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Hello Everyone,
Sharing the Gospel with others is something that true Followers of Christ should desire in their hearts, not because we are supposed to, but because we want to share the peace and joy of our lives with other people. The desire to share it represents that the Spirit of God is living within you.
Evangelicals tell us that sharing the Gospel is the most important function of a Christian. This perspective is false. Although it is one of our primary functions, our primary purpose is to serve and bring glory to God (Isaiah 43:7).
When evangelism, or anything else, becomes our highest priority, it becomes idolatry. In the case of the evangelical community, it also becomes prideful, arrogant, and humanistic, as I explained in Part 1:
- God, the Father, initiates the process (John 6:44).
- God, the Holy Spirit, convicts us (John 16:8).
- God, the Son, redeems us (John 12:46).
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Opportunity
We yield to God by humbling ourselves before Him and asking Him to make us an instrument of salvation to others. Our daily prayer should include requesting opportunities to share the Gospel by word or by example. If you ask God for the opportunities to share the Good News, He will provide those opportunities.Furthermore, have faith that God will answer that prayer and expect opportunities to present themselves to you. Opportunities generally don't carry signs saying, “I am an opportunity.” You might have to look for them.
Opportunities don't come knocking on your front door either. You must be out and about, interacting with people and situations, meeting new people, and making new friends. Your living room is not the best place to find opportunities to share the Gospel.
It’s not that you should share the Gospel all the time, but that you are aware that you asked God for an opportunity and expect God to provide it. Many of his opportunities are based on your example rather than your words.
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Prompting From The Holy Spirit
The biggest mistake most Christians make in sharing the Good News is trying to do so under their own control or power. Remember, it’s all about God’s plan and design, not yours.
It will work something like this:
You're in the grocery store. You notice a person in your aisle reading the ingredients in a can of cream of mushroom soup. You think nothing of it and continue shopping. You continue to shop. Then, you run into that person again on another aisle. This time, you exchange glances and smiles. You move on.
After several more minutes of shopping, you get in the check-out line, and behind you comes that person again. You feel prompted by the Holy Spirit. He says, "Speak to this person." You have no idea what to say.
You open your mouth, and the Holy Spirit puts words in your mouth: "Hey, I saw you reading the ingredients in that can of cream of mushroom soup. Is that stuff healthy or not?" The conversation begins.
Your conversation doesn’t have to start with Jesus, end with Jesus, or even include Jesus. It’s the connection with another person that matters. What's more, you've been asking God for this, and now it has happened. Here it is.
The connection might evolve from here, or it might fizzle and die. It doesn't matter. You are flowing in God's timeline and playing a part in His plan. If you are a Christian, there are no coincidences. There is no wasted effort. God is responsible for outcomes, not you.
Sometimes, the Holy Spirit guides us for reasons beyond just sharing the Gospel. In every encounter where I’ve felt led by the Spirit to approach someone, it has always turned out to be a moment orchestrated by God. It's not always about evangelism; sometimes, people need prayer, advice, a smile, a listening ear, a kind word, a human interaction, or even a comforting hug. I’ve experienced moments where I was prompted to reach out, only to realize that the person I approached was meant to minister to me instead.
Don't be fake in your encounters with people. If you're fake, you're just going through the motions and not really hearing the Holy Spirit. Go with “the flow” of the conversation. Don't try to direct it down a particular path. Don't be a monomaniac about Jesus or salvation, and don't be obnoxious.
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Leading A Person To Salvation
If the door opens where that person wants to commit their life to Christ, make sure you know how to lead them down that path. Evaluate their sincerity by looking for the conviction of sin and remorse for how they have lived. Without that, the commitment is not real.The Sinner’s Prayer is not the way to Christianity. Genuine remorse and repentance is the way (Acts 3:19-20). Lead the person in a prayer of remorse and repentance followed by accepting the forgiveness of sins through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.
God may or may not call you to mentor that person. You won’t know that until it happens. Regardless, you should at least point them in the right direction:
- Get them into a good church. If you don’t know of a good church in the area where this person lives, send them to this list of online pastors and churches: List of Vetted Online Pastors and Churches
- Make sure they have a Bible. If they don’t have one, they can get a free or inexpensive Bible from this List of Free Bible Resources
- Encourage them to sign up for my Blog
Allow God to handle the outcome of this person. Remember the story of Philip and the Ethiopian (Acts 8:26-40). After the Ethiopian committed his life to Jesus, Philip and the Ethiopian departed ways. The Ethiopian church is one of the most amazing stories in all of Christendom. Tradition has Matthew, the Apostle, going to Ethiopia to head up the church there. The Ethiopian Bible contains the Apocrypha and the best copies of the Book of Enoch came from Ethiopia.
The Israeli connection to Ethiopia is well documented. Currently, about 160,000 people in Ethiopia have Israeli DNA. They claim to be descended from the first generation of the tribe of Dan.
While the Ethiopian-Israeli connection began long before the encounter with Philip in the Book of Acts, it’s important to note that God handled the situation without man’s planning and intervention. He even brought them the Gospel almost immediately after it became available.
In today's world, the fashionable missionary work occurs in the “10-40 Window.” The 10-40 Window is a rectangular area between the 10° and 40° north latitudes, starting at the western tip of Africa and ending at the eastern tip of Asia. The area is mostly Islamic and is the focus of most missionary efforts today.
Here’s the thing:
Churches and religious organizations have invested much effort and millions of dollars to share the Gospel in those areas.
Yet, on the other hand, this area is the fastest-growing segment of new Christians worldwide.
Seventy percent of Muslims converting to Christianity claim that Jesus appeared to them in a dream and revealed himself to them. Another 20% claim some other supernatural encounter, such as visions or audible voices.
God's design is.
It’s almost as if God is telling the churches to stop trying to do things in their own ability and start doing things through God.
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Final Thoughts
I’m not a big fan of Apologetics. Apologetics, according to Dictionary.com, is:
My opposition is because faith is based on believing without proof (Hebrews 11:1). Apologetics is the quest for proof, which is antithetical to faith. Many Christians, especially evangelicals, use Apologetics to share the Gospel. This tactic reduces salvation to an intellectual argument. As previously noted, these conversions are not real. They are based on reason rather than remorse.
Another thing to remember about sharing the Gospel is that there is a difference between an evangelist and an ordinary Christian. An evangelist is someone with the gift of evangelism (Ephesians 4:11), people who are called by God to bring many people to Christ. They are generals in the Gospel-sharing front.
Then, there's the ordinary Christian. We support sharing the Gospel and the generals that carry the main load. God may even use us to lead some people to Christ. We see sharing the Gospel as ONE of our primary roles as Christians; however, God has placed our primary focus on something else, at least for now.
For the everyday Christian, God might have placed one or two people in your life to reach, or perhaps 30, 80, or even 200. Not everyone is called to be a full-time evangelist or solely focused on outreach, so don't let anyone make you feel guilty about it. We are all called to different things with varying degrees of involvement.
Sharing the Gospel should be part of every Believer's psyche, and we should support and encourage it, but not all Believers are called to be evangelists. We listen to the Holy Spirit and follow his lead in our evangelism efforts, whether spectacular or seemingly insignificant.
God does not call everyone to teach, prophesy, heal, or preach. He also does not call everyone to be an evangelist, so when evangelicals say things like, "It's the primary function of all Christians," they are sorely deceived.
Sharing the Gospel through human creativity, techniques, methods, procedures, and designs is nonsense. We serve God. He does not serve us.
He has chosen us to play a part in the eternity of another person. Is there any greater honor?
God Bless!
Mark
