DO YOU KNOW SO-AND-SO?

When I was young, there was a little country store in a place called Hatchie Bottom, in Goose Pond, Mississippi. It was just down the road from Union Center. The owner’s name was Early Crum, and his wife’s name was Short. No lie. No joke. That was actually their names. They were old even when I was young. They had retired and sold the store by the time I was a teenager. My cousin Tim and I did some work for Early one year while we were out of school for the summer.

Soon summer was over and we were back in school. I had a friend named Lisa Crum. Since she had the same name as Early and his wife, I wondered if she was related to them. So one evening on the school bus, as we were going home, I asked her a simple question. Do you know Short and Early? She said, “No, but I know long and late.” We both laughed until tears came to our eyes. I’ve been telling that story now for over 30 years, and it always gets a laugh.

Many times when I meet someone who has the same last name as another person I know, I’ll often ask them if they know So-and-So. It’s a good conversation starter, and the conversation can go on for a while if they actually do know the person.

When I was a young Christian, our church youth leaders taught us to start a conversation directly to the point by saying, “Do you know Jesus?” Well over the years, I’ve discovered that most people’s answer is yes, even though their lifestyle says the opposite, so I realized that many of them were saying they know Jesus because they know of him or about him. To truly assess the situation, a better question would be “Have you been born again?" 

We don't hear many people talking about being born again, but Jesus told Nicodemus that a person can't go the heaven otherwise (John 3:3). Because Adam sinned in the garden, we are born sinners, so we have to be born again. 

However we want to start our conversations with others, the point is, we do need to start a conversation. We need to be telling people about Jesus in some form or another. If we truly know Jesus, we should be spreading the good news about his love and sacrifice for all mankind.

When Andrew met Jesus, he went and told his brother, Peter, and the Bible says, “he brought him to Jesus” (John 1:41-42). When Philip met Jesus, he found Nathanael, and told him about Jesus, then brought him to Jesus (John 1:43-46). When the Samaritan woman at the well met Jesus, she went back to her city and told the people about Jesus and invited them to “come and see” him (John 4:28-29). That’s the biblical model. That’s what every born-again believer should be doing. When we know Jesus, we should want to tell others about him and bring them to him.

Some Christians are not as outspoken as others, and some have a hard time starting a conversation. It takes practice, but you have to start somewhere. There are many ways to witness to others, and there are many tools to help you start. You can begin by giving them a tract, a book, or a DVD or you can share a link with them to a video or a meme that has blessed you. The key is to share Jesus with others like the people in the Bible did. The more you do it the easier it will become, and you will be blessed by it as well, and many who might otherwise be lost forever may spend eternity in the kingdom of heaven because of you. That would be awesome.

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