READING: Ezekiel 33-34, 2 Peter 1
I’ve often told about my seventh-grade classmate, Randy, who introduced me to the gospel. His approach was in-your-face, confrontational, even rude sometimes. In fact, he would meet me at the classroom door as I arrived and remind me, “Chuck, it’s a good thing you lived through the night.” “You’d be in hell right now if you hadn’t,” he would tell me. Day after day and month after month during my entire seventh-grade year, Randy hammered me with my need to follow Jesus.
As a professor of evangelism today, I might question whether Randy’s technique was the best approach to take. As a child of God grateful for my salvation, though, I’m glad Randy took seriously his responsibility to share the gospel with me. The setting was obviously different, but he saw himself as, using the language of today’s Old Testament reading, a watchman who “sees the sword coming against the land and blows his trumpet to warn the people” (Ezek 33:3). He knew that I would be responsible for my choices if I determined not to follow Jesus, but he also knew he would answer to God if he did not warn me: “However, suppose the watchman sees the sword coming but doesn’t blow the trumpet, so that the people aren’t warned, and the sword comes and takes away their lives. Then they have been taken away because of their iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood” (Ezek 33:6).
Randy loved God enough to want to be obedient to Him, and he loved me enough to keep warning me. I am most grateful, indeed.
PRAYER: “God, remind me of the seriousness of my failure to tell others about Jesus.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Ezekiel 35-37, 2 Peter 2-3
