If you’re at all like me, you tend to go through times in your walk with Christ when you wonder if any of the conversations you’ve had with people about the Savior will ever amount to anything. I was pleasantly surprised recently when I received a phone call from a man whom I shared the gospel with twenty-five years ago as a young engineering student.
He asked me if I had remembered who he was by the sound of his voice. I sheepishly declined to guess and asked for more data to awaken my memory. He said that we knew each other back in engineering school where I was an undergraduate student and he was getting his master’s degree. I finally made the connection that this man was a Chinese national that I had shared the gospel with when I was just 21 years old. I’ll call my friend Tim.
Tim said that he remembered that I had him to my house for dinner. He also remembered that my wife, Tracy, served him chicken on her finest dishes that belonged to her grandmother. Actually, the fine dishes were because we were poor students and couldn’t afford normal dishes!
Tim said that he had truly become a Christian and that I was the one who had introduced him to the Savior. God had blessed him with a Christian wife and they were now raising their teenage daughter. He still had the original English and Chinese Bibles I gave him and always kept me in his mind as he read them. I was so excited and grateful that he took the time to contact me. I even remember praying for him as he went back to China. I prayed that the gospel that was planted would take root and the Spirit would care for him when he went home.
The lesson in all of this is that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16). We don’t need slick presentations, we just need to be faithful in our proclamation and leave the results to God (Acts 13:48). Another thing that hit me as I was listening to Tim’s story was that I was a very young believer when I shared Christ with him. I knew very little theology and only knew that I had been forgiven of my sins and that Tim could as well if he would trust in Christ’s work on the cross. I just had to tell him. The old Christian singing group Petra summed up this thought well when they sang their song, Lift Him Up:
Lift Him up higher and higher
Lift Him up set the world on fire
It doesn't take much theology
Just lift Him up so the world can see
Lift Him up tell the gospel story
Lift Him up let them see His glory
It doesn't take any Bible degree
Just lift Him up so the world can see
Be encouraged folks! You never know how the Lord is going to use your relationships with the lost. Just be faithful to the gospel and proclaim it.
Your brother,
Hirsch