[This is the 5th post in this series, you can access the other posts by clicking in the following links. Part one. Part two. Part three. Part four.]

How to Reach Roman Catholics with the Gospel (part 5)

In this post I want to try to give you some of the things you absolutely will need when trying to reach a Catholic person with the good news of salvation through Jesus.

1. A clear understanding of the Gospel To understand the gospel message is to be well aware of what we were saved from. When we came to Christ we were worthless sinners. We were unable to save ourselves. Because of our sin, we were on our way to an eternity in Hell. Without God. Forever. It was all deserved too. Sin is the opposite of everything God is. God is holy. To meet Him after death without having our sin problem taken care of is to gamble with eternity. In a face off between our opinion about how things ought to be and God’s truth, guess who wins?

   But Jesus offered us a solution for our sin problem. His sacrifice on the cross is an acceptable payment for our sins. Because of the cross He offers us His worthiness. If we take it, we are made acceptable before God. Don’t get me wrong, even the ability to repent and receive Christ is something that is a gift from God. We have done nothing to get saved. Jesus gets all the credit.

   Understanding this is an antidote to the temptation to “look down” on anyone we are trying to witness to. Just because we are now saved, does not make us better than them. This is crucial. We are just poor sinners saved by grace.

2. Spiritual discernement It is important that we are walking in the Spirit if we want to be soul winners. That is the only way we will have spiritual discernment. When the Bible promises power to witness and even the very words to say when opportunities arise, these are conditional promises. Much is said about having the fulness of the Spirit. My friend, to be full of the Spirit of God, to be led by the Spirit, means obedience to that same Spirit. A disobedient Christian will have a hard time leading a spiritually relevant conversation. The kind that ends with someone trusting Christ as Savior.
3. PrayerIf you want to lead a Roman Catholic to Jesus, you need to be willing to pay the price of praying for that person. Some people have testimonies of God saving someone that they prayed for, every day, for decades. Are you willing to plead with God, in fervent perseverant prayer, for the one you are witnessing to?
4. Avoid useless debateHow did we start on this line of conversation? People are very curious and there are many interesting things about the Bible. When someone realizes you believe the Bible, they will want to bring up some of those themes. Noah’s ark, evolution, gay marriage, abortion, politics, you name it. Your job it to keep the conversation on topic. It does’t mean you won’t talk about those things (schedule some time later), but keep bringing the conversation back to the person and the message of Jesus.
5. The Word of GodYou will also need a good understanding of the Bible. If possible, use the Bible in your soul winning conversations. When this is possible, I try to have the other person read the passages and tell me what they think it means. In this day and age, with Bible apps readily available, there is no excuse to not have the Bible with you.

Make sure you have all of these things in place in your evangelism efforts. In the next post on this series, we will see a specific method to lead a conversation towards the gospel.

Do you want to share with us some of your most interesting witnessing stories? Please leave a comment bellow.