Col 4 : 5-6  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

My prayer every day is that God will give me the opportunity to share a portion of the Gospel.  That implies that I need to be prepped, ready.  That means that I need to be meditating all the time on why the Gospel is such GOOD NEWS.  That means I have to be preaching to myself, encouraging myself.

What is all that good news? And how do I boil it all down to a 5 second sound-bite that would be salty enough to cause someone to want to talk to me?

My challenge is that I live in a family of believers (a blessing) and I teach in a Christian school.  So my contact with the outside world, the ‘gentiles’ of my day, is limited to encounters at the gym, on neighborhood walks, at the grocery store and in emails to relatives or other friends from my past.

What line will be the best incentive to encourage someone to engage in a conversation?  That’s all I want.  At the grocery check-out line, I usually ask the cashier, ‘How are you’ and she/he responds ‘fine’ and you?  That’s my cue for the 5 second line.   Here’s what I have thought about the past few days:

  • Great!  I’m meditating on the secret of life (go into how there IS purpose in life, both here on earth and in heaven)
  • Great !  God’s goodness is so apparent this time of year (beauties of Spring)
  • Great!  I’ve been thinking about heaven and how cool it’s going to be (new body – appealing to an elderly person)
  • Great!  I’ve been thinking about man’s greatest problem and what the solution is  (God’s wrath against us – and how Jesus takes care of that)

A good line will suffice to prompt a discussion if the other person wants one, or it can be easily ignored/ dropped by the other person.  My job is to fish.

But I find that I have to be prepared always.  I have to remind myself of the story –and its component parts:

a)   The truth about God – He is loving, perfect and holy

b)   The truth about humans – i.e. the good news AND the bad news which leads to THE PROBLEM

c)    God’s solution to the problem – Jesus

d)   What awaits us – when Jesus comes back – our AMAZING inheritance

What works for you?  I get discouraged that I don’t have MORE of these conversations.

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If you need to get a glimpse of what awaits us, then I would recommend John Piper’s sermon from 18 April 2010 – it’s all about how much God loves us.  Here is the link to the audio, video and print.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2010/4581_How_Much_Does_God_Love_This_Church/