What do you do when someone unexpectedly brings up God, the Bible, or spiritual things in everyday conversation? In this episode of the Gospel Talks Podcast, George Binoka and Jeff Musgrave unpack one of the clearest signs of a divine appointment: when spiritually curious people begin opening the door themselves.

Through practical wisdom, biblical examples, and real-life stories, they explain how God is already working in people’s hearts before we ever speak. Instead of panicking or “pouncing” on gospel opportunities, believers can learn to walk at God’s pace, build genuine relationships, and create environments where meaningful spiritual conversations can flourish. The episode also highlights the surprising evangelistic power of hospitality and the Christian home.

I don't know if you guys have ever been in a situation where you're talking to somebody

and all of a sudden they bring up religion or talk about spiritual stuff and you're kind

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of sitting there like, is this my chance or am I supposed to say something here?

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Do I just let it lie?

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And those are what we call divine appointments.

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And we've been doing a series of episodes on getting to the bottom of that and what we're

supposed to do with it.

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So if you've been wondering or had an experience like that, this episode is for you.

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Welcome to Gospel Talks Podcast where we help Christians all over the world become more

effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.

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I'm your co-host, George Menoka, and with me today is Jeff Musgrave, the author and the

founder of The Exchange Ministry, and we're so glad to have him.

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Hey, Jeff, how you doing?

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It's been a couple weeks.

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It has.

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I apologize so much to everybody that I've been absent.

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I apologize for that.

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where have your travels taken you?

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Anywhere cool?

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Well, yeah, lots of cool places.

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Sometimes I actually forget where I've been.

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I've to Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Jersey.

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I was in Wisconsin.

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So those are kind of the last four places.

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I had five training events in last five, or in five weeks.

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It's actually the last couple of weeks I've actually been dealing with some health issues

here in our

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family and got those somewhat under control.

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here I am.

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We're so glad to have you.

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We've been doing this series on divine appointments.

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There's probably some people that are jumping on for the first time, but could you kind of

catch us back up since it's been a couple of weeks, jog my memory, tell us how you define

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a divine appointment and a little bit of what we've covered.

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Yeah, I love the concept that a divine appointment is when God providentially empowers you

to touch a life that he's already been working in.

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So in other words, you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, someone brings up the

Bible, religion, spiritual things in a normal conversation.

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That sounds like just kind of happenstance.

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But oftentimes that's the Lord working in that person's heart behind the scenes and we're

just being brought into the work that God has already been doing.

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Mm.

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Yeah, I love that.

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I don't know if we'll have time for it today, but I've got a cool divine appointment

story.

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mean, since I last talked with you, I've started an exchange Bible study with an LDS

couple across the street and three young men and two more now that just walked into my

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house last week and new people move into the area.

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Yeah.

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yeah, you're in one of those neighborhoods, aren't you?

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Yeah, we're, yeah, we're definitely, so God's kind of filling our bowl up in terms of

exchange Bible studies that we were missing from our previous ministry.

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So, yeah.

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George, I counsel pastors because I'm with a new pastor every week, I tell them now

anybody in the church can do as many of these they want to but as a pastor you should

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probably only try to do one at a time.

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You're breaking the rules man.

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I don't know, I'm a sucker for, it's really hard to say no to them.

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You know, it just really, I want to have hand it off to somebody else.

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Maybe I'm controlling or something, but it's hard.

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I want to do it.

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been there long enough to really set up the ability to do that.

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And I also find, and I know you feel this way, it's all built on relationship.

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And so trying to pass that off to someone else, especially when they're outside of the

church, it's like, this is weird.

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I I thought you and I were friends and we were talking about life and now you're handing

me to a church person.

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So yeah, I think it's...

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It is difficult to do that.

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It's kind of like that saying of you dance with the people who brought you.

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It's kind of that idea of it's just weird.

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Actually, it's the relational piece of what you teach.

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I mean, it's totally inauthentic to kind of like pass people off, especially in that

evangelism.

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I can maybe do it in counseling and say, one of our pastors, he does the counseling with

families.

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Maybe that's a little bit more natural, but I don't know.

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It's always been.

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said to the Thessalonians, I am affectionately desirous of you.

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it's not just that they trust you, but that you love these people.

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These are people you've grown to know and you want to see God finish that work that he's

beginning.

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so yeah, that's, and it's interesting.

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I think that's what a divine appointment is.

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It's us finishing work that got started.

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It's, you know, all of these people that you're working with, something's underneath the

surface that makes them desire us to do a Bible study.

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Yeah, yeah, I we've seen that Maybe I'll share at the end but but I think is this the

ninth one we're on or the tenth one though when This is number nine.

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I think this is a great one, you know, know, you're in a divine appointment when They

bring up religion which is kind of like a no-no topic for a lot of people, you know So you

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definitely know these days?

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Yeah.

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And it is, it's like in our culture, there's certain things that you don't talk about.

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And it is interesting.

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People can talk about religion, but not Christianity.

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They can talk about all the other world religions, but not the Bible.

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And so when that comes up, you really have to believe that something is going on to bring

this out.

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Mm-hmm.

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What why do you think that is?

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Why do you think we can't talk about Christianity anymore?

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But they're okay talking about Islam Buddhism, whatever

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Yeah.

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Well, I think we could get into the political side of things about all of that, but I

think bottom line, there is an enemy and the enemy has to squash truth.

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The fact is every other religion is a false religion and he doesn't, the enemy doesn't

mind false religion.

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It's truth that he wants to keep people from.

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And so that really is the bottom line of everything.

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I've always said I really believe in conspiracy theory and there is one conspirator and it

is the enemy, the devil.

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And he's the one who is working everything that he possibly can.

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He's not omnipotent.

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He doesn't have all power and so he can't control everything, but everything he can

control, he's trying to get people away from truth.

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Yeah, I think the spiritual fight behind the scenes is becoming more obvious as time goes

on but um, but I mean coming back to this topic of of religion spirituality, I kind of

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tend to be like a pounce on it as soon as the opportunity comes But this is a pretty

sensitive topic.

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How have you approached?

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When they first bring this up.

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I mean, how do you feel them out to what extent they're ready to talk about it?

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Yeah, I think that underlying our jumping is kind of a, I gotta take this opportunity

right this minute, it's not gonna come back to me.

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if I think in terms of, this is the Holy Spirit revealing a work that is under the

surface, then it's not such a panic, I gotta do something right this second.

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The reason I say that is because oftentimes these conversations come up in environments

that are not conducive to the gospel.

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Maybe you're at work and you even have a rule against it that the good news is they

brought it up, not you.

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kind of almost fair game, but it's still work and we're getting paid to work, not to talk

about God.

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And so I like to think of it in terms of

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we can put that in the back of our mind and say, how can I get this person into an

environment that would be conducive for a gospel conversation?

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so that would be my first thought is, if this is already, this is a conducive environment,

I've got the ability to have a half an hour, hour conversation here.

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Because remember, we can give the gospel and thoroughly in 20 minutes.

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But if they have questions and we're back and forth and it takes an hour or two, it's much

better.

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And so I would first of all ask, do I have that time?

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And if I do, then yeah, let's jump on this conversation right now.

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If not, say, you know, that's a great subject.

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Let's and I have lunch and then name a date and let's talk about that.

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And so setting ourselves up to be able to have an in-depth conversation without

interruptions, that's really valuable.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So, so valuable.

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you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a big deal catching people at the right time because it

can be a big turnoff when you're trying to catch them in the middle of something.

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And it kind of feels presumptuous on our, you know, from, from their perspective, we,

feels presumptuous to them that we insert ourselves and say, what I have to say to you is

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more important than what you have to do.

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Well, that's true.

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it's still a disregard for them, you know, and that's how they perceive it.

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So I love finding out the, you know, is this a good time?

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Once you get past that and you're going to, know, how to, what kind of questions or

diagnostic questions come with this divine appointment?

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Well, I think.

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Setting yourself up for success is really valuable here.

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So when they bring this up, don't just say, let's have lunch sometime.

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Say, you know, I would love to talk about that.

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And kind of so that they know when we're getting there, we're talking about the subject

you brought up.

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And then I would just remind them, I kind of remember what they said and said, you were

saying that you've been reading the Bible lately.

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How did that come about?

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What's going on that makes you want to read the Bible?

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And just start.

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getting some of their story.

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Okay, so you're just kind of asking these open-ended questions.

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We're getting them to talk.

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When you're dealing with this specific divine appointment, because there's been specific

things related to each kind of divine appointment, is there anything else specific to this

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one that you've taught or there are verses on the Bible that address this kind of person

who's seeking?

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Well, I do think we have to always remember that this is not just an absent passing

curiosity on the part of the person that no one seeks after God.

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And if a person is seeking after God, that's an evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in

their heart.

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And so that's really the thought process behind all these divine appointments is we're

looking and we're seeing people who are seeking God.

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And the Bible tells us that

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doesn't happen.

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So when we see it happening, what we know is that God is at work.

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God is the one who's drawing.

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Yeah, yeah.

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For sure.

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ah They don't come, think it's John chapter eight, they don't come unless the, or John

chapter six, they don't come unless the Father draws them.

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But.

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uh

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sometimes people get upset about that verse and say, well, it doesn't seem, and here's the

deal, God is drawing people.

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mean, it's not like, it doesn't happen very often.

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God is in the saving business.

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He's been doing this for thousands of years.

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He wants to rescue the world.

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That's why he said Jesus to seek and to save that which was lost.

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And so we can be confident that

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Around us right now there are people that got as wound himself.

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We just have to find them

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Hmm.

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guess I have a question for you.

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That temptation to pounce and kind of almost out the gospel, you know, just throw it all

out there at once and feeling like this is the only chance we have.

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Why do you think we as Christians are tempted that way?

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I mean, is there any underlying theology, bad theology that makes us like that?

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I know we're eager for a good thing, but

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But why do we sometimes blow it in the sense of rushing and not going God's pace?

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And why do think we're tempted to rush like that?

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I think there's all different kinds of things, and you might have some thoughts about why

you think that is.

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I sometimes think it's really just an eagerness, an excitement, and what we have to do is

temper it with this thought.

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Most people need more than one touch with the gospel.

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God has given me a relationship with this person, and if I can utilize this relationship

to give them what they need to be able to make a credible decision, then I want to take

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advantage of that.

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the opportunity to be able to do that.

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that's why we love a relational evangelism.

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It's literally we want to give them what they need to be able to make that life

transformative decision that's going to bring them into a living loving relationship with

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God.

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Hmm, I love that.

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Yeah, I think that's phenomenal.

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you know, considering all of this section of Divine Appointment, somebody who's asking a

religious or spiritual question, because they are people who ask a religious spiritual

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question, is it safe to assume they're coming from a religious or some sort of spiritual

background?

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Is there anything we need to be on guard of in terms of?

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kind of words we use?

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we need to be careful about anything in particular, any kind of traps with these kind of

divine appointments?

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I think first of all, unless we know their story, we can't assume anything.

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You can't come into a circumstance assuming anything.

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You have to get that story.

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And that's why I don't think we think about this.

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We think about evangelism as me kind of preaching.

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uh this back and forth conversation is so valuable because we have to figure out where

that person is and what they're thinking.

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ah Every single person Jesus dealt with, he dealt with differently because they were

thinking differently.

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Right, right.

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So I don't know if it's okay to share.

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I love your thoughts because I haven't actually met with these people yet.

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They came over initially, but maybe I could, we could talk live.

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You could coach me live on the air here just a second, but kind of very interesting.

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Definitely a divine appointment.

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These folks are moving to the area from another city here in the Valley.

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They drove by the church.

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saw the sign and saw that the front three acres of our property has animals on it.

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And what we do, we rent it out to a lady that boards animals.

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She's one of our neighbors here in the neighborhood.

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And they have goats.

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And that's the connection is they thought, whoa, the husband grew up in a Baptist church

30 miles from here and walked away kind of.

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She grew up Catholic.

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They saw we're a Baptist church that has goats close to where they're moving and they feel

like, hey, something's happening here.

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I never would have put all that together, but they did.

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God did it just like that.

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Well, they called me and asked me if they can donate the goats and they'd like to meet

with me.

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And I said, well, we can't accept your donation because they're not our animals in that

field, but I can put you in touch with that lady.

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We don't need to be part of it.

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I mean, if you want to give your goats to her or whatever.

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They're attached, you know, the goats are almost like pets.

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They love them and they want to be able to see them and stuff So but you can come over my

house.

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I'd love to talk with you.

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I Have a Bible study at Fridays at 7 we do a Bible study.

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We talk through the gospel You're welcome to be part of that.

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They said well, we're not socially ready We have some anxiety socially.

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I'm not ready quite to jump into a small group of 10 other people

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like, we just meet with you and your wife?

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I said, all right, just come over to the house before the Bible study at four.

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So they walk to the house, mom, dad, two daughters, their daughters start playing with my

daughters.

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They're playing in the den.

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Parents and us sit down in the living room and I go, so what's your story?

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You know, and they start telling us their story and the whole life story and how they kind

of walked away and different things.

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Don't go to church.

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Mom goes to church.

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And she said, I'm going to tell you something, but a lot of people kind of poke at me,

especially Christians when I've told them this, especially pastors.

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I said, okay, hit me.

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And she said, I was raised Catholic.

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I said, well, I was raised Catholic.

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So what's the big deal?

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know, why would I poke fun at you?

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And so we started talking some more and I just looked at them.

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said, you know, there's this four week Bible study where we go through four attributes of

God.

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It's called the Exchange Bible Study and it's inductive to 150 verses.

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We would go through it together.

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None of the answers are filled in.

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You get to see the question, see the verses, come to the conclusion that's right there in

the Bible.

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And you get to see the evidence for yourself.

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Would you be interested?

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And she just kind of looked at him and said, well, and then she looked back at me she

goes, yeah, we'd be interested.

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I said, all right.

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You guys are moving on the 29th.

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Let's help you move.

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We'll get a crew of guys together.

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We'll help you get settled in.

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And when you're settled in enough, let's start our Bible study." She said, deal.

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And he was really excited.

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He texted me on Mother's Day and wished my wife a happy Mother's Day.

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And I wished his wife a happy Mother's Day back.

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anyway, really already love this family.

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Really already have a heart for them, praying for them by name.

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Just want to see God work in their family.

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Any advice about knowing that about them?

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Is there anything you would and wouldn't do if you were sitting down with this family?

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Or would you just go ahead and do the Bible study?

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No, I think you've already jumped right through the right hoops.

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You might.

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I don't know.

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I mean, you've already asked their story.

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You've you've gotten the information you need.

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They know you care.

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They they see a an acceptance from you.

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I mean, everything that they need is is just right there.

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That's beautiful.

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So I think getting started right there at.

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God is holy.

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And just watch their response.

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See where they're going with it.

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My guess is that both of them, based on their backgrounds, are going to be really, really

impressed with the beauty and the splendor of God.

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I mean, that's what they're going to come away from lesson one with.

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Lesson two will probably be a little harder.

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And so I would just give you the, and I'm sure you would do it anyway.

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Given that forewarning, know lesson two is a little dark lesson three is my favorite and

kind of Prep them for that because it probably will be the hard spot for them

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Right, right, yeah, I think so.

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And I think I'm really.

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for lesson one.

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It just sounds like they're ready to go.

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yeah, I think they're, yeah, they're, they're, they're gunning to go.

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it's, but when we've been talking about this thing on divine appointments and I thought,

wow, I was sitting in my living room.

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thought, wow, you know, Jeff said there was such, yeah.

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George, I will just say this and I'm saying this for our audience, not for you.

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If you had not purposely set up them coming to the house and talking, none of this would

happen.

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And so what you did was you recognized it as God working in their lives and then utilized

what God was doing to be able to

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take the steps that you knew were necessary.

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So I think that's one of the things we have to recognize with divine appointments.

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Just because we understand this is the hand of God doesn't mean that it's going to fall

into place.

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We still have actions to take.

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Yeah, I actually been dying to talk with you about this.

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I think I've come to a realization.

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I already knew that meeting with people over coffee was a really good thing.

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And I did many exchange Bible studies that way.

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But I'm starting to realize that my home is one of the best tools I have.

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Like for some reason, I didn't realize what it communicates to people when you're

hospitable with your own home.

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It's one thing to be hospitable in a coffee shop.

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I don't think it means that much but it's still good If your time means a lot but being

hospitable in your home is like, I don't know I I can't really quantify.

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I think I feel like we need to do a whole episode on this

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Yeah, I think we should.

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think you're, because I agree with you.

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I think your best evangelistic tool that you own is your own home.

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Right.

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And it just feels, it hits a different in your home.

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It hits different.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Is there anything else we want to do to wrap up divine appointments and this?

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you know, all of that we've been talking about is kind of commonplace in our day to day.

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We recognize that we see it, but let's just put a little biblical foundation on this.

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Here are some examples of biblical divine appointments where we see them in the Bible.

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Obviously Nicodemus, I mean, that's a perfect one.

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The woman of the well is not nearly so perfect because

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Mm.

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uh Mm.

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I look at that passage in Acts where Paul is in Corinth and God speaks to him in a dream

at night.

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And he says, Paul, I don't want you to leave here because, and this is the phrase I want

us to look at for a second.

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I have much people in this city.

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And literally what he is saying is there are people in this city that I'm working in their

lives.

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I'm drawing them to myself and I want you to go look for them.

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And so that's why I love to say evangelism is like a great treasure hunt.

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I mean, we're not trying to work it up.

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We're not trying to make it happen.

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We're just trying to find the people that God is wooing to himself because we know that he

is.

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And that just changes everything to me.

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You know what it is, I think too, is it's trusting God's sovereignty, that He is sovereign

over relationships.

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It's what enables us to walk at God's pace in that opportunity.

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Yeah, yeah, and you don't have to hurry it, you don't have to push it, you don't have to

blah, as you would say.

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You just walk at God's pace, that's a beautiful way of saying it.

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Yeah, I was just doing some counseling this morning that was in one of the chapters Jerry

Bridges wrote in the book, Trusting God, how God is sovereign, not just over events, he's

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sovereign over people.

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Absolutely.

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Another divine appointment that you see in the Bible where that sovereign hand of God

comes out is uh Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.

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And I think all of us get that one because that Ethiopian eunuch was actually reading from

the Bible.

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There weren't that many Bibles around in those days.

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So this is very, very amazing that that and it was obvious.

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mean, Philip immediately knew, oh, this is why God sent me here.

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But what I wanted everybody to remember is

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that Philip was in Samaria and God prompted him to go out into the desert.

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Didn't make any sense.

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He followed the prompting of God.

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And then when he was there, this chariot's going by and he says, I want you to go join

yourself to the chariot.

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And if Philip had not obeyed the prompting of Holy Spirit, he would have never known that

man was reading the Bible.

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And I think to myself, wherever you are,

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I'm sitting in my home today.

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Wherever you are, we are surrounded by people that God is wooing to himself, but we don't

know what's going on behind those closed doors.

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And so the only way we're ever gonna know is if we join our lives with their lives, then

they start revealing what God is doing, what's going on under the surface.

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So it's just that reminder to me, we have got to purposely connect

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our lives with unbelievers because that's the only way we're going to find the places

where God is working in people's lives.

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Yeah, I think that's so, so key.

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we have to find ways to get into people's lives, whether it's, uh, my next door neighbor

said we should, we should make pancakes for the whole street.

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Just on a Saturday morning, just start grilling pancakes and stuff like that, and just

start getting to know people.

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And he wants to get to know people for a different reason than I want to get to know

people.

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But I still think there are really easy ways to get into people's lives.

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They're not that expensive and not that hard.

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Yep, yep, and there you are in your home again.

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We got to talk about this.

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Yeah, I know.

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It's on my mind.

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uh

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that's awesome.

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That's awesome.

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That's it.

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That's all I got.

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um I will look forward to next week.

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Let's talk about utilizing the tools that God has given us, specifically our home.

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Yeah, I think that's, that'd be great.

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Well, we just want to say to you guys, our audience, thank you so much for listening.

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You guys make this podcast possible.

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Big thank you to our donors out there who underwrite this ministry.

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And if you want to be part of that, go to exchange message.org forward slash donate.

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And you, you, you'll be able to see a page there, something as little as 10 bucks a month.

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You know, a reoccurring donation like that really goes a long way to expanding our

efforts.

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And we want to get into more churches, help more believers, train them because the harvest

is plentiful, but the laborers, the equipped laborers are few.

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And we don't have a harvest problem.

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We have a labor shortage.

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We want to do everything we can to serve our savior in his kingdom and remedying that

problem.

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And so.

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Thank the Lord for Jeff and Anna and their ministry and the way Christ has used them in

the kingdom.

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We do love you guys.

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If you like this podcast, please share it with somebody.

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Subscribe.

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That really helps us in the ratings.

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We will see you guys next week.