August 22nd – Basic Witnessing




There is a cruel little jibe which goes like this: ‘What’s the difference between a Lada car and a Jehovah’s Witness?’ Answer:’You can close the door on a Jehovah’s Witness.’
Hold on – don’t you marvel at the sheer persistence of the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Don’t you get hot under the collar when Christian lay-abouts criticise the Jehovah’s Witnesses? when they themselves never visit anyone in the name of their faith, and if they did wouldn’t know what on earth to say. In a court of law, a witness is someone who fulfils three tests:
1.He (or she) must have seen or heard for himself: only first hand experience is accepted by any court of law, the rest is hearsay
2.He (or she) must be willing to speak up and tell the truth of what they have experienced first hand, and
3.Be willing to take the consequences of speaking up whether for good or ill.
Those three things make a witness in an English law court today.In my view, the hardest form of Christian witnessing is going cold, door-to-door. People feel invaded, even good people, but on the other hand no one objects to being befriended, listened to, and accepted.
Christian witness first involves simply making friends with people, neighbours and workmates, making friends NOT as a trick to introduce the gospel, but just as an act of love.Make friends whether you ever get the chance to speak for Christ or not. How about inviting for dinner that troublesome neighbour? How about calling someone just because you care how they are. Ask them round for coffee … It wouldn’t be long before they started asking “What makes you tick? You don’t need a regular fix of this or that – what keeps you going?” When asked, and not before, you can tell them. If you’ve anything to say about someone in your life bigger than yourself!
There are vast numbers of open doors out there to millions of lives, and the one secret entering into each of them is, befriend the one behind the door.
“These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens, no one can shut; and what he shuts, no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no-one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” Revelations 3: 7-8
A Prayer preparation:
Lord, I now write out the names of people it is possible for me to befriend from this very day onwards, and to pray for them each day.
Now read I Thessalonians Chapter 2.

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