Paul encouraged the Colossians: “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone,” (Colossians 4:5, 6).
This is what sowing seed, as we mentioned in part one of this series, is all about. We must be on the lookout for opportunities. When we do things to benefit ourselves, we make the most of every opportunity. The business person will see an opportunity for sales and will do his utmost to make the most of it. A lady would see an opportunity to hang out in the lovely new outfit she’d bought and will make the most of it. A reporter would see the opportunity for a front page story and would make the most of it. If we’re at all opportunistic, we’ll spot opportunities and use them.
In order for such opportunism to be used to fullest extent, we need to be interested in the opportunity. If secular opportunities are of interest to you, you’re bound to make the most of them. How about the Kingdom of God? Are you really interested in it? Is it of concern to you that those working with you, those playing sport with you, those shopping with you, etc. are going to hell except if someone leads them to Jesus? Unless we are concerned about lost souls, we’ll never break out of our selfish lifestyles. We need to surrender to the Holy Spirit, so we could devote our time and energy to winning souls.
I have some lovely guidelines on how to lead people to the Lord, which I’ll make available here soon, but a good beginning is to make use of every opportunity to wet someone’s appetite towards Jesus’ love. It does take a measure of courage and boldness though, but once you’ve started it becomes easier every time and once you’ve got into the habit of looking for opportunities, the Holy Spirit will put them on your way and give you the words to say. He is constantly looking out for willing servants.
When one of my staff members mentioned to me the hardships she and her family goes through, I said that, if she accepts Jesus as her saviour, He can help her carry the burdens and also protect and heal her and her family if she would pray for them. Every so often, when she complains about something else, I remind her of what I’ve said. Another staff member asked me how it was that I’d become a pharmacist and in my answer it came out that I don’t particularly want to be one, but the career does give me much opportunity to pray. Our conversation then turned to believing in Jesus. When I was complimented on the success of the pharmacy since I’ve started managing it, I was able to tell that without lots of prayer going into it, I would not have been able to do it. This makes people aware of Jesus and prepares the way to lead them to Him.
All we need to do is to tell a total stranger in the queue at the supermarket that Jesus loves them, to publicly give the Lord the glory for your successes, to offer Jesus as the solution to people’s problems, to tell people at work about the miracles Jesus did for you. When conversations at work go in the direction of the spiritual, make sure that you tell them the Bible version. Just be sure not to become religious, but to stay practical and logical. We need to make the gospel attractive.
Lord, give me courage to make the most of every opportunity to sow seeds towards salvation.
If you benefited from this, why don’t you link it to your Facebook or Twitter to make it available to your friends? You can also use the e-mail link to pass it on. Please also pray for the spreading of it to those who need it. Please feel free to ask questions or discuss thoughts.
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