Evangelism has never been so exciting. It is one thing to be excited about seeing fruit in evangelism. It is another to see how fruit has come about through God’s intervention.
These truths indicate that God has always been working far ahead of the one who seeks to evangelize someone or some group. Such might be like Abraham trying to evangelize Melchizedek, not realizing that the latter had a prior revelation from God!
God was saying to me, “Doug, can you trust me as Sovereign Love? Even without knowing the answers and without having everything figured out? Can you just trust me as God who reigns over every circumstance in your life and who is Love?”
...Someone can teach you a method and all the reasons to do something, but if it’s not living and vital in their life, it doesn’t get through. What are we passing on to others? Is it methods? Is it knowledge? Or is it life?
"If we get our eyes on ourselves, this series of messages will be of little use, but if we get our eyes on God, and we become more like Him, then this series can make a permanent difference in each one of our lives... The whole emphasis is on godliness, on Christ, on God-likeness."
Paul’s passion concerning the pursuit of Christ is seen in the three ways he describes his relationship to Christ: to know Christ, to gain Christ and to become like Christ. In the pursuit of Christ, we can trace four major drives that motivated Paul.
Paul yearned to participate in Christ’s suffering, to “become like him in His death”. It had to do with the cross. To become like Christ we, like Paul, have to embrace suffering.
Ask the Lord to bring someone into your life whom you can invest time and care in, helping them to grow and mature. You will be amazed as they, having received your guidance, are then willing to do the same for others.
One-on-one interaction is evident in the way Jesus handled the Samaritan woman (John 4), the blind man (John 9), and numerous other accounts. Each individual is important, and Jesus demonstrated this by spending time with each person, one at a time.
Ask God to bring someone into your life, perhaps a peer or an older person who is willing to coach, model and set an example for you. Once we experience the joy of the transforming power of God in our lives, we will seek to influence and mentor others.