Imperfectly Preaching The Gospel

I have found it very difficult to just verbally persuade my non-Christian friends that their lives will be blessed and full of joy, if they just simply become Christians. First of all, they see the sinner me telling them so, and rightfully have a suspicious look that says, "Hmmm, you want me to be like you? Not so sure about that." So my tendency is to focus on my own life, to make darn sure that I am a living testimony to the Truth, and I'm living a blessed life. Obviously, that's a process. And though I'm doing better, it doesn't excuse me from the fact that the other part of the Gospel is equally important to tell. Jesus died for sinners like me, I'm the chief of sinners, and forgiven. And that leads me to the second point. "Becoming a Christian" is too vague, it doesn't get to the point. The point is the relationship with Jesus. That also has to be proclaimed to the non-Christian friends, and that is something that has to be done verbally, and it seems equally as difficult as consistently living out the blessed life that comes through that relationship. When that is proclaimed, you may get the "are you crazy?" look, but you don't get that suspicious look that I described earlier. When that is proclaimed, your own faults, your own failures, your own hypocrisies are hidden in Christ. I'm a sinner, present tense, and I'm forgiven, past, present, and future tense. That is the first thing that we know that everybody needs first before the blessed life follows anyway.

I had the opportunity to do these things last night. My coworkers are in town this week for meetings, and typical meetings for this gang don't conclude until 2:00 am, when the hotel lounge kicks them out. At a certain point in the early evening, one of the guys actually wanted to get something in his belly before he drank to the floor, but the rest of the gang was already too far gone to quit partying for a sec to afford him that opportunity. It was my time to leave anyway, so I invited him over for some awesome potato bacon soup and some beer. My wife and I talked to him for a couple of hours, a couple hours after my bed time. But that was okay. I know that he caught a little glimpse of persuasive beauty in our humble home. It helps to have a beautiful wife there. But I also made sure that he knew that in this home the name of Jesus is heard, because we believe in, trust in, and worship Jesus, and we have to talk about Him like he really is real.

We didn't get any crazy looks, and though he knows me well enough to know my faults, we didn't get any suspicious looks either. Instead the conversation opened up, became deep, and was well worth the time.