Aim for Repentance Rather than a Decision
As you witness, divorce yourself from the thought that
you are merely seeking “decisions for Christ.”
What we should be seeking is repentance within the heart.
This is the purpose of the Law, to bring the knowledge
of sin. How can a man repent if he doesn’t know
what sin is? If there is no repentance, there is no
salvation. Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you
shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). God is
not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
Many don’t understand that the salvation of a
soul is not a resolution to change a way of life, but
“repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord
Jesus Christ.” The modern concept of success in
evangelism is to relate how many people were “saved”
(that is, how many prayed the “sinner’s
prayer”). This produces a “no decisions,
no success” mentality. This shouldn’t be,
because Christians who seek decisions in evangelism
become discouraged after a time of witnessing if “no
one came to the Lord.” The Bible tells us that
as we sow the good seed of the gospel, one sows and
another reaps. If you faithfully sow the seed, someone
will reap. If you reap, it is because someone has sown
in the past, but it is God who causes the seed to grow.
If His hand is not on the person you are leading in
a prayer of committal, if there is not God-given repentance,
then you will end up with a stillbirth on your hands,
and that is nothing to rejoice about. We should measure
our success by how faithfully we sowed the seed. In
that way, we will avoid becoming discouraged.
“If you have not repented,
you will not see the inside of the kingdom of God.”
Billy Graham
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