Five Minutes to Eternity

There are many bitter divisions in the world about religions. These are sometimes stumbling blocks for those who wish to bring the most important things from God to the people. God is wise, and He has given us all the answers in His Word on how to overcome these divisions and all other blockages that keep people from His love and salvation. Our goal is simple: with love and respect, invite all persons to follow Jesus Christ. The Lifestory is an oral tradition of Jesus for all the families of the earth.

We work to bless disciples with a tool that will help bring the cookies down from the upper shelf to everyone’s access. It is a gift for disciples to quickly get into live dialogue with people for the purpose of bringing each person to an opportunity to say yes or no to accepting Christ as their savior. I have similarly masked the political positions and names of others in this book.

The Israelites and Samaritans were bitterly divided. Religious practices had become a source of conflict. One of the questions that held them apart was whether God be worshiped in Jerusalem or on a mountain in Samaria. One Samaritan is quoted in John 4:20: “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain; and you Jews say, that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

Even with staunch divisions facing them, Jesus’s disciples viewed something in this scene that may help us understand that communities of all faiths can heartily agree that the infusion of Christ brought by familiar souls with a clear, short message as a primary introduction to the Lord will cause a rapid change of heart in a community withstanding cultural and traditional differences. When we tell them the truth about Him from His word, He speaks to their hearts immediately, like He did in Sychar.

With the Lifestory, we strive to pass on the calling of Christ through local people into their own cultural setting without interrupting them to becoming laborers who are personally following Jesus. He allows the passage of authority to them as they grow in grace. Accordingly, Paul mentions this in 2 Timothy 2:2: “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Jesus’s disciples felt so uneasy in Sychar, Samaria, that they stayed together as they went into the village, as it is recorded in John 4:8: “For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.” Perhaps they were more concerned about security and eating than about what status did the citizens of Sychar have with God. At the same time, Jesus was doing something quite different from them. He started live dialogue with a local person, and from the narrative it appears His dialogue contained a goal for her to come to know Him. Consider John 4:10: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you give me a drink; you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’”

We viewed the entire conversation John recorded with Jesus and the woman at the well. When repeated, it comes to less than five minutes. It is likely to have been longer than that, but it does seem to be a relatively short time. The Sycharian woman had lots of hang-ups concerning the Jews, yet she was talking to a Jew and then became so convinced of his message that she went directly back to town without her waterpot to urge the men of Sychar to come hear Him.

Within two days of hearing Jesus, the people of Sychar came to know Him as savior of the world, according to John 4:42: “Then they said to the woman: ‘Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.’”

Because of Christ’s focus on the women, many in the city sought to hear Him. It is told in John 4:39: “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’”

In present-day Sychar, Lifestory tellers approach the first person available and share the story and introduce them to Jesus. When these souls have been born again and have Him in their hearts, the tellers encourage them to share Jesus with others. This will be done usually after a short training is given on how to present the Lifestory.

Our goal for how many we will harvest is always the same: 100 percent. We focus on this target like archers, keeping in mind that the Lord wants all to come to repentance. We focus on 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

The Lifestory is a gift to help disciples engage in immediate dialogue with people for the purpose of bringing each person to Christ. This helps us achieve our goal of building up local people to be positive laborers for the harvest.

Lost souls are the harvest and are of great value, according to Mathew 16:26: “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Everyone deserves an invitation to follow Jesus. Yet most people alive today will die without receiving such a direct invitation or even a clear presentation of the Gospel. This is true even in lands where many already identify with Jesus.

It is good to remember Jesus is in the middle of our witness. Consider John 12:32: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all peoples to Myself.”

Great things are coming. For encouragement, hear that God will fulfill His promise to bless all the families of earth in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who will bless you and will curse him who will curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

We follow Jesus like other disciples follow Him. Jesus led Jon and Jerri Smith into a place where laborers are scarce. They are disciples because of their fruit, as it says in John 15:8. “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be my disciples.”

The Bible encourages us to become fruitful disciples. Take a minute to examine these steps:

• Step 1: Abide in Jesus. John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

• Step 2: Accept pruning. Quoted in John15:2: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away.” We believe this is a good reason to put away our unfruitful assumptions and practices.

• Step 3: Hear and follow Jesus. Jesus spoke clearly to the doubting people who heard Him say He is Christ, and they still doubted Him. He clarified their hearing problem and said the following in John 10:27: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

• A bit of caution should be applied to keep us from putting too much emphasis on personal stature or appearance when sharing the Gospel with others. Every single person is in the image of God and can never be discounted. Consider Mark 2:17: “When Jesus heard it, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”