Be Brave

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged” (Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV)

I am not a leader in my faith. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. This verse says that the Lord himself goes before me and will be with me and I should not be afraid or discouraged.  If I let Jesus lead me, I find that my life much more easy and enriching. I find that when I put my faith in the Lord, I am not afraid, and when the Lord brings someone to me to discuss my faith, I don't get discouraged or scared.

I used to be scared and afraid of a lot of things, but as I grow in my relationship with Jesus, I find my fears and apprehensions are null and void and I'm more bold in my statement of faith and my witnessing to people.  This comes from putting my faith in Jesus and letting him lead, to go before me. 

In my office, we received a new worker and I felt compelled to ask him if he found a church to go to yet. He said he wasn't really a church kind of guy. That was my opening. I began to talk to him about what I believed and we had some pretty in depth conversations about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

I was able to witness and give my testimony to him and he began to discuss how he thought God had worked in his life and that he had a void in his heart that he felt needed to be filled. I told him that void was the lack of Jesus in his life. We continued to talk for weeks about Jesus and faith in general. He now regularly attends a church and has told me he is learning more and more about Jesus and the Christian faith. 

This is proof to me that God provides the opportunities to us to witness and to give people the opportunity to find out more about Jesus.  I feel very humbled by the experience and am thankful I played a hand in bringing someone to Jesus. Has he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior yet? No, but he is closer than he was before we talked. If we never talked about faith, he would probably not be going to church and learning more about Jesus. I can only pray and hope he will accept Christ.

When God crosses your path with an opportunity to talk to someone about Him and Jesus, you have two choices: you can not talk about Jesus or you can talk about Jesus. When these opportunities arise, you will feel it in your heart to start the discussions. If the person is receptive, you can testify and witness. If they are not interested, at least you tried and have at least planted a seed that hopefully will sprout in that person's mind and they will later bring up faith again to you. If they don't want to talk, don't despair or be discouraged, for you did what you were called to do: proclaim Jesus.

Be bold and not discouraged in your witnessing and testimony to others: your words and actions may just save a soul!