Salvation Off-Script

00:00 - Speaker 1 When you see somebody and they're struggling with something, stop. That's your opportunity. God's given you this wonderful opportunity to come say, hey, can I help you with that? And then they find out you're a Christian and understand why you're so helpful. Do you follow what I'm saying? Please never be rushed. I know you're in a tight time schedule we all are but when those moments happen, stop. God will take care of the rest. Right now, you're focused on God's given you this moment. It may just be a minute, but you want to move in closer to God. 00:27 - Speaker 2 Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast, where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. 00:40 - Speaker 1 Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. Hi everybody, welcome back to Ignite. I want to talk about the biggest impediment to sharing your faith successfully, and it's really because of what we've been taught in all of our lives those of us who've been in church all of our lives. We have been brainwashed. We've been taught that we have to memorize a script, we have to memorize facts and statistics and get the scriptures down and get your sales pitch down. That's what it is. It's a sales pitch. I love this one. Get your life story down, memorize your story. Be ready to tell people your story. 01:14 Well, I don't know you, but I have a hundred stories. I go a hundred different directions in telling my story after 80 years of being on this earth. So which story do I pick? And do any of my stories match the person's need? It doesn't you have to establish credibility first and the Holy Spirit? It's a spiritual experience. 01:40 Understand that every time you enter into a conversation, every conversation, but he's there in every conversation. Do you know that? Do you know that he knows your thoughts? He knows your words before you say them, as as well as those that he's leading into your path? And and he's in the middle of all that and so when you enter in, you're really entering, entering into a sacred moment where you're coming into partnership with god. And so it's not just you and somebody you don't know in a in a fleshly secular conversation. That's not what it is. It may be what it appears, but it's a holy moment. It's a god-inspired moment and and the holy spirit is working. 02:21 And when you love on people and that's's the key he says they'll know you're my disciple by your love, not by your Bible memorization or your ability to quote scripture. He didn't say any of that. He says they'll know you're my disciple by your love. People are starving for love and when you love on people, just don't think about their salvation being secondary. Do not have that on your mind. I got to get these people saved. Just love on them. Have no other agenda. And you'll be amazed that every time you do that I mean every time you do that within a few moments I've clocked it through the years and usually within five minutes they become relaxed and the Holy Spirit is confirming to them that your love is real and they want to tell somebody their needs. They really do, and all of a sudden, god confirms to them that you really love them, that you're a real person and often, as I say, within five minutes they start telling you things that they wouldn't tell their best friend. They tell you their need. So then you know how to direct your conversation. Only, you probably don't have anything quick on mind, or certainly anything that you prepared for that need. That's where the Holy Spirit comes in. I'm going to get to that in a minute. For the Holy Spirit to give you guidance to that. 03:38 This is where it really gets exciting. This is an adventure. Do you have an adventure every day? This is how you live your life, and I don't care where you are. These opportunities operate all the time. I sometimes feel like a pinball machine. I want one and then I go to another. Sometimes three of these conversations will happen in the course of a morning. It's just amazing. You never know, but you want to always be ready. It's interesting. 04:03 Even people who have read our book Ignite your Life seem to have this knee-jerk reaction to where they're doing it 100%, exclusively with waiters. Okay, now, in the book I said something like this is face-sharing 101. This is where you start, because it's the easiest and, yes, it does tend to fall into a pattern because you're having a meal and if you haven't read the book. It goes something like this You're all Christians and you banter, you develop a relationship. You have to develop a relationship before you have any influence on anybody, but you can quickly develop that relationship and you get her name or his name and you banter and have fun and after they've taken all of yours you say oh, by the way, just one more quick question. They say, yes, we're a bunch of crazy Christians and we always pray before our meal. 04:53 And we found now that we always ask our servers if they have anything. They want us to pray for them and we're finding that almost everybody has a need going on. It's a crazy world and we like to pray for those needs and see God answer them. So is there anything we can pray for you about? And most of the time they'll say yes, and oftentimes emotionally. That's all great, but the book wasn't igniting your life by talking to waiters. That's fine, but the fact of the matter is it's moving everybody. The waiters in your life represent a small portion of the people you talk to every day. Think of all the people you talk to all day long. Waiters are just a small portion of that. I often hear people say well then, with our families? Well, families represent even a smaller part. In the meantime, 80% of the people around you every day are lost, and your role, your job, your directive, your command is to move everybody every day closer to Jesus. 05:58 You see, the moment you say the same thing twice, it becomes a sales pitch. Now, maybe that worked decades ago, but I can tell you at this point people are onto a sales pitch and when you do a sales pitch, you can't prevent yourself from not rushing and being less sympathetic and trying to get words out that will have a desired response from them. It's very transparent. It doesn't work, it's plastic and that's not the way you want to go. And even if you did that and you did it successfully, you'd walk away saying how proud you were that you did it so well. That's kind of bringing glory to yourself and not to God, and God's not real happy with that. So if you want to be ignited, really I got to tell you, go to Amazon and pull up our book and look at the reviews. To tell you, go to Amazon and pull up our book and look at the reviews, way more poignantly than anything I could say Go to the reviews for our book Ignite your Life. There's about I don't know about 300 reviews there and I cry when I read them. And they're saying things I wouldn't think of saying. You're hearing person after person saying I didn't ever share my faith, I thought it was for somebody else, and now I'm sharing my faith every day everywhere I can. I'm having so much fun, really. Read the reviews on Amazoncom and, if nothing else, they will ignite your life. 07:39 So back to conversations. How do you start this conversation? That's the big part, I got to tell you. It starts with eye contact and a smile. I'm amazed how I watch Christians walk around and until they're engaged in conversation, it's like they're carrying the weight of the whole world. I mean they have a scowl on their face, they're not smiling. They're their face. They're not smiling, they're not looking, they're not explaining, they all don't want a conversation. They're not sharing their faith. Terribly often I just read a study, actually, that said that your eyes communicate more than your mouth, that your eyes say it all. You can look at somebody. You can see if they're sad or happy or engaging or loving on you your eyes. 08:23 So when you walk through life, you're in the game. You're in full-time ministry. Do you understand this? You're in full-time ministry and I don't care if you're walking through your living room or you're walking into Walmart or into the boardroom. People are judging you, they're looking at you, they're making life decisions based on you. You're the Christian, you represent the Lord, so walk in and, wherever you go, look at people, expect them to look back at you, expect them to speak to you. 08:57 You can invite conversations just by looking at people and you have a big smile and they break into a smile and they say hi, how you doing. It starts a conversation and then you can just say something simple, like you know I'm doing well, god's been so good, he's giving me a really good day today, and then go on, don't preach it, just mention something about God and go. You know why are you loving me? Oh, god just loves me so much. He likes to love people through me. Then you change the conversation. Don't preach at them, just just touch on God and go on. Let them know you have a God conscious so they see when you're, when you're a nice person, you're doing good things. It's not because you're a nice person, it's because you're a God person because you're connected with God. That's God speaking and using you to minister to them. 09:45 So just basic things, obvious. You always smile, always smile. I don't care if you're having a really bad day. Smile, god loves you. Always respond, and I mean the nonverbal response. I mean somebody waves at you hi, respond back, be happy. Always be happy, always have fun. People like to be around fun people. If you're not fun, people gonna be around you. You're gonna have much opportunity to share your faith. Always be helpful. When you see somebody they're struggling with something, stop, that's your opportunity. God's giving you this wonderful opportunity to come say, hey, can I help you with that? It starts a conversation. People loved being helped by other people and then they find out you're a Christian and understand why you're so helpful. 10:29 Do you follow what I'm saying? And never be rushed. Please, never be rushed. I know you're in a tight time schedule we all are but when those moments happen, stop, god will take care of the rest. Right now you're focused on God's giving you this moment. It may just be a minute, but you want to move in closer to God, closer to Jesus. So it's just amazing. You're in full-time ministry. Do you understand that? We say it all the time, but it's so true. 11:01 Everything you say and do all day long is moving the people who are watching you closer or further away from God. That's just the way. You can't escape that, I have to say. People are. Everybody is a witness, but some of us are witnesses for the prosecution. Don't be used for that side of the equation. Move everybody every day closer To Jesus. Allow God to love everybody through you, to salvation everybody through you. Oh, that's when life gets exciting. 11:29 Look for ways to compliment people. What a beautiful dress you have. I was on a plane last week and this lady she was in pink, she was in a wheelchair and they put her in the seat right across from me. She had a big smile, she had a pink hat, she had a pink outfit. She had the most amazing colorful purse and her purse inside the purse was colorful. I just said I want to get to know you. She said what I said. You must be a happy person because, understand, she just got out of a wheelchair sitting in her seat on the airplane and she was. I said you've got the glory of the Lord all over you. 12:02 You start conversating. It's fun when you expect to do it, just expect to do it. Don't miss an opportunity. The point is you want to build a relationship and you can do that in a few moments. You know you can do it with an operator on the phone. I mean, you may only have that operator for two or three minutes, but in that two or three minutes you can actually develop a relationship and banter and at the end say thank you, I'm so glad I got you. You need to be the person that helps me as an operator. God bless you and have a wonderful day. You know, oh, wow, thank you, god bless you back. I just moved that person closer to jesus. That's a relationship, you know. That's why I say to people when they ask oh, I just say you know, I love, I lead people to Jesus. I throw that in whenever I can it, just so it gives them expectation. What does that mean Then? Everything I say after that's going to follow that and they're going to judge me by that, and there better be proof of what I'm doing with my life to prove that I do lead people closer to Jesus. 13:00 Just in closing, I'll give you a couple great scriptures. That relieves all the pressure. What am I going to say I don't know what I'm going to say. I went for years. I got to tell you. I went for decades, really Sweating, nervous. I'm going to talk to so-and-so tomorrow. He might ask this and he might ask that, and I'm digging through scripture and most of the time the conversation never went anywhere near those subjects totally off on another field. It's just wasted effort. 13:32 What's important to understand is you don't have to prepare. It's it's freedom, it's total freedom. You know you can't prepare for the conversation you're going to have. If you're in the game, they're going to happen throughout the day. You can't prepare for those conversations. 13:46 And Mark 13, 11 says don't prepare. It actually comes down and says it doesn't say it's the opposite of what we're told. We got to prepare, we got to organize, we got to get the points down point one, point two, point three, point four. And hey, those work. And, quite frankly, millions of people have been saved through evangelism programs. Please, I understand that. I have huge respect. I went through those evangelism programs. Okay, I have huge respect for them. But most of us, probably most of you, will not go through an evangelism program. And then you use it as an excuse. Well, I don't know, all that stuff, you don't need to know anything. Mark 13, 11 says don't prepare. 14:21 Even better, luke 12, 12 says the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say when you don't have words to say. 14:28 That is incredible. That is one of the most powerful scriptures in the entire Bible. I got to tell you because you experience it. When you go into a conversation and you know God has just orchestrated that conversation and you're talking to somebody spontaneously that you don't know, that you didn't plan to talk to. God had a plan and he directs their steps and your steps together and you're in this conversation and they bring up something and their need is revealed and then God supernaturally gives you a life experience or a story or, better yet, a scripture that you hadn't heard of, hadn't thought of for years and all of a sudden it's there and you're quoting it verbatim. It's amazing how that works and you realize that God is using you and speaking through you and the life in front of you is being changed in front of you. I got to tell you that's intimacy with God. There's no other way to have it. This is intimacy with God. See you next time. 15:37 - Speaker 2 If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review to help us reach more listeners. Remember sharing your faith ignites your faith. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast.