worship could impact non-Christians bringing them to Christ . You seem to possess this focus as well . Integrous evangelism , not to be confused with evangelicalism , is a beautiful thing . What are your thoughts here ?
[ Stephen ] Well , again , when I was away from the Lord , when I was around 11 , I started smoking marijuana and drinking . At 15 , it was cocaine and pills . At 17 , I became a crystal meth addict and hated Jesus . But some people were praying for me . And somebody came and gave me this book about Jesus called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel . And I miraculously accepted it at three o ’ clock in the morning reading this book , I just remember telling the Lord , I want to give you my life . I want to quit all this stuff . I literally had drugs on the side table next to me . By the way , it was not in a church service . It was the most , it was the seemingly most impossible and improbable place for somebody to get saved . And in this flipped space , I had a legitimate moment where I knew he was there . I knew I was having an internal conversation with him , and I was like , I want to do this . I want to let it go . And I just remember being like , “ I want to quit all this , but I can ’ t . There ’ s no way . It ’ s all I ’ d known for so long .” And I just remember the Lord being like , “ You won ’ t do it . I ’ ll do it .” And it was that Ephesians 2:8 you ’ re saved by grace . This isn ’ t something you can boast about . It ’ s a work of God .
But there is something we can do . It ’ s John 6:29 . The only work the Father asks of you is to believe . And that ’ s all I did . I believed , and I accepted that He meant what He said , and I gave my life to Christ . So today , what I ’ ve realized from that is that I thought I knew who I was .
Some of the people that I meet that aren ’ t believers yet and stuff , the biggest thing is that we think we know who we are . We think we figured out we ’ ve lived so much life . You ’ re not going to trick me in to doing something . And I think the question I always ask people is , “ Do you want to know who you really are ? Who you really are , fully alive . You can ’ t know that person until you give your life to Jesus . And I don ’ t need you to join my church because I don ’ t have a physical church that I need you to come to . I don ’ t need your email . I don ’ t need you to go buy my CD or my LP or go follow me on Instagram . I just want to find out who you really are in Jesus .”
I ’ ve found that coming out of what I came out of , and now being in this position of seeing so many people come to Christ through my life , the biggest thing I ’ ve always asked myself is , “ Are you doing this ? Do you actually love people ? Or are you doing this to get a following ?” And I ’ ve found that when I do it out of this place of actually caring about people , and them starting to actually come alive , that ’ s the goal . That ’ s the win . That ’ s it . I think you start to see a lot more fruitful evangelism . The evangelistic thing is almost like a denomination or something . It ’ s like we ’ re trying to get people to join a thing . I don ’ t need you to join a thing . I need you to know who you really are in Him . The other stuff
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