7 Step Follow-Up

[HKHaugan]

Following up, the Next Step

What we did last time was to share how the 7-fold witness sequence works. But there's more (see yesterday). After the child is found you start a conversation. The absent minded mother had other things on her mind while she was shopping. That happens and there may be a 'why?' attached. Why was she distracted? A family matter maybe or some other relational issue. Gather yourself spiritually then open the conversation with something like how glad you were there to comfort her child. Then you might identify part of the thought process you were going through that was mentioned last time, when the lonely child is like the lonely and lost people in the world.

This is not getting preachy. It's real. It's simply stepping out in faith and how one word can lead to another. A real conversation may ensue. The next thing you know you might be sharing your own story of having been lost and were found. Or how you found an answer to a relational problem by faithfully reaching out to the Lord. Keep it simple. It's your story. The most valid kind. Don't worry about the reaction you get. You're seed planting and it's your special time to be the unique person God created just for that moment. You planted the seed. Someone else will water it and someone else will reap the harvest. That's how it worked in the 1^st century and how it's meant to work now.

There is another aspect that we need to understand as well. That is you won't necessarily have time to sequence your responses. That's why you rehearse them and practice them. The sequence is a way to get your mind in spiritual gear so that you'll be ready when the moment presents itself. It's something you can do while you are on the way. There's a good chance one or more of those seven points will be where you need to move.

There is one thing in the sequence that is a constant and that is the first one, think spiritually. Thinking spiritually is how we preface our day and it is good to repeat it as you go through a day so that you will see the actual reality of the events going on about you.

One way to keep spiritual thinking in the forefront is to remember this thought: we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Everything has a spiritual base. We just need to keep that up front.

There are no 'cookie cutter' responses just like there are no 'cookie cutter' believers. Each of us is unique in eternity. No one is the same as any other. Each situation is unique and we are the ones in it who know we have the opportunity to be the unique person for that moment no matter what the response. If there is any message about the Gospel that needs constant affirmation it is how unique each of us are. We know that because Jesus was uniquely the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is the unique Spirit Person of God and the Father is the unique authority Person whose will is unique. The unique character of God is His Oneness in three persons. He is the perfect balanced interpersonal God. That is the image in which we have been made. This is the image Jesus came to restore in us. So Jesus did not just came to die for generic humanity. He died for each one of us as persons because we are unique, uniquely precious to Him, uniquely designed and called to be in a unique relationship with Him. Our personal purpose and mission may be guided by the same principle, to bring people to Him, but the way we do it is unique because of our unique relationship with Him. We are the only ones who can do that n the life we have been given. We just can't let the opportunity go by.

Yes, death, sin and evil exist as enemies but enemies of the freedom for which we were made in Christ. It's the freedom to think and evaluate our eternal individuality so we can help others escape the temporary and its numbing conformist anxieties. Grace, love and truth are the qualities of God that free us to think in an eternal context with principles that are absolute. They free us from self-centeredness that lives only for the moment. That's what enslaves us. We think eternally not temporarily therefore how each of those is experienced will influence us according to the unique persons we are. The Word of God is eternally the same and God is unchangeable but He has made us each to have special relationship with Him.

It is the devil who would make us all the same, to think only how to fit in to needs and desires of the moment. That's why fear and pride alienate us from allowing the Lord to guide us personally and to really love others. They operate to keep us conforming to the world's standards of acceptance and worth which last only as long as their trophies are seen by others so that we never ever really have a relationship that uses the depth of our creativity as persons.

So we practice the sequence, pray for opportunity to minister and to share, keep thinking spiritually and watch the real work produce spiritual fruit. “For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which god has prepared in advance for us to do (Eph.2:10).” Faith in Jesus is our work in every next moment. When we look forward through faith the Holy Spirit will bring Jesus through us to others. He gets the glory, we get the blessing and God gets His Kingdom built.