What do you have that I don't?

A few years ago a friend, surprised by the obvious changes that God was generating in my life, asked me bluntly: What is it about your religion that you make it so special, that you spend the day talking about Jesus to the point of boredom? What do you have that I don't? The answer for me was simple. Christ !, I replied and he gave me a face like the Joker from the American deck game. I tried to explain the Good News to her in the simplest way possible, I told her about mutual friends who had found in Christ the light for their lives quenched by sin.

It was a glorious morning for his life, for mine, and for the patient heart of our Lord. Jacinto understood the message, his condition as a sinner and surrendered to Christ with his pair of eyes hydrated by a sea of tears that spoke of a repentance such that his lips were unable to express. Before that day, I had many opportunities to tell my friend Jacinto about Christ, but "at the ninth hour," I lacked the courage. Since Christ is ultimately the author of the work and I never had the initiative to break the ice and preach to him, He moved my friend's heart to ask me the question that ultimately turned out to be the detonator that brought Jacinto to his feet. What do you have that I don't?

The miracle of conversion is a wonderful event. Only the Spirit can do it, but it is necessary to fill ourselves with courage and speak of Christ to people “to the point of boredom,” as Jacinto used to tell me. Most of the time we feel unable to reach out to the people we love and share the gospel with them. Other times we fall innocently into the presumption that our testimony is enough to impact unsaved friends. God has given us all the tools to announce his Word, especially the Spirit, who gives us power, courage and a type of passion that we cannot express.

We focus on prayer, but we lack the audacity and daring to confront a life with the Word of God by doing our part as disciples of Christ. We have to try again and again at any cost regardless of the immediate results. Sowing the seed of the Gospel can be painful, but the joy of heaven breaks our soul with indescribable emotions when we see a repentant sinner allowing Christ to enter his life. Yes, growth is given by God, but nothing will happen if we do not undertake the blessed task of sowing his Word. Every day we lose dozens of possibilities to allow God to perform the miracles of softening hardened hearts of that huge multitude of people who wait for us to approach them with a word of hope and love. There is a crisis of love in our day. It is hard to say, but our disobedience in preaching the Word denotes in a way that we need to fill ourselves with love for the lost.

When the Pharisees asked Jesus what was the most important commandment, He did not hesitate to give them the irrefutable answer according to his divine condition: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. , and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself ”(Luke 10:27). This is not only the first commandment (instruction, disposition), but the spring that touches the most sensitive fibers of our hearts and moves us to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If each of the millions of Christians in the world made the purpose of sowing a simple seed and promoting the Good News as a mission of life, the world would be different. It depends on us to a great extent.

There are many around us who look like Jacinto and even ask the same question or are looking for Christians to ask. But sometimes we turn our heads or simply take refuge in the bunker of religiosity so as not to see our neighbor that we must love as ourselves. Worse still, we keep them at a distance from a carnal indifference disguised as a colossal conformism that makes us worse sinners. The Gospel is love for those who walk in the world with no roads to walk on, and you and I must be attentive to the commanding voice of our Savior. For that we are his witnesses in a world hungry for the true God.

God bless you!