speaking to my friends about the Lord is a battle, so we need to pray for our friends to be saved!

Not long after I got saved in the Lord, I started to have a burden for my best friend; I really wanted to introduce this wonderful Christ to her. I still remembered a brother once shared that he did not have much Bible knowledge, but the zeal of his heart for the absoluteness of the gospel overcame any other thing and he just started preaching Christ to his classmates. So, one early morning, after my morning watch, I called my best friend. I started to speak whatever I knew about Christ, starting from Genesis, the two trees, Adam and Eve, how the Lord came into me to be my life, etc. The more I spoke, the more my heart was jumping, and the more I became so burdened to get my friend saved. She was so patient in listening to me and was eager to ask questions. She was also very honest to me that she would never ever believe into Christ due to all the scientific proofs. However, one thing she could not understand was that she saw a great change in me. She said that I became so happy, always smiling, so active and talkative, as if the baptism really did bring the old Yee Yee into death (Rom. 6:4). I did not give up on her and also invited her to have some time with me and with my spiritual mother. However, she strongly refused the gospel.

Before leaving my home country to come to the UK, I was still so burdened for my best friend. In our last gathering, I simply told her an illustration of hands and a pair of gloves (WE ARE MADE TO CONTAIN GOD: 2 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 9:21-24 – just as the glove contains the hand and has a meaning/content by having the hand filling it, so we need God as our content and the meaning of our human life). Then I gave her one of the sisters’ contact information in case she needed to meet with the saints. She appreciated the conversation and all the effort I made. But she was also really honest confessing that she would never contact this sister and was so firm in her decision that Christ is not for her. I was really upset with the outward situation as it was then. However, I remembered that bringing sinners into salvation is a spiritual warfare and it requires much prayer (Eph. 6:17-18). I was encouraged to pray for her even after I left my home country. I did not know what great things the Lord had done to her. But after 6 months, this best friend emailed me. She told me that once she felt that she was exactly in the situation where she was a pair of empty gloves, needing the hand – which is Christ – to fill up the emptiness. Without further delay, right away she called up some saints and as a son of peace just brought in salvation! Hallelujah! It was such an incentive for me to go on with the Lord and be encouraged to bring more friends into Christ.

From my first experience of gospel preaching to my friends, I learned not just to pray unceasingly, but also to have a heart to care for my friends to be saved. For this, I learned to have an aggressive desperation towards their salvation. I also learned to be patient in gospel work just as farmers sowing seeds; they could not expect a harvest the following day after the seed has been sown.

I would conclude with 1 Thes. 2:4 which says

But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men but God, who proves our hearts.

[guest post, testimony by YeeYee found also online here]