No Hopeless Cases

December 30, 2010


If you follow this blog, you know that we talk quite a bit about our little “gospel book” called An Anchor for the Soul. I’ve often told people that the book itself can do nothing. By itself it’s just ink and paper with a glossy cover. But when the Holy Spirit moves, lives are changed.

Last year at Christmas a friend gave a copy of Anchor to her father. A few days ago this friend wrote to tell me the rest of the story:

Yesterday I sat in my dad’s hotel room and asked him a question that I have asked him quite often after MANY long conversations with him over the past four or five years.
 
The question I asked my dad was this,  “If you died and stood before the Lord and He asked you why He should let you into heaven, what would you say?” This was my dad’s reply, “I would tell Him that I shouldn’t be let in” to which I asked him again, and he said “I do not deserve to enter Your heaven Lord, but because of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ who died for my sins and has become my Savior, I would ask that You would let me in.”
 
After my father (who will be 70 years old ) said that, he said to me, “I have read through this book 3 times (the Anchor) and it is because of this book that I have been saved, you saved my life when you gave me this book.” I told my dad that it was not me who saved his life, but the Lord in heaven who has chased him down, softened his heart, rescued his soul, and has big plans for his life.

As I read that note it hit me once again that every conversion is a miracle of God. You can preach and teach and talk and share Christ until you are blue in the face. You can pray and pray and pray and feel like nothing is happening. Then God moves in and everything changes. 

Do you have any “hopeless cases” in your life?

Never give up.
Never stop praying.
Never stop sharing the gospel.

There are no hopeless cases with the Lord. 

Yesterday’s “no” may become tomorrow’s “yes” by God’s amazing grace.  

Do you have any thoughts or questions about this post?

No Hopeless Cases

June 12, 2007


We have just posted a new sermon on the website called No Hopeless Cases. Here’s an excerpt:

Don’t judge God by the things you see around you. I received an email from a woman who has been witnessing to a Jewish friend for over 30 years. It’s not that her friend is hardened against the gospel. It seems to be more the case that her friend simply isn’t interested in talking about Jesus. She is Jewish, and Jesus is for Christians, not for Jews. The woman who wrote doesn’t wish to offend her friend, but she wants to find a way to share Christ with her. If you go all the way to the bottom line, the problem and the answer both lie inside the heart, and since only God can change the heart (Proverbs 21:1), the ultimate answer lies with him. It is easy to think of some friends who don’t know the Lord and go, “No way. It will never happen.” Don’t be so sure about that. Perhaps you have been praying for years for your loved ones to come to Christ. During my years in Oak Park, every Sunday we received a note in the offering that said, “Pray for my wife’s salvation.” As I write these words, I cannot tell you if his wife has come to Christ or not. But I will tell you something. That man understood that you don’t judge God by what you see in the present.

Do you have any thoughts or questions about this post?