Making an Impact

The end of a year is a time that I find myself doing a lot of reflecting. As I was reflecting on what I’ve learned over the past few years about impacting others for the gospel, I decided I wanted to share it. And guess what? “Impact” makes a great acronym for what I’ve been learning. So, here it is: six things to keep in mind when you are trying to make an I-M-P-A-C-T on others!

I = Initiate and Invite. This lesson came out of one of the lowest points of my life thus far – Jr. High. It is really a miracle of God’s grace that I made it through that time and that I didn’t decide to walk away from him but actually ran towards him when life got tough. For the better part of two years, I felt alone and rejected. I was a quiet girl who didn’t have the courage to go up to others (especially those who were older than me) and initiate a conversation with them. I waited and waited for others to approach me first…and it didn’t really happen. When I got older and was in the position of being the “older kid” in youth group, I knew one thing: I NEVER wanted anyone else to feel alone and rejected. I desperately wanted every girl who walked into our youth group to feel like she belonged. I wanted to treat others the way I wished others had treated me. And so, I started to gather around me the girls who were on the fringes, those who felt like they didn’t belong. In order to do so, I had to initiate conversation and invite these girls into my life. It can be hard and exhausting and you may not see the reward right away, but knowing that you are doing what God wants you to do is a great reward.

M = Make sure your foundation is solid. If you don’t start by making sure you are firmly grounded in God, you will burn out. Prayer, spending time with him, and reading and applying his word are great ways to stay grounded. You need to be fed in order to feed others. John 14 comes to mind…Abide in Christ. Apart from him you can do nothing. When I have had sweet times of fellowship with the Lord, of spending time with him and growing to love him more, I find that my impact on others is more effective. Another practice I’ve recently started are occasional times of silence and solitude. These are times of just sitting in the presence of Jesus. I walk away from those times feeling so refreshed and recharged. You also need to be covering your attempts at outreach with prayer: pray for opportunities, pray that people would respond, and pray that God would be glorified.

P = Pass along what you know. I once asked my piano teacher: “Do I know enough to teach piano to my sister?” He responded: “You can teach anyone that knows a little less than you.” The same is true of impacting others for the gospel: You don’t have to be able to write a commentary (many of us probably won’t) or have all the answers in life (none of us will). If you know just a little bit more about God than someone else, you can teach them what you know. That’s all – just pass along faithfully to others what you know. This is something I’ve had to keep in mind as I go through Bible college. I’m finding that there are more and more theological concepts I’ve never considered before. But I can’t let that stop me from sharing even just the basics of the gospel with others. God is faithful: if you are faithful to share what he has taught you, he will use your words to impact others in some way.

A = Admit when you don’t have all the answers. There is bound to be a time that you will encounter someone who wants to know something about God or about the Christian life that you don’t know. Admit it. Tell them you don’t have the answer. Your humility will speak volumes to them. THEN invite them to study and to discover the answer with you. Along the way, you will be teaching them how to find out answers from God’s word for themselves, AND you will be learning more as well. It would be way worse to come up with an answer that is false than to admit that you don’t know and invite them to discover with you. There is also something really amazing about learning together with others: you each see things that the other doesn’t. Studying with someone will give you a fuller picture of the meaning than you would get on your own.

C = Consider the reason we do this. Why do we make an effort to impact people for Christ? Why do we share the gospel? For the glory of God. The end of the story of the Bible is that Jesus is coming back to reign as King forever. He will get all the glory because there will be people from every tribe worshipping him before his throne. Revelation 7:9 paints a picture of representatives from all nations gathered before him. How will we get to a point where all nations have heard the gospel and so all nations are praising him? This goal will be achieved as each and every one of us goes out into our circles of influence, and even cross-culturally, to impact people with the gospel. This is why we do it: not for our glory, but for God’s glory.

T = Take the opportunities that come your way! Don’t be afraid that you won’t know all the words. Don’t be afraid that you will mess it up. If God gives you an opportunity to impact others, he will give you the words to speak. You will regret more not saying anything than you will regret fumbling for words while trying. If you never speak, you will never have an impact on others. It’s that simple.

A few weeks back, I had an opportunity dropped into my lap to share just a little bit with a Muslim woman. She saw the cross on the wall at the house I’m currently staying in and she asked what the phrase (written on the cross) “Paid in Full” means. I told her that it means that the death of Jesus Christ fully covered all sins past, present, and future. Sure, it wasn’t a full gospel presentation. But it was trying to be faithful to take the opportunity that God gave me to plant some seeds in this woman’s life.

There is still so much more to learn. But I am so grateful for what God has taught me up to this point. I am so grateful for his gracious work in my life. And I hope that the things he has been showing me can be an encouragement to you.