About a month ago I was struggling to feel much passion for my relationship with Jesus. Sins were confessed out of seeming obligation, Prayers were short and infrequent, Reading Scripture felt like reading an insurance form, Blessings seemed absent and Gratitude to God was insincere if mentioned at all. -Not where I wanted to be given the rich mercy and grace afforded to me.
Our culture and faith lives seem so expectant to constantly changing and growing. So how was I to change and grow in Christ if I was in the "doldrums"? So I went and got me some Jesus 101. Since the Word seemed like a foreign language at the time, I dove into a book that would plainly state the arguments for submission to Christ. That book was basically someone evangelizing the reader. It was composed of arguments for the unbeliever to consider. Page after page, day by day, within me grew this conviction of faith. I was letting out some "Amens" while I read.
There was God breaking it down for me through the essential truths!! Before you knew it I was good to go: Walking in loving gratitude, newish, crispy. Weird how that closeness in Jesus came from recalling rather than changing or growing. How valuable it is to remember what God has done. Ya dig???
I wish you guys had front row seats to my evangelism class (like me... what a gift). My prof pours out his pleas for reaching a lost world, desperately, seriously. He suggested that the majority of Christians are filled with a good life in view of Christ's mercy. They settle for a good life, when the best life waits and untouched. That is found in sharing the Gospel and watching its power to transform.
Did you know that God entrusts the Gospel to us. He has faith in us to share the Gospel.
I want you to know that evangelism is a community thing with key components for floatation: self-growth, prayer, collective outreach and continued contact. Its not below anyone to graciously, straightforwardly beg another: "Please consider the Gospel." Add some repetition, customize the delivery and leave it in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Jesus challenged the women at the well differently than Nickodemus, differently than the rich young ruler, differently than the Pharisees.
Its an evangelistic lifestyle that we need to generate. That is why we're all good for God's using. We can settle for a good life and be riddled with a growing inability to talk about God with those who need Him most. Or get the best of a life lived for God in evangelizing. Do we cry about and pray for the reality of hell for unrepentant unbelievers? Or is our faith not contingent on loving others in a way that will convince them of Jesus? 75% of converts come from a friend or family member evangelizing. Call on God's power to do this, its easy to forget about mentioning the urgency of salvation when we're so relational with family.
I want to keep myself in check by saying this: I have shared God with some unbelievers, hairy ones even. I'm no good at it. I haven't prayed a "sinner's prayer" with anyone. I'm not even good at pointing to the right passages in scriptures to do so. Thankfully I'm in a class that's asking me to memorize the passages of salvation like Roman Road passages. It is not my will to win souls but Christ in me. If Christ is in my heart and I speak form my heart than evangelism is automatic. Its totally my will to get over the uncomfortableness of it by faith in the seeds planted and the further owning of my faith in what the Bible says.
Can we pray about this? and the non-followers of Jesus.
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