September 24, 2008

Grace Abounding: Rejection is Good

Last night, Matt and I hit the streets of York again. This time, it seemed people were walking around all over the place for such a small downtown city area. We gave away some tracts, talked with a few people about why the gospel is good news, again using Romans 5:6 as our text. Although a few people were open, most rejected us. I am used to getting rejected, and it is good for me to not always have huge success in witnessing, because it reminds me that 1) people are lost without the power of God's grace, 2) people are naturally enemies of Christ, 3) Jesus promised we would not be liked, 4) it keeps my heart from resting in this world, 5) it makes prayer a necessity. We did pray afterward for some of the people we met. We also prayed that the Lord would drive away all the religious demons in that city, and that people's hearts would be opened to the good news. Man-made religion seems to make hearts twice as hard as they normally are, and that seems to be the case often in York.

There are probably more reasons why rejection is good for me. It makes me laugh to think of what Bob says in Pittsburgh, "The Lord knew we needed the rejection today." Praise God! I'm looking forward to seeing answered prayers! Yesterday I was simply praising God that He always hears my prayers and that He answers me in supernatural ways. To me, that is just amazing, because I do not feel like one worthy of the same experiences as those in the Bible, but that is what we are - supernatural children. That is also one of the privileges of being a child of God by grace through faith in Christ (1 John 5:14-15).

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

This post reminded me of a verse I read the other day in Luke - "Woe to you when all men speak well of you..."

That's funny about your friend Bob. I have a friend who always says, "God knew you needed it!" even if it's something I don't see as good!

Hey, did you do the Jonah picture? What medium is that?

Anonymous said...

Hey Stephanie,
Thanks for that verse... I've often been reminded of it when people do speak well of me.

The Jonah picture is watercolor and color pencil. I did it for an illustration class in graphic design college. I used it to preach the gospel in my speech class then that year ;)

Stephanie said...

Great picture! I like the effect of watercolor and color pencil together. So how did that go over when you used it to preach the gospel in your class? :)

I've recently got into watercolor so maybe I'll post one of my pics one of these days...

Penn Tomassetti said...

Stephanie,
That is really cool that you are trying out watercolor. I like it because of the drawing effects it can have. That illustration was for a children's story, so I picked the best children's book - the Bible!

Since I went to a secular college, people there were mostly non-believers or somewhere in between. It was an interesting experience. I used to use opportunities like that to say what I could, however I didn't know half as much as I do now, nevertheless I had the zeal.

One guy in my class tried to refute the Bible by talking about the Da Vinci Code story before the book came out. The teacher asked him where he got his info, and he couldn't answer, so he ended up looking like a fool. I walked home with him that day and talked with him. We became friends, but I didn't convert him. Those were my early days after my true awakening.