Bible reading for 40.Day 2025 | James 1:22

Let me share with you a story about an outreach that we did. I believe that you will be encouraged and inspired to take bold steps for Jesus.

We were prayer-walking in a red-light district in Singapore. It’s one of those areas that we believe that the love of God would impact people there, and we believe that the Gospel can be preached there, and we try different ways to do it.

The first step for us is to simply pray for people. To have compassion and just pray for people in the streets. Just walk and pray and ask the Lord to impact their lives and transform their lives.

Acting in boldness

On one of these occasions, we were walking in this dark alley about 60 metres long, and along the alley were 60 metres of sex workers. Usually there would be workers checking them out. It was the middle of the night and we were just prayer-walking this alley all the way to the end.

When we came to the last sex worker, there was this guy that walked by and he started checking her out. Suddenly I felt a word drop from the Holy Spirit, and it wasn’t a comfortable word, not a word that was nice, but I knew it was from the Lord.

It was a word telling him to repent: “Your mum is sick right now, your family, your house is in debt, and if you continue what you are doing, worse things will happen.”

I contemplated for a while – I knew I did not have much time because of the situation – and I decided to do a quick one. I ran to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and looked me in the eye, like a total stranger.

I told him, “Hey, I know you don’t know me, but your mum is sick. Is that correct? Your house is in debt, and you can’t clear your loans. Your life is in a mess, and if you don’t change the way you live now, worse things are going to happen. So repent.”

I looked at him. He stared at me. And I felt it was best to exit. I said: “Okay, goodbye.” And I turned around and walked away quickly in case something happened.

While walking to the bus stop, I heard a voice from behind shouting: “So what am I going to do now?”

I turned around, I saw him raising up his hands, like he was surrendering.

I was wearing a polo T-shirt and jeans, and when the whole alley of sex workers and pimps saw what was happening, they thought that I was a policeman about to arrest him for some illegal activity. And suddenly the whole street cleared out. That’s one way to turn the whole street righteous!

Praying for others

I shouted back: “I don’t know, repent, I guess.” And he said, “How?” I said: “Okay, okay, I’ll come and I’ll pray for you.”

So I went there and knelt down together with him in the dark alley, and that was one of the sweetest sinner’s prayers I ever prayed with on someone on the streets.

Why am I sharing this? Because I realise Singaporeans have a lot of information. We hear that we should do evangelism. We were taught how to do evangelism. I hear from a lot of Singaporeans: “Oh, I felt like God is saying to tell someone, ‘Jesus loves you’ but I didn’t do it. I didn’t dare to do it. I was afraid that I could be wrong.”

What is happening there is that you’re going to deal with regrets. Regret means that you wish you could have done something, but you didn’t. You didn’t take the risk too. Regret is going to last for a lifetime, because your whole life you will be asking yourself: “What could have happened? Maybe that person got born again, maybe the person got healed.”

Just take steps of boldness. If you make a mistake, at least you know it’s wrong, at least you tried and God honours the intention of the heart.

I make a personal point in my life that I never want to deal with regrets; I would rather deal with mistakes. Mistakes mean at least I tried and now I know I’m wrong. Regrets mean I didn’t even try. I can learn from mistakes, but I can’t learn from regrets, because we never know what could have happened.

I pray for us all the same prayer that the early church prayed: That the Lord grant us boldness to preach the Gospel. Let’s pray:

Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You, Lord, for granting our brothers and sisters in Singapore boldness, to dare to hear the voice of God. To dare to hear the Word of God and be doers of the Word. Lord, in the same way the early Church prayed for boldness, grant us the same boldness for the Gospel. We thank you that this generation will be filled with sons and daughters who have the boldness to dare to share what You have placed in their hearts for unbelievers. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect:

1. Think back on the times you did not give a Word or call someone that the Lord had put on your heart for that person. What stopped you? How can you prevent it from stopping you again?

2. What false beliefs do you have when it comes to evangelism? Do you believe only pastors or holy people can share the Gospel successfully? What will you do to obey Jesus’ command to all disciples?

3. Consider ways you can stir up your faith and exercise boldness when it comes to giving a Word from the Lord to someone who needs it.

Pray: 

1. That we, believers in Singapore, will catch the fire for souls to be saved; that we will not let our shyness stop us from bringing Jesus to the lost.

2. That we will spend time in prayer and ask the Lord to “enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (Acts 4:29), and to go out and speak His word boldly and without fear.

3. That as we boldly proclaim the Good News that the Lord will let us experience bringing one after another of the lost ones into His saving grace.

Follow Salt&Light on Telegram, Facebook or Instagram for more of LoveSingapore’s daily devotions until August 9, 2025.