Daily Devotional
"And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness."
2 Timothy 2:24-25
If we are honest, most of us are not really in danger of being too pushy with the gospel. We are in danger of being too quiet. So here is a warning that cuts the other way. Frederick Bruner observed that aggressive, insensitive evangelism gets converts and counts them, but we are never able to count the ones who are turned away. The numbers of the offended are never tallied.
Churches love to post thousands baptized and thousands joining, yet the sanctuary never seems to grow, because the back door is as wide as the front door. Many people get just enough of the gospel to feel inoculated against it. They get the vaccine, a small dose that makes them feel they have already had it, and they walk out the back, hardened, some of the hardest people of all to reach. Invite them and they say they have been there, seen it, and left.
This is why Paul’s patience matters. He preached to the Jews in Corinth for eighteen months, and only after settled, vicious rejection did he move on, as we see in Acts 18. The dust shaking is for the rare and hardened case, not the bad day or the hard conversation. Your task with someone hardened in unbelief is not to fix all their behaviors. It is to bring them, patiently and gently, to the gospel.
Today's Challenge
Have you ever hardened someone by handling the gospel carelessly, or stayed silent when you should have spoken? Which way do you lean, and what is God asking of you?
Prayer
Father, I do not want to be careless with souls. Keep me from both cowardly silence and forceful pressure. Give me the patience of Paul and the gentleness of Christ, that I would draw people in and never harden them. In Jesus' name, Amen.
