“To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
The days of strong armed sales tactics are over. People have grown weary from any attempt to force them into making a purchase. This push back has brought about a lot of change in the world of sales and marketing. Companies today, are finding much more success in the softer approach of “Solution Selling.”
Even in the Church world, there has been a realization that the old ways of evangelism just aren’t as effective. No longer are people as responsive to the old “Do you know where you’re going when you die?” approach. You may make a sale or a “convert,” but often times the forced decision is soon followed by “buyers remorse.” True change comes from the heart and that only happens when a need or solution is met, not when someone is talked into a decision.
Jesus found needs and then filled them. He was and is the solution to every problem and need, and His whole ministry on earth was based on that principle. He didn’t corner people into making a, so called, profession of faith. He gave them the True solution to their needs. That’s what Sozo salvation is all about. It covers every area and arena of life and when Sozo is received with understanding, it is designed by God to bring wholeness into the life of the believer.
Do you realize that as a believer in Jesus Christ that you are a walking, talking solution? People all around us have needs and because of the grace of Jesus Christ, we have answers.
When I said recently that God is the “Master Marketer,” I had the last part of the story of the widow in 2 Kings chapter 4 in mind. The final instructions God gave her through the prophet Elisha was, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.” Now here I find the most ingenious part of all and that is not only did she go sell, but who she sold to. You see, she had just gone to everyone she knew and probably everyone they knew, to borrow as many empty pots as she could. Now it’s time to go sell all this oil and who do you think she sells it to, but the very people she had borrowed the pots from.
This is absolutely amazing! She goes back to the same homes, knocks on the same doors and says, “Here’s your pot back and by the way would you like to buy the oil in it?” And of course we know the answer. They said, “Yes!”
Now we have no way of knowing this for sure, but I can’t imagine a single person turning her down. Why? Because they needed their pots back and they needed that oil. Oil in that day, much as it is today, was a valuable commodity. They cooked with it and burned their lamps with it along with many other uses. They had to have what she was selling. Can you imagine having a 100% closing rate? It’s obvious by this verse that she sold enough oil to pay off all of her debts and live on the rest, for the rest of her life. Now that was a serious enterprise!
Every great product or service is a solution to someone’s want or need. When it stops being a solution, it loses market share and will eventually disappear from the market completely. In the late 1800′s through the middle part of the 1900′s the Sears and Roebuck Catalog was full of state of the art products and really neat inventions, most of which are completely useless today. As technology has advanced, so have the needs and wants of people, but one thing that has not changed is the need everyone has for Sozo.
God knew what the people in that widow’s community needed and He used what little she had, multiplied it, and met that need through her. In the same way, He knows what the people around us need, and He knows what we need, too. As we focus on allowing Him to be the solution through us to others, He will see to it that the solutions we need are met also. As Jesus said in Mathew 6:33, as we seek first His Kingdom, everything we need will be added to us as well.
Go “sell” and be someone’s solution today.
Today’s Thought: Christ in you is the Hope of Glory and the solution to every man’s need.