Success Is Obeying

The picture on the left here is a message I got from a friend of the church I used to work at (sorry it’s so small. If you click on it it will blow it up for you). I went to Kenya and met this woman named Carmilla on the flight there. She was wondering why we were going to Kenya and we just started talking about Jesus. She said she was not into church, never really went to church and never really thought about going. I gave her my card and said if she were ever in LA she should come check it out. That was 3 summers ago and then I get this message. I just planted a seed. I didn’t know what was going to happen, let alone 3 summers later. How cool is that?! It got me thinking about how we teach evangelism to our students and it’s a great reminder to us as ministers.

We have to let our students, and if we are honest, us sometimes, understand this:

Planting a seed is a win. Success is not bringing someone to Christ, success is how well we go and obey His command to go out and share His story.

A lot of the time both students and pastors will go out, be the hands and feet of Jesus to people. Serve them. Love them. Share about Him. Then what happens? Most of the time nothing. There is no immaculate turn around where the person says right then and there they are dropping everything and turning to Jesus. It can be really discouraging if we are not seeing what we would call “results”.

That can be very discouraging because we tend to not be focused on the right goal.

It is not up to us if a person is ready to accept Jesus. God has to be working on that person’s heart already. God is the only one who can soften someone’s heart. We cannot. We can only obey and share about who Jesus is and pray that their heart is ready to receive Him. We need to tell others about Him, plant that seed, and then wait and let God make it grow so we can see the harvest.

We just need to obey. Success is obeying.

Matthew 28:16-20

The Great Commission