Christian Living
Jeff was by far my favorite attorney at Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnell, an upscale law firm in Wilmington, Delaware where I’d worked as a second shift word processor for several years. He relied heavily on me many weeknights, after his secretary had left for the day, to help him draft, edit and send out documents on behalf of his growing list of clients in the firm’s Corporate Department. We worked well together, and he had a sense of humor that often kept us laughing in spite of crazy workloads that sometimes existed long after midnight.
I was already rushing to assemble some documents for another attorney that would be mailed out by Federal Express when he came into the Word Processing Department one evening. He tossed some work onto my desk, threw himself into the chair next to me, and reached onto the desk and grabbed my copy of "Tribulation Force," the second book in the "Left Behind" series, that had been sitting next to my computer. He wordlessly read the summary on the back and began flipping through it curiously. “What’s this about?” he finally asked.
“The end of the world,” was my hurried answer as I scribbled a mailing address onto a Federal Express airbill.
Jeff remained in the chair, reading several of the book’s passages, even as I left him to run downstairs to the mailroom with the overnight package. He was gone when I returned.
It was not until after I left the firm – and lost contact with Jeff – nearly a year later that the Holy Spirit planted a disquieting conviction in my heart. Starting with the day when he picked up "Tribulation Force," Jeff had often shown an interest in the books I would bring in to work and read during my occasional downtime. They were, more often than not, Christian books, usually evangelical fiction such as the "Left Behind" series. Yet each time he would drop off his work, make himself comfortable in that chair beside my desk, and inspect the newest title sitting next to my computer, somehow I was always too busy to explain the Good News of the Gospel to him, or even to find out what he knew about Christianity at all.
What would have happened, I wondered with a lingering guilt, if Jeff were to die soon, even unexpectedly – a freak car accident on the way home from work, or an illness that would suddenly claim his life? What if his friendship with me had been his last appointed “window of opportunity” to hear the Gospel … and I had been too busy mailing Federal Express packages to talk to him about it?
Even now, more than a year later, that sobering possibility has not yet left me.
A 2002 study conducted by the Barna Research Institute showed that nearly three out of five born again Christians (57%) feel a sense of responsibility to tell others about their faith. 58% of born-again Christians claim they have shared their faith with a non-Christian during the past year.
What about the other 42% of us?
What if every single born-again Christian (i.e., 100% of us!) made evangelism a priority in their personal lives? We don’t have to be living in the remote jungles of the Amazon to consider ourselves as missionaries – God calls us to be missionaries in our own corner of the world, right where He has placed us. Think of all the people you know – the co-workers, cashiers at your favorite grocery stores, hairstylists, mechanics – that you come in contact with every day, many of whom are most likely living without the hope of Jesus Christ.
At the end of the Book of Matthew, chapter 28:19-20, Jesus gives the disciples what we now refer to as the Great Commission: to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you …”
It reminds me of a story in a daily devotional I’d read years ago, a story about an eccentric scientist who had purportedly discovered a cure for AIDS. By the end of his life, however, he had died without sharing with anyone the news of his cure for the deadly disease. Why would he do such a thing? Why would he keep such good news to himself and never tell others about it?
So it is with those of us who have been saved by God’s glorious and mysterious grace. Why in heaven’s name would we want to keep such radical, life-changing GOOD news to ourselves? Do we not have an obligation to share it with everyone who’s dying of a much greater disease than AIDS – the disease of sin?
As we consider the beginning of each new day, along with our work schedules, priorities, meetings and obligations, let’s also prayerfully consider the words of the Great Commission.
Is that the postman knocking at your door…?
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Left Behind drew my future daughter-in-law into the kingdom. Since her salvation...all of her family has come to Christ!
So have faith...who knows that Jeff may have picked up a copy on his own!