Take heart, friends. Our witness as Christians does not rest on our cunning or charm:
"...we must emphasize that the subject of elenctics [viz. the conviction of sin] is in the deepest sense the Holy Spirit. He alone can call to repentance and we are only means in his hand... It is the Holy Spirit who creates a basis. He awakens in man that deeply hidden awareness of guilt. He convinces man of sin, even where previously no consciousness of sin was apparently present. The Holy Spirit uses the word of the preacher [or Christian friend] and touches the heart of the hearer, making it accessible to the word. If elenctics were only a human activity, the situation would be nearly hopeless. But it is much more, infinitely more" [J. Herman Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions (The Presbyerian and Reformed Publishing Co., Philadelphia, PA: 1960), 229].
Bavinck continues:
"But, this knowledge gives us the comfort that in the last instance the results do not depend on our weak powers, but that it is the Holy Spirit who would make us powerful in Christ" (Bavinck, 229).
We are not converters to the word, but witnesses of it: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14 ESV).
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