Perseverance/Monday, August 17, 2009
by Dr. Paul Chappell
Mark 4:3–8
Perseverance says “I must” when others say “You can’t.”
A faithful Christian man once heard a sermon on witnessing to others. Moved by the message, he committed to sharing his faith with his coworker and inviting him to church. At work the next day, the man took time during a break to talk to his friend about his time at church the previous day. As they casually spoke, the Christian man invited his friend to come to church with him the next week. Although the coworker liked the Christian man and was friends with him, he declined, stating he had a prior engagement. Week after week the Christian man would invite his friend to church, but the man always found a reason not to go. Frustrated, the Christian businessman felt there was no more use to trying to invite his friend to church, so he gave up on asking him and continued on at his job for many more years without uttering another word about his faith to anyone.
Have you ever encountered this situation? Perhaps a coworker, family member, good friend, or neighbor you know is unsaved and you’ve tried inviting him to church, but he always seem to have a reason why he can’t go. You’re doing your best to fulfill God’s command to spread the good news to others, yet they aren’t responding as you’d imagined they would.
Not all people with whom you share your faith will respond right away. Notice the different types of soils (hearts) in the verses today. Some were hardened; some were shallow; some were influenced by outside forces. Not everyone is ready to accept Christ the minute you share your faith with them.
Does that mean we should give up on those people? Not at all! They are still precious souls for whom Christ died. Witnessing to some people takes perseverance. It may take a year, five years, or even ten years for some people to accept Christ, but during that time, we must faithfully continue to witness to them.
When I married my wife, her brother was not saved. Terri had witnessed to her brother ever since she was saved as a young girl, explaining to him that Christ paid for our salvation by His death on the Cross and we only had to accept God’s free gift to be saved, but he wanted nothing to do with her “new” religion. Even after we were married, we both prayed for, witnessed to, and wept over her brother’s hardness of heart. It wasn’t until a few months ago, twenty-eight years after we were married, that my brother-in-law accepted Christ.
Never once did my wife consider giving up on her brother. Never once did she resign herself to the fact that he would never trust Christ. Her witness to him and her faith that God could change his heart persevered. Her love for him was so great that she would have prayed and witnessed to him for twenty-eight more years just to see him saved.
Is your love for that unsaved person in your life so strong that it drives you to persevere in witnessing to him? If not, take time right now to realize the situation. God has said that those who do not accept His free gift will spend an eternity in the Lake of Fire, an awful place of punishment and separation from Him for eternity. May that knowledge cause you to never give up on someone and continue witnessing despite the many setbacks you incur.
