Teaching Notes are Bible studies we taught before GraceLife Ministries began publishing articles online in 1995. Some were presented as sermons, others as group studies.

Our hope is that these older studies will be a blessing to you in your life and ministry. Please use them in any way God leads you.

These teaching notes are from a series about the opportunities to care for people as a Christian manager. You can read Part 1 of the series here.

[These notes are from more than 35 years ago.]

‘Tony’ was a strong, macho-kind of man. He loved to party. He drank hard, played hard and slept around. He was a real ladies man. The Holy Spirit drew me to Tony. I knew there had to be an empty place in his life. There always is. I was a lot like Tony before I was saved.

I spent a lot of time with Tony at work. We became close friends. Other people didn’t like his attitude, but I knew that beneath his ‘bravado’ attitude was a heart in desperate need of the Savior, Jesus Christ. The day finally came when something happened to Tony that caused his life to crumble. I could tell it when he came to work. I purposely assigned Tony work that would keep him inside the office after others had gone out on assignments. I wanted to have enough time for Tony to open up to me. After everyone else had gone, I asked Tony what was wrong. He grabbed me by the arm and led me to a private room. Tears fell from his face like rain from a burdened cloud. He was losing everything in his life.

I reminded Tony that God loved him deeply, so much so that He had sent His Son Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for his sins and give him answers to life’s toughest problems. Tony and I spent many weeks and months working through those problems. We talked about the spiritual side of Tony’s needs as well as the emotional and financial needs. Tony had to rebuild his life from scratch.

Tony still hadn’t prayed to receive Jesus as His personal Savior, but he knew that God cared for him. Though Tony and I don’t work together any more, we stay in touch. I believe in my heart that the day will come when he will ‘believe’ on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

‘Jake’ is another story. He was proud of his agnosticism. He couldn’t care less about God and Christianity. It was all a bunch of hogwash to him. Having been an atheist I understood. I felt strongly about witnessing to Jake. His antagonism towards God’s truth was not a barrier to God’s Spirit. I developed a relationship with Jake during a period of several months. I knew it would probably be a low process. I brought Christ and the Bible into as many personal conversations as possible without turning Jake away from our growing friendship.

I must admit I finally became a bit impatient with how long this was taking. I wanted so much to just present the Gospel and invite Jake to receive Christ. I prayed for several weeks that God would open up the opportunity for us to be alone for an extended period of time.

The day came when Jake had to go out of town on company business and I went with him. About an hour into the drive I said a silent prayer, then starting talking with Jake about what Jesus had done for him on the cross. I didn’t more than a couple of minutes into my ‘presentation’ when Jame told me that he had prayed to receive Christ a week earlier. It was wonderful! He had read his Bible and come to a ‘believing’ faith in Jesus Christ. The months that followed were awesome times of sharing together about the great truths of Scripture.

Next Time

We’ll look at ‘objections’ from Christian managers in the next part of our special Teaching Notes series, The Christian Manager – A Caring Career.

“Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.”

[Thank you for reading these teaching notes from more than 35 years ago. My prayer is they will be a blessing to you and your life and ministry.]

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