Talking To People About God: Part 1 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. Welcome to a new week. I love opening God’s Word, the Bible with you each weekday morning at this time to just spend some time with God, because God wants to speak into our lives, and we look at the most practical issues.

This week I want to talk to you very specifically if you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus, I want to talk with you about talking with people in your life about God.

Talking with people about God.

Well, today I just want you to be aware that people want to talk with you about God.

I know, I used to be so nervous and uptight about starting conversations about God with people in my life, because I had this impression in my mind that the last thing people want to do is have a conversation about God with a Christian. They don’t want to have God shoved down their throats.

Well, let me tell you, that’s true. Nobody wants anything shoved down their throats, but that’s very different from having a meaningful conversation about God with someone.

You think about how many of the encounters in the Bible with people who didn’t know God started because that person wanted to have a conversation about God. You remember the story in Acts chapter 8 about Philip on the desert road.

Hearing that Ethiopian government official riding along in his chariot and reading out loud from the prophet Isaiah, and Philip just asked him, Do you understand what you’re reading? And he said, Well, how can I unless someone helps me? And he invited Philip up into his chariot to have a conversation about God.

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You remember Jesus encountering the woman at the well and asking for a drink, and she was amazed that he’d reach across that cultural racial barrier to ask a Samaritan for a drink, and she commented on that, and he said, Well, do you know you could ask me, and I would give you living water. Well, that simply invited her into a deeper conversation, and it led to a beautiful conversation about God, a conversation she wanted to have.

Zacchaeus in the Bible had heard all about Jesus, the impact he was making on people, and he wanted to have a conversation with Jesus. He climbed up into a tree so he could get a view of Jesus, and Jesus noticed him and said, Come down. I want to talk with you. I’ll come to your house and have a conversation about God with you. And Zacchaeus was excited to have that conversation. It changed his life.

Nicodemus came to Jesus in the evening to have a conversation about God with him, and I want you to know that there’s so many people in your life who want to have a meaningful conversation about God.

If you’re listening this morning and you’re not a Christian, but you would love to have a conversation about God, with Christians who really know God and you know a Christian – Well, help out your nervous Christian friend and just straight up ask them about God and how to start a relationship with Him. They’ll talk with you about what God means to them.

But if you’re a Christian, just recognise this. People all around you, they don’t want you to cram something down their throat, but they do want to have conversations about God. They’re curious.

My wife is going for physiotherapy right now, and her physiotherapist just asked her, I hear about Easter, but I don’t know anything about it. I’m a Buddhist. Can you tell me about Easter and what it means?

Well, that was just a simple conversation about God, right? And she was able to share with him the beautiful story about God reaching into our world, fixing our own brokenness.

Jesus came into our world. He suffered and died on the cross to make a way for us to have a relationship with God and Jesus rose from the dead to give us eternal life. And this is what we celebrate Easter about.

Well, people around you, people in your life also want to have conversations about God. So start talking about God with people in your life.

I’m John North.

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