My father’s family was far from religious. In fact, my grandpa professed to be an atheist. To my knowledge, no one in the family ever attended church, even on Christmas or Easter. Their lives were filled with drinking and card playing when they were not working.

My dad told of one evening when he and some buddies got together to play cards. Their usual practice was to have someone go and steal a live chicken or two from a neighboring farm. They would then kill the birds and fix a chicken dinner for themselves. That particular evening, it was my dad’s turn to steal the chickens. Instead of going to the neighbors, he went to the host’s own chicken house, and fried and served his hens to the group! As I listened to his story, I thought to myself that these did not seem like people who would ever be interested in having their lives changed by Jesus.

However, not too many years after that incident, one of my uncles, who had received Christian literature and had given his life to Christ, decided to hold some church services in a schoolhouse. My father and grandpa were among those attending. At the end of one service, my father felt compelled to go forward and pray and give his life to Jesus. It made a huge difference in our home. All this took place before I was born, but my older siblings say the card playing and drinking were replaced with reading the Bible and family devotions. The stealing was gone too. After he became a Christian, my father made restitution for the things he had done wrong, including the stolen chickens!

My grandpa started forward to the altar of prayer two or three times, but could not bring himself to kneel and pray. He lived on in his sins for many years. Yet, I am sure he took note of the change in my father, because when grandpa was dying at age seventy-five, he prayed and gave his heart to the Lord.

On occasion, I have been guilty of assessing people and trying to determine whether or not they will accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But we cannot know the state of someone’s heart. We must be careful not to judge ahead of time whether or not a person will be a willing recipient of the Gospel. With God’s help, we need to witness to everyone about Jesus and let the Holy Spirit talk to their hearts. We might be surprised who will respond to God’s call!