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Pastoral and Personal Evangelism
As God speaks to us through His Word, so we talk with Him in prayer, and the place and surroundings are of little rela tive importance, as we are always with Him and He with us. The word we speak and the act we perform is the expression of Himself, and the impression is bound to be His as well, for our association with Him takes others into His presence as they communicate and associate with us. We may pray be fore and after and as we speak with others, and do it so nat urally and impulsively that we may actually live in the atmos phere of prayer without hypocrisy and without pretense. And prayer will become more and more a power in our work as we approach individuals from the very presence of the unseen but not unknown God. Assurance and confidence result, and we are agreeably surprised with ourselves to find that our happi ness does not depend so much upon the evidence of our suc cess as upon the consciousness of our faithfulness. We will also seek to win others to Christ that they too may be used by His Spirit and associated with Him, rather than simply to obtain salvation; not what we can do for them, but what God’s Spirit can and will do with them. The Spirit of God will also lead us to gain from others the experiences and methods through which they have gone to learn to do this work for Him; hence conferences and testi mony will take on new life and gain keener interest. We will overlook littleness, and the greatness of God is seen in His confidence placed in those who win others to Him. Criticism will give place to appreciation and suggestion to expressions of gratitude. We will see in others what God sees, and fail to see what we have seen before by way of fault and error. We will also learn to take the difficult things to God in prayer instead of taking them to men in controversy, and will be sur prised to find how many easily adjust themselves for us. God’s Spirit will also prompt us to spend longer seasons alone and seriously think upon life’s greatest issues and values. Prayer will be less general and more specific and individual.
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