Shy Witness
I once knew a girl who had been a Christian and attended Church for fifteen years. She moved to a new Church and after a while the subject of whether people should share their faith came under discussion. She had not previously shared her faith at all and in her own defence told her new Pastor that she had once been told that evangelism was not her ‘gift’. Because she was very quiet, polite and shy her former Pastor had told her that her gift was not in evangelism and she had accepted this and had never once sought to share her faith in all those years.
Her new Pastor pointed her to the Book of Acts where the disciples were told to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem, then in Judea then in Samaria and then to the uttermost parts of the Earth. My friend went and sought the filling of the Holy Spirit. The day came when she was filled with the Holy Spirit and she asked the Lord to help her share her faith.
Then one morning everything changed. She was on her way to work and came to the bus shelter where she waited for the bus everyday. She just opened her mouth and announced to the people there, “Good morning everybody. I would like to tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ”. A man who was in the bus shelter replied, “Not first thing in the morning, love”. But my friend was not put off and she continued to share her faith because the bus was late and she was still talking as the bus finally arrived. She got on the bus and continued to share her faith. She was a girl who had been very nervous and she had always had skin infections. She later testified to me that when she got off the bus the infection was gone and it has never returned since.
My friend’s problem had been that she had feared man instead of God. She maybe thought that she could hide behind ‘living a Christian life’ but on that cold morning she overcame that fear and stepped out of the shadows declaring to a packed bus shelter ‘Good morning everybody, I would like to tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ’. From that point on she shared her faith without shame because she’d grasped her responsibility to tell people about the gospel.
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