Salvation Off-Script

You see somebody and they're struggling with something, stop. That's your opportunity. God has given you this wonderful opportunity to come and say, hey, can I help you with that? And then they find out you're a Christian and they're saying, why are you 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, your focus on God has given you this moment. It may just be a minute, but you want to move in closer to God. Welcome to the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. 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 done all our lives. Those of us who've been a church are all of our lives. We have been rainwashed. 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. The sales pitch. I love this one. Get your life story down. Memorize your story. Be ready to tell people your story. 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 does it 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. Understand that every time you enter into a conversation, every conversation, 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 well as those that he's leading into your path. And he's in the middle of all that. And so when you enter in, you're really entering an 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 and a freshly secular conversation. That's not what is it? Maybe what it appears. But it's a holy moment. It's a God-inspired moment. And the Holy Spirit is working. And when you love on people, and that's the key, he says, they'll know you're by disciple by your love, not by your Bible memorization or you're building a quote scripture. He didn't say anything. He says, they'll know you're by 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 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 also you 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 mine or certainly anything that you prepared for that 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. This is where we're really gets excited. This is an adventure. Do I never adventure every day? This is how you live your life. And I don't care where you are. These opportunities are right all the time. I sometimes feel like like a pinball machine. I want one that I go to another such as three of these conversations will happen in the in the course of a morning. It's just it's amazing. You never know, but you want to always be ready. It's interesting. Even people who have read our book in their life seem to have this knee jerk reaction to where they're they're doing it 100% exclusively with with the waiters. Okay. Now in the book, I said something like this is faith 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 and to go something like this, you're 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 when you 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, we'll just one more quick question. They say yes. Or once a crazy Christians and we always pray before a meal. And we found now that we always ask our servers. If they have anything, they want us to pray for for them. And we're fighting at almost everybody has as a as 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 but the book wasn't igniting your life by talking to waiters. That's fine. But the fact of the matter is it's it's 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 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. 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 under sales pitch. And when when you do a sales pitch, you can't prevent yourself from not rushing and and and being in 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 classy. And you did 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, I'm proud you were that you did it so well. It's kind of bringing glory to yourself and and not to 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. Way more more poignantly than anything I can say. Go to the reviews for our book Ignite Your Life. There's about, I don't know, about like 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 never share your 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 Amazon.com. And if nothing else, they will ignite your life. So back to conversations, just 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 engaging conversations like they're carrying the weight of the whole world. I mean, that was scowling their face. They're not smiling. They're not looking. They're not expecting. They 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. 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 the wall 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. You expect them to speak to you. You can invite conversations as by looking at people and you have 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 do remember God's been so good. He's given 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. And then you change the conversation. Don't preach at him. Just touch on God and go on. Let them know you have a God conscious. So they'd see when you're when you're a nice person, doing good things is 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. So just basic things. Obviously, you always smile. Always smile. I don't care. You're having a really bad day. Smile. God loves you. Always respond. And I mean, the nonverbal response. I mean, somebody waves that she, hey, respond back. Be happy. Always be happy. Always have fun. People like to be around fun. People, if you're not fun, people are not going to be around. And you're not going to have much opportunity to share your faith. Always be helpful. When you see somebody and they're struggling with something, stop. That's your opportunity. God has given you this wonderful opportunity to come say, hey, can I help you with that? It starts to conversation. People loved being helped by other people. And then they find out you're a Christian and saying, why you're so helpful. 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, your focus on God has given you this moment. It may just be a minute, but you want to move them closer to God. Of course, it is Jesus. So just, 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. Everything you say and do all day long is moving the people that 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, 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. Just salvation everybody through you. That's when life gets exciting. 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 in the seat right across to me. She had a big smile. She had a pink hat. She had a pink outfit. She had the most amazing colorful person. Her person inside the person was colorful. I just said, I want to get to know you. She said, what? I said, you must be a happy person because I understand she just got a wheelchair sitting her seat on the airplane. And she was. I said, you got the glory of the Lord all over you. You start conversation. 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. At the end say, thank you. I'm so glad I got to you. You need to be the person that helps me as an operator. God bless you. 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 whatever I can. And it just, so it gives them expectation. What does that mean? And 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. Just in closing, I'll give you a couple great scriptures that relieves all the pressure. What am I going to say? I know what I'm going to say. I went for years. I got to tell you what for decades, really. Sweating nervous. I'm going to talk to so and so tomorrow. And I go, wouldn't he might ask this? He might ask that. Dig in 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. What's important and sad is you don't have to repair it. It's freedom. It's total freedom. You don't, you can't prepare for the conversation you're going to have. If you're in the game, they're going to have them throughout the day. You can't prepare for those conversations. And Mark 13 11 says, don't prepare. It actually comes out and says, it doesn't say it's the opposite of what we 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 those work and quite frankly, millions of people have been saved through evangelism programs. Please, I understand that. I have huge research. I went through those evangelism programs. Okay. I have huge respects for them. But most of us, probably most of you will not go through an evangelism program. And then you use this excuse. Well, I don't know all that stuff. You don't need to know anything. Mark 13 11 says, don't prepare. Even better. Luke 12 12 says, the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say when you don't have words to say that is incredible. That is one of the most powerful scriptures in the entire in the entire Bible. I got to tell you because you experienced it when you 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 that he 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 courting it for batom. 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 gotta tell you that's intimacy with God. There's no other way to happen. This is intimacy with God. See you next time. 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 McGuire podcast.