A recent lunch with a friend provided the opportunity for a long conversation on the meaning of life. From the start of the meal where he said a “word” according to his faith tradition, I prayed to the God of heaven thanking him for his grace made evident through the meal. In between bites of food we shared our beliefs ranging in topics from, does God exist, what does it mean to be human, who is Jesus, the reliability of the Bible, what happens after death, and if there are other living things in the billions of galaxies. When we concluded, we hugged and thanked each other for the great conversation and promised to do it again soon.
The hours following the meal I thought much about his worldview and wondered if anything I shared with him had caused him to think too. Well Saturday we crossed paths in town and right away he said, “I have been thinking a lot about our lunch conversation, one thing really stood out in your explanation of how a person’s status changes before God when they believe in Jesus. What that means is that everyone who doesn’t believe is in a desperate condition.”
I share that story because here is a middle-aged American who is just now beginning to understand the basics of God’s truth about life, death, and eternity. His comment was a good reminder about how important it is that followers of Jesus are faithful to engage in simple gospel conversation with everyone we can! Paul asked a question to the church at Rome that still applies to the church today, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”
Please pray for the many relationships that our church is building with our friends and neighbors. We want to share the truth and love well as we long to see many of them find and follow Jesus.