep my mouth shut about the Gospel, saving that for work... or for missions... when there are lost souls surrounding me every. single. day.
Mark 12
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
This has been such truth that I've been convicted of in my life lately. Church life has become just normal life. I work there, I go there, I feel sometimes like I live there. Then add beginning seminary, and all of a sudden just being surrounded my the Gospel seems normal. So it's becoming less of a novelty, less exciting, more just practical means to an end. And I don't want that!!! I'm sitting just kind of stagnant in an overwhelming amount of Gospel without letting its freshness and newness penetrate my heart. I'm sitting, just soaking in it, marinating in it, but never using it or gleaning from it, and that's a dangerous place to be. It makes you numb to your lost neighbor, and tired of reading, so you don't read, and then you don't seek, and then all of a sudden, I'm just here... ready to get back to needing God. I need you, O God. You alone. Help me to need you today!
