It Starts With One Person

In my book about hospitality the author was talking about 'becoming hospitable' and he said it starts by welcoming one person into your heart and then doing it again and again.

I like that and think it is true but the desire to become that way usually starts with being around a hospitable person or being the recipient of hospitality. We see it and value it and want it in our life.

Sharing the Gospel is like that also. It can be an uncomfortable and socially dangerous thing to do because faith and unbelief can be very private for many people. Perhaps they weren't ever around people who talk this way or were comfortable about discussing these things. Darkness looks like a good place to hide. It isn't but it looks that way.

I think of 'soul winning' as sharing God's hospitality. Jesus came and died on a cross to welcome people into His Father's heart again.

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve... Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me... But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain..." - 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, 8, 10a ESV

When we are hospitable we are saying, 'This is my life (meal, home, car) and I welcome you into it. You are important and wanted. What I am having I offer to you also. Let's share this.'

It is beautiful and I want to grow in this concept, skill and lifestyle.

But, When we give the Gospel we are saying, 'I am what I am by the grace of God and I'm comfortable with myself. This is God's gift to me and I want you to have this also.'

That is divine. It is supernatural in the most basic and organic way. It is a sublime gift.

It can be something we do if we just start doing it. We talk to one person. We spend time with people who do this and then we become a person who people want to spend time with because they want to learn how to do it.

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