How to react when the person you’ve shared the gospel with says no to Jesus

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Bobby and here’s a conversation I had. I was at the weekly meeting of a Christian group I was a part of at my college.

I was there early and, as the band practiced the worship set, an international student from East Asia walked in.

So to make him feel welcome, I introduced myself. He had heard music coming from the room as he was walking by and he wanted to see what was going on.

As we talked, I was able to tell him what our group was about and that we connect people to God through Jesus. He was interested to know more, but the meeting was starting.

However, he agreed to get coffee with me the next day and continue the conversation.

So the next day we met up at Starbucks and I was able to talk about the gospel with him using the Knowing God Personally tool in the GodTools app.

And what was special about this conversation was that I used the parallel language feature for the first time. I shared each point in English, and then also in his native language.

And as we went through each point, I could tell that reading it in his own language was helping him to understand the gospel more deeply. He told me he had never heard this message before and he was amazed that God wants to forgive people for free, without earning it.

But when we got to the last point I asked him if he would want to begin a relationship with Jesus by faith. He looked at me, with longing but also resistance, and he told me he couldn’t receive a gift like this, that he wasn’t able to accept it for free, he would have to earn it.

Now sadly, I wasn’t able to help him get past that and later we lost contact. But not long after that I saw him again. I was glad to see that God was continuing to work in his life. And I believe I am just one of the many ways Christ is pursuing a relationship with him.