MORNING MANNA 8-2-24
AN ACT OF ACCEPTANCE
In this day of “Mega-churches”, crusades, TV preachers, etc. we need to remember the need of one on one personal evangelism. And sometimes a simple kind word can do more than an in your face sermon. The following true story is a good example.
Your kindness to one person can change the course of history for multitudes. Gypsy Smith was one of the great evangelists of the last century, and the beginning of the 20th. He won tens of thousands of people to Christ. His life was often in the midst of the crowd, but his greatest life changing experience was a one on one encounter. He felt very conspicuous, for he was from a Gypsy family, and he was accustomed to being rejected for being different. He felt nobody cared for him but his father. But one day, as he stood outside a chapel, an older man walked up to him and said, “The Lord bless you, my boy. The Lord keep you, my boy.”
The man walked away, and he never saw him again, but a lump came into his throat, and a tear to his eye, for those words of kindness made a little Gypsy boy feel accepted. In his autobiography Gypsy writes, “When I reach the glory-land, I will find out that dear old man, and while angels shout and applaud, and the multitudes who have been brought to Christ through the Gypsy boy sing for joy, I will thank that grand old saint for his shake of the hand and for his God bless you! For he made me feel that somebody outside the tent really cared for a Gypsy boy’s soul.” It is absolutely amazing what an act of acceptance to a person who expects to be rejected.
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
Humble,TX
