Ignite with Barry Meguiar Podcast

Welcome back to Ignite, I want to talk to you about staying in your comfort zone. Stop trying to get people saved. I had an interesting conversation a couple of days ago with a friend who they’ve started a an Ignite Your Life Bible study, based on the book that I just put out, Ignite Your Life. And I said, Well, how’s it going? And how are the reports coming back? He’s like, well, we’ve, we’ve only been through three sessions, but everybody’s having trouble getting out of their comfort zone. What do you mean? Get out of your comfort zone? Well, what does that mean? I don’t get that. He says, they’re just not, they’re still not comfortable getting out and actually sharing their faith, that that’s that that fear, they just have that fear. And I said, you know from, from the first page to the last page, I think we’re talking about no fear. You don’t get out of your comfort zone, you just love on people. And if you can’t love on people, you’re probably not a Christian, right? Is, being a  Christian is loving God and loving, loving other people. So I just think that we need to emphasize that as we do it right quickly here in this podcast.

Sharing your faith is not a sales pitch. There’s no timing. I thank God for all evangelism programs, I really do. I went through them. I learned from them and millions of you have been saved by them. But the fact of the matter is, most evangelism programs teach us some form of a script, or points to follow or whatever. And that starts getting you down to the logical ending where you got to them saved and most people aren’t ready to be saved in one conversation. I used to get so unhappy with myself. I couldn’t even save, I failed. Where were you God? I just had all kinds of problems. Then I read this scripture just bounced off the page to me one day, they will know you’re my disciple by your love. And not by your timing. It’s not about timing. It’s not about getting them saved in one step. You just love on people, and let the Holy Spirit and the person you’re talking to take its course and you just don’t know how long that will take. And so our phrase: move everybody, every day closer to Jesus, is so appropriate. Because in some cases, it may just be a touch. It may just be somebody in a store or on, on the telephone an operator, whatever. You just, you just thank them and have have a great day. God bless you. Just say something to them so they know that your kindness is attached to God. Otherwise, they just think your kindness comes to you and they think, boy, you’re really nice person. You know, most evangelicals think being a nice person is sharing your faith. But it has nothing to do with sharing your faith. It just doesn’t.

So I, you know I call it chumming. I like to go deep sea fishing and you throw out chum to catch the bigger fish. And so when you’re, when you’re out and about 80% of the people around you are lost. Just everybody you touch: chum on them, love them. God bless you. Just, there’s a million ways to say it. It’s covered in my book but it just it gets so easy. And sometimes when the chum lines go for years. I have several that are going for 25-30 years and, and seeing some fruits but in some cases almost no fruit and yet they come. I received a call from my friend Bill in Chicago and he says our mutual friend Jack in Oregon is in a hospice bed dying and he has asked his wife to get in touch with you. So she called me, so I’m calling you. So Karen and I actually had the afternoon off we’re going to a movie. So I said Karen, you drive I have work to do. So while she drove I called Jack and I said hi, how you doing Jack? I didn’t want to impose or assume anything. And with his weakened voice, he said, Barry I’m not doing good. I’m in a hospice bed and I’m dying. And I said, oh my goodness, Jack, it’s terrible. What can I do for you? He says, well, I need to get serious about God. And in the next 10 minutes, 12 minutes, I led him to the Lord. And we did it thoroughly. In fact, I had him pray it a second time in his own words just to make sure he got it. At the end of it I said, Jack guess what? We’re gonna spend eternity together. What? We’re gonna spend eternity together. Wow. He died a few days later. That took me about 12 minutes. No, actually, it took me 50 years. I’ve been sharing my faith with Jack for 50 years without hardly anything in return. But I just kept loving on him. You know praying for him of course but encouraging him. Letting him know where I was coming from. Always open about, always loving, never rejecting. Never pushing. I don’t ever push anybody. And 50 years later he calls me. Wow.

You know, it’s a team sport. I say that often in many of these podcasts. Because how many other people have talked to Jack along the way? There’s a team of us, we will never know until we get to heaven. But we can’t take full responsibility for saving anybody. In fact, we can’t save anybody. All we can do is use our influence and move them closer to Jesus. And when we move everyone, every day closer to Jesus, we’re living that sweet spot with God. And, of course, it’s only God that saves. But we get to be an instrument. He uses, He uses us. He speaks through us to speak to people. Understand almost everybody around us is lost. And how are they going to know unless we tell them? Because they’re not going to church. It’s up to us. It’s up to you. Okay, hope you get that message. See you next time.