You know, it often is so hard to share Christ with close friends without offending them. Recently, a very close friend passed away. Jim Scaggs was a good person, a great friend and more importantly a brother in Christ. He built my wifes T bucket. After the funeral we spoke with his wife about the situation with our racing friends. I don't know if any know Christ as their Savior, and am praying that He will give opportunity to reach out to them with the plan of salvation. I love these people dearly and the thought of them not knowing Christ scares me. I don't want any of them to be lost spiritually. Losing Jimmy was a wakeup call. We need to live our lives before men as if we are the only link between them and heaven... because we may be!
Offending Others Steve, Its not are witness that offends! Its the cross that offends! Its are calling to try to lead others to Christ! the Holy Spirit does the Convicting!1Corithians 2:14-15 We as believers know the eternal results of rejecting Christ the average Joe does not have a clue! You are correct in wanting that all should come to the knowledge of Christ! ( That is the LOVE of God ) not a bunch of mushy,feeble pleas that only make us "do gooders"in their eyes or religious people. Do the best you can to witness the truth you have recieved and let the Holy spirit do HIS job! Walk in faith and trust God to save his elect (before the foundation of the world he new who would recieve his free gift of SALVATION) See you at Norwalk I hope? Moz
Please bear with me as I tend to be long winded! Sharing Christ with car people has been a topic I have loved to talk about for many years. There is such a huge mission field in the car hobby, as it seems very few car people are Christians. It also seems that very few of them have any interest in hearing testimonies. When the Lord rescued me about 20 years ago, I had been a car guy for probably 15 years by then and had made many friends in the hobby. Almost none of them had any faith in their life, and I can think of only 2 who were truly born again. I had to make a decision at that point in my life to find all new friends, give up cars, or try to blend it all together. After a lot of praying, I decided I was going to continue with cars as I felt the Lord was making it very clear that I could be a light in an otherwise very dark area. I have had many opportunities over the years to share my beliefs with others of the same interest. I try to open by sharing Christian values. I once had an auto wrecker try to write a false invoice for me to save me money when I came through Canadian customs from the US. I insisted on the correct amount on the invoice, and he first wrote it for $10, then $20, then $30, then finally $35 (the actual amount I paid). I politely explained to him that one day (judgement) we would all answer for our mistakes/sins/errors we made here on earth. Yes, I know our sins are forgiven when we confess them because of Christ's blood, but how could I feel good about cheating and losing a chance to witness to this man. As it happened, he took note and told me I was a "rare breed" in his words. I only saw him one or two more times after that, and then I heard he had died very suddenly about a year or so after this event. Quickly, two more areas we need to make sure we are solid witnesses in are that people don't feel our "hobby" is an obsession, (i.e. that it takes all our time, including what should be family time) and that we are not so anal about our show cars that they see the car as our "god". I skip many car shows on Sunday mornings (think there was just a discssion in here about that, right?) to make sure that our family sees that church is far more important. Also, Sunday afternoon car shows are fine, but do we go as a family, or do we rush away from church and leave them on their own the rest of the day? I have a lot more thoughts on witnessing in this great hobby, but this is long past long-winded!!! Carl
