BE PERSISTENT
One of the characteristics of the Christian life is persistence. One of the evidences that we are God’s children is that we persevere. Sure, we have times when we have not been as faithful as we should have been, but we keep coming back to love of Christ that constrains us. Our evidence of salvation is not only persistence is following Christ, but also in our commitment to sharing Christ with others. Again, we struggle in this area at times, but deep down in the heart of every child of God is the burning desire to see others come to know Christ as their Savior.
To often our problem is that we give up to soon. We make an attempt at witnessing and if there is no immediate fruit; no immediate acceptance of Christ, we quit. We need to be persistent. When we plant a garden, we don’t quit just because there is no fruit found the very next day. When we go fishing, we don’t quit just because there is no fish caught on the very first cast. And we must be faithful and diligent in presenting the gospel.
A clerk in a department store had broken a long-standing sales record. “How did you do it?” his boss asked. “Well,” the clerk said, ‘a customer came in and I sold him some fishhooks. ‘You’ll need a line for those hooks,’ I said to him, and he bought some line. Then I told him, ‘You’ll want a rod to go with that line,’ and he bought the rod. I then said, ‘You ought to have a boat so you can use your rod in deep water.’ And the guy bought a boat. When I told him that he needed a boat trailer, he said, ‘Well, I’ll take one of those, too.’ Finally I said, ‘How are you going to pull that boat without a pick-up truck?’ And guess what! He bought a pick-up truck, too!” The manager said, “But I assigned you to the greeting card department.” The salesman said, “I know that. This guy came in for a get well card for his girlfriend, who had a broken hip. When I heard that I said to him, “You haven’t got anything to do for six weeks so you might as well go fishing.”
Well, I can’t think of anything better for us to do than to go fishing for the souls of men. Like the clerk, let us be persistent in our sharing the gospel. Let us seize every opportunity to share Christ with someone.
Bro. Mike