Let Love lead

0:10 So there was this time that I argued with someone, and I walked away feeling like I'd won the argument. But later God told me I'd actually lost.

0:23 Hi, welcome. Welcome back to Rooted With Me, for me. Here, timeless biblical truth is brought into everyday life in a way that's clear, honest, and grounded. And I'm glad you are here. So how are you? How has your week been? Mine has been quite demanding. We have this modulating our church called Past, which is basically short for prayer and fasting. It's our time of consecration. It's always powerful. But one thing about consecration is it stretches you and it humbles you. Yesterday at work I saw about four different people eating plantains at different times and it felt like torture.

1:08 Like why did all of you choose planting of all things today? But thank God He saw me through, and I trust Him to continue to see me through this season as I learned to find my delight in Him. Anyway, back to my story. Some time ago I met this lady who told me she doesn't believe in organized religion. Mind you, she grew up in a church, her parents were committed, tragic green people, and if I remember correctly, I think either her dad or uncle was a pastor in the church. I'm not sure, but I know that one of our close family members was a church here at some point.

1:51 Another thing to notice, she currently works for a church as a media person. She loves everything media like. She's good at it. So to build her portfolio, she took a job creating content for the church, capturing the best moments of their service. I think when I spoke with her, she does more of the editing. Yeah, she likes to. She likes to do the editing. She can do all that stuff, but she just likes to do the editing. So she can edit the pictures, she can edit the videos to make them look very good, appealing to the eye and stuff like that.

2:21 Yes, she didn't really believe in any of it. Or to put it better, I don't think it's the thing where she didn't believe in any of it. She just had so many doubts and concerns about the Christianity that just made her to decide she doesn't believe in religion or organized religion, as she would have said. She said she believed in a higher power, but she just wasn't very convinced. So of course, I took it as a challenge. I switch into apologetics mode quickly, like very quickly. And OK, just in case you're wondering, apologetics basically means explaining and defending the faith.

2:58 So Peter in first Peter 3 verse 15 was speaking to the individuals and he's telling them to always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope within us. That's what apologetics is all about, responding to the deep questions people have. Is God real? Did Jesus actually exists? Has the Bible been corrupted? Is God misogynistic? Does he support slavery? How many more questions like that? Anyway, I started asking her questions, trying to understand where her doubts were coming from, and then I was just mapping out answers in my mind.

3:35 So the moment I got my chance, I only did everything I had. The proofs of the existence of God, the case for Christ, and some clarifications and misconceptions about God and woman or Gods attitude and approach towards women. And every time she raised a concern, I basically had a response for her like. And in that moment I felt all the time I'd spent studying apologetics was finally paying off. So anyway, some of our questions are things I'd already encountered before. Some I had not maybe heard the question directly like that, but because of a number of things that I already knew, it was not difficult to necessarily answer the questions to give reasonably enough answers.

4:18 And I could tell that she was wrestling with a lot of what we had discussed. So I just hope that God would cause the seeds to grow in our hearts and lead her to Christ someday. Because she even talked about how why are people always, you know, approaching and asking her this? Because I genuinely did not know anything about the lady. I just felt prompted to ask her, oh, what church do you go to? And it was from dead. Everything started. So on my way home that D God spoke. It was Claire. It was gentle, it was direct.

4:47 Said he told her everything, but he forgot to tell her about my love for her.

4:56 I froze. It hits like a brick. In that moment I wasn't trying to save her, I was trying to win, and you can win an argument and still lose a soul. That day was after I became very sober. Essentially, apologetics is good, but love is what actually leads a person to life. I want to put a quick disclaimer before I go on like it isn't an it will never be our efforts that save people because there's also the tendency to think that's like, because God spoke to me in that way, someone might think, oh, so if I went with love, would I have any better part?

5:38 Would I have been what saved her? You must understand that it's not us. Salvation is the work of God. We plant with water, but God is one who makes his world grow in a person's hearts. People still have a choice to respond to the call of God. So still God, I'll do the actual calling. Still God, I'll do the actual conviction. But we have a party play in what? Sowing those seeds? Also, I'm not speaking against apologetics. In fact, more recently, a friend of mine who spends our pastors reached out to me with a question.

6:10 He has grown up in church all his life. He has served in the church. He has lived around the things of God all his life. But he had questions, deep ones, and I was reminded in that moment that the things I know are not common knowledge. Even Christians have doubts, fears, uncertainties. And so this time, by the grace of God, I answered him with loving mind, not too sure of what I knew, but to strengthen him, to give him clarity and to bring hope back. So apologetics matters, and there will be a good amount of it here on the Rooted.

6:42 I kid you not. I'm not saying it's going to be everything. I'm not saying it's going to be the majority, but a number of times one of the things that we don't here is answer some of those burning questions that people have and it could be as well to answer them. So maybe someday if somebody else asks, we can give them the answer. We look at God's true heart in situations people are sometimes scared to ask about. But in other of this feel like I've said but so many times, but none of this love must still lead.

7:13 So as much as we are not the ones who save people and it is God who does the actual saving, and as much as apologetics is good and essential, love must lead. I want you to picture this. Let's say you're standing in a huge debate stage. Lights, camera, action, audience pressure, everything. Your pride is on the line. You want to assert yourself as a more dominant force. You want to show that your voice is the more convincing 1 Everything about how you'd prepare your arguments, how you would illustrate, how you would demonstrate your hands, everything to the smallest details.

7:51 You would ensure that you will find them just so that you come out on top, or your entire approach will be different. If you're speaking to someone who was on the very verge of committing suicide, your tone would soften, your posture would shift, your urgency would increase.

8:11 Winning an argument is about a certain force. It's about protecting your pride or trying to stop someone from dying. That's about convincing them that there's still a reason to live, that there is still hope. In the same way, when we approach people with the gospel, our goal isn't to defeat them or isn't to win an argument. It's to rescue them. The idea is to save them, have them saved to convince them that even if they might be spiritually dead, and when I say spiritually dead, I mean separated from God, there is still hope.

8:43 There is Christ, our living hope. So the aim is not to conquer people, but to save them. And I won't lie, it's hard sometimes, especially when the person is maybe hostile or pushing your buttons or you must let love lead in those meant when he just feels like everything, you just wants to rise and just wants to battle it out. You must let love lead. Give them a reason to believe that Jesus Christ loves them enough and wants to have a relationship with them after God. You stop loving you despite how difficult you were at different times or how difficult we've been at difficult times in our lives.

9:26 So let love lead. And that's a wrap for today's episode. Please, if you're not following, please follow, turn on your notification so you know when another episode drops. Ideally, episodes drop every Friday, so Fridays should be the day you're looking out. All your alerts give a rating as well. And share this with someone. Let them know that love most leaders in our evangelism, in our apologetics, in our dealing with both believers and unbelievers, just like Christ. So bye for now, stay rooted.