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The Delivery Driver |
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Joe
showed up in the building where I work during a hot day in the summer. Those Fed Ex and UPS trucks don’t have
AC. After Joe made his delivery here about
noon he had the idea of eating his sack lunch in our building. No one said he couldn’t and the lunch room
was vacant. He started
making a habit of arranging his route so that he could have lunch in our
building. After I became aware of that, I introduced myself to him and we
became acquaintances. One day I
felt the urge to talk to him about the Lord.
He seemed open to that so I asked him if he knew that God loved him
and had a plan for his life. As many
people, he appeared to think well of that so I proceeded to determine whether he was saved by using a
variety of what are called “diagnostic questions.” Since he
was not sure if he died that he would go to heaven, I went over the plan of
salvation with him. People usually
will go ahead and pray with you if you get this far in your presentation, but
he would not. I did not pressure him
about it and let it go for the time. That was
the last time I saw Joe here at the building and I figured that at least he
had heard the message. Maybe I had
scared him away, though, I thought. Not
everyone who hears the message will receive it, maybe ever. This has nothing to do with the person
delivering the message or the quality of delivery. Our job as soulwinners is to deliver the
message that we have been prepared to deliver. What you find out is the most obvious
thing: the Holy Spirit is working through you and in the heart of everyone
who hears the message. That is no small
thing. After
about six months I finally saw Joe again making a delivery in our building. I
went up to him and said hi and asked him how he was. Small talk ensued. Then I
asked him, “Joe, do you remember what we talked about the last time you were
here?” With a
pained expression on his face and in a desperate sounding voice he blurted
out. “I can’t stop thinking about it!” “Well,
would you like to go over it again now,” I asked him. “Yes,” he
said expecting some relief. For six
long months the Holy Spirit had been after him day after day giving him no
rest. The upshot was that now finally
he was ready to accept Christ as his savior.
I went over the gospel message again and this time he prayed to
receive Christ as his Savior. What you
can learn from this is that arriving at the point of salvation is a process
that the Holy Spirit is always working in human lives. It is called “conviction.”
From time
to time we are allowed to participate in the process. It may be sowing; it may be reaping. Jesus said that some sow and others reap
what was sown. The saving is done by
the Lord. The Holy
Spirit had been working on Joe before he set foot in this building the first
time and through those awful six months until he finally showed up in a
desperate state ready to obey the gospel. |
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Copyright © 2020 by John St.
Clair |