Questions You Have Asked: Why is it So Hard to Share My Faith? How Can I Get Someone’s Attention?

Why is it so hard to share my faith?  What can I do to get someone’s attention?

It’s hard to share your faith because your faith doesn’t make sense to the one who has never believed in Jesus.  It doesn’t make sense that anyone could just believe in Jesus and therefore be right with God.  Most people are convinced they have to do a lot of good things in order to make God happy with them.

What can you do to get someone’s attention?

  • Ask God to do whatever He needs to do in your life to give you the opportunity to share your faith.   Just like Mary, in the Christmas story, you may end up with a life situation hardly anyone would believe.  If that happens, look for encouragement from some other believer whom the Holy Spirit has placed there for you.  And then go live out your situation by trusting in God…and that will give you opportunities to share your faith.
  • Be intentional. Go where the unbelieving are. Sit in the smoking section.  Join a club.  Offer to cook a meal.  Ask if you can pray for someone’s needs.  Invite someone over to dinner.

Would you like a whole lot of other ideas for this?  Click here and read “151 Ways to Get Opportunities to Witness”.

Luke 1:39-45 Answers and Audio from Class

Luke Chapter 1 39-45 answers_Page_1Here are the Answers to our discussion questions for Luke 1:39-45.  

If you want to refer back to the original Questions page, here it is.

You can click on the link below to listen to audio of our class session.  

Hosea Bible Study – “Living For the Weekend”

boat rgbstockWe’ve started a new Bible Study on the book of Hosea.  You can view or download the Hosea Bible study here.  

Here’s what Hosea is all about:

For the Israelites living during the reign of King Jeroboam, life was good in the Northern Kingdom.   The economy was improving and most people had jobs.  There was rain for their crops.  Families were healthy.  The occasional tug on their hearts to live wholeheartedly for the One, True God came less and less often, mostly only when one of those crazy prophet-types was walking through one of their respective towns.   They were busy, happy, and certainly not interested in giving up anything in order to think seriously about God.  They were living for the weekend.

Hosea heard the call of God in his heart and was one of the very few who responded.  He longed to know God better, so he searched for all the truth he could find.  In his heart he learned to communicate with God as he worked and ate and even as he slept.  He realized soon that God was asking him to give every minute of his life to telling others about Him.  He heard the soft whispers of God in his ear and began to travel farther and farther away from his home – going from one city in Israel to another – beginning to preach and teach the words of God.

God was warning the Israelites to turn from their soft lives full of idols, and turn back to Him.  But they had no desire to hear such a ridiculous message from an obviously pathetic young man – who had no wife, no children, no future.  Work hard they would, but they were not interested in listening to an idiot, nor in giving up their fun – their weekends.  “God is a God of love,” they must have said.  “He would not ask us to give up all the things that make life wonderful for us!”

He was a young bachelor, and it did get lonely.  People were curious about him when they first realized he was a prophet, but before too long his audiences got smaller and smaller.

But there was no turning back from the call of God on his life…

Answers – Luke 1:26-38 “Mary”

Luke Chapter 1 26-38 answers_Page_1

 

Click on the Answers sheet to view or download the Discussion part of this Bible Study.  Luke 1:26-38.  “Mary”

Click on the link below for the Audio of our Bible Study Lesson on this passage .

Luke Chapter 1 26-38 answers

Intense Evil – What is our Response?

This was in a Facebook post today from my friend, Karyl Entner:

“Grim details in an e mail from my cousin, veteran missionary, Jim Entner. He sent on an urgent request to pray for Christians in Iraq. Two separate missionaries contacted him with the prayer request. The ISIS is going house to house in a town Queragosh and asking the children if they know of Jesus and if they respond “yes” and refuse to renounce Jesus, they are immediatly beheaded in front of the parents, but they are leaving the parents. The UN who is supposed to be “peace keeping” has abondoned them and the missionaries and humanitarian workers.  Can you imagine having your children slain in front of you? I can’t begin to imagine it. It literally makes my heart hurt on their behalf. Had I not heart this from Jim myself, I could hardly believe it. Jim is in China and lives in communist danger all the time but not in fear of beheading. The ISIS seems to be so intensely evil.”

How do we respond to this?  Everything in us wants to fight back, but how?….or to run, but to where?….

Here’s how we as believers in Jesus have to respond:  Go quickly, today, and tell the story of Jesus to someone!

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

Luke 1:18-25 – Answers and Audio Bible Study Discussion

Luke Chapter 1 18-25 answers_Page_1Click on image to the left to read the answers to the Luke 1:18-25 questions, posted here.

Click on the link below to listen to our group audio Bible Study discussion of this passage.

 

Questions You Have Asked: “How Come God Made the Solar System, Since We Can’t Use It?

A great question from Sofie,  a 9-year-old girl:

“How come God made the solar system, since we can’t use it?”

If I was going to put this in my own words, here’s what I would say:  “What is the point of a solar system full of planets and stars which we will never be able to travel to?  Or…What could God’s purpose have been in creating some things we can’t even see? “

Here are my thoughts:

1.  One is that we probably are using the whole solar system, even though we may not know it. I’m thinking God knew, when he created our universe, that every piece of it would be necessary for our lives here on planet earth.  For instance, we know the sun is absolutely essential for our lives (heat and light), as is the moon (the movement of the seas and light at night).

I can trust that God knew from the beginning what would be necessary to keep me alive on planet earth, even though I may not ever be aware of it in my lifetime.  The curiosity God has given mankind  has meant that a lot about our universe has been discovered, but certainly not everything.  There’s still so very much more to learn about this universe God has made!  Maybe someday we’ll find out that the farthest reaches of the universe are totally necessary for us to keep breathing!  (Colossians 1:15-18)

 

2. The second is that perhaps this whole huge universe we live in will be used by us someday! If we are believers in Jesus we are going to live for eternity.  I’m guessing there might just be a few things for us still to discover and accomplish in our world after the LORD returns and there is no sin any more on planet earth.

I think the LORD will someday take our present earth and heavens, change them and cleanse them completely, and then put us in them to live, have fun, and start discovering!  Maybe someday in the New Heavens and Earth we will live on those far-away planets.  Who knows?  (Revelation 21)

 

3. Here’s my third thought: Some people think that perhaps there are outer-space-type-beings living on other planets right now.  They think that God might have put those other beings there.  In their thinking, that makes sense, because then there would be a purpose for the rest of the universe.

But I think scripture is pretty clear about the fact that when God made the heavens and the earth He put human life on only one planet – planet earth.  He gave earth just the atmosphere needed to sustain human life, and he gave earth just the amount of light it needed to sustain human life, and just the amount of weather, and just the amount of plants and animals….you see what I mean?  He didn’t give any other place in the universe just the right perfection for human life.

Life for human beings (not any other kind of beings) is what God had in mind when He created our whole universe.  Why?  Because He loved us human beings, and wanted us to love Him back.  Was God unable to make other kinds of beings for the universe?  Certainly not!  God can do anything.  But He didn’t !

He chose to make only one kind of intelligent being in the whole creation, able to love and be loved.   Human beings.  And he put them on planet earth.  He tells us all about it in Genesis 1-3.

Now, remember, Jesus was a human being.  He was also God.  He chose to come to earth as a human being and die as a human being so that He could set us free from the awful sin choice Adam and Eve made (human beings).  The Bible says He died once for sin (not twice or three times or 100 times for different kinds of being). (Romans 6:10)   He chose to make us – humans on planet earth – and to die for us – humans on planet earth – so that we could be with Him forever.   He is alive today, a perfect human being and also perfect God, sitting at the right hand of the Father.   (Revelation 3:21)

The only intelligent beings, able to love and be loved, created in the image of God….are us!