September 11, 2014
As My Father sent Me, so send I you. I send you out into a world of hurt and loss, pain and suffering, heartbreak and loneliness, need and yearning, so you can give this lost and lonely world what I have given you. Pour out My love, compassion, and understanding to those who need it so desperately.
Let Me love and help others through you. Wherever you are and whatever situation you’re in, there are people nearby who need what you have to give them. Some will receive it and others will not. Some will even criticize you or berate you for your witness. But whether they receive or forbear, you have been My messenger and have fulfilled your responsibility.
Please don’t make them wait any longer for the love, life, and hope that I have available for them. I not only want to give them eternal life, I also want to give them life more abundant here and now—more abundant love, peace, contentment, understanding, and fulfillment. I want to transform their lives both on earth and in the hereafter.
Give them the chance to receive all that I want to give them. Even if they don’t receive Me or My message through you, My Word never returns void.1 Your witness is never wasted; it always has an effect.
Your words of friendship and concern demonstrate My love and concern for them, that I want to be their friend forever. For those who have few faithful friends, that fills a great need. Your sympathy and understanding touches their heart. Your praise and thankfulness is a light in the darkness of the world. Your peace and trust and certainty of hope in the midst of life’s storms are something that they will yearn for. The genuine love they see in you is like sitting in front of a warm fireplace on a cold winter night.
Upon experiencing this, many will want to receive and experience Me as well, and that is a great victory. But even if they don’t, their life will have been touched in some way, and this will work in their lives, producing change. As they change, even subconsciously in some cases, those around them will change as well, because no man is an island. Everyone has influence, and when you influence a person for good, that person influences others for good as well, and the ripples of My love continue outward from your witness.
Some will harden themselves and reject the message, but even then, your witness is not wasted. I am working in the hearts of these people as well, just as I worked in the hearts of Paul and others down through the ages who did not immediately accept Me, but who eventually came to believe in Me.
For those who do receive Me, whether during your witness or afterwards, how I rejoice! They’ve opened the doors of their hearts to Me and we can commune together. I will rejoice, for My son or daughter who was lost has now been found and is forever Mine. Now My Spirit can work in their lives, helping them become the new creatures that I promised they would be.2
So never underestimate the power of a witness. Those around you need Me and all that I have to offer, and My gifts that go on giving forever!
Almost everybody has heard of God or an afterlife of some sort. But you’d be surprised how few people are actually convinced in their hearts that these truths are real. And those who don’t know often suffer terribly in this uncertain world.
Think about every struggle in which you’ve had to hold on to Me, every disappointment that almost crushed you, every forsaking that was difficult, every tough job that you struggled through. Stop and think about the hard things in your life. Then realize that those who don’t know Me also experience these things but without the assurance of help from Me, or any comforting motivation that things will work out all right in the end, or any promise that they will be rewarded and repaid for the sacrifices.
The lost suffer from every blow of life, often with little consolation in sight. No matter how much someone acts as though they don’t need Me, or even says they don’t need Me, no one is spared from the trials of life. No one escapes having to do things they hate doing, or dealing with death and loss, or suffering ill health, heartbreak, and disappointment. And without Me, without an understanding of My plan, they may often conclude that these hardships and difficulties are cruel fates in a cruel world.
There are many depressed, lonely‚ or addicted people in the world. Many people even die prematurely of sickness that they could otherwise overcome if they had a will to live. Without a vision, the people perish, and I am the only one who can help them to make sense out of life. I am the great redeeming factor in the midst of the seeming contradictions of human existence.
So, if you see someone who appears to be doing all right without Me, and you feel shy or hesitant about offering them salvation—or maybe they’re even saved, but they have unanswered questions—just remember that, although they may not appear to have an obvious need for Me, they are as human as you are, and they have suffered, are suffering‚ and will continue to suffer many difficulties and hardships in life. Without Me and My answers, each hardship can make them feel more lost, more heartbroken, and depending on their choices, possibly more bitter and depressed and despairing.
When you’re face to face with someone who needs Me, you have the chance to offer them the answers that will make sense out of it all, give them true hope for the future, and the opportunity to cash in on the promise that all things can start to work together for good in their life, just as it does in yours. Everybody needs that. Everybody needs answers to the hardships of life, because no matter how together someone looks or seems, no one is complete on their own. Everybody suffers, everybody hurts, and everybody asks “Why?”
If you truly see My sacrifice for you as the priceless, life-changing gift that it is, you’ll be compelled to share this gift with others.
It doesn’t matter whether you feel love for the person you’re witnessing to or not; if you have faith in My Word and you love Me, then you’ll know that through sharing the Good News, you can change that person’s whole world with relatively small effort.
Love is primarily manifested by action. Don’t let the concept of “love for the lost” discourage you if you don’t have a lot of feelings. If you are willing to come face to face with those who need Me, and do your part to help fill their needs for friendship and answers, and help them to grow in their understanding of Me, then you have love for the lost, because you love them enough to get up and do something about it. You love them enough to step out of your pride and your comfort zone to bring them My gift of salvation and My love. In My books, that’s real love.
Originally published May 2009 and November 2007. Adapted and republished September 2014. Read by Simon Peterson.
Copyright © 2024 The Family International