Grace Notes

This is my new special friend, Francisca! Francisca is the girl who prayed and asked God for eternal life recently in the mall food court. (See post from November 24th) We’ve kept in touch via texting, and this morning my dad and I drove to take her to church in her area. It was really encouraging to be able to spend more time with Francisca (and her two adorable daughters) and see her desire to understand the Bible more. Francisca told me that yesterday she had a conversation with her friend about how we can ask God for eternal life. Apparently her friend doesn’t really understand yet – but I was glad to see how Francisca is already “witnessing” from what she knows! 🙂 Praise the Lord for what He is doing in Francisca’s life! And please pray for Francisca as she grows in the Lord.

Holidays are very useful for opening doors to share the gospel! Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays because it turns our attention to God—the Giver of all good things—and it gives us opportunity to share about God’s eternal provision. This year my dad came up with a little sequence of questions to direct people’s attention to the Lord, and we have been excited to see the Lord bless and use it. We want to share this idea with you, so that you can do the same with people you meet this week. You can use it after Thanksgiving too, as you ask people how their holiday was.

“Would you be willing to answer some questions about Thanksgiving?” my dad and I asked a young couple at a shopping mall last week.
“Sure,” they said.
“Great. The first question is, ‘Do you have Thanksgiving traditions in your family?”
“Yes,” they responded.
“Whom do you give thanks to?” we asked.
“Well, to God, of course,” they said, looking at us like, “Who else would we thank?”
“What do you thank Him for?” was our next question.
“For food and health and family…” they replied.
“Great. Have you ever thanked Him for eternal life?”
They looked at each other with sort of a surprised look and then the guy said, “Well, you can’t thank God for eternal life until you have eternal life—and you can’t have that until you die.”

We took some time to explain from the Bible how and why we can know before we die and, in fact, how we must know before we die. They were very interested and brought up a number of questions. They were not argumentative, just very interested. This was all new to them.
Then we asked, “Have you ever asked God for eternal life?”
Again they gave each other that look of surprise and both said, “No.”

After another 45 minutes of talking, answering questions, and covering the basics of how Jesus Christ paid for our sins on the cross, they both said, “God brought you to us today.”
“Well, if the Lord is bringing this to your attention, then you want to take care of it right away and not put it off,” we told them. “You said you have never asked God for eternal life. Is that something you’d like to do now?” we asked. We could tell their hearts were open. We offered to pray with them and began looking for a corner we could go to in order to get out of the busy flow of people walking by.
“We can pray right here!” the guy said.
First we prayed for them, and then the girl said she wanted to pray. Right there, she confessed her sin and asked the Lord for eternal life. Later that evening she texted me expressing thankfulness.

The Holiday season is just beginning–let’s not forget about the abundant opportunities it provides to talk with people! Just a simple sequence of questions is able to open many doors.

We’ll try to post some Christmas ideas before too long. 🙂