One spiritual conversation is just not enough. The Lord will use many conversations to help bring your friend to Christ. But sometimes, you’ll want something that you can give your spiritually thirsty friend something that they can read and ponder over.
Books are good for this. Invite your friend to read one with you and discuss the chapters over the next several weeks.
So what is a book you can recommend to your spiritually thirsty friend?
This is where you can recommend Forgive Me for Waiting So Long to Tell You This. David Servant has written an easy to read book that you can use to help further your conversation with your spiritually thirsty friend.
Help your friend on their journey towards Christ.
Your friend is on a spiritual journey.
They may have misconceptions about who God is, who Jesus is, and how the death and resurrection of Jesus might mean for them.
Your conversations with your friend are one of many tools that the Lord may use to help clear up those misconceptions.
But if you don’t feel equipped to talk about these things, David’s book Forgive Me for Waiting So Long to Tell You This can help you. Recommend this book to your friend. Let them read this book with you and talk about each chapter together. Let the chapters of this book become conversation starters between you and your friend.
(Aside: A similar book to this one is Done: What most religions don’t tell you about the Bible. It is a similar book that will present some basic gospel telling in the from of a book, and you can read my review of Done here.)
The development is simple.
Servant starts with God as the creator. Then he moves into talking about the character of God.
After that, he spends a few chapters talking about our sinful nature and how that nature expresses it self in our selfishness.
Sin deserves a consequence – if not, then God would not be just. God’s justice is the only fair remedy for our sin.
But in God’s justice, mercy is evident. As seen by the Exodus encounters, God granted mercy to the Egyptians for many years, delaying His judgment. God granted mercy to the Israelites through the Passover, setting up the illustration of how Jesus died for us to shield us from God’s wrath.
Skipping over the rest of biblical history (which is fine for the point of the book), Servant jumps to the existence of Jesus, his death, and the resurrection.
Once a person believes in what Jesus did for them, they have eternal life and Servant speaks a little on the effective habits of new Christians.
It is easy for your spiritually thirsty friend to follow.
Forgive Me for Waiting So Long to Tell You This is not an academic book. It is not heavy on big words. It is not quoting long dead scholars nor dependent on generally inaccessable scholarly material. It is written for a popular audience so that you can further your conversation with your spiritually thirsty friend.
If your friend is hostile to the Christian faith, then this book may not be the right one. If your friend needs scholarly quotes from religious philosophers, this book is not the one.
However if your to spiritually thirsty friend is open to reading this book and discussing its contents with you, they will find it an easy and winsome read.
As you read it with them, you’ll recall the basic gospel outline.
As you discuss it with them, you’ll have the joy of sharing your faith with your friend who has a tremendous spiritual thirst.
Some quotes:
- Why do some people remain steadfast atheists in the light of so much evidence that is contrary to their belief? Simply because they are smart enough to realize that if there is a God, then He shouldn’t be ignored. If He created us, then He has a right to tell us how we should live.
- When we point out the sins of others, we are openly testifying before the court of heaven that we know there is such a thing as right and wrong. Our own judgments of others provide incontestable evidence of our belief in a universal code of ethics, a standard of conduct which we ourselves have broken many times. Consequently, our own judgments of others are self-condemning.
- Chances are, if you are like most of us, when you feel conviction for sin, you try to justify yourself. Perhaps you’re saying, “But I’ve never committed adultery or murder like David.” Maybe you haven’t. But there is one sin that is the root of all other sins, and that is selfishness. The root cause of David’s sins was selfishness; he was “looking out for number one.”
- I’m leading up to God’s plan to offer you a free pardon-full forgiveness. But of absolute necessity, you must see yourself as a sinner who needs God’s pardon.
- Finally, God is the personification of perfect love, and He must react when selfish acts are committed because He loves everyone equally. If He remained passive after witnessing injustice, then He could rightly be accused of loving the offender more than the offended. God, therefore, must punish those who act selfishly.
Resource:
Order Forgive Me for Waiting So Long to Tell You This from Amazon.
Do you need help in Personal Evangelism?
Start here with this MP3 Download on Evangelism Training from the store to help you see where you need to grow.
In this 70 minute MP3 AUDIO recording on personal evangelism you will learn:
- How church invitations are part of evangelism
- How to discover and share your own journey to faith
- What you can say about the gospel message.
- How to personally lead someone to faith in Christ.
It’s a 70 minute audio file that takes just a few minutes to download, but it may help you answer the question:
What can you do in the next 90 days to grow in your evangelism skills?
Excellent resource by David Servant, thank you for sharing it is a great book to hand out.
It’s coming in the future. Not done it yet because I just finished it last week, and I only have an electronic version my kindle.
If others of my readers have used it, please chime in.
Chris, have you ever given out this book to someone? If so, what was the reaction?