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Honest Answers – With Love, Truth and Power

Oct 16, 2026 | Uncategorized

Project 2026

Obviously, in the last chapter, I suggested some evangelism models. You need a starting point. I also suggested that you might want to study and commit to memory at least two, preferably three, of these models. That being said, it should be clear that formulas and cookie-cutter approaches are not the best tools for reaching the current generation and culture. They fail to consider the differences between people. Some need to hear the message of love, others need to be jolted by the necessity of repentance.

Some, like C. S. Lewis, will be surprised by God’s joy. For others, the path will include deep remorse and brokenness. Some are wounded, and fearful of even trusting God. For some, the image of God as Father is an impediment. Others try to enter the door of conversion with baggage – old beliefs, remnants of the faith system they have relied on in the past, habits, even demonic strongholds. Every case is different.

It was the practice of Francis and Edith Schaffer’s L’Abri to always “give honest answers to honest questions.” Too often, traditional evangelism has rushed to close the deal. Such an approach disregards the person, only forcing them, like mice, through the gospel maze and out on the saved side. One model suggests that questions are always a smokescreen – and witnessing Christians are encouraged to ignore them. Run through the red lights, and keep the presentation going, looking for the right responses and the desired conclusion – and you will have another gospel scalp.

Keep Acts 16 in mind.
• Lydia was saved on the continuum of truth (Acts 16:13-15)
• The slave girl by a manifestation of God’s power (Acts 16:16-18).
• The jailer by a display of love (Acts 16:25-34).

All three of these – truth, power and love – are gateways to conversion. They are not independent of one another. Love and truth are always bound together, and at the intersection where they meet, we experience God’s saving power. The greatest truth is the love of God; and truth without love is not truth, only a wrapping for a lie. It is less than true truth; less than truth that trues.

Where truth and love meet, there is liberating, life-giving power. All three components are essential for true salvation.

One might experience God’s love – but not embrace the truth that requires repentance and reorders our life. One may repent and be deeply sorrowful and start a loveless journey of penance and self-denial – but not have experienced true conversion. They have religion, not a relationship. They drive themselves with law, without being drawn to God by grace. Yet, neither knowing truth or tasting love are enough to change us – that is a work of the Holy Spirit.

Reinhold Niebuhr notes the limit to the power of God alone, since “power does not reach the heart of the rebel.” Power can disable our defenses, paralyze us before God’s awesomeness. It can block us, but “only sacrificial love can find us out. Power can win when we are ranged against it, but it cannot win us.” There is a “festering core of sin at the heart of each one of us that only… tenacious love disguised in the absurd powerlessness, shame, pain, loneliness and desolation of the cross – all for us – could reach us and subvert us.”

There is no other way, Os Guinness asserts. Only in the shadow of the folly and weakness of the cross does God find us, redeem us and win us back to Himself. The love of God wins our hearts, but only the truth of God trues hearts, and it does so by the power of the Holy Spirit. Guiness, paraphrasing Paul, declares,

“At the heart of sin and disobedience… is a flagrant deliberate and continuing act of violence to truth. Sin and disobedience lay hold of truth, grasp it roughly, and will not let it be what it naturally is or say what it naturally says. In this way, the deliberate dynamic of unbelief is to suppress truth, stifle truth and hold truth hostage. What may be known of God… is adamantly denied by the determined act of will that is sin and disbelief” (Romans 1:19, 21-23, 25).

Gregory of Nyssa believed, “We are led to God by desire,” consciously or unconsciously, “drawn to him as if pulled by a rope.” Caught up in the content of gospel engagement, we dare not forget, this is not about teaching people about God, but in introducing them to God, to know Him and love Him, and to be known by Him and loved by Him. To be changed, our crooked hearts trued by His truth, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

God, Paul asserted, is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20). The NLT declares, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” The Berean Literal Bible says the work that God wants to do in us is “exceedingly above all things that we ask or think, according to the power [the Holy Spirit] working in us.” The King James compounds the idea, He “is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all…” The Amplified reads, “Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us.” More than what we pray for. More than what is in our mind, beyond what we think is possible. Not by our efforts, but by the power of the Holy Spirit within us. Weymouth says it is in the “exercise of His power that is at work within us… [that He] is able to do infinitely beyond all our highest prayers or thoughts.”

Don’t do it alone. In prayer, lean deeply on the Holy Spirit!

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“Whenever God determines to do a great work, He first sets His people to pray” (C. Spurgeon). This reliable principle begs the question: “How does God mobilize his people to heartfelt prayer?” Most importantly, how does God move Christian leaders who shepherd His church to unite in fervent, persistent, biblically focused prayer for the fulfillment of His purposes? By two things mainly: 1) distress over the degradation of the church and the surrounding culture and 2) hope that God will pour out His Spirit on his church and fill it with His fulness until it overflows with transformative impact on society. Many believers are distressed at the current state of things. At the same time, there is much reason to hope for God’s divine intervention in response to passionate, biblically guided prayer.

Believers across America now mourn the debility of the church; its vitality is faltering, its impact fading, its mission neglected, and its devotion to God being undercut by love for this world. Right now we are enduring the largest and fastest religious shift in American history. Its scope is greater than every previous spiritual awakening in our history combined, only in the opposite direction. Christians are being confronted by “spiritual forces of evil” (Eph. 6:12) operating from the heavenly realms that boldly infiltrate every aspect of society, even the church. These dark powers aim to 1) frustrate God’s purpose to bless all peoples on earth through Christ with countless benefits, including righteousness, peace, joy, and justice, and 2)
inflict endless varieties of misery on everyone. When spiritual decline and cultural decay prevail, God’s people rise up to seek the Lord in prayer as the fountain of every blessing, asking him to fill the earth with his glory, pour out His Holy Spirit, inspire his church, and deliver people and cultures from innumerable troubles. Now is the time to pray with desperation for spiritual and cultural renewal, for divine intervention, for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for his church and his creation in Northeast Ohio.

Christian leaders, especially pastors, have a heightened responsibility to press into God with prayer for the church. Biblical precedent shows that gathering church leaders together to engage in heartfelt prayer for the welfare of their community often initiates widespread spiritual and social renewal both in church and society (2 Chron. 7:13-14; 15:8-10; 34:29-32). New Testament accounts show that when Christian leaders unite in prayer, often in response to social and/or spiritual crises, spiritual awakening and gospel advance follow (Acts 1:13-14; 2:1-4; 4:23-31; 13:1-3).

Jesus himself instills expectation of an outpouring of God’s Spirit in response to prayer with this promise: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Our Father in heaven is especially ready to pour out upon us the blessing we most need and long for, the very Spirit of God who imparts divine life, wisdom, and virtue.

With all this in mind, now is the time for Christian leaders across Northeast Ohio to come together to seek the Lord with biblically grounded, Christ-directed, wholehearted prayer for a God-given spiritual awakening. The trumpet of God is blaring! He is calling us to pray! Join Christian leaders from across our region to humble ourselves, seek the Lord’s face, and be willing to respond through His intervening grace to any changes He calls us to make! (Psalm 110:3)

The Gathering is an extension of the nationwide PATH (Prayer at the Heart) initiative piloted recently in Northeast Ohio. Put The Gathering on your calendar: Sunday, September 24, 6 pm, Calvary Chapel of Cleveland, 709 Brook Park Road, Brooklyn Heights, OH.