The One
You can’t witness to everybody, but you can witness to somebody, and that somebody is of inestimable value to our Creator!
As the curtain opens on 2024 and we think about changes in our life we desire to make or those changes we feel the Lord leading us to make, the witnessing endeavor is one area of life to ponder.
Reaching out to one person can make a huge difference. You may have heard the story of the boy walking along the beach with his father. A recent storm had washed thousands of starfish onto the beach, and many of them were dying. The boy began stooping over and tossing the starfish back into the surf. The puzzled father asked, “With thousands of dying starfish stranded here on the beach, what difference do you think you can make?” Without breaking stride, the young boy picked up another starfish, lobbed it into the sea, then said, “Well, Dad, I just made a difference for that one.”
Just as the boy was intentional in making a difference for one starfish, intentionality is an essential component in our evangelistic efforts.
Jesus provides an excellent example to us in John 4, as He goes out His way to minister to one, a Samaritan woman.
Notice His intentionality in verses 3 and 4: “He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.” The backstory to this account is important. Jews and Samaritans harbored a hatred for each other that went back hundreds of years. Jews considered Samaritans “half-breeds” due to the intermarriage that occurred when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was exiled to Assyria seven centuries earlier. Jewish people traveling this route usually avoided Samaria, choosing to go around it rather than step on Samaritan soil. Yet we read Jesus “needed to go through Samaria.” Why? To minister to an outcast among outcasts! Now that’s intentionality.
But there’s more.
In this fascinating account, Jesus witnesses to the Samaritan woman, then discusses the matter with the disciples (John 4:1-37).
The result of intentional outreach to one person deeply impacts the city of Sychar, as John 4:39-42 reveals:
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His own word.
Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
As you and I begin 2024, new evangelistic adventures await. And while you and I may be very busy as this new year begins, may we be open to the Lord’s leading us to reach out to the one. Is there one unbeliever in your sphere of influence the Lord is leading you to be more intentional about? Perhaps that intentionality will include praying for them, serving them in some capacity, sowing gospel seeds through proclaiming truth, or a combination of the three. If no one comes to mind, would you ask God to show you one person in your existing sphere of influence or bring someone you may not know today into your sphere of influence – for the purpose of intentionally being salt and light?
May the Lord move you and me to be intentional in reaching out to the one, making an eternal difference for the glory of Jesus and the building of His Church. Amen.
“I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).