Motivation and Effectiveness of Standing With the Cross

I have a family member who has said to me that "standing around with a cross doesn't impress anyone." My motive for standing with the cross is not to impress anyone. When I was interviewed last week by a newspaper, I tried to make the interview as much about the cross and repentance as I could, even when the reporter asked me about my motivation to start doing this and other questions.

I am not trying to impress anyone, nor am I trying to earn my salvation. I have even spared the local public from giving me a nick name by putting on my cross "Google: Cleveland Cross Guy." My hope is that people will be curious enough about the cross, do a search on Google, find this blog and be brought to salvation.

This family member also said this to me: "As I have said before, if you demonstrated selfless giving, that would be more of a reflection of Christ. I know a lost of people that have lived at the Rescue Mission (an organization in Youngstown, Ohio). They are taught Christ but after they are fed, clothed and have a bed to sleep in. Words are meaningless if you don't show kindness."

It is useless for me to try to justify what I am doing to this family member- explaining the ineffectiveness of "Friendship Evangelism," the fact that we never know when we are going to die, or not dealing with the fact that we are all sinners and that is the real reason we need a Savior.

The people I am targeting with my cross don't need fed, clothed, or a bed to sleep in. They have all that. Therefore, I have to come up with a different way to reach them. I do not know what the outcome of my evangelistic efforts will be, but I do have these words of Jesus in John 4:37-38: "For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

I am sowing seeds by standing out with my cross, even if they take years or decades for another to reap. I have also had the privilege of reaping what others have sown by being on the streets through one on one conversations.

It seems like I can never do the right thing or do enough- not that it is any of their business of how I serve the Lord. It is often said by them that I am a "fanatic" and apparently there is something wrong with that. I do not have a problem- it is the rest of the world who thinks they are "Christians" because they prayed a prayer and never made a lifestyle change and surrendered their life to Jesus.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:25: "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." He also said in John 12:24: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

Unless you die to yourself, you will never produce the fruit God has intended for your life.