Awards and Witnessing

Or, you could click here to find every reference to crowns and the difference:

Crowns

 

While passing out tracts, have you been attempting to talk to the people you give the tract to? That is probably the next step for you, and will help you to see some results.

However, remember, our job is to warn. God's job is to convert. Do not forget to ask the Holy Spirit to come with you, and to lead you to the right people to speak to. Start the night before, and ask God to prepare some hearts for you, and then ask Him to bring them across your path as you are out. THEN, be vigilant to watch and speak to people who are around you.

Go ahead and have a ready smile on your face, be pleasant, leave the door open for someone else to come behind you and finish what you start. That means don't offend with your manner, if you can help it.

The best thing to do though is to pray pray pray that God will bring you to the right people.

 

Clean1, if getting results from our tracts was the condition of getting rewards in Heaven, we missionaries here in Japan, the Moslem countries and some other "Gospel-resistant" countries would not have a chance. I got out about 1100 tracts last month and had nary a single response--no chances to witness, no phone calls, no letters, no one coming.

There is always someone with it harder, though. I read the biography once of a missionary to Algeria who witnessed for 20 years and finally got a man saved. The man's family then tried to kill him by poisoning his food (something required by the Koran). He then got so depressed that he refused to see the missionary and then committed suicide!

As Dr. Bob says, it is faithfulness that counts most. "It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful," as the Bible says, and we are stewards of the Gospel. Let me tell you about a couple of the greatest witnesses for Christ I've known.

First of all was "Miss Dotty," who was the artist for the SOTL (Sword of the Lord, a Christian publisher) for many years. She had a rare disease which weakened her bones so that any bump at all could injure her. She went nowhere except to her job (next door) and church (someone took her), even having her groceries delivered. Yet Miss Dotty wrote a tract entitled, "Handicapped But Happy!" and gave it out to everyone who came to her door! Furthermore, "Miss Dotty" had a burden for world missionaries, and supported us in Japan for many years at just $10 per month--but oh how God must have rewarded that little amount. When the support stopped coming, we wondered what had happened. On our next furlough we went to the little graveyard on the grounds of the Bill Rice Ranch which is for employees of the BRR and the SOTL, and there we found a tiny marker with her name on it. She was mourned by very few on earth, but received a great welcome in Heaven, I have no doubt!

I got to know my friend Boone when he was already in his 90's. Boone was saved by a tract in his late 20's, and then started printing the tract himself, and passed those tracts out until he died. I used to go on bus visitation with Boone, and one day he got worried since he had a balance problem and would lurch and stagger occasionally. "John," he said, "Do you think I ought to quit visitation? Someone might think I'm drunk!" But of course I encouraged him to keep on keeping on.

So I'll say the same to you, Clean1, "Keep on keeping on!" Just decide that you will be faithful in your evangelism until you die, and God will bless that. We did have a lady start coming to church this year through a tract, and two Sundays ago her husband started coming too. Praise the Lord!

 

Also, instead of asking the Holy Spirit to deliver them to you, ask if that's what the Holy Spirit wants you doing. He might have something else in mind.

 

All you can do is tell them the Truth. Yes you can persuade them and reason with them from the Scriptures, but the decision to accept Christ is their's and they must respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Don't get hung up on numbers, as others have said, your responsibility is to be faithful.

 

No, I don't believe God is sending tornadoes because of a lack of witnessing. They are for the most part just weather, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The weather happens every year, I don't believe that usually it is because of some sort of judgement on the people in that area.

God will keep you safe, but that doesn't mean that you ought to put yourself in harm's way. If there's a tornado comin', by all means go get into a cellar. Don't go out after dark alone, and actually Id advise you not to go out alone at all. Try to have someone who will go with you, even if they don't want to do any talking.

OR, you could try asking your pastor's wife if there is a time you can go witnessing with her. She might enjoy taking you under her wing that way.