Yesterday I tweeted “The only difference between creepy and charming is permission.”

Some explanation is in order. No, I did not go on a date last night. No, I did not have yet another awkward encounter with a woman. But there is a story here and an interesting conclusion.

The tweet was the result of three completely unrelated things blending in my mind.

Thing 1: Barrack Obama

There has been a lot of chatter online about this photo of Obama at the G8 summit.

In light of the chatter, I have been thinking about how men ought to look at women. And, how they ought not look at women. The base forces of nature seem to war with the moral law. The specific social rules seem to vary by community. What is appropriate?

Thing 2: Girl in Parking Garage

As I left the apple store yesterday, I walked to my car in the parking garage. A young woman drove past me and as we made eye contact she unconsciously whisked her hair behind her ear. I wondered why she would do that, at that moment.

Thing 3: James Bond

Yesterday my family watched Quantum of Solice. So, as I walked through the parking garage, the movie swam through my mind.

In the movie, James Bond’s credit card gets denied at an airport. He looks deeply into the eyes of the lady at the counter who denied him the charge… and she melts. He asks “in a few moments you will get a call. Tell them I’m going to Cairo.” She smiles at him and he walks away.

Why would she melt? Why is this scene believable? Why can’t I do that?

I started adding up all the differences between me and James Bond. It was a depressing 30 minutes. Then I started eliminating the things James didn’t have to help him at the counter.

He had no gadgets, no money and no bad guys to beat up. But he still had one thing: His striking good looks and crystal blue eyes. If he had been ugly and peered into her eyes she would have looked away disgusted. I know. But James didn’t get disgust. He got permission. The woman gave him permission to look into her eyes because she wanted to look back into his.

The only difference between Bozo and Bond is permission.

So What?

You girls who are probably saying. “I could have told you that!” I know. Several of you already have on Twitter and Facebook. But to me this is a profound truth and I feel it applies to much more than just guy/girl relationships.

Gospel Permission

There is a Gospel application here. Before we can talk to someone about their soul we need their permission. Otherwise they won’t listen. Permission does not need to take long. Permission just takes tact. I find that tracts and humor can help break the ice.

But how did Jesus get permission? He healed people, raised the dead and offered hope. But, he had also something more. He could look into a man’s eyes, say “follow me” and the man would. Permission is power. Jesus’ power is supernatural. If we want permission that goes beyond gimmicks like tracts and treasure lists we need supernatural power too.

Business Permission

I have given Amazon permission to email me book recommendations. The emails are relevant because Amazon knows about the books I buy. If Barns & Noble were to send me an email recommending the same books I would spam it. Why? Because, Barns & Noble doesn’t have my permission to talk to me. They haven’t earned it.

If you want to grow your business you need to stop thinking of ways to spam people and start thinking of ways to earn their permission. Twitter is a good way to learn this skill. It doesn’t take much permission to send 140 characters once every other day.

Political Permission

The more I get around the more a realize that most people actually do care about politics. They just don’t care to hear about my politics. This is an important distinction. It is easy to write people off as complacent when I really just lack permission. Are people apathetic or do they just distrust both parties? A political party needs permission before it can have discourse. It must have discourse before it can sway opinion. It must sway opinion before it can win elections.

How do you get permission to influence someone’s political views?

I’m not sure. Striking good looks don’t hurt. Why else would Hollywood celebrates and Ann Coulter get such power? Humor seems to work too. I’m not sure what the answers are here. I know I often get into a political conversations on Facebook after sharing a link to a political YouTube video. What do you think?

Take Aways

• Permission is more valuable than money.
• Money can’t buy love, but permission is an ingredient to love.
• Money can buy spam, but spam can’t build a relationship between you and your customer.
• Money can’t buy votes, but permission can get attention and attention can change minds.

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It is here. CEBC #3 Registration is now open.

Watch the CEBC promo on GodTube.

This outreach will help you face your fears as you serve with other Christians who desire to “preach the gospel to all creation”.  If your commitment to Christ compels you to grow as a witness who serves effectively, inoffensively, and biblically then register today.

For more info about the Christmas Evangelism Boot Camp please visit AustinEvangelism.com .

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From the archive…

Some are gifted at intercession, but we are all called to pray.

Some are gifted at understanding the scriptures, but we are all called study the Word.

Some are gifted at mercy, but we are all called to act with compassion.

And some are gifted at evangelism, but we are all called to fulfill the great commission.

Sharing the Gospel is just as essential as prayer and Bible study to the Christian walk. If we truly love our neighbors like ourselves we will do everything in our power to warn them about eternity. Not having a gift is no excuse for disobedience.

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Its the first of the month. Another post from the archive.

My Idolatry of Evangelism
I have a confession to make. I have made an Idol out of Evangelism. Sin is a two-sided coin with unrighteousness on one side and self righteousness on the other. Idolatry is unrighteous and idolizing evangelism is self righteous. I have taken something good and substituted it for the best. I now see in my life the “fruit” of self righteousness.

One of the “fruits” of self righteousness is my critical spirit. I often look down on others who share the Gospel particularly if they don’t do it the way I do. Now that I stop to think about it I can’t believe I do this. These people often share the Gospel out of much better motives than I do. While they share out of a sincere love, I often share out of selfish ambition and empty conceit. I often fail to share with someone because I am concerned for them but instead just to jack them up with the truth. Do I share out of my passionate love for Jesus or to get to the next seed sower level? In Philippians Paul makes it very clear that we are not to judge other’s motives, but then he says to do nothing out of selfish ambition and to esteem others as being better than myself.

Another fruit of self righteousness is pride and I have that too. I not only actively share my faith obviously putting me in the top 2% of Christians but I also use the law which obviously puts me in the top echelon of that 2%. What rot! The world doesn’t need me any more than it needs another grain of sand at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The world needs Jesus! I will only change the world to the extent that I allow Jesus to shine through me. And right now pride is obscuring the glow. How dare I look down on others because they don’t share their faith! How dare I condescend to those who don’t use the same methods I use.

I shutter to think of what my response would have been to overhearing Jesus share the Gospel with Nicodemus. He didn’t use the law! I must get Jesus a HBKS CD so He can learn how to do it the “correct” way. God forgive me of this pride! How can I get it through my head that I am no better than anyone else, even others who don’t share the Gospel?

Jesus did more than preach the Gospel. He also gave to the poor and healed the sick. I must confess I do very little for the poor. I justify it because I do evangelism. But, pure religion is not sharing the Gospel with everyone I interact with, "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Jam 1:27. I have offered up a cheap substitute for the real deal.

Just as Biblical scholarship is no substitute for sharing the Gospel so Evangelism is no substitute for holiness. Evangelism is only a part of holiness. When it becomes an end; it becomes an idol. God wants the whole package, He wants obedience, passionate love and Godly character. Obedience is no more a substitute for love than prayer is a substitute for evangelism. I must have both. Why does my soul not desire God like a deer desires water? Why have my passionate feelings been replaced by empty numbness? I never want to be a husband who loves his wife with his actions but his heart chases after other women. But that is just what I am doing with evangelism. In my actions I share like I am supposed to but my heart has grown cold, I don’t feel the passion of my younger days. I have grown to love something else, evangelism, more than I love Christ. Am I loving evangelism too much? No! I am loving Jesus to little!

My Idolatry of Ray Comfort
I have made an Idol of Ray Comfort. Ray is no Pope, he does not have a monopoly on the truth nor are his words infallible. But why can’t I think of anything that I disagree with him on? Could it be that he only speaks the truth or have I made an idol of him so that I don’t question his words? I am ashamed to admit I eagerly waited in line to get Ray and Kirk’s autograph in my Evidence Bible. Am I no better than a Catholic whose Bible signed by his Pope? Yet, my Bible was signed by my Pope! God have mercy! Some days I spend more time listening to Ray’s Teachings than I do reading the Word of God! When Ray talks about his short comings it makes me swoon just as Catholics swoon when they hear how the Pope goes to confession every week. Ray may be an amazing man of God but he is no substitute for Jesus! Jesus has the words of eternal life, not Ray Comfort. No one can come to the father except through Christ!

My Idolatry of Mark Cahill
In the same way I have made an Idol of Mark Cahill. He is the one who got me started in evangelism and for the longest time I saw him as infallible. I deeply admire his zeal for the lost, his fasting, his holiness and how he treats money like it is not his. I find myself trying to become just like Mark! No! I should be trying to become just like Jesus. Mark, while a great man of God, is a poor substitute for the Lamb who was slain as a substitute for me. I should passionately desire to become just like Jesus, not Mark.

My Idolatry of the GNN
Since joining the GNN, part of me feels like I have finally arrived. The GNN is everything I desired but didn’t have during my first year of sharing the Gospel. But the GNN is only a means not an end to making Jesus happy. The day the GNN became an end, is the day it became an idol.

I am trying to repent from these sins but it is hard. None of the things are inherently bad. It’s like repenting from gluttony (something I also struggle with). Food is not inherently bad, but eating too much of it is sin.

When we hold anything up above Christ that becomes an idol. I am reading the book Surprised by the Power of the Spirit by Jack Deer and in it he talks about how we can make idols of things that are good. Its not that these things, or people, are necessarily bad. But, if I hold them up above Christ, that is bad. There is nothing wrong in admiring God’s handiwork in a lion, but making an idol of a lion is sin. I recommend this book. I thank you for reading this and I thank God for you all.

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"Success is a poor teacher." My dad must have repeated this maxim a hundred times as I grew up. There are some lessons that only failure can teach. If you want to mature, you need to fail. Jesus failed. So should we.

Jesus’ Failure
After bringing Jesus out of the desert, God calls Him to preach in Nazareth where he is unable to do many miracles because of their lack of faith (Matt 13:58). But it gets worse. He then preached in the synagogue and offended the people (Mark 6:3). They were so incensed by His sermon they tried to push him off a cliff (Luke 4:14-30).

So, Jesus was unable to do many miracles, offended the congregation, and angered the people into a murderous riot. If that is not a failure, what is? You could try to twist this passage to find some sort victory. But to do so you would strip the word failure of its meaning. If any of those things happened to you I doubt you would consider it a success.

Why did God have Jesus preach such a provocative message to such an unreceptive audience? Why did an all knowing God orchestrate this?

I think one of the reasons was to test or to prove him. God wanted to prove Jesus through failure. Jesus, the man, needed to know He could take it. Jesus, the Son, needed to know His Father loved him whether people were healed or not (and they weren’t). Jesus, the Most High God, needed to feel what it was like to be human so he could sympathize with us (Hebrews 4:15).

The Cup of Failure
In order to walk in confidence, we need to know that we are loved even when we fail. The only way we can know we are loved in our failure is to fail and be loved. Words are not enough. We must taste the cup. Failure is like hot, bitter coffee. It’s too hot to touch but not too hot to drink.

Children who never fail begin to fear it because they don’t know if they would be loved despite their failure. Parents who love conditionally often have cowardly children who take few risks and try to please everyone. Praise God we have a Heavenly father who loves us unconditionally!

In order to build self esteem, we have raised a generation that rarely tastes failure. We don’t keep score in sports and everyone gets a trophy. The result is a generation that fears failure, avoids risk and lacks ambition. We are raising a generation of cowards. When we yank the cup of failure from the hands of our children we splash them with the hot liquid in the process. By trying to help them we train them to hate failure.

The result? Our Churches are filled with cowards instead of men of God. Our statehouses are filled with cowards instead of statesmen. We have abandoned personal Evangelism because we lack the guts to risk rejection.

Failure is not sin. Disobedience is.
If God allowed Jesus to fail, should we not allow our children to fail? If failure has so much to teach us should we not embrace it? The path to success is paved with the stones of failure. We must be willing to walk that path if we want to reach the destination.

We need to stop giving trophies to the losers and start keeping score. Parents should love their children in their failure instead of protecting their children from it. When you don’t keep score you prevent winning and loosing and your children will flock to activities like video gaming where success and failure are both clear.

"If something is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly! " – G.K. Chesterton
You could call America the land of perfectionists. Many of us strive for perfection in everything we do. We apply this desire to our spiritual lives as well. The result is if we can’t do something well we don’t do it at all. This is just the opposite of walking in faith. Jesus modeled for us what walking in faith looks like. It means going to Nazareth, knowing failure is eminent. Success or failure didn’t matter to Jesus. They shouldn’t matter to us. Only doing the will of our Father. "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38).

If you want to walk in faith, if you want to walk like Jesus, you must be willing to walk in failure.

Success not Guaranteed
Just because God calls you to do something it does not mean you will succeed. Otherwise the prophets would have succeeded and swayed the children of Israel to repent. Joseph would have succeeded is staying out of jail. And Paul would have succeeded in convincing the people of Athens that Jesus was alive.

God sometimes calls us to do something because He wants us to learn the lesson that failure will teach us. We must learn some things the hard way, from the cruel tutor of our own mistakes. Paul learned a lot in Athens about preaching the Gospel. Joseph learned humility in that prison. And the Prophets are our example of faithfulness.

God has a way of taking our failures and using them for good. Yet we still avoid failure. We need faith. We need to trust that God uses us despite our best efforts.

The Challenge
Are you willing to live your life in such a way that it may take hundreds of years for people to realize your life was not an absolute waste? Jeremiah was. So were Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel. These are our heroes of the faith. They resolved in their hearts that success or failure they would do the will of God. We should do the same.

We need to stop thinking in terms of success or failure and switch to a one of obedience and disobedience. It is only in doing this that will be like Christ

What do you think?
Do you embrace failure and try to learn from it or do you try to avoid it? What is the biggest lesson you have learned from failure? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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Today we visited a Ecuadorian Baptist church. We missed the regular service and only got to visit the Sunday School which didn’t make a lot of sense since it was in Spanish.

Yes. This is Popcorn and dried banana slices. Its an appetizer and not that bad

Iglesia Means Church

People leaving the Baptist Church.

One interesting thing about the church was that a dove had somehow found its way into the sanctuary and was flying around during the service.

The dove.

The dove was desperately trying to get out of the church but it couldn’t find an exit. This reminded me of churches back in the states where the Gospel is desperately trying to get outside but is trapped inside the church walls.

Josh, Amanda and Jessica hiding from the cold rain.

That afternoon I took a nap because I wasn’t feeling that well. One group of students visited the mall which had a grocery store built in. They compared prices between Ecuador and the U.S. A bottle of fine liquor was less expensive than a six pack of American soda. For the most part, they found that the prices are higher in Ecuador than in the states. Yet, the food at restaurants is cheaper. The only explanation I can think of is that labor is much cheaper in Ecuador.

One of our group meetings where we share what we learned that day.

That evening we visited a restaurant that served American style food. I got food poisoning/a bacterial infection in my stomach. The moral of the story is only eat American food in America.

Our Hotel

Spiritual Food Poisoning

That night as I knelt in front of the toilet I asked the Lord what the Spiritual lesson was in this. I thought about it and realized that food poisoning to the church is bad doctrine. Our bodies have systems in place designed to process and filter out unclean foods. The body of Christ also has these systems. I think one of the roles of the Prophet is to protect the church from bad doctrine and false prophets.

Occasionally, we eat something that is beyond the ability of our body to reject. Our whole body becomes poisoned and In order to become clean it must to go through the miserable process of flushing these toxins. I don’t know if the word miserable is strong enough.

The temptation in this situation is to treat the symptoms and take medicine that will limit the diarrhea and vomiting. This Pepto Bismal approach is dangerous because it keeps the poison in the body causing long term damage. The body must know the danger of the toxins and not be fooled into thinking they are ok

When the Body of Christ consumes bad doctrine the process for removing it can be just as miserable. I think many Christians, particularly those with pastors hearts, do everything they can to make an artificial peace. They apply spiritual Pepto and cause the problem gets worse instead of better.

I think many church splits can be traced back to the pushing important disagreements into the background and letting them fester. By treating the symptoms we ignore the disease and to damage to the body. There is a time to make peace but there is also a time to detox. Tranquility is not always good.

Some words like Internet are universal.

Sorry if my commnts today are a little off topic. Day 4 will be more business related.

If you have a friend or family member on this trip feel free to leave them a note in the comment section of this blog and I will get it to them ASAP. Don’t forget you can have these posts delivered to your email inbox . You can unsubscribe at any time.

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When did we start expecting our missionaries to come back alive and unharmed?

If you look back through church history you see this is a new expectation. Back in the day, the Christians who went out to preach the Gospel had already died (to themselves). They saw their lives as nothing.

The Moravians packed their luggage in coffins as they went out to the nations of the earth. Sometimes they even sold themselves into slavery to reach “unreachable” slaves. They didnt expect to come back. They expected to change lives.

Do we as modern Christians not trust our King to keep us safe, until He sees fit to bring glory to His name through our passing?

Or do we bow to a different throne?

Both the early church and the modern Chinese church pray not for safety when they send their missionaries out. They pray instead for boldness. This prayer represents a different value system. The early church considered the martyrs crown a badge of honor. Why do we try to avoid it at all costs?

Living a dangerous life does not make you more righteous. Danger and risk are foolish goals. But, making safety a goal is idolatry. The only goal for Christians is Christ and His Kingdom.

Those who change the world for Christ take risks. They act in ways the world and the lukewarm church may consider reckless. But they change lives while those watching from the sidelines wonder why God isn’t moving.

There is an old word for this idolatry we don’t use much any more. The word is cowardice. Cowards idolize safety. Heroes are those who do what is dangerous despite their fear to help others.

I have been taking teams to the bar district in Austin for nearly four years. When I invite people to come they almost always ask, “Is it safe?” Normally, I explain how no one I have taken has ever been hurt or robbed. But inside I want to shout, “Why does it matter? Is the point of Christianity not to bring glory to God by shining His light in the darkness? We must go to dark places to shine His Light there. These people are dying! Do you only care about your own safety?”

Of course I don’t say that. I just bottle up my frustration and smile hoping they will come anyway. Sometimes they do. But only because I convince them it’s safe.

What are we living for? Which Kingdom are we trying to build? Our bodies will pass away. The Kingdom lasts forever. Why not pour out our lives for the Kingdom?

I know not what course others may take. But as for me, I would rather live a short life devoted to my King than a long one filled with the lukewarm pursuit of safety.

What do you think? Do you make safety an idol? Have I gone to far? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

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Here is a talk I gave at the 2007 Christmas Evangelism Boot Camp. You may recognize the first few minutes as from my blog. The audio quality improves dramatically after about five minutes.

Summary

Learn the principles that ground good evangelical methods. Learn to balance your presentation of the Gospel between Spirit Truth and Love. In this talk we discuss the challenges to balanced evangelism and how to overcome them. You can get the Balance in Evangelism Handout from here .

Watch

• GodTube
• Google Video
• Quick Time (High resolution, big download)

Transcript
Before we get started, I would like to share a story. A family once had a pool party at their house. They had friends from all over filling their backyard.
While no one was looking a young boy creep ed over to the pool and fell in. "That kid can’t swim!" One of the ladies said. Then a man replied; "Why don’t you go and help him?"

"Oh, no!" The lady responded. "I’m just the eyes of this party. I don’t have the gift for saving people." She then turned back to her food and continued eating while the child gasped for breath.

One guest thought about saving the boy but then he decided that he might offend someone by implying that children shouldn’t swim.

Another guest felt sorry for the boy so he ate his food by the edge of the pool, hoping to make dry ground look so appealing that the boy would want to leave the pool and get out of the water.
Yet, another man, behind a grill was so busy serving the guest that he never even noticed the drowned child. "I will call my father about this." A man hesitant to get wet lives said. "He lives in just the next town and he loves children. I’m sure he would love to come in and save this child for us."

Finally a teenage girl saw the baby now floating in the water. She jumped in, grabbed the boy, and tossed him out of the pool. She listened for breathing an hearing none she started roughly pressing on the baby’s stomach, as the girl tried to administer CPR and save the babies life, the guest gathered around the girl and began to criticize the girl’s efforts.
"You’re being much to rough with that child." One of the guest responded. "You should be much more gentle."

"You’re not pushing hard enough!" An elderly man commented. "And you’re pressing in the wrong place." Finally in desperation the young girl cried out; "Will someone please call 911?" At first none of the guest made a move but finally a lady sighed, walked into the house, and made the call. The paramedics came and whizzed the baby away. Soon all was quiet. As the sirens faded away into the distance the guests turned upon the teenager. "How dare you order us to call 911?" one said. "Did you see how rudely you splashed water all over those guests when you jumped in? You’re going to scare visitors away from this party."

These comments hurt deeply. She didn’t want to be rude or hurt anyone. All she wanted to do was to save the baby but the guest continued. "You should be ashamed of yourself for how insensitive you were to that child." A man said. "You just grabbed him and tossed him out of the water. You should be more loving."

He didn’t even asked to get saved!" said another. "Who are you to jump in and force your dry ground on someone else? You should never of forced your own air down someone Else’s throat."
Finally the girl could not take it anymore. She ran away from the party. The guest never did find out if the baby survived or not.

I share this story tonight to give us some respect for what evangelism is really all about. It’s not about techniques or methods. It’s about reaching into a lost and dying world. A world that is gasping for breath and who desperately needs a Savior. We have a passion that makes it easier for us to share the gospel and frankly it makes it easier for us to withstand persecution because the world does come to persecute us. He who is in us is stronger than he who is in the world.

Today, I’m going to be sharing some principles for grounding our methods. The reason that I’m doing this is not to criticize methods. I don’t want to be like the guest at the pool and, frankly, I don’t want you to be, either. I have been on the receiving end of quiet a bit of criticism when it comes to evangelism and unfortunately I’ve been on the giving end as well.
I’ve realized that he who plants is nothing and he who waters is nothing. The way that they plant and water is nothing. God uses us despite our mess ups and it is He who does the saving.
That said, I think that there are some Biblical principles that we can apply to the methods we use weather those methods of the "Evangelic Cube" or the "WWJD" questions there are some Biblical principles that we need to apply to be in accordance with God’s law. There are three things that we need to keep in balance. To talk about these three things I would like to talk about a simile of the fire.
There are three components that you have to have for a fire to burn correctly. What are those three components? Fuel, heat, and oxygen. Alright, so you have to have fuel, you have to have heat or spark and you have to have oxygen. Each one of these corresponds with each of the three critical things that we need for evangelism.
The heat is like spirit. The fuel is like truth and the air is like love. These are the three things that I am primarily going to be talking about, today.

Love is vital. Who here has seen a lump of charcoal? We’ve all seen them. Who hear has tried to burn one? They’re kind of hard to burn, right? Once they get started they will burn but by themselves they will not burn very well at all. If you’re trying to build a fire and all you have is charcoal it’s going to be very difficult. Why is that? You’ve got the match, you’ve got the heat, and you’ve got the fuel right there so why doesn’t charcoal burn?

Well, there was a competition to see who could burn a lump of charcoal the fastest. They brought in engineers from all over and they could do whatever they wanted to this lump of charcoal to see who could consume it the fastest. You could use a blowtorch or use any other type of fuel.There was one team that was able to completely burn up a lump of charcoal in less than a second.

In a fraction of a second it burned up the entire charcoal. I was like, how do they do that? Charcoal is so hard to burn. Well, they figured out what charcoal needed. It didn’t need more fuel. See, other teams were doing jet-fuel and other really flammable liquids. Charcoal doesn’t need more fuel, it has all of the fuel that it needs. There were some teams that were using blowtorches to add more heat. It doesn’t need that either. What the charcoal desperately needed to burn was oxygen. What this team did was soak this piece of charcoal in liquid oxygen. You lit a match and that was all that it needed, the charcoal was gone!

Now when you cook something or heat it up you suck the life right out of that. We see this as a bad thing but it is actually used to create something that many of y’all like. It’s called coffee. When you make coffee, you burn the beans in such a way that sucks the life out of them without destroying the bean. What they do is roast coffee beans in a vacuum so that they don’t catch fire and become consumed. If you’ve ever tried to cook or dry a coffee bean you have discovered that there is no life in them.

This is what happens when we share the gospel without love. We just cook someone and they become this dried up shell. We become a clanging gong and a resounding cymbal. The Apostle Paul says that without love we are nothing. Love is vital. I think we all can agree on that.
Truth is also vital. Without truth there is no message. It’s just a puff of smoke. You’ve got heat and air but there is nothing that sustains it. Often we do lot’s of well intentioned evangelism but we are afraid to share the truth. So we do everything but that. We will spend thousands of dollars to go somewhere and we will spend thousands of dollars to build a house.

We will smile a lot and we will hug these people and we will tell them how much we love them but we never share the gospel. Then we leave. The fire hasn’t been started. It’s just a puff of smoke.This is often what many Christians do and this is what their evanglism is. They don’t include the truth because they are afraid too. Are they don’t include the vital elements of the truth because it might be offensive. The thing is, is truth is HARD! If you have a block of wood….it’s hard but that doesn’t mean that it’s not vital.

Spirit is also vital. You have a fire. It’s ready to burn. It even has cardboard on the top so that when that spark hits it it will be ready to go. Imagine this fire. You have all of the people around it…they’re doing all of the motions. They’re warming their hands. You even have some people with some marsh mellows and a guy with some hot dogs. The thing is is that they are not burning.

They are like, we’re doing it all perfect. I’ve got my marsh mellows on the stick just right! This fire is perfectly constructed. It is soaked in gasoline. It has tender at the bottom. All it needs is to get started. All it needs is the spark of the spirit. So often we do it all right. We’ve got the structure just right. We have everything set up and we’re going though all of the motions like it’s supposed to happen. We’re, like, "we’re doing it just like those Christians over there that we heard about who were warming their hand!" But there is no fire. There is no spirit. The spirit is vital. It’s like everything without the match. You have to have both.

So we have these three. Spirit, Truth, and Love. Usually what happens, in my experience, is that people will tend to combine a couple of them. They will really try to emphasize on those two. They will criticize people for not doing those two as well as they do. I would like to do some math here and just see what happens when you add up two of these and don’t include the third one.

So truth and love. What happens when you take truth and love together with no spirit. You get nothing. It is powerless. Oftentimes this is what happens in modern evangelism but it is powerless. There is no power in it. We can get our tracts and make them be the pretties tracts in the world. But if God does not bring the increase there is no increase.

So what about spirit and truth and no love? What happens? The people that I’ve seen share without love tend to wash out in about a year if they make it that long. A lot of the people that came here last year are not here because they could not take it. The lack of love just turned black like those coffee beans. It did damage to their souls and it hurt their souls, sharing with others without love. It’s very damaging to share with others without love.

O.Kay, what happens if you have spirit and love without truth? Heresy! Exactly! You get away from the Bible. It’s like you’re floating with the spirit and all of the sudden you start floating with the wrong spirit. The Bible calls the Holy Spirit holy for a reason. The Holy Spirit is set apart. The Holy Spirit is different from all of the different spirits. We each have a spirit in us so there are many spirits in this room with each one of these people and there are also unseen spirits and domains and things that we do not know much about.

The Bible talks about them and we see Jesus and the disciples interacting with them and they can be very distracting. Sometimes we think that we are being led by the Holy Spirit and we’re actually just being led by our own spirit. You have to be grounded in the Bible. You have to be grounded in the Word. You have that truth or you get into trouble.

I challenge you to examine the way that you share the gospel, whether you are doing open air preaching, using the "Evan gel Cube," doing relationship witnessing, or whatever. Look and see if you are really being led by the Spirit and if you are really listening to God and co-laboring with God in this person’s heart. Listen and ask God if you are doing it though a heart of love. Are your motivations and means of love? or is it "oh, I must love them or I wouldn’t be sharing the truth." Sharing the truth is loving.

It can be an act of love but it can also be an act of hate. Who is that almost only ever spoke the truth in the Bible regarding Jesus and His true nature? The Devil! The Demons! Every time Jesus came up to speak to someone possessed by a devil or demon they almost were always like; "What will you have with me, Son of God? He has come to take away the sins of the earth!" or something like that. They were saying totally who Jesus was and they were telling the truth.

Still it was sin. Why? Because they were sharing the truth out of an evil motive. Sharing the truth is important but it must be done at the right time, at the right place, with the right motive, and to the right person. The truth can be very damaging. It is like a two edged sword. If you don’t share it in the right way it can be destructive.

That is one thing that we need to keep in balance. Another thing is the way that we are sharing the Gospel. This is more balancing around the person. You see 85% of people think that they are going to heaven. They think that they are Christians. So if people think that they already have Jesus they aren’t going to see that they actually do need Him. They are not going to see that sin separates’s them because in reality they are in sin. When you are far away from a whole you can’t see it. O.K. so God is a big huge God and you’re looking but you don’t see this big huge hole which is a Cosme of sin. You’re way back here looking forward and saying; "me and God, we’re cool!"

Most people in the U.S., this is not true all over the world. If you go to places like in the Muslim world where they don’t see themselves and God as being "cool." So you would share the Gospel with them differently because their needs are different and they are in a different spiritual place.
So if we have people that are far away from the their hole of sin how do we get them to go to the edge and see the hole? So that they can see how their sin is separating them from a Holy God? The Truth? The Ten Commandments? Exactly! The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. You see the law doesn’t save us, in fact, it kills us. Here is a neat thing about the law. The law was written on our hearts and our conscience in bearing witness. So that the whole world is without excuse, right?

So, when did we get a conscience? Knowledge of good and evil? At the time of the fall. Eve took that apple, what was the apple? The apple was the law, the knowledge of good and evil. The law is what brings the knowledge of good and evil. She bites into the apple and suddenly she has a realization of sin. Then sin entered into the world, what does sin bring? What does the law bring? Death! It killed her! It killed Adam and it is going to kill all of us! It’s a big problem!
What did God promise when He was explaining to Adam and Eve what they had just done? He said that there is going to be a coming One. He promised of Jesus. He said that Jesus would crush the heel of the serpent. The law was intended even from the very beginning. The law was intended to bring us to Christ.

It doesn’t save us. It just leaves us helpless. The law can not do all of the work. That’s not the Gospel. Only Christ can get us to the Father. It is only by One name that we are saved and that is Jesus Christ. No one else can do it. There is no hope except though Him. That is the purpose of the law. It is a good tool for what is was intended but it is not good for any other use. Sometimes you’re going to be talking to people who are already broken.

I talked to this one guy…….about two years ago he had a big showdown with God and he is realizing the extent of his sin. I was talking with him and he was like, "Yeah, I’ve been trying and I’ve quit a lot of stuff but I haven’t quiet gotten it all together." He was really struggling with his sin and he has a knowledge of it. He know he doesn’t have victory. He said that his mom had been praying with him. I asked him if he had been born again. He was, like, "no." So I explained to him what that means, being born again means putting your trust and faith in Jesus Christ, you realize that you can not do everything on your own and you turn from your sins once and for all and you say: "Jesus, I’m giving you Lordship over every aspect of my life. Not just Sundays but Saturdays and Friday nights and Wednesday afternoons."

I told him that once you do that Jesus will give you a new heart. He will give you new desires and that you’re old desires for sin would be taken away and you would be given new desires for righteousness. I told him that this is so radical that that the Bible calls it being born again. You could just see it click in his eyes. He was like, "I’ve got it!" I told him that he was not far from the Kingdom. He wasn’t quiet ready to make that commitment.

Committing your whole entire life to Jesus is a big deal. It’s not something that you can push someone into or manipulate someone into. Some people with strong personalities can manipulate people into saying the prayer of commitment. That’s like manipulating someone into getting married. Our commitment to Christ ought to be and is even stronger than our commitment to our spouse. None of you would of had someone say to you; "Read these vows real quick before you change your mind!" And you have this person on the other side of you and you’re, like, "Hi!" and they’re, like, "Hi!" Nobody would do that!

That is what we’re trying to do with the Gospel so often. When we’re shoving the sinner’s prayer down peoples’ mouths or throats. I don’t want to criticize to much evangelism but you do need to be mindful of that.

Another thing that we need to keep in balance is the two extremes. Temporal salvation. Temporal salvation is people who are starving and you have Christians who come in and feed them but don’t tell them about the gospel. I have read books from India. There are millions of them. "White man has fed millions of us into hell." We have sent millions of people into hell with a full stomach. We go in, feed them, and these people are not saved so they are out. It’s a tragedy.

People who only focus on the Eternal salvation…..I heard a story of this one Christian hospital and they bring in these people in from the villages and they are about to die and they are about to admit them and the doctor comes up and is like: "Have you prayed with them to receive Christ, yet?" And this person is dying on the table. There is a time where before they can hear the gospel you need to take care of temporal things. Jesus, oftentimes, before He would share the gospel with them would heal them. Then He had their attention. Other times He would just share the Gospel. So I think that there is a place of balance here where we need to be mindful of the whole person. Both their eternal person, their soul and spirit, but also their physical person. You can’t separate one from the other.

We don’t think of ourselves as separate beings, we’re made in the image of our Father, we’re tri-part beings, we have a spirit or heart, a soul, and flesh, right? And we are supposed to love the Lord our God with all three of those. We don’t see ourselves that way. I am, Thomas, the one person, even though sometimes I will very much disagree with myself, I’m still one person.
Have you ever had that? Where you had a big decision and you’re debating with yourself about different stuff. Oftentimes that’s like you’re spirit or mind saying one thing and you’re emotions are saying another thing. Anyways, it’s kind of interesting, so that is one thing that we need to keep in mind.

Another thing is "growing the church versus growing the Kingdom." On one side we have people who all they do is hare the Gospel with other people and they just leave them out to dry. It’s, like, "Here pray this prayer." or "O.K. find yourself a good church." Now that can be useful and it is Biblical but it can also be dangerous because, you know, they might find themselves a "good" Latter Day Saints Church or something like that. I mean, it looked just like a church. It had church in the name, a really pretty building, it has all this money…."

So you have to be mindful of growing the Kingdom. On the other side, I’ve heard pastors say that the only purpose of evanglism is to grow this church. Have any of you experianced that? You’ve been to a church where whenever you talk to someone and then talk to your pastor or one of the elders they are, like, "Well, did you get their information so that you can follow up and they can join this church?" Where it’s all kind of about growing the local church. Sometimes the best church for someone is not your church.

Actually, I’ve found out that it is nor-mall that way. I was at a fair one time sharing the Gospel with these three girls, one of them went to, Temple Bible Church, which is a really good solid church and the other two basically realized that they were going to hell and that they needed to get right with Jesus. I was, like, "you need to give your life to Jesus and then tonight go to church with your friend." They would already have a relationship there. She could take them to church and get them plugged in as opposed to me saying; "Oh, you have to come to my church!" See how that could be better? Sometimes we have to listen to God and realize that there is a better church for this person than my church.

Another reason for this is that sometimes there can be huge cultural distances. Sometimes God will bring in a huge cultural mismatch into your church to make your church more diverse, culturally. Other times this person simply needs a place where they can grow and not have to worry about the fact that everyone else is completely and totally different then them in every single way.

Have you ever gone to a church were you are pretty much, totally different then anyone else in every single way? Like, everyone else was about 5 times wealthier than you were and their shoes cost more than you’re entire outfit? I’ve been to churches like that. I was, like, "Okay! I’m glad I parked far away and that I was late!" Anyways that is another thing to keep in balance.
We have another thing. "Converters opposed to Diciplemakers," the goal, ideally, is that every person we share the Gospel with comes to know Jesus, they get set on fire for Him, then they go out and share the Gospel, and tell others about God. However, this does not happen overnight. Pretty much you have Christians who only want to do one or the other. You have some who say; "I am here to make converts, by Golly!"

So they do not have any disciples. They don’t have anyone following them on a day to day basis. They don’t have any one that they are trying to invest in for the long run. They are just scattering seeds. That is important but again we want to be whole Christians. We want to model Christ who did both of these. He went and He made converts. He preached to 5,000 people, and He spent a lot of time with Peter, James, and John. There was a whole range between. He spent time with the 12, with the 72, with the 120, so don’t feel bad if you’re just, like, I just not a "converter" it’s easy to feel guilty and walk around condemned and ashamed all of the time. That is not the goal of my talk. I do not want to be one of the people at the pool criticizing. But I don want to encourage you to try to engage in more than one level.

One question y’all are probably asking is; "So what? How does this apply to my actual sharing the Gospel with someone, having no idea what to say next, where do I apply this?" Well, allot of these things are heart things. Things that you decide ahead of time. You decide ahead of time that you are going here under the motive of compassion and out of love. There are some people who are sharing the Gospel not out of love or compassion but for the "rush" or to have fun. It is fun. It is scary. It has a lot of adrenaline but that is not a good reason. I encourage you to examine your hearts.Each one of you to see whether or not that is why you are here.

Some of you are sharing the Gospel because someone drug you. Basically they grabbed you by the ear and yanked you in. That can be good but I was reading a passage in Deuteronomy. It was the passage the Palestine’s were going to war and God said to Moses. "Look at your army and have everyone raise their hands." He didn’t say it quiet this way but this is kind of what He said. "Everyone who raises their hands, send them home." I think the only General in the Bible who actually went by this protocol was Gideon and he totally whipped those Malachite’s with just a handful of people.

So you had everyone who was scared leave and everyone who had gotten married in the last year raise their hands and they were to go home and be with their wives. It was not right for a man to die at war when he had just gotten married. And then God said; "Everyone who has just bought a field and it has not tasted it’s first fruit you go home, too, because it is not fitting for someone to not taste the first fruit of their fields."

The Gospel and God is not needy. That is something that we all have to come to the tragic conclusion of. "I am not vital." Now with that said, that does not mean that God doesn’t want you. He has called forth every single one of us as believers and commissioned us to go forth and proclaim the gospel. There was a guy that went to Africa, David Livingston. David said: "A commission in any army is considered a great honor, how could a commission from the Heavenly Father be any less of a great honor?" A commission in the army says; "I trust you. to be responsible for a certain number of men. I trust you to be a leader. I trust you to lead men into the fields.

When we have been given the great commission, we have been given a very similar commission where God is calling you to be responsible for certain souls that He says that He will give to you to share the Gospel with. That is why we are here. That is why I shared the story at the very beginning of the boy and the pool. We want to be the girl, who even though everyone is criticizing us, is still faithful to go and to reach the loss. She does not answer to other people at the party. We do not answer to the other people at the party. We answer to our Heavenly Father and to Him alone.

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A family once had a pool party at their home. Friends from all over filled their back yard, laughing and talking as they mingled around the grill.

While no one was looking, a two year old boy toddled over to the pool and fell in. Soon a lady pointed the child out to the group.

“That kid can’t swim.” She said.

“Then help him?” a guests replied.

“Oh no,” the lady responded. “I am just the eyes of this party. I don’t have the gift for saving people.” She then turned back to eating her food while the child gasped for breath.

One guest thought about saving the boy but then decided he might offend someone by implying that children shouldn’t swim.

Another guest felt sorry for the boy, so he ate his food at the edge of the pool. He hoped to make the dry ground look so good that the child would ask to leave the water.

The man behind the grill was so busy serving the guests that he never even noticed the drowning child.

“I will call my father about this.” A man hesitant to get wet said. “He lives just in the next town and loves children. I am sure he would love to come and do this for us.”

Finally, a teenage girl saw the baby, now floating face down in the water. She jumped in, grabbed the boy, and tossed him out of the pool. She listened for any breathing. Hearing none she then started roughly pressing on the baby’s stomach. Green water and bile flowed from the boy’s mouth.

As the girl tried to administer CPR the guests gathered around and started criticizing her feeble efforts. “You are being much too rough with that poor child” one man said “you really should be more gentle.”

“You’re not pushing hard enough” an elderly man commented, “and you’re pushing in the wrong place.”

Finally, in desperation the young girl cried out. “Will one of you just call 911!” The guests, offended at her brashness, at first did nothing. But finally, one of the women sighed and walked inside to find a phone. Soon, the air filled with the colorful lights from rescue vehicles as paramedics quickly whisked the baby away.

As the sirens faded into the distance the guests turned on the teenager. “Who are you to order us to call 911?” Said one. “Did you see how you rudely splashed water all over those guests when you jumped in? You are going to scare visitors away from this party.”

These comments hurt deeply. She didn’t intend to be rude or scare anyone. All she wanted to do was save the baby’s life. But, the guests continued.

“You should be ashamed of yourself for how insensitive you were to that child.” one man remarked. “You just grabbed him and tossed him out of the water. You should be more loving.”

“He didn’t even ask to get saved” said another “Who are you to jump in and force your dry ground on someone else? You should never shove your own air down someone’s throat.”

Finally, the girl could take it no more and ran from the party weeping bitterly. The guests never did find out if the baby survived or not. But, they reassured each other that they really did… care.

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The second annual Christmas Evangelism Boot Camp is coming up this December 21-23rd. We will learn about Biblical Evangelism and then go to the Austin Zilker Park Trail of Lights to share the Gospel.

This is one of my favorite times to share the Gospel 1-2-1 all year long. The Zilker Park Christmas Tree is a family friendly witnessing opportunity. The CEBC is free although meals and materials are available at an extra cost. We will do our best to find host housing for those who need it. For more information and to register to come visit www.AustinCEBC.comI hope to see you there,

The greats folks at CustomTractSource.com are giving a coupon code for 20% off all money tracts including the popular Christmas Cash. To those who register for the CEBC.

This is not something you want to miss.

Related posts:

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3. Balance in Evangelism (Video) Here is a talk I gave at the 2007 Christmas...