There are special moments when God works through the Holy Spirit that move people another step closer to Jesus in their journey to faith.
You’ve likely seen them, and maybe you have been a part of them.
The Holy Spirit is already at work in the moment of conversion.
Read more: Your Journey to Faith Story
The Holy Spirit has brought an awakening to that person, regenerating their spirit, and applying the salvific work to a person’s heart.
Prepares the way
But the work of the Holy Spirit can be seen in your life BEFORE you the moment when you placed your faith in Jesus Christ.
We find this claim of Jesus in the Scripture: “No one comes unto me unless the Father draws him.”
How does that drawing work in real life?
That drawing, that wooing is accomplished by the activity of the Holy Spirit.
When you look at the cultivation imagery found in the New Testament, one might say the Holy Spirit prepares the soil, waters the seed, and prepares the seed for harvest.
Think about your own conversion journey. Or if you don’t have a season in time where you know you became a Christian, think about the early influences upon your life that shaped your faith.
- How many individual conversation moments did you have about God?
- How many different individuals helped you explore Christianity?
- How many different sermons did you hear?
- Were there songs, art, poetry, or music that moved you to explore Christianity more?
- Did you have some late-night conversations or solitary moments pondering life issues? For example: questions like, is there life after death, how do you find meaning, how can you change?
- How many times did you look at the beauty of nature and feel a stirring to wonder about the nature of God?
These are moments when the role of the Holy Spirit is to draw a person towards Jesus.
In my coaching practice, I help people develop their personal story of coming to faith story or their testimony.
I have seen a few common moments that the Holy Spirit uses to draw people another step closer to Jesus.
Read more: Your Journey to Faith Story
Various Moments
1. Conversations
These are spiritual conversations between friends.
Sometimes these conversations occur between strangers. It might be two strangers on the same seat row of an airplane, or the clerk helping you check out groceries.
The Holy Spirit can use these conversational moments to point people towards Jesus.
The impact of these spiritual conversations adds up over the course of time.
Maybe you can point to specific conversations that set you on a journey to find the truth about Jesus.
Maybe a friend presented plausible explanations to your spiritual questions, or asked you conversational questions to help you examine your own beliefs.
You might be able to point to several conversations that had a cumulative effect of helping you decide to follow Jesus.
Individual conversations may not cover all topics related to a faith journey, nor answer all the questions.
However, over a period of time, they gather in collective weight that helps one examine the Christian faith and make an intelligent and informed choice to follow Jesus.
I think of causal conversations over a bar-b-que at a picnic, friendly chatter at a stay-at-home dad’s group, or casual chit-chat while playing golf.
In your life, you might be able to recall several individual conversations that eventually pointed you to faith in Christ.
2. God’s self-revelation
God sometimes will reveal Himself in some way to the person seeking to find Him.
This might come in the form of an answered prayer, a clear act of guidance, or an encounter in worship.
This might come while reading the Bible for the first or second time, or while admiring the beauty of nature.
In my journey to faith, there were two distinct moments where I was aware of God’s self-revelation. One was an answered prayer, and the other was the night I decided to follow Jesus with my life.
I have coached people (see: Do you Need Evangelism coaching?) who have similar stories of a self-revelation of God.
This moment is part of their journey to faith. Moments like this helped them discover that God is real and wants to be involved in their life.
3. Contemplations or Reflections
I am convinced that many go through times in their life when their brain mulls over spiritual things.
You might remember a moment like this:
- What happens when I die?
- How can I find peace in the face of death?
- How can I know forgiveness?
- How can I find purpose and direction in life?
- Is life here on earth meaningful, or purposeless?
These life questions pop into our minds from time to time.
Sometimes these questions show up during major life transitions. Other times they show up when life seems to be falling apart.
I know that I have experienced these questions while backpacking up a mountain to take in the vista from the peak.
I had them when I was on a small boat out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean under the starlight sky with no moon.
These questions burden our soul. Sometimes they keep us awake at 2 in the morning. Other times, they dance in our brain when we feel the need to think about life at that level.
I am convinced that the Holy Spirit uses these contemplative moments to point out our spiritual yearnings. The Holy Spirit raises our desire to connect with God. The Holy Spirit uses these moments to increase our desire to participate in God’s kingdom instead of our own.
4. Sermons
I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the moments when you hear the proclamation of the Word of God.
I have met many people who started going to church because of the first three moments listed here. Those moments prepared them to accept someone’s invitation to church.
A small diet of excellent preaching is often used by the Holy Spirit to help people discover their faith.
The Holy Spirit empowers the preaching to communicate to the deep areas of the human heart.
Let me ask you this?
What would you add to this list? What helped you come to faith in Christ?
Share it with us in the comment section below. I’d like to come up with a list of 10 and could use your help.
Fear Free Evangelism Case Study
@Mike
Thanks for dropping by and reading today. The more I’ve pondered about my journey to faith, and those of others, the more I am convinced that there are many stages in the journey to faith.
We need to see evangelism more as a process, rather than a 4 minute event and consider how we can help move people through stages.
Great points!! God’s word tells us that the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance all the Lord said. God’s Word when we study it, read it will be readily available for us by the Holy Spirit to properly give an answer to those with whom we share.