“short on ears and long on mouth”

…the young American evangelical pastor grabbed my friend’s elbow, telling her she needed salvation, to be born again. In an awkward way, he tried to escort her to the alter, to pray. Get saved or else! She jerked away, I winced, her response would have made a longshoreman blush.

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There’s a perception in this country, by many outside the church, that Christians are insincere and more concerned with the phrase "ask Jesus into you heart" than developing and cultivating a relationship, whereby others can be deeply and permanently transformed by God. Consider that salvation is not experienced by asking Jesus into your life so much as it is by entering the life of Jesus and becoming part of His story.

I believe this statement is true: everybody spends eternity somewhere. So my encouragement to those in the church is to:

• Be available to those who are unchurched, a friend first and an evangelist second.
• Be an exceptional listener-to God and to others. Resist the urge, like John Wayne said in Big Jake, to be: “short on ears and long on mouth”
• Love. Learn how to show sacrificial love by making the invisible kingdom of God visible.