By Mallory Mattingly
For Pastor Greg Laurie, telling someone about the gospel is a lot like giving away a free ticket to Disneyland.
Laurie loves Disney. After Disneyland opened in 1955, he got his mother to take him to the amusement park every year for his birthday. His passion for Disney continues, and he even collects memorabilia and visited the park with his wife and children.
One year, Laurie had an extra ticket.
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“Someone had comped us, and the person who was going to join us didn’t show up,” he said in a video on YouTube. So I was in for about 20 minutes, and I said to my wife, Kathy, ‘I feel guilty having this extra ticket. I need to give it to somebody.’ I said, ‘This would be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, unloading a free ticket to Disneyland.’ I said, ‘I’ll literally be back in like five minutes.'”
“I go out of the park, and there are people milling around,” he continued. “I walked up to somebody and said, ‘Hey, would you like a free ticket to Disneyland?’ They’re like backing off. Like, ‘Oh, what are you doing? What you want? No.’ Okay, whatever. Go to somebody else, ‘Hi, would you like a free ticket to Disneyland?’ ‘No, no, get away from me.’ And everybody turned away. No one wanted this free ticket. What’s the catch? What are you doing here?”
Eventually someone accepted the ticket, but that moment taught the pastor, whose life was the subject of JESUS REVOLUTION, an important truth about sharing the gospel.
“Sometimes, when we go and share the gospel, we get the same reaction: ‘Hey, has anyone ever told you that God loves you and Christ will forgive you all of your sins?’ They back away like, ‘Hey, what are you doing?'” Laurie explained.
“Someone else yells at us. People are indifferent, and because of that, it can cause us to say, ‘I don’t want to tell anybody about Jesus because I’m tired of rejection.’ But wait, what about the one person who says, ‘No, I’ve never heard that before. I didn’t know God loved me. I didn’t know Christ would forgive me’? And they come to Jesus because you took the time to leave your comfort zone and tell them about Christ,” he continued.
“So I encourage you to do that sometime today or tonight: engage someone in an evangelistic conversation,” the pastor added. “You’re offering something better than a free ticket to Disneyland. You’re offering the gift of eternal life.”
That’s an important reminder that the gospel is the greatest gift any of us could ever receive.
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