“Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” (Proverbs 24:11 ESV)
Recently I read in a Ron Hutchcraft devotion about a young woman named Jenny who was walking near the ocean one night and heard someone screaming for help. As she got closer to the water, she was able to determine that indeed the cry for help was coming from out in the water. I’ve stood at the ocean’s edge at night and there’s nothing more terrifying to me than the thought of being in the ocean at night, so, I’m quite certain Jenny was having second thoughts about trying to find her way to the screaming person. But, overcoming her personal fears, she plunged into the dark waters and found her way to what turned out to be a drowning girl. When asked why she did it she said: “I had to do it, someone was dying out there!”
You and I may not be standing at the edge of a dark ocean, but the “screams” are no less real coming from our family, friends, and neighbors who are without Jesus. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:9: “They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from His glorious power.”
Can you hear their screams? Can you see the emptiness in their eyes? They may not be literally screaming, but the day will come, sooner than they can imagine, when it will be too late for them, just like if Jenny hadn’t overcome her fear to enter those dark, ocean waters, it would have been too late for the girl she rescued.
Will it be risky? Of course, there’s always risk in doing what’s right. But I’m reminded of the words of J.R. Miller when he wrote: “Our humility serves us falsely, when it leads us to shrink from any duty.” As a Jesus follower it is our command to go into all the world to share about Him and what He did on the Cross.
Just because someone is smiling, maybe even rejecting your attempts to share with them, don’t stop praying and don’t stop trying to share with them the truth without which their eternity is very bleak. What if no one had shared with you? Where would you be? It challenges me to realize had God not engineered circumstances to put me in touch with the right person at just the right time it could easily have been me on the other end of some of the conversations I have with my family and friends.
There is nothing we do that is more important than helping someone find life and wholeness in Jesus. Please don’t let anyone or anything hold you back from being God’s voice of truth to those who are in your spheres of influence. Call them, write them, invite them to a meal, whatever it takes to get them to listen to you as you compassionately share your heart with them.
I’m often reminded of a conversation I had with “Garb” in college. That was the nickname he received for the way he talked; it was short for “garbage mouth.” Garb gave me a ride home from work one day and I shared with him briefly about who Jesus is and what He’d done for him. When I finished, he looked at me with almost a sense of astonishment and asked me: “Why hasn’t anyone ever shared this with me before?”
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 