Committing Not To Quit
Monday, I spent the afternoon with Enrico, a good Italian friend that I have had for 7 years now.
For the last couple years, we have not been able to really “crack the surface” of spiritual matters. This has weighed heavy on my heart.
A couple posts ago, I explained how I lost another friend to suicide. The friend who died was a mutual of both myself and Enrico. On the day of the funeral, we met for coffee and began to discuss our other friend’s life. I explained to Enrico how I had sat for hours with our other friend and shared the Good News. I shared with him how close our friend was to turning to the Power of the Word of God. Then, with all sincerity of heart and boldness in the Lord, I looked straight into Enrico’s eyes and said, “You and I haven’t spent much time lately talking about spiritual matters. My prayer for you is that you will come to see the treasures of the Bible and really know Jesus Christ. Would you give me 15 minutes to just sit down with you and share some of the things I was sharing with Marcello lately?” His answer was, “Sure, I’m off on Monday. Come on over to the house, and I’ll fix you pasta and we can talk about these things.” You cannot feel the surprise and the “change” through this blog. This is truly a remarkable answer in northern Italy.
Now, I have to back into this a little bit. For the past couple of months, myself and two deacons have been interceding for 9 men - 3 each. We share their names among each other. We pray for them. We step into their lives before the Lord. In essence, much of the work was already accomplished through prayer.
As we spent the afternoon together, we talked about all kinds of things. He fed me a wonderful pasta and - for lack of a better description - Veal knee in broth. It was ‘nummy and gummy; a real “missions experience.” I had my computer with me and made a CD of his son’s birthday party. Yet, at the end, I felt under great pressure. This was not guilt-pressure, but rather, Divine obligation and urgency. I knew I was called to Italy for this time, place, person, and moment. So I took the Word of God into my friend’s living room and asked to spend 15 minutes with him to begin sharing precious news.
We started in Acts 10 & 11. The first Gentile who was saved, who understood redeeming-repentance, was an Italian man - Cornelius. So we started with that very rich Bible word - ravvedimento (repentance). Jesus told religious people, “Ravvedetivi”. Religion couldn’t change the heart. People saying they believe in God or that He exists does not mean they’re following hard after Him. So we talked about the blinding nature of religion that doesn’t resolve sin. Enrico then said to me, “So Robert, what you’re telling me is that I need to get moving in my spiritual life…” An acceptable statement at this point and quite surprising since we haven’t been able to break the surface in spiritual things in a long time. The simple answer was “Si.” Then Enrico’s wife entered the room and sat down. I re-capped. At that point, Laura began asking Enrico if they could return to the LifeTeam (an Italian small group in our church). We also talked about the new Italian congregation and why it was so important for me to share these things with them. I simply explained that if I couldn’t share the treasures of the Word of God with them, then I was being disobedient and making a huge mistake while living in Italy — making Italian friends and never sharing with them the life-changing Truth. I was very transparent and honestly exposed my motives. As I explained that, Laura’s eyes filled up with tears - the first-fruits of ravvedimento - and they thanked me for being their friend for so long. I’m hoping for eternity here. We prayed together and coordinated when we would see each other next. They will be at the Italian small group this coming week. I’m going to bring our son so he can play together with his so that mom and dad can spend time together before the Word.
I drove away with a renewed commitment - not to quit on my unsaved friends while they are still alive.
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