Taking it to the Mall

“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

This past weekend I was really encouraged by three Bible-based teachings: two from Mark Cahill and one from Pastor Joey Rozek. As a result, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to ‘step it up a notch’ in regard to my evangelism efforts. The Lord used Mark Cahill to emphasize the importance of faith-filled discussions, as opposed to faith-filled presentations, while the thing that stood out from Pastor Joey’s message was his definition of the word ‘responsibility.’ He described it as, “Our ‘response’ to His ‘ability.’ ” I found that to be very profound, and also Biblically accurate.

So prior to today, much of what I’ve done in this regard revolved around playing the guitar and singing ‘Jesus music‘ on the street and/or handing out Bible tracts, but without too much dialog. I will continue to do that, but today, compelled by the love of Christ and the guiding of the Holy Spirit, I set out for the mall. Just prior to setting out, I asked my Facebook friends to pray for some Divine appointments.

Well, they must have prayed, because I met some wonderful people and had some great conversations. I met one young guy named Rich who was filling out an application in front of the pretzel place. After talking for about 15 minutes, he received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Praise be to God!

Another guy I met named John expressed a desire to recommit his life to Jesus. He was working one of those cell phone kiosks in the middle of the mall, but our conversation was interrupted (he was working after all), so I wasn’t able to pray with him.  I did encourage him to return to church and follow through with the things we were discussing.

I also had ‘pleasant’ conversations with a Muslim and a Jehovah Witness who each took a Bible tract and agreed to ‘investigate’ some of the issues we covered. Additionally, I met some Christ followers and had some nice fellowship time. All in all, about 6 or 7 people agreed to stop and talk with me. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that there was also about the same number who did not want to chat. I found walking up to people and initiating a conversation rather easy, but simply saying, “Okay,” and walking away when they didn’t want to talk to be the difficult part. It was there I had to fight the urge to start a debate.

Anyway, I hope this didn’t come off sounding prideful, as in, “Hey, look what I did today,” but encouraging.  The testimonies I heard this past weekend encouraged me and I wanted to encourage you. Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and that’s exactly how I found it to be — light and easy! Most importantly, I’m here to tell you that my fears of being arrested at the mall for handing out Bible tracts and witnessing o strangers, never came to fruition.

Again, praise be to God!

These articles may or may not be related:

• If You Are Not Making Disciples – You Are Not Being One (darrellcreswell.wordpress.com)
• How we respond to Prayer Request (reflectionsofalaycatholic.com)
• Do You Have the Holy Spirit? Here’s how You can know (whatshotn.wordpress.com)
• You’ve Got the Power (theriverbankchicago.wordpress.com)
• Listening to God (lienchretien.wordpress.com)
• Should You Be Friends with Them? (cuzshesapoet.wordpress.com)
• Jehovah’s Witnesses – Part 1 (probings.wordpress.com)
• Who Is Jesus? (jlue.wordpress.com)
• Facebook Jesus Week – Share The Jesus Film Clips in Your Language (miheret.wordpress.com)
• Testimony from the Hospital (justasiamdenise.wordpress.com)

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