Amazing salvation story! Read it, share it, praise God for it!
To catch people up, I go out with a team of people to the local mall to evangelize every week. From my previous Facebook status update, you guys read about Raghulan, the guy from the mall who was agreeing with everything we said about God, sin, Hell, and the whole gospel. Two days ago he texted me "hey tony where can I get a copy of the bible?" I told him that I'd give him one and that we can meet up some time to do that. Additionally, he told me how he had a lot of questions for me.
Unbeknownst to me, God had already been working in his life prior to us meeting him at Markville. He had already been thinking about God a lot even though he came from a Hindu family. He had some pretty crazy things happen to him in the past few months. Anyway, that night we shared the gospel with him, he could not sleep well and even woke up in fear due to a terrible nightmare. Maybe we talked about judgement day (John 16:8) too much, just maybe. But that's one of the reasons he contacted me: he was afraid. But so was I when I first heard about Hell, and you should be too. When we met up, I asked what his questions were and he said, "I don't really have questions, I just want to hear more about what you were talking about." Yes! He just wants to hear more about Jesus Christ! So I told him more. I was not the one speaking that night (Matt 10:20), God kept showing me passage after passage of scripture and I just read to him, using as few of my own words as possible. We talked for a good long time as he also started asking questions and shared more of his story. When asked how he felt, he said "God is calling me." (Rom 11:29) When asked what was stopping him from being under the authority of God, he said "Nothing."
Hallelujah! I told him how he can pray right then and start that relationship. But before continuing, though the evangelist in me just wanted him to "pray the prayer" and "accept Christ," I knew he needed to be warned first. I spent much time telling him about my journey, about my grandparents' rejection of me (Matt 10:35), about the hardships (1 Pet 4:12), about how life does NOT get easier, about sanctification (Rom 6:19), about how he will have to give up stuff (Rom 12:2), about how the devil/world will hate him (1 John 3:13), about how being a Christian means being a slave of God (Rom 6:18), about the cost of following Jesus (Luke 9:58)... but lastly about how it's all so worth it (Phil 3:8) and about Heaven (Rev 22:4). I then asked again if he's still willing to give up control of his life over to God and to be His slave. He paused, thought for a bit, told me he was afraid, and then with an eagerness in his eyes, looked up and finally declared, "Yes."
And the prayer, oh the prayer. After we prayed together as he walked from darkness to light, he asked me, "Did you feel it?" I was confused for a bit but then he said, "This thing in my chest, this feeling. Ah, I can't describe it. Did you feel it too when you first prayed?" I proceeded to tell him about who the Holy Spirit is (John 14:16-17) and the concept of the trinity. He is now going to read the gospel of John and sometime next week we'll meet up to talk about it. If only you guys saw the look in his eyes, the joy he was exuding, the relief he felt, the sweet, sweet moment when he tasted the goodness of our savior for the first time. This is what I live for, the salvation of souls for God! If you've never felt this, I urge you now, win souls for Christ! God can use anyone! He used me!
Never in my evangelism have I warned someone so thoroughly and to tell them NOT to be a child of God. In fact, I told him to be a slave. Come on, who'd say yes to being a slave? It is foolishness (1 Cor 1:18)! But if you're called by God, it's the best thing ever. Never in my life have I understood irresistible grace so clearly. There was nothing I could say that would have turned him away from God. Friends, we don't have to try to make the gospel appealing, figure out a fancy way to get their attention, make sure they know God loves them, play the role of the nice friend who is always there, water down the gospel to make it simpler, or share cheap grace. This is what we must do in evangelism: we preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23) and how we are to be crucified with Him (Gal 2:20). Yes, at its core it's still just faith in Christ, but never without the cost. And when we evangelize, if we are preaching this true gospel, God WILL work (Isa 55:11).
In summary, this is what happened: Christ looked at him and said, "Mine" (Phil 3:12b). All I did was go to the mall and open my Bible.
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